Podkayne of Mars

by Robert A. Heinlein

  But the most astonishing thing in our suite is the piano. No, no, dear, I don’t mean a keyboard hooked into the sound system; I mean a real piano. Three legs. Made out of wood. Enormous. That odd awkward-graceful curved shape that doesn’t fit anything else and can’t be put in a corner. A top that opens up and lets you see that it really does have a harp inside and very complex machinery for making it work.

  I think that there are just four real pianos on all of Mars, the one in the Museum that nobody plays and probably doesn’t work, the one in Lowell Academy that no longer has a harp inside it, just wiring connections that make it really the same as any other piano, the one in the Rose House (as if any President ever had time to play a piano!), and the one in the Beaux Arts Hall that actually is played sometimes by visiting artists although I’ve never heard it. I don’t think there can be another one, or it would have been banner-lined in the news, wouldn’t you think?

  This one was made by a man named Steinway and it must have taken him a lifetime. I played Chopsticks on it (that being the best opus in my limited repertoire) until Uncle asked me to stop. Then I closed it up, keyboard and top, because I had seen Clark eying the machinery inside, and warned him sweetly but firmly that if he touched one finger to it I would break all his fingers while he was asleep. He wasn’t listening but he knows I mean it. That piano is Sacred to the Muses and is not to be taken apart by our Young Archimedes.

  I don’t care what the electronics engineers say; there is a vast difference between a “piano” and a real piano. No matter if their silly oscilloscopes “prove” that the sound is identical. It is like the difference between being warmly clothed—or climbing up in your Daddy’s lap and getting really warm.

  I haven’t been under house arrest all the time; I’ve been to the casinos, with Girdie and with Dexter Cunha, Dexter being the son of Mr. Chairman of the Board Kurt Cunha. Girdie is leaving us here, going to stay on Venus, and it makes me sad.

  I asked her, “Why?”

  We were sitting alone in our palatial salon. Girdie is staying in this same hilton, in a room not very different nor much larger than her cabin in the Tricorn, and I guess I’m just mean enough that I wanted her to see the swank we were enjoying. But my excuse was to have her help me dress. For now I am wearing (Shudder!) support garments. Arch supports in my shoes and tight things here and there intended to keep me from spreading out like an amoeba—and I won’t say what Clark calls them because Clark is rude, crude, unrefined, and barbaric.

  I hate them. But at 84 percent of one standard gee, I need them despite all that exercise I took aboard ship. This alone is reason enough not to live on Venus, or on Earth, even if they were as delightful as Mars.

  Girdie did help me—she had bought them for me in the first place—but she also made me change my makeup, one which I had most carefully copied out of the latest issue of Aphrodite. She looked at me and said, “Go wash your face, Poddy. Then we’ll start over.”

  I pouted out my lip and said, “Won’t!” The one thing I had noticed most and quickest was that every female on Venus wears paint like a Red Indian shooting at the Good Guys in the sollies—even Maria and Maria wear three times as much makeup just to work in as Mother wears to a formal reception—and Mother doesn’t wear any when working.

  “Poddy, Poddy! Be a good girl.”

  “I am being a good girl. It’s polite to do things the way the local people do them, I learned that when I was just a child. And look at yourself in the mirror!” Girdie was wearing as high-styled a Venusberg face-do as any in that magazine.

  “I know what I look like. But I am more than twice your age and no one even suspects me of being young and sweet and innocent. Always be what you are, Poddy. Never pretend. Look at Mrs. Grew. She’s a comfortable fat old woman. She isn’t kittenish, she’s just nice to be around.”

  “You want me to look like a hick tourist!”

  “I want you to look like Poddy. Come, dear, we’ll find a happy medium. I grant you that even the girls your age here wear more makeup than grown-up women do on Mars—so we’ll compromise. Instead of painting you like a Venusberg trollop, we’ll make you a young lady of good family and gentle breeding, one who is widely traveled and used to all sorts of customs and manners, and so calmly sure of herself that she knows what is best for her—totally uninfluenced by local fads.”

  Girdle is an artist, I must admit. She started with a blank canvas and worked on me for more than an hour—and when she got through, you couldn’t see that I was wearing any makeup at all.

  But here is what you could see: I was at least two years older (real years, Mars years, or about six Venus years); my face was thinner and my nose not pug at all and I looked ever so slightly world-weary in a sweet and tolerant way. My eyes were enormous.

  “Satisfied?” she asked.

  “I’m beautiful!”

  “Yes, you are. Because you are still Poddy. All I’ve done is make a picture of Poddy the way she is going to be. Before long.”

  My eyes filled with tears and we had to blot them up very hastily and she repaired the damage. “Now,” she said briskly, “all we need is a club. And your mask.”

  “What’s the club for? And I won’t wear a mask, not on top of this.”

  “The club is to beat off wealthy stockholders who will throw themselves at your feet. And you will wear your mask, or else we won’t go.”

  We compromised. I wore the mask until we got there and Girdie promised to repair any damage to my face—and promised that she would coach me as many times as necessary until I could put on that lovely, lying face myself. The casinos are safe, or supposed to be—the air not merely filtered and conditioned but freshly regenerated, free of any trace of pollen, virus, colloidal suspension or whatever. This is because lots of tourists don’t like to take all the long list of immunizations necessary actually to live on Venus; but the Corporation wouldn’t think of letting a tourist get away unbled. So the hiltons are safe and the casinos are safe and a tourist can buy a health insurance policy from the Corporation for a very modest premium. Then he finds that he can cash his policy back in for gambling chips any time he wants to. I understand that the Corporation hasn’t had to pay off on one of these policies very often.

  Venusberg assaults the eye and ear even from inside a taxi. I believe in free enterprise; all Marsmen do, it’s an article of faith and the main reason we won’t federate with Earth (and be outvoted five hundred to one). But free enterprise is not enough excuse to blare in your ears and glare in your eyes every time you leave your own roof. The shops never close (I don’t think anything ever closes in Venusberg) and full color and stereo ads climb right inside your taxi and sit in your lap and shout in your ear.

  Don’t ask me how this horrid illusion is produced. The engineer who invented it probably flew off on his own broom. This red devil about a meter high appeared between us and the partition separating us from the driver (there wasn’t a sign of a solly receiver) and started jabbing at us with a pitchfork. “Get the Hi-Ho Habit!” it shrieked. “Everybody drinks Hi-Ho! Soothing, Habit-Forming. Dee-lishus! Get High with Hi-Ho!”

  I shrank back against the cushions.

  Girdie phoned the driver. “Please shut that thing off.”

  It faded down to just a pink ghost and the commercial dropped to a whisper while the driver answered, “Can’t, madam. They rent the concession.” Devil and noise came back on full blast.

  And I learned something about tipping. Girdie took money from her purse, displayed one note. Nothing happened and she added a second; noise and image faded down again. She passed them through a slot to the driver and we weren’t bothered any more. Oh, the transparent ghost of the red devil remained and a nagging whisper of his voice, until both were replaced by another ad just as faint—but we could talk. The giant ads in the street outside were noisier and more dazzling; I didn’t see how the driver could see or hear to drive, especially as traffic was unbelievably thick and heart-stoppingly fast and frantic, an
d he kept cutting in and out of lanes and up and down in levels as if he were trying utmostly to beat Death to a hospital.

  By the time we slammed to a stop on the roof of Dom Pedro Casino I figure Death wasn’t more than half a lap behind.

  I learned later why they drive like that. The hackie is an employee of the Corporation, like most everybody—but he is an “enterprise-employee,” not on wages. Each day he has to take in a certain amount in fares to “make his nut”—the Corporation gets all of this. After he has rolled up that fixed number of paid kilometers, he splits the take with the Corporation on all other fares the rest of the day. So he drives like mad to pay off the nut as fast as possible and start making some money himself—then keeps on driving fast because he’s got to get his while the getting is good.

  Uncle Tom says that most people on Earth have much the same deal, except it’s done by the year and they call it income tax.

  In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

  A stately pleasure dome decree—

  Dom Pedro Casino is like that. Lavish. Beautiful. Exotic. The arch over the entrance proclaims EVERY DIVERSION IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE, and from what I hear this may well be true. However, all Girdie and I visited were the gaming rooms.

  I never saw so much money in my whole life!

  A sign outside the gambling sector read:HELLO, SUCKER!

  All Games Are Honest

  All Games Have a House Percentage

  YOU CAN’T WIN!

  So Come On In and Have Fun—

  (While We Prove It)

  Checks Accepted. All Credit

  Cards Honored. Free Breakfast

  and a Ride to Your Hilton When

  You Go Broke. Your Host,

  DOM PEDRO

  I said, “Girdie, there really is somebody named Dom Pedro?”

  She shrugged. “He’s an employee and that’s not his real name. But he does look like an emperor. I’ll point him out. You can meet him if you like, and he’ll kiss your hand. If you like that sort of thing. Come on.”

  She headed for the roulette tables while I tried to see everything at once. It was like being on the inside of a kaleidoscope. People beautifully dressed (employees mostly), people dressed every sort of way, from formal evening wear to sports shorts (tourists mostly), bright lights, staccato music, click and tinkle and shuffle and snap, rich hangings, armed guards in comic-opera uniforms, trays of drinks and food, nervous excitement, and money everywhere—

  I stopped suddenly, so Girdie stopped. My brother Clark. Seated at a crescent-shaped table at which a beautiful lady was dealing cards. In front of him several tall stacks of chips and an imposing pile of paper money.

  I should not have been startled. If you think that a six-year-old boy (or eighteen-year-old boy if you use their years) wouldn’t be allowed to gamble in Venusberg, then you haven’t been to Venus. Never mind what we do in Marsopolis, here there are just two requirements to gamble: a) you have to be alive; b) you have to have money. You don’t have to be able to talk Portuguese or Ortho, nor any known language; as long as you can nod, wink, grunt, or flip a tendril, they’ll take your bet. And your shirt.

  No, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Clark heads straight for money the way ions head for an electrode. Now I knew where he had ducked out to the first night and where he had been most of the time since.

  I went up and tapped him on the shoulder. He didn’t look around at once, but a man popped up out of the rug like a genie from a lamp and had me by the arm. Clark said to the dealer, “Hit me,” and looked around. “Hi, Sis. It’s all right, Joe, she’s my sister.”

  “Okay?” the man said doubtfully, still holding my arm.

  “Sure, sure. She’s harmless. Sis, this is Josie Mendoza, company cop, on lease to me for tonight. Hi, Girdie!” Clark’s voice was suddenly enthusiastic. But he remembered to say, “Joe, slip into my seat and watch the stuff. Girdie, this is swell! You gonna play black jack? You can have my seat.”

  (It must be love, dears. Or a high fever.)

  She explained that she was about to play roulette. “Want me to come help?” he said eagerly. “I’m pretty good on the wheel, too.”

  She explained to him gently that she did not want help because she was working on a system, and promised to see him later in the evening. Girdie is unbelievably patient with Clark. I would have—

  Come to think of it, she’s unbelievably patient with me.

  If Girdie has a system for roulette, it didn’t show. We found two stools together and she tried to give me a few chips. I didn’t want to gamble and told her so, and she explained that I would have to stand up if I didn’t. Considering what 84 percent gee does to my poor feet I bought a few chips of my own and did just what she did, which was to place minimum bets on the colors, or on odd or even. This way you don’t win, you don’t lose—except that once in a long while the little ball lands on zero and you lose a chip permanently (that “house percentage” the sign warned against).

  The croupier could see what we were doing but we actually were gambling and inside the rules; he didn’t object. I discovered almost at once that the trays of food circulating and the drinks were absolutely free—to anyone who was gambling. Girdie had a glass of wine. I don’t touch alcoholic drinks even on birthdays—and I certainly wasn’t going to drink Hi-Ho, after that obnoxious ad!—but I ate two or three sandwiches and asked for, and got—they had to go get it—a glass of milk. I tipped the amount I saw Girdie tip.

  We had been there over an hour and I was maybe three or four chips ahead when I happened to sit up straight—and knocked a glass out of the hand of a man standing behind me, all over him, some over me.

  “Oh, dear!” I said, jumping down from my stool and trying to dab off the wet spots on him with my kerchief. “I’m terribly sorry!”

  He bowed. “No harm done to me. Merely soda water. But I fear my clumsiness has ruined milady’s gown.”

  Out of one corner of her mouth Girdie said, “Watch it, kid!” but I answered, “This dress? Huh uh! If that was just water, there won’t be a wrinkle or a spot in ten minutes. Travel clothes.”

  “You are a visitor to our city? Then permit me to introduce myself less informally than by soaking you to the skin.” He whipped out a card. Girdie was looking grim but I rather liked his looks. Actually not impossibly older than I am (I guessed at twelve Mars years, or say thirty-six of his own—and it turned out he was only thirty-two). He was dressed in the very elegant Venus evening wear, with cape and stick and formal ruff . . . and the cutest little waxed mustaches.

  The card read:

  DEXTER KURT CUNHA, STK.

  I read it, then reread it, then said, “Dexter Kurt Cunha—Are you any relation to—”

  “My father.”

  “Why, I know your father!”—and put out my hand.

  Ever had your hand kissed? It makes chill bumps that race up your arm, across your shoulders, and down the other arm—and of course nobody would ever do it on Mars. This is a distinct shortcoming in our planet and one I intend to correct, even if I have to bribe Clark to institute the custom.

  By the time we had names straight, Dexter was urging us to share a bite of supper and some dancing with him in the roof garden. But Girdie was balky. “Mr. Cunha,” she said, “that is a very handsome calling card. But I am responsible for Podkayne to her uncle—and I would rather see your I.D.”

  For a split second he looked chilly. Then he smiled warmly at her and said, “I can do better,” and held up one hand.

  The most imposing old gentleman I have ever seen hurried over. From the medals on his chest I would say that he had won every spelling contest from first grade on. His bearing was kingly and his costume unbelievable. “Yes, Stockholder?”

  “Dom Pedro, will you please identify me to these ladies?”

  “With pleasure, sir.” So Dexter was really Dexter and I got my hand kissed again. Dom Pedro does it with great flourish, but it didn’t have quite the same effect—I don’t think he puts his heart
into it the way Dexter does.

  Girdie insisted on stopping to collect Clark—and Clark suffered an awful moment of spontaneous schizophrenia, for he was still winning. But love won out and Girdie went up on Clark’s arm, with Josie trailing us with the loot. I must say I admire my brother in some ways; spending cash money to protect his winnings must have caused even deeper conflict in his soul, if any, than leaving the game while he was winning.

  The roof garden is the Brasilia Room and is even more magnificent than the casino proper, with a night-sky root to match its name, stars and the Milky Way and the Southern Cross such as nobody ever in history actually saw from anywhere on Venus. Tourists were lined up behind a velvet rope waiting to get in—but not us. It was, “This way, if you please, Stockholder,” to an elevated table right by the floor and across from the orchestra and a perfect view of the floor show.

  We danced and we ate foods I’ve never heard of and I let a glass of champagne be poured for me but didn’t try to drink it because the bubbles go up my nose—and wished for a glass of milk or at least a glass of water because some of the food was quite spicy, but didn’t ask for it.

  But Dexter leaned over me and said, “Poddy, my spies tell me that you like milk.”

  “I do!”

  “So do I. But I’m too shy to order it unless I have somebody to back me up.” He raised a finger and two glasses of milk appeared instantly.

  But I noticed that he hardly touched his.

  However, I did not realize I had been hoaxed until later. A singer, part of the floor show, a tall handsome dark girl dressed as a gypsy—if gypsies did ever dress that way, which I doubt, but she was billed as “Romany Rose”—toured the ringside tables singing topical verses to a popular song.

  She stopped in front of us, looked right at me and smiled, struck a couple of chords and sang:“Poddy Fries-uh came to town,

  Pretty, winsome Poddy—

  Silver shoes and sky blue gown,

  Lovely darling Podkayne—