Podkayne of Mars

IV

I haven't had time to write in this journal for days. Just getting ready to leave was almost impossible-and would have been truly impossible had it not been that most preparations-all the special Terra inoculations and photographs and passports and such-were mostly done before Everything Came Unstuck. But Mother came out of her atavistic daze and was very helpful. She would even let one of the triplets cry for a few moments rather than leave me half pinned up.

I don't know how Clark got ready or whether he had any preparations to make. He continued to creep around silently, answering in grunts if he answered at all. Nor did Uncle Tom seem to find it difficult. I saw him only twice during those frantic ten days (once to borrow baggage mass from his allowance, which he let me have, the dear!) and both times I had to dig him out of the card room at the Elks Club. I asked him how he managed to get ready for so important a trip and still have time to play cards?

"Nothing to it," he answered. "I bought a new toothbrush. Is there something else I should have done?"

So I hugged him and told him he was an utterly utter beast and he chuckled and mussed my hair.

Query: Will I ever become that blasé about space travel? I suppose I must if I am to be an astronaut. But Daddy says that getting ready for a trip is half the fun ... so perhaps I don't want to become that sophisticated.

Somehow Mother delivered me, complete with baggage and all the myriad pieces of paper-tickets and medical records and passport and universal identification complex and guardians' assignment-and-guarantee and three kinds of money and travelers' cheques and birth record and police certification and security clearance and I don't remember-all checked off, to the city shuttle port. I was juggling one package of things that simply wouldn't go into my luggage, and I had one hat on my head and one in my hand; otherwise everything came out even.

(I don't know where that second hat went. Somehow it never got aboard with me. But I haven't missed it.)

Good-bye at the shuttle port was most teary and exciting. Not just with Mother and Daddy, which was to be expected (when Daddy put his arm around me tight, I threw both mine around him and for a dreadful second I didn't want to leave at all), but also because about thirty of my classmates showed up (which I hadn't in the least expected), complete with a banner that two of them were carrying reading:

BON VOYAGE-PODKAYNE

I got kissed enough times to start a fair-sized epidemic if any one of them had had anything, which apparently they didn't. I got kissed by boys who had never even tried to, in the past-and I assure you that

it is not utterly impossible to kiss me, if the project is approached with confidence and finesse, as I believe that one's instincts should be allowed to develop as well as one's overt cortical behavior.

The corsage Daddy had given me for going away got crushed and I didn't even notice it until we were aboard the shuttle. I suppose it was somewhere about then that I lost that hat, but I'll never know-I would have lost the last-minute package, too, if Uncle Tom had not rescued it. There were photographers, too, but not for me-for Uncle Tom. Then suddenly we had to scoot aboard the shuttle right now because a shuttle can't wait; it has to boost on the split second even though Deimos moves so much more slowly than Phobos. A reporter from the War Whoop was still trying to get a statement out of Uncle Tom about the forthcoming Three-Planets conference but he just pointed at his throat and whispered, "Laryngitis"- then we were aboard just before they sealed the airlock.

It must have been the shortest case of laryngitis on record; Uncle Tom's voice had been all right until we got to the shuttle port and it was okay again once we were in the shuttle.

One shuttle trip is exactly like another, whether to Phobos or Deimos. Still, that first tremendous whoosh! of acceleration is exciting as it pins you down into your couch with so much weight that you can't breathe, much less move-and free fall is always strange and eerie and rather stomach fluttering even if one doesn't tend to be nauseated by it, which, thank you, I don't.

Being on Deimos is just like being in free fall, since neither Deimos nor Phobos has enough surface gravitation for one to feel it. They put suction sandals on us before they unstrapped us so that we could walk, just as they do on Phobos. Nevertheless Deimos is different from Phobos for reasons having nothing to do

with natural phenomena. Phobos is, of course, legally a part of Mars; there are no formalities of any sort about visiting it. All that is required is the fare, a free day, and a yen for a picnic in space.

But Deimos is a free port, leased in perpetuity to Three-Planets Treaty Authority. A known criminal, with a price on his head in Marsopolis, could change ships there right under the eyes of our own police- and we couldn't touch him. Instead, we would have to start most complicated legal doings at the Interplanetary High Court on Luna, practically win the case ahead of time and, besides that, prove that the crime was a crime under Three-Planet rules and not just under our own laws ... and then all that we could do would be to ask the Authority's proctors to arrest the man if he was still around-which doesn't seem likely.

I knew about this, theoretically, because there had been about a half page on it in our school course Essentials of Martian Government in the section on "Extraterritoriality." But now I had plenty of time to think about it because, as soon as we left the shuttle, we found ourselves locked up in a room misleadingly called the "Hospitality Room" while we waited until they were ready to "process" us. One wall of the room was glass and I could see lots and lots of people hurrying around in the concourse beyond, doing all manner of interesting and mysterious things. But all we had to do was to wait beside our baggage and grow bored.

I found that I was growing furious by the minute, not at all like my normally sweet and lovable nature. Why, this place had been built by my own mother!- and here I was, caged up in it like white mice in a bio lab.

(Well, I admit that Mother didn't exactly build Deimos; the Martians did that, starting with a spare asteroid that they happened to have handy. But some

millions of years back they grew tired of space travel and devoted all their time to the whichness of what and how to unscrew the inscrutable-so when Mother took over the job, Deimos was pretty run down; she had to start in from the ground up and rebuild it completely.)

In any case, it was certain that everything that I could see through that transparent wall was a product of Mother~s creative, imaginative and hardheaded engineering ability. I began to fume. Clark was off in a corner, talking privately to some stranger-"stranger" to me, at least; Clark, for all his antisocial disposition, always seems to know somebody, or to know somebody who knows somebody, anywhere we go. I sometimes wonder if he is a member of some vast underground secret society; he has such unsavory acquaintances and never brings any of them home.

Clark is, however, a very satisfactory person to fume with, because, if he isn't busy, he is always willing to help a person hate anything that needs hating; he can even dig up reasons why a situation is even more vilely unfair than you thought it was. But he was busy, so that left Uncle Tom. So I explained to him bitterly how outrageous I thought it was that we should be penned up like animals-free Mars citizens on one of Mars' own moons!-simply because a sign read: Passengers must wait until called-by order of ThreePlanets Treaty Authority.

"Politics!" I said bitterly. "I could run it better myself."

"I'm sure you could," he agreed gravely, "but, Flicka, you don't understand."

"I understand all too well!"

"No, honey bun. You understand that there is no good reason why you should not walk straight through that door and enjoy yourself by shopping until it is time to go inboard the Tricorn. And you are right

about that, for there is no need at all for you to be locked up in here when you could be out there making some freeport shopkeeper happy by paying him a high price which seems to you a low price. So you say 'Politics!' as if it were a nasty word-and you think that settles it."

He sighed. "But you don't understand. Politics is not evil; politics is the human race's most magnificent achievement. When politics is good, it's wonderful

and when politics is bad-well, it's still pretty good."

"I guess I don't understand," I said slowly.

"Think about it. Politics is just a name for the way we get things done ... without fighting. We dicker and compromise and everybody thinks he has received a raw deal, but somehow after a tedious amount of talk we come up with some jury-rigged way to do it without getting anybody's head bashed in. That's politics. The only other way to settle a dispute is by bashing a few heads in ... and that is what happens when one or both sides is no longer willing to dicker. That's why I say politics is good even when it is bad

because the only alternative is force-and somebody gets hurt."

"Uh ... it seems to me that's a funny way for a revolutionary veteran to talk. From what I've heard, Uncle Tom, you were one of the bloodthirsty ones who started the shooting. Or so Daddy says."

He grinned. "Mostly I ducked. If dickering won't work, then you have to fight. But I think maybe it takes a man who has been shot at to appreciate how much better it is to fumble your way through a political compromise rather than have the top of your head blown off." He frowned and suddenly looked very old. "When to talk and when to fight- That is the most difficult decision to make wisely of all the decisions in life." Then suddenly he smiled and the years dropped away. "Mankind didn't invent fighting; it was here long

before we were. But we invented politics. Just think of it, hon- Homo sapiens is the most cruel, the most vicious, the most predatory, and certainly the most deadly of all the animals in this solar system. Yet he invented politics! He figured out a way to let most of us, most of the time, get along well enough so that we usually don't kill each other. So don't let me hear you using 'politics' as a swear word again."

"I'm sony, Uncle Tom," I said humbly.

"Like fun you are. But if you let that idea soak for twenty or thirty years, you may- Oh, oh! There's your villain, baby girl-the politically appointed bureaucrat who has most unjustly held you in durance vile. So scratch his eyes out. Show him how little you think of his silly rules."

I answered this with dignified silence. It is hard to tell when Uncle Tom is serious because he loves to pull my leg, always hoping that it will come off in his hand. The Three-Planets proctor of whom he was speaking had opened the door to our bullpen and was looking around exactly like a zookeeper inspecting a cage for cleanliness. "Passports!" he called out. "Diplomatic passports first." He looked us over, spotted Uncle Tom. "Senator?"

Uncle Tom shook his head. "I'm a tourist, thanks."

"As you say, sir. Line up, please-reverse alphabetical order"-which put us near the tail of the line instead of near the head. There followed maddening delays for fully two hours-passports, health clearance, outgoing baggage inspection-Mars Republic does not levy duties on exports but just the same there is a whole long list of things you can't export without a license, such as ancient Martian artifacts (the first explorers did their best to gut the place and some of the most priceless are in the British Museum or the Kremlin; I've heard Daddy fume about it), some things you can't export under any circumstances, such as

certain narcotics, and some things you can take aboard ship only by surrendering them for safekeeping by the purser, such as guns and other weapons.

Clark picked outgoing inspection for some typical abnormal behavior. They had passed down the line copies of a long list of things we must not have in our baggage-a fascinating list; I hadn't known that there were so many things either illegal, immoral, or deadly. When the Fries contingent wearily reached the inspection counter, the inspector said, all in one word:

"Nything-t'-d'clare?" He was a Marsman and as he looked up he recognized Uncle Tom. "Oh. Howdy, Senator. Honored to have you with us. Well, I guess we needn't waste time on your baggage. These two young people with you?"

"Better search my kit," Uncle Tom advised. "I'm smuggling guns to an out-planet branch of the Legion. As for the kids, they're my niece and nephew. But I don't vouch for them; they're both subversive characters. Especially the girl. She was soap-boxing revolution just now while we waited."

The inspector smiled and said, "I guess we can allow you a few guns, Senator-you know how to use them. Well, how about it, kids? Anything to declare?"

I said, "Nothing to declare," with icy dignity-when suddenly Clark spoke up.

"Sure!" he piped, his voice cracking. "Two kilos of happy dust! And whose business is it? I paid for it. I'm not going to let it be stolen by a bunch of clerks." His voice was surly as only he can manage and the expression on his face simply ached for a slap.

That did it. The inspector had been just about to glance into one of my bags, a purely formal inspection, I think-when my brattish brother deliberately stirred things up. At the very word "happy dust" four other inspectors closed in. Two were Venusmen, to judge by

their accents, and the other two might have been from Earth.

Of course, happy dust doesn't matter to us Marsmen. The Martians use it, have always used it, and it is about as important to them as tobacco is to humans, but apparently without any ill effects. What they get out of it I don't know. Some of the old sand rats among us have picked up the habit from the Martians-but my entire botany class experimented with it under our teacher's supervision and nobody got any thrill out of it and all I got was blocked sinuses that wore off before the day was out. Strictly zero squared.

But with the native Venerians it is another matter- when they can get it. It turns them into murderous maniacs and they'll do anything to get it. The (black market) price on it there is very high indeed . .. and possession of it by a human on Venus is at least an automatic life sentence to Saturn's moons.

They buzzed around Clark like angry' jetta wasps.

But they did not find what they were looking for. Shortly Uncle Tom spoke up and said, "Inspector? May I make a suggestion?"

"Eh? Certainly, Senator."

"My nephew, I am sorry to say, has caused a disturbance. Why don't you put him aside-chain him up, I would-and let all these other good people go through?"

The inspector blinked. "I think that is an excellent idea."

"And I would appreciate it if you would inspect myself and my niece now. Then we won't hold up the others."

"Oh, that's not necessary." The inspector slapped seals on all of Uncle's bags, closed the one of mine he had started to open, and said, "I don't need to paw through the young lady's pretties. But I think we'll

take this smart boy and search him to the skin and X-ray him."

"Do that."

So Uncle and I went on and checked at four or five other desks-fiscal control and migration and reservations and other nonsense-and finally wound up with our baggage at the centrifuge for weighing in. I never did get a chance to shop.

To my chagrin, when I stepped off the merry-goround the record showed that my baggage and myself were nearly three kilos over my allowance, which didn't seem possible. I hadn't eaten more breakfast than usual-less actually-and I hadn't drunk any water because, while I do not become ill in free fall, drinking in free fall is very tricky; you are likely to get water up your nose or something and set off an embarrassing chain reaction.

So I was about to protest bitterly that the weight-

master had spun the centrifuge too fast and produced

a false mass reading. But it occurred to me that I did

not know for surely certain that the scales Mother and

I had used were perfectly accurate. So I kept quiet.

Uncle Tom just reached for his purse and said, "How much?"

The weightmaster said, "Mmm ... let's spin you first, Senator."

Uncle Tom was almost two kilos under his allowance. The weightmaster shrugged and said, "Forget it, Senator. I'm minus on a couple of other things; I think I can swallow it. If not, I'll leave a memo with the purser. But I'm fairly sure I can."

"Thank you. What did you say your name was?"

"Mio. Miles M. Milo-Aasvogel Lodge number seventy-four. Maybe you saw our crack drill team at the Legion convention two years ago- I was left pivot."

"I certainly did, I certainly did!" They exchanged that secret grip that they think other people don't

know and Uncle Tom said, "Well, thanks, Miles. Be seeing you."

"Not at all-Tom. No, don't bother with your baggage." Mr. Mio touched a button and called out, "In the Tricorn! Get somebody out here fast for the Senator's baggage."

It occurred to me, as we stopped at the passenger tube sealed to the transfer station to swap our suction sandals for little magnet pads that clipped to our shoes, that we need not have waited for anything at anytime-if only Uncle Tom had been willing to use the special favors he so plainly could demand.

But, even so, it pays to travel with an important person-even though it's just your Uncle Tom whose stomach you used to jump up and down on when you were small enough for such things. Our tickets simply read FIRST CLASS-Im sure, for I saw all three of them-but where we were placed was in what they call the "Owner's Cabin," which is actually a suite with three bedrooms and a living room. I was dazzled!

But I didn't have time to admire it just then. First they strapped our baggage down, then they strapped us down-to seat couches which were against one wall of the living room. That wall plainly should have been the floor, but it slanted up almost vertically with respect to the tiny, not-quite-nothing weight that we had. The warning sirens were already sounding when someone dragged Clark in and strapped him to one of the couches. He was looking mussed up but cocky.

"Hi, smuggler," Uncle Tom greeted him amiably. "They find it on you?"

"Nothing to find."

"That's what I thought. I trust they gave you a rough time."

"Naah!"

I wasn't sure I believed Clark's answer; I've heard that a skin and person search can be made quite

annoying indeed, without doing anything the least bit illegal, if the proctors are feeling unfriendly. A "rough time" would be good for Clark's soul, I am sure-but he certainly did not act as if the experience had caused him any discomfort. I said, "Clark, that was a very foolish remark you made to the inspector. And it was a lie, as well-a silly, useless lie."

"Sign off," he said curtly. "If I'm smuggling anything, it's up to them to find it; that's what they're paid for. 'Any-thing-t'-d'clare?' "he added in a mimicking voice. "What nonsense! As if anybody would declare something he was trying to smuggle."

"Just the same," I went on, "if Daddy had heard you say-"

"Podkayne."

"Yes, Uncle Tom?"

"Table it. We're about to start. Let's enjoy it."

"But- Yes, Uncle."

There was a slight drop in pressure, then a sudden surge that would have slid us out of our couches if we had not been strapped-but not a strong one, not at all like that giant whoosh! with which we had left the surface. It did not last long, then we were truly in free fall for a few moments ... then there started a soft, gentle push in the same direction, which kept on.

Then the room started very slowly to turn around

almost unnoticeable except for a slight dizziness it gave one.

Gradually, gradually (it took almost twenty minutes) our weight increased, until at last we were back to our proper weight ... at which time the floor, which had been all wrong when we came in, was where it belonged, under us, and almost level. But not quite- Here is what had happened. The first short boost was made by the rocket tugs of Deimos Port picking up the Tricorn and hurling her out into a free orbit of her own. This doesn't take much, because the

attraction between even a big ship like the Tricorn and a tiny, tiny satellite such as Deimos isn't enough to matter; all that matters is getting the very considerable mass of the ship shoved free.

The second gentle shove, the one that kept up and never went away, was the ship's own main drive-onetenth of a standard gee. The Tricorn is a constantboost ship; she doesn't dillydally around with economical orbits and weeks and months in free fall. She goes very fast indeed ... because even 0.1 gee adds up awfully fast.

But one-tenth gee is not enough to make comfortable passengers who have been used to more. As soon as the Captain had set her on her course, he started to spin her and kept it up until the centrifugal force and the boost added up (in vector addition, of course) to exactly the surface gravitation of Mars (or 37 percent of a standard gee) at the locus of the first-class staterooms.

But the floors will not be quite level until we approach Earth, because the inside of the ship had been constructed so that the floors would feel perfectly level when the spin and the boost added up to exactly one standard gravity-or Earth-Normal.

Maybe this isn't too clear. Well, it wasn't too clear to me, in school; I didn't see exactly how it worked out until (later) I had a chance to see the controls used to put spin on the ship and how the centrifugal force was calculated. Just remember that the Tricorn- and her sisters, the Trice and the Triad and the Triangulum and the Tricolor are enormous cylinders. The thrust is straight along the main axis; it has to be. Centrifugal force pushes away from the main axis- how else? The two forces add up to make the ship's "artificial gravity" in passenger country-but, since one force (the boost) is kept constant and the other (the spin) can be varied, there can be only one rate of spin

which will add in with the boost to make those floors perfectly level.

For the Tricorn the spin that will produce level floors and exactly one Earth gravity in passenger country is 5.42 revolutions per minute-I know because the Captain told me so....nd I checked his arithmetic and he was right. The floor of our cabin is just over thirty meters from the main axis of the ship, so it all comes out even.

As soon as they had the floor back under us and had announced the "all clear" I unstrapped me and hurried out. I wanted a quick look at the ship; I didn't even wait to unpack.

There's a fortune awaiting the man who invents a really good deodorizer for a spaceship. That's the one thing you can't fail to notice.

Oh, they try, I grant them that. The air goes through precipitators each time it is cycled; it is washed, it is perfumed, a precise fraction of ozone is added, and the new oxygen that is put in after the carbon dioxide is distilled out is as pure as a baby's mind; it has to be, for it is newly released as a by-product of the photosynthesis of living plants. That air is so pure that it really ought to be voted a medal by the Society for the Suppression of Evil Thoughts.

Besides that, a simply amazing amount of the crew's time is put into cleaning, polishing, washing, sterilizing-oh, they try!

But nevertheless, even a new, extra-fare luxury liner like the Tricorn simply reeks of human sweat and ancient sin, with undefinable overtones of organic decay and unfortunate accidents and matters best forgotten. Once I was with Daddy when a Martian tomb was being unsealed-and I found out why xenoarchaeologists always have gas masks handy. But a spaceship smells even worse than that tomb.

It does no good to complain to the purser. He'll listen with professional sympathy and send a crewman around to spray your stateroom with something which (I suspect) merely deadens your nose for a while. But his sympathy is not real, because the poor man simply cannot smell anything wrong himself. He has lived in ships for years; it is literally impossible for him to smell the unmistakable reek of a ship that has been lived in-and, besides, he knows that the air is pure; the ship's instruments show it. None of the professional spacers can smell it.

But the purser and all of them are quite used to having passengers complain about the "unbearable stench"-so they pretend sympathy and go through the motions of correcting the matter.

Not that I complained. I was looking forward to having this ship eating out of my hand, and you don't accomplish that sort of coup by becoming known first thing as a complainer. But other first-timers did, and I certainly understood why-in fact I began to have a glimmer of a doubt about my ambitions to become skipper of an explorer ship.

But- Well, in about two days it seemed to me that they had managed to clean up the ship quite a bit, and shortly thereafter I stopped thinking about it. I began to understand why the ship's crew can't smell the things the passengers complain about. Their nervous systems simply cancel out the old familiar stinks-like a cybernetic skywatch canceling out and ignoring any object whose predicted orbit has previously been programmed into the machine.

But the odor is still there. I suspect that it sinks right into polished metal and can never be removed, short of scrapping the ship and melting it down. Thank goodness the human nervous system is endlessly adaptable.

But my own nervous system didn't seem too adaptable during that first hasty tour of the Tricorn; it is a good thing that I had not eaten much breakfast and had refrained from drinking anything. My stomach did give me a couple of bad moments, but I told it sternly that I was busy-I was very anxious to look over the ship; I simply didn't have time to cater to the weaknesses to which flesh is heir.

Well, the Tricorn is lovely all right-every bit as nice as the travel folders say that she is... except for that dreadful ship's odor. Her ballroom is gorgeous and so big that you can see that the floor curves to match the ship... only it is not curved when you walk across it. It is level, too-it is the only room in the ship where they jack up the floor to match perfectly with whatever spin is on the ship. There is a lounge with a simulated sky of outer space, or it can be switched to blue sky and fleecy clouds. Some old biddies were already in there, gabbling.

The dining saloon is every bit as fancy, but it seemed hardly big enough-which reminded me of the warning in the travel brochure about first and second tables, so I rushed back to our cabin to urge Uncle Tom to make reservations for us quickly before all the best tables were filled.

He wasn't there. I took a quick look in all the rooms and didn't find him-but I found Clark in my room, just closing one of my bags!

"What are you doing?" I demanded.

He jumped and then looked perfectly blank. "I was just looking to see if you had any nausea pills." He said woodenly.

"Well, don't dig into my things! You know better." I came up and felt his cheek; he wasn't feverish. "I don't have any. But I noticed where the surgeon's office is. If you are feeling ill, I'll take you straight there and let him dose you."

He pulled away. "Aw, I'm all right-now."

"Clark Fries, you listerj to me. If you-" But he wasn't listening; he slid past me, ducked into his own room and closed the door; I heard the lock click.

I closed the bag he had opened-and noticed something. It was the bag the inspector had been just about to search when Clark had pulled that silly stunt about "happy dust."

My younger brother never does anything without a reason. Never.

His reasons may be, and often are, inscrutable to others. But if you just dig deeply enough, you will always find that his mind is never a random-choice machine, doing things pointlessly. It is as logical as a calculator-and about as cold.

I now knew why he had made what seemed to be entirely unnecessary trouble for himself at outgoing inspection.

I knew why I had been unexpectedly three kilos over my allowance on the centrifuge.

The only thing I didn't know was: What had he smuggled aboard in my baggage?

And why?

Interlude

Well, Pod, I am glad to see that you've resumed keeping your diary. Not only do I find your girlish viewpoints entertaining but also you sometimes (not often) provide me with useful bits of information.

If I can do anything for you in return, do let me know, Perhaps you would like help in straightening out your grammar? Those incomplete sentences you are so fond of indicate incomplete thinking. You know that, don't you?

For example, let us consider a purely hypothetical case: a delivery robot with an unbeatable seal. Since the seal is in fact unbeatable, thinking about the seal simply leads to frustration. But a complete analysis of the situation leads one to the obvious fact that any cubical or quasi-cubical object has six sides, and that the seal applies to only one of these six sides.

Pursuing this line of thought one may note that, while the quasi cube may not be moved without cutting its connections, the floor under it may be lowered

as much as forty-eight centimeters-if one has all afternoon in which to work.

Were this not a hypothetical case I would now suggest the use of a mirror and light on an extension handle and some around-the-corner tools, plus plenty of patience.

That's what you lack, Pod-patience.

I hope this may shed some light on the matter of the hypothetical happy dust-and do feel free to come to me with your little problems.