For Us, the Living

by Robert A. Heinlein

  “If she’s in shape or can be put in shape, I’ll fly her down a rain pipe and out the spout.”

  A few hours later, he was in Hollywood running loving hands over the controls of the plane. His preliminary inspection had been both pleasing and disappointing. Pleasing, for the craft was in essentially good shape, and disappointing because so much would need to be done before it would fly. Perry condemned the wing fabric and the controls. The metal structures would need to be rayed and tested, and portions would probably need to be replaced. Worst of all no gasoline was available and it was necessary for him to dig out old technical publications and explain what was needed to the young chemical engineer assigned to the job. The Smithsonian Institute, which had lent the plane in the first place, located a parachute which served as a pattern for a new one. Perry packed it himself, there being no one else alive who knew how. Before the plane was ready to fly, Perry had acquired a local reputation as a miracle man, as Cathcart had guarded the secret of the source of Perry’s knowledge. The day arrived when he climbed into the cockpit, buckled his safety belt and started his engine. He taxied around the field and, satisfied, pulled back the stick and took off. The roar was startling after the mild whir of a sky car, but it was good to feel the wind pressure burn his cheeks, good to feel the power under the throttle. He turned and passed back over the field, swooping low. Tiny figures ran about and waved. He knew that they were cheering. He took the old crate up a couple of thousand feet and tried her out, loops, inverted flight, flipper turns, spin, falling leaf. She responded like a well trained horse. Finally he returned, landed and taxied back to the hangar. The engine coughed and was quiet. He was pulled out of his seat, pounded on the back and escorted inside by a cheering, red-faced throng.

  Two weeks later he made an early start for Tahoe with a pleasant sense of accomplishment. The actual work had been easy and safe as houses in his opinion. Any military pilot of his day performed incredibly harder assignments as a matter of routine. But his associates had regarded his skill as phenomenal and had treated him with great respect. Several rocket pilots had come out from the port to watch him work and he had had the pleasure of taking several of them up on joy hops. The thing that amazed them the most was his admission that he could not pilot rockets. He was assured that he would have no difficulty at all in acquiring the coveted shooting star of a licensed pilot. To add to his general satisfaction he carried a credit draft in his belt that would raise his account to several times its previous level. He thought of the times he had risked his neck in over-sea patrol for ten dollars a day more or less, and chuckled. The law of supply and demand had been in his favor. They had forced the money on him.

  The sky car purred along and his thoughts turned to Diana. She would be glad to see him and he to see her. Rehearsals for her new series had prevented them from seeing much of each other while he was in Hollywood, and a stereoscopic televue visit was not the same thing. No, not in several important respects. He smiled to himself. She probably wasn’t at Tahoe. However she might be home. Home to Perry was the cottage in the High Sierras. Why not drop in and see?—Surprise her if she was there.

  He located their canyon, got his bearings from the waterfall and found the little roof and landing flat. He set the car down gently and proceeded through the hangar and down the steps. He spoke to the door and paused while it glided silently back. He stepped inside and peered around. At first he saw no one, then his eyes adjusted to the gloom. He stood very still for a long moment while his heart pounded and blood throbbed in his ears. Then he backed slowly out, being careful that his sandals made no noise. He tiptoed quickly upstairs and took off at once. Some miles away he hovered in the air and took stock. This was what he had feared. This was what they expected him to tolerate peacefully. Well, at least he had managed not to break his parole and not to make a bloody ass of himself by making a scene. Now what? Where do we go from here? ‘Where do we go from here, boys, where do we go from here?’ The only dignified thing to do was to go away and not bother Diana further. Fortunately he had enough credit to do as he liked. He’d enter as a cadet at Goddard Field as soon as he was released from Tahoe and in due course he’d have his shooting star and get a job as a rocket pilot. Maybe Hedrick could be persuaded to let him go at once. That was best. It’d be lonely not to see Olga regularly. It’d be twice as lonely not seeing Diana. It’d be just plain awful and he might as well admit it. Not to mention Captain Kidd. Who got the custody of the cat in these cases? He’d never cared much for cats, but he had grown fond of this old scoundrel with his swearing and demands for service. And the way he had of kneading biscuits on your stomach, with his motor running like an electric fan. Yes, he’d miss Captain Kidd. As he mused Perry gradually realized that there was no anger in his heart, no red rage, no black hatred. He didn’t even hate Bernard. Not that he ever expected to like the fellow. Men of that artistic sort just weren’t his kind. But he realized that he no longer felt any righteous urge to beat up on the beggar. All he felt was a deep regret that a circumstance had come to pass whereby he had to break off matters with Diana. He wished now that he hadn’t thought of surprising her. Well, anyhow nobody knew but himself. Say! Nobody knew but him and he wasn’t jealous anymore. He sat very quietly and considered this amazing fact. Could it be that he had fallen out of love with Diana? He considered this. No. Diana was just as dear to him as ever. She raised his blood pressure just as much. He wanted her here right now, with her arms around him. No, it was simply that he no longer needed to hold her prisoner and snarl at anyone who approached. Somehow he felt even more sure and certain of his love for her, and her love for him.

  Then nothing need be changed. He could just ignore the whole thing. A great weight was lifted from his mind. He laughed aloud, then unlocked the controls, and pulled back on the stick.

  Twenty minutes later he opened the door of his little cottage at Tahoe. He strode in, whistling merrily, unstrapped his belt and chucked it in a corner. Olga was lying on the couch, reading. She looked up, laid her book aside and spoke.

  “Hello, bright eyes. What are you so happy about? Come here. I want to count your arms and legs. Hmm—Seems to be all in place. Perhaps your head is gone, but you wouldn’t miss it. Have you had your fill of playing tag with clouds in that outlandish contraption? I’ve a good mind to recommend you for a restrained ward.”

  He picked her up, held her in the air, and planted a smacking kiss on her mouth. Then he sat down, swinging her about so that she landed on his lap.

  “There now, wench! You and I can talk. Do you miss me?”

  She twisted and squirmed. “Perry! Put me down. Is this any way to treat your attending physician?”

  He held her tightly. “No side issues, please. I want to talk about you and me. Tell me, strumpet, do you feel hot and bothered when I’m around. Like this for example.” He rubbed his cheek against her arm.

  “Hot and bothered! What an expression! Perry, what in the world do you mean by this? You’re supposed to be in love with Diana.”

  He grinned at her. “Yes, and suffering from pathological jealousy. Yeah, I know all about that—but you see I’ve just discovered that I’m cured.”

  She twisted in his lap and looked at him squarely. “Do you mean that you find you aren’t in love with Diana anymore?”

  “On the contrary, I love her devotedly, but I just discovered that I no longer suffer from possessive jealousy. That’s why I was whistling when I came in. Then I caught sight of you and recalled that I had been wanting to do something for a long time, so I did it. But you haven’t answered my question. Fair maid, do I arouse your primitive passions?”

  “I’m not a maid and that’s a hell of a way to make love.”

  “You get the idea. How about it? Speak up.”

  “Well, now that you mention it, it always seems a little warm in your neighborhood.”

  He kissed her again before replying, “Then come on. What are we waiting for?”

  “Perry, you devil,
must you be so brash about it?”

  “I thought you modern psychiatrists didn’t believe in fancy words for simple ideas?”

  “Words aren’t important, but no woman ever objects to a little tenderness.”

  “Okay.” He proceeded to demonstrate tenderness in caressing. “Is that better?”

  “Much better.”

  He swung her around onto the couch and stretched out beside her. She gave a little gasp. “No, Perry. Be good. It’s too soon after breakfast.”

  “Then hold your breath while I count ten thousand by twos.”

  “You’re incorrigible.” She sighed, and her eyes closed.

  The next morning Perry awoke feeling crowded and cramped. He discovered that he was hemmed in on a fairly narrow couch by two large objects. When his eyes focused he found that Olga’s head rested on his right shoulder and that Diana’s head lay on his left. Gently he attempted to disentangle himself. Diana opened her eyes and smiled sleepily, then spoke,

  “Hello, darling.”

  “Hello. If I were back in 1939, I’d light a Murad.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Never mind. When did you get in?”

  It was Olga who answered. “Late last night. I was awake but you were snoring so beautifully that we decided not to disturb you. So we whispered very discreetly across your manly chest.”

  Perry decided not to push the matter further. Apparently the girls had settled things in some feminine fashion beyond his comprehension. He decided to let well enough alone.

  Diana stretched and yawned. “I’m starved. Anybody want breakfast? I’ll order it.”

  After breakfast Perry announced that he was going to try to locate Master Hedrick. He had told the women about his intention of entering at Goddard Field, and wished to push ahead with his plans.

  Hedrick received him with his usual courtesy. Perry recounted what he had been doing, then broached the subject of taking rocket training. Hedrick nodded his approval.

  “But you see, sir, if I go to Goddard Field, I’ll need to stay there continuously, three months at least. I can’t check back here every day or two. Now I feel that I’m cured and fully adjusted to modern life. Certainly I don’t suffer from sexual jealousy. Don’t you think I’m cured?”

  “Certainly you are cured, my boy. The last several association tests you’ve taken showed it conclusively.”

  “You’ve known for some time I was cured?”

  “Yes indeed. Yes indeed. In fact I reported to the court that you had been discharged as readjusted over three weeks ago. But I couldn’t tell you. You had to find it out for yourself.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned!”

  Hedrick smiled. “I think not, son.”

  XV

  “It is implicit in all of our American institutions that there are but two things that every man wants; first, that he should be as secure as possible economically, able to face the future without fear of cold or hunger for himself or his loved ones; and second, the chance to do anything that he wants to do, that interests him, that seems worthwhile to him. The first we could accomplish collectively where no man could accomplish it alone. It’s an impossibility alone. So we did it—together—with the dividend. The second is perfectly possible in so far as the things he wants to do don’t damage others. Now most people are a pretty good sort, who don’t want to damage other people, who would not do it knowingly. Our Code of Customs is designed to prevent such damage, and for no other purpose. We take the point of view that, if a man wants to do something and it does not hurt other people—By God, let him do it!”

  President Montgomery at the Tri-Centennial

  Celebration of the Bill of Rights, 2089.

  Diana, Perry, and Olga sat around a table in a small but pleasant living room. Before them were the remains of a gourmet repast. Perry was pouring wine into two tiny cups. He handed them to the women.

  “Here’s luck. Save the bottle and I’ll finish it when I get back.” The girls drank and Perry refilled their cups. “We were certainly delighted that you could come, Olga. We haven’t seen enough of you this past year.”

  “You know that I couldn’t stay away, Perry.”

  “Thanks.” He arose and stepped to a window. It was night. A gibbous moon rode high to the south and turned the desert soil of Arizona into unearthly fairyland. “I’m glad it’s a nice night. Not that it makes any real difference, but it’s pleasanter.” He glanced at the wall chronometer. “About an hour until meridian. We don’t need to leave yet.”

  Olga fussed with a cigarette and broke it. “How long will you be gone, Perry?”

  “A little less than twenty-four hours”

  “So short a time? But the moon is so far away!”

  “It’s far enough, about three hundred and eighty thousand kilometers. My orbit will be about eight hundred thousand kilometers all told. But I’m going to travel pretty fast.”

  “How fast, Perry?”

  “My average speed will be around six hundred kilometers per minute, five eight six point two to be exact. I’ll be going faster on the swing around old Luna, but that is because I want to stay down low and take some pictures.”

  “That seems terribly fast. Won’t it crush you to accelerate to such a horrible speed?”

  “No, not at all. I could come up to speed in little over half an hour, using only half a ‘g’. Except for the first few minutes, though, I won’t even use that. I’ll get a big shove in the first four minutes, then drop off my first-stage rocket entirely.”

  “It uses your new fuel, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, it uses the picroid. I designed it after a high explosive we used to use, but I’ve got it controlled. We used to use the stuff it’s made from, picric acid, in bombs and shells, but not in guns, because it was too fast and would split a gun wide open. But this stuff I can control and get a tremendous boost with it. When it’s gone I drop off its tanks and nozzles, and so forth, and what I’ve got left is a fairly ordinary little rocket ship.”

  Diana got up from where she had been sitting and faced him. “Perry, how do you know that stuff won’t go off all at once?”

  He smiled tenderly. “Don’t worry, honey. It hasn’t yet on any tests, and it can’t, or else I’m no mathematician.”

  Olga spoke again. “Perry, you are determined to go?”

  “What do you think?”

  She shook her head. “Oh, you’re going all right. Oh Lord, was it for this that we re-made the world? Made it safe to rear babies? Brought sanity into the world?” She walked to the far end of the room and stood with her back to them. Perry followed her, took her by the shoulders and turned her around.

  “Olga, look at me. This is what men have striven for. Economic systems are nothing, codes of customs are nothing, unless they are the means whereby man can follow his urge to fulfill himself, to search for the meaning of things, to create beauty, to seek out love. Listen to me. If there were a deadly new plague you’d go where it was, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, but that is to save people’s lives.”

  “Don’t tell me that. That is your secondary reason, your justification. You’d go in the first place to study something, to find out what made it tick.”

  “But your trip is so useless.”

  “Useless? Perhaps. But Pasteur didn’t know what use there was in it when he studied one-celled life. Newton thought his calculus was a mathematical toy. I don’t care whether it’s useful or not, but you’ve no way of knowing that it won’t be. All I know is that there is another face to the moon that we never see, and I’m going out there and seeing. After me someday will come a man in a better ship, who will land and walk on the moon, and come back to tell about it. Then in the next few years and centuries the human race will spread through the planets like bees swarming in the spring time—finding new homes, new ways to live, new and more beautiful things to do. I won’t live to see it, but, by God, I can live long enough to show them the way.

  “But I won�
��t be killed this trip. At least I don’t feel it in my bones. This time tomorrow I’ll be back, and we’ll all sit down to supper again.” He consulted the chronometer. “Come on. It’s time to go.”

  The reception hall of the Moon Rocket Station was crowded with people. Perry was met at the stair by the Director who kept back a crowd of excited visitors. A husky youth in greasy coveralls pushed through the mob. Perry caught his eye.

  “All set, Joe?”

  “All set, Master Perry.” Perry clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Cut out the master stuff, kid. It’s soon enough when I get back. Besides you go on the next trip.”

  Joe smiled. “I’ll hold you to that, Perry.”

  “Right. Now, look. You’re all through, aren’t you? Will you look after the girls here, and see that they get good spots to watch? Thanks.” He turned back to Diana and Olga. “I’m going now. It’s less than ten minutes to zero. I don’t want you out on the field. Give a fellow a kiss and go.” He looked around and called out, “Private sphere!” The televue scanners stopped clicking. Then he kissed each of them and they clung to him. He patted them clumsily, arm about each, then gently pulled away. The scanners picked up again. Joe led them to the observatory stairs and Perry stepped through the field lock.

  Joe found them places in the observatory tower. They saw Perry in the white flood lights, moving toward his ship with a parade ground swing. The ship itself was silver in the moonlight, huge, uncouth. It rested on a cradle in which it leaned away from vertical and pointed a trifle west of meridian. Perry was climbing a ladder which scaled the framework of the cradle. He reached the manhole in the side of his rocket and slid his legs inside. Then, half seated, he looked back at the buildings and waved his right arm. Diana fancied that she could catch the glint of his smile. Then he slid inside and was gone. The port cover swung into place from inside the rocket, rotated clockwise a quarter turn, and rested.