The Rolling Stones

XIV - FLAT CATS FACTORIAL

Vandenbergh made good his offer. Lowell and he went by stratorocket to the treaty town of Richardson, were gone about three days. When Lowell came back he had seen a Martian, he had talked with one. But he had been cautioned not to talk about it and his family could get no coherent account out of him.

But the simple matter of housing was more difficult than the presumably impossible problem of meeting a Martian. Roger Stone had had no luck in finding larger and more comfortable quarters, even after he had resigned himself to fantastic ren­tals. The town was bursting with tourists and would be until Venus departure, at which time those taking the triangular trip would leave - a majority, in fact. In the meantime they crowded the restaurants, took pictures of everything including each other, and ran their bicycles over the toes of pedestrians. Further packing a city already supersaturated were sand rats in from the desert and trying to arrange some way, any way, to get out to the Hallelujah Node in the Asteroid Belt.

Dr. Stone said one night at dinner, "Roger, tomorrow is rent day. Shall I pay it for a full month? Mr. d'Avril says that the Burkhardts are talking about staying on."

"Pay it for six days only," Hazel advised. "We can do better than this after Venus departure - I hope."

Roger Stone looked up and scowled. "Look here, why pay the rent at all?"

"What are you saying, dear?"

"Edith, I've been chewing this over in my mind. When we first came here our plans, such as they were, called for living here through one wait." He referred to the fifteen months elapsed time from arrival Mars to Earth departure from Mars, using the economical orbits. Then we planned to shape orbit home. Fair enough, if this overrated tourist trap had decent housing. But I haven't been able to start writing my book. When Buster isn't climbing into my lap, his pet is slithering down the back of my neck."

"What do you suggest, dear?"

"Go to Phobos tomorrow, get the old Rock ready to go, and blast for Venus when the others do."

"Loud cheers!" agreed Meade. "Let's go!"

Dr. Stone said, "Meade, I thought you didn't like Venus?"

"I don't. But I don't like it here and I'm tired all the time. I'd like to get back into free fall."

"You shouldn't be tired. Perhaps I had better check you over."

"Oh, Mother, I'm perfectly well! I don't want to be poked at." Lowell grinned. "I know why she wants to go to Venus - Mr. Magill."

"Don't be a snoop, Snoop!" Meade went on with quiet dig­nity. "In case anyone is interested, I am not interested in Second Officer Magill - and I wouldn't be going in the Caravan in any case. Besides, I found out he afready has a wife in Colorado." Hazel said, "Well, that's legal. He's still eligible off Earth,"

"Perhaps it is, but I don't like it."

"Neither do I," Roger Stone cut in. "Meade, you weren't really getting interested in this wolf in sheep's clothing, were you?"

"Of course not, Daddy!" She added, "But I suppose I'll get married one of these days."

"That's the trouble with girls," Castor commented. "Give them education - boom! They get married. Wasted."

Hazel glared at them, "Oh, so? Where would you be if I hadn't married?"

"It didn't happen that way," Roger Stone cut in, "so there is no use talking about other possibilities. They probably aren't really possibilities at all, if only we understood it"

Pollux: "Predestination."

Castor: "Very shaky theory."

Roger grinned. "I'm not a determinist and you can't get my goat. I believe in free will."

Pollux: "Another very shaky theory."

"Make up your minds," their father told them. "You can't have it both ways."

"Why not?" asked Hazel. "Free will is a golden thread run­ning through the frozen matrix of fixed events."

"Not mathematical," objected Pollux.

Castor nodded. "Just poetry."

"And not very good poetry."

"Shut up!" ordered their father. "Boys, it's quite evident that you have gone to considerable trouble to change the subject. Why?"

The twins swapped glances; Castor got the go-ahead. "Uh, Dad, the way we see it, this Venus proposition hasn't been thought out"

"Go on. I suppose you have an alternative suggestion?"

"Well, yes. But we didn't mean to bring it up until after Venus departure."

"I begin to whiff something. What you mean is that you intended to wait until the planetary aspects were wrong - too late to shape orbit for Venus."

"Well, there was no use in letting the matter get cluttered up with a side issue."

"What matter? Speak up."

Castor said worriedly, "Look, Dad, we aren't unreasonable. We can compromise. How about this: you and Mother and Buster and Meade go to Venus in the War God. Captain Van would love to have you do it - you know that. And -"

"Slow up. And what would you be doing? And Hazel? Mother, are you in on this?"

"Not that I know of. But I'm getting interested."

"Castor, what's on your mind? Speak up."

Well, I will if you'll just let me, sir. You and the rest of the family could have a pleasant trip back home - in a luxury liner. Hazel and Pol and I - well, I suppose you know that Mars will be in a favorable position for the Hallelujah Node in about six weeks?"

"For a cometary-type orbit, that is," Pollux added.

"So it's the Asteroids again," their father said slowly. "We settled that about a year ago."

"But we're a year older now."

"More experienced."

"You're still not old enough for unlimited licenses. I suppose that is why you included your grandmother."

"Oh,no! Hazel is an asset."

"Thank you, boys."

"Hazel, you had no inkling of this latest wild scheme?"

"No. But I don't think it's so wild. I'm caught up and then some on my episodes - and I'm tired of this place. I've seen the Martian ruins; they're in a poor state of repair. I've seen a canal; it has water in it. I understand that the rest of the planet is much the same, right through to chapter eighty-eight. And I've seen Venus. I've never seen the Asteroids."

"Right!" agreed Castor. "We don't like Mars. The place is one big clip joint"

"Sharp operators," added Pollux.

"Sharper than you are, you mean," said Hazel.

"Never mind, Mother. Boys, it is out of the question. I brought my ship out from Luna; I intend to take her back." He stood up. "You can give Mr. d'Avril notice, dear."

"Dad!"

"Yes, Castor?"

"That was just a compromise offer. What we really hoped you would do - what we wanted you to do - was for all of us to go out to the Hallelujah."

"Eh? Why, that's silly! I'm no meteor miner."

"You could learn to be. Or you could just go for the ride. And make a profit on it, too."

"Yes? How?"

Castor wet his lips. "The sand rats are offering fabulous prices just for cold-sleep space. We could carry about twenty of them at least And we could put them down on Ceres on the way, let them outfit there'.

"Cas! I suppose you are aware that only seven out of ten cold-sleep passengers arrive alive in a long orbit?"

"Well... they know that That's the risk they are taking." Roger Stone shook his head. "We aren't going, so I won't have to find out if you are as cold-blooded as you sound. Have you ever seen a burial in space?"

"No, sir'."

"I have. Let's hear no more about cold-sleep freight."

Castor passed it to Pollux, who took over: "Dad, if you won't listen to us all going, do you have any objections to Cas and me going?"

"Eh? How 'do you mean?"

"As Asteroid miners, of course. We're not afraid of cold-sleep. If we haven't got a ship, that's how we would have to go."

"Bravo!" said Hazel. "I'm going with you, boys,"

"Please, Mother!" He turned to his wife. "Edith, I sometimes wonder if we brought the right twins back from the hospital."

"They may not be yours," said Hazel, "but they are my grandsons, I'm sure of that. Hallelujah, here I come! Anybody coming with me?"

Dr. Stone said quietly, "You know, dear, I don't much care for Venus, either. And it would give you leisure for your book"

The Rolling Stone shaped orbit from Phobos outward bound for the Asteroids six weeks later. This was no easy lift like the one from Luna to Mars; in choosing to take a 'cometary' or fast orbit to the Hallelujah the Stones had perforce to accept an expensive change-of-motion of twelve and a half miles per second for the departure maneuver. A fast orbit differs from a maximum-economy orbit in that it cuts the orbit being aban­doned at an angle instead of being smoothly tangent to it... much more expensive in reaction mass. The far end of the cometary orbit would be tangent to the orbit of the Hallelujah; matching at that point would be about the same for either orbit; it was the departure from Phobos-circum-Mars that would be rugged.

The choice of a cometary orbit was not a frivolous one. In the first place, it would have been necessary to wait more than one Earth year for Mars to be in the proper relation, orbit-wise, with the Hallelujah Node for the economical orbit; secondly, the travel time itself would be more than doubled - five hundred and eighty days for the economical orbit versus two hundred and sixty-nine days for the cometary orbit (a mere three days longer than the Luna-Mars trip).

Auxiliary tanks for single-H were fitted around the Stone's middle, giving her a fat and sloppy appearance, but greatly improving her mass-ratio for the ordeal. Port Pilot Jason Thomas supervised the refitting; the twins helped. Castor got up his nerve to ask Thomas how he had managed to conn the Stone in to a landing on their arrival. "Did you figure a ballis­tic before you came aboard, sir?"

Thomas put down his welding torch. "A ballistic? Shucks, no, son, I've been doing it so long that I know every little bit of space hereabouts by its freckles."

Which was all the satisfaction Cas could get out of him The twins talked it over and concluded that piloting must be something more than a mathematical science.

In addition to more space for single-H certain modifications were made inside the ship. The weather outside the orbit of Mars is a steady 'clear but cold'; no longer would they need reflecting foil against the Sun's rays. Instead one side of the ship was painted with carbon black and the capacity of the air-heating system was increased by two coils. In the control room a time-delay variable-baseline stereoscopic radar was installed by means of which they would be able to see the actual shape of the Hallelujah when they reached it.

All of which was extremely expensive and the Galactic Overlord had to work overtime to pay for it Hazel did not help with the refitting. She stayed in her room and ground out, with Lowell's critical help, more episodes in the gory but vir­tuous career of Captain John Sterling - alternating this activity with sending insulting messages and threats of blackmail and/or sit-down strike to her producers back in New York; she wanted an unreasonably large advance and she wanted it right now. She got it, by sending on episodes equal to the advance. She had to write the episodes in advance anyhow; this time the Rolling Stone would be alone, no liners comfortably near by. Once out of radio range of Mars, they would not be able to contact Earth again until Ceres was in range of the Stone's modest equipment. They were not going to Ceres but would be not far away; the Hallelujah was riding almost the same orbit somewhat ahead of that tiny planet.

The boost to a cometary orbit left little margin for cargo but what there was the twins wanted to use, undeterred by their father's blunt disapproval of the passengers-in-cold-sleep idea. Their next notion was to carry full outfits for themselves for meteor mining - rocket scooter, special suits, emergency shelter, keyed radioactive claiming stakes, centrifuge speegee tester, black lights, Geiger counters, prospecting radar, port­able spark spectroscope, and everything else needed to go quietly rock-happy.

Their father said simply, "Your money?"

"Of course. And we pay for the boost."

"Go ahead. Go right ahead. Don't let me discourage you. Any objections from me would simply confirm your preconceptions."

Castor was baffled by the lack of opposition. "What's the matter with it, Dad? You worried about the danger involved?"

"Danger? Heavens, no! It's your privilege to get yourselves killed in your own way. Anyhow, I don't think you will. You're young and you're both smart, even if you don't show it sometimes, and you're both in tiptop physical condition, and I'm sure you'll know your equipment."

"Then what is it?"

"Nothing. For myself, I long since came to the firm conclu­sion that a man can do more productive work, and make more money if this is his object, by sitting down with his hands in his pockets than by any form of physical activity. Do you happen to know the average yearly income of a meteor miner?"

"Well, no, but -"

"Less than six hundred a year."

"But some of them get rich!"

"Sure they do. And some make much less than six hundred a year; that's an average, including the rich strikes. Just as a matter of curiosity, bearing in mind that most of those miners are experienced and able, what is it that you two expect to bring to this trade that will enable you to raise the yearly average? Speak up; don't be shy."

"Doggone it, Dad, what would you ship?"

"Me? Nothing. I have no talent for trade. I'm going out for the ride - and to take a look at the bones of Lucifer. I'm begin­ning to get interested in planetology. I may do a book about it-"

"What happened to your other book?"

"I hope that isn't sarcasm, Cas. I expect to have it finished before we get there." He adjourned the discussion by leaving.

The twins turned to leave, found Hazel griamng at them. Castor scowled at her. "What are you smirking at, Hazel?"

"You two."

"Well... why shouldn't we have a whirl at meteor mining?"

"No reason. Go ahead; you can afford the luxury. But see here, boys, do you really want to know what to ship to make some money?"

"Sure!"

"What's your offer?"

"Percentage cut? Or flat fee? But we don't pay if we don't take your advice."

"Oh, rats! I'll give it to you free. If you get advice free, you won't take it and I'll be able to say, "I told you so!""

"You would, too."

"Of course I would. There's no warmer pleasure than being able to tell a smart aleck, "I told you so, but you wouldn't listen." Okay, here it is, in the form of a question, just like an oracle: Who made money in all the other big mining rushes of history?"

"Why, the chaps who struck it rich, I suppose."

"That's a laugh. There are so few cases of prospectors who actually hung on to what they had found and died rich that they stand out like supernovae. Let's take a famous rush, the California Gold Rush back in 1861- no, 1861 was something else; I forget. 1849, that was it - the 'Forty-niners. Read about 'em inhistory?"

"Some."

"There was a citizen named Sutter; they found gold on his place. Did it make him rich? It ruined him. But who did get rich?"

"Tell us, Hazel. Don't bother to dramatise it"

"Why not? I may put it in the show - serial numbers rubbed off, of course. I'll tell you: everybody who had something the miners had to buy. Grocers, mostly. Boy, did they get rich! Hardware dealers. Men with stamping mills, Everybody but the poor miner. Even laundries in Honolulu."

"Honolulu? But that's way out in the Pacific, off China somewhere."

"It was in Hawaii the last time I looked. But they used to ship dirty laundry from California clear to Honolulu to have it washed - both Ways by sailing ship. That's about like having your dirty shirts shipped from Marsport to Luna. Boys, if you want to make money, set up a laundry in the Hallelujah. But it doesn't have to be a laundry - just anything, so long as the miners want it and you've got it If your father wasn't a Puritan at heart, I'd set up a well-run perfectly honest gambling hall! That's like having a rich uncle."

The twins considered their grandmother's advice and went into the grocery business, with a few general store sidelines. They decided to stock only luxury foods, things that the miners would not be likely to have and which would bring highest prices per pound. They stocked antibiotics and surgical drugs and vitamins as well, and some lightweight song-and-story projectors and a considerable quantity of spools to go with them. Pollux found a supply of pretty-girl pictures, printed on thin stock in Japan and intended for calendars on Mars, and decided to take a flyer on them, since they didn't weigh much. He pointed out to Castor that they could not lose entirely, since they could look at them themselves.

Dr. Stone found them, ran through them, and required him to send some of them back. The rest passed her censorship; they took them along.

The last episode was speeding toward Earth; the last weld had been approved; the last pound of food and supplies was at last aboard. The Stone lifted gently from Phobos and droppedtoward Mars. A short gravity-well maneuver around Mars at the Stone's best throat temperature - which produced a spine-grinding five gravities - and she was headed out and fast to the lonely reaches of space inhabited only by the wreckage of the Ruined Planet.

"They fell easily and happily back into free fall routine. More advanced mathematical texts had been obtained for the boys on Mars; they did not have to be urged to study, having grown really interested - and this time they had no bicycles to divert their minds. Fuzzy Britches took to free fall if the creature had been born in space; if it was not being held and stroked by someone (which it usually was) it slithered over wall and bulkhead, or floated gently around the compartments, undulat­ing happily.

Castor maintained that it could swim through the air; Pollux insisted that it could not and that its maneuvers arose entirely from the air currents of the ventilation system, They wasted considerable time, thought, and energy in trying to devise scientific tests to prove the matter, one way or the other. They were unsuccessful.

The flat cat did not care; it was warm, it was well fed, it was happy. It had numerous friends all willing to take time off to reward its tremendous and undiscriminating capacity for affec­tion. Only one incident marred its voyage.

Roger Stone was strapped to his pilot's chair, blocking out - so he said - a chapter in his book. If so, the snores may have helped. Fuzzy Britches was cruising along about its lawful occasions, all three eyes open and merry. It saw one of its friends; good maneuvering or a random air current enabled it to make a perfect landing - on Captain Stone's face.

Roger came out of the chair with a yell, clutching at his face. He bounced against the safety belt, recovered, and pitched the flat cat away from him. Fuzzy Britches, offended but not hurt, flipped itself flat to its progress, air-checked and made another landing on the far wall.

Roger Stone used several other words, then shouted, "Who put that animated toupee on my face?"

But the room was otherwise empty. Dr. Stone appeared at the hatch and said, "What is it, dear?"

"Oh, nothing - nothing important. Look, dear, would you return this tailend offspring of a dying planet to Buster? I'm trying to think."

"Of course, dear." She took it aft and gave it to Lowell, who promptly forgot it, being busy working out a complicated gambit against Hazel. The flat cat was not one to hold a grudge; there was not a mean bone in its body, had it had bones, which it did not The only emotion it could feel whole­heartedly was love. It got back to Roger just as he had. again fallen asleep.

It again settled on his face, purring happily.

Captain Stone proved himself a mature man. Knowing this time what it was,.he detached it gently and himself returned it to Lowell. "Keep it," he said. "Don't let go of it." He was careful to close the door behind him.

He was equally careful that night to close the door of the stateroom he shared with his wife. The Rolling Stone, being a small private ship, did not have screens guarding her ventila­tion ducts; they of course had to be left open at all times. The flat cat found them a broad highway. Roger Stone had a nightmare in which he was suffocating, before his wife woke him and removed Fuzzy Britches from his face. He used some more words.

"It's all right, dear," she answered soothingly. "Go back to sleep." She cuddled it in her arms and Fuzzy Britches settled for that.

The ship's normal routine was disturbed the next day while everyone who could handle a wrench or a spot welder installed screens in the ducts.

Thirty-seven days out Fuzzy Britches had eight golden little kittens, exactly like their parent but only a couple of inches across when flat, marble-sized when contracted. Everyone, including Captain Stone thought they were cute; everyone enjoying petting them, stroking them with a gentle forefinger and listening carefully for the tiny purr, so high as to be almost beyond human ear range. Everyone enjoyed feeding them and they seemed to be hungry all the time.

Sixty-four days later the kittens had kittens, eight each. Sixty-four days after that, the one hundred and forty-sixth day after Phobos departure, the kittens' kittens had kittens; that made five hundred and thirteen.

"This," said Captain Stone, "has got to stop!"

"Yes, dear."

"I mean it At this rate we'll run out of food before we get there, including the stuff the twins hope to sell. Besides that we'll be suffocated under a mass of buzzing fur mats. What's eight times five hundred and twelve? Then what's eight times that?"

"Too many, I'm sure."

"My dear, that's the most masterly understatement since the death of Mercutio. And I don't think I've figured it properly anyway; its an exponential expansion, not a geometric - pro­vided we don't all starve first"

"Roger."

"I think we should-Eh? What?"

"I believe there is a simple solution. These are Martian creatures; they hibernate in cold weather."

"Yes?"

"We'll put them in the hold - fortunately there is room."

"I agree with all but the "fortunately.""

"And we'll keep it cold."

"I wouldn't want to kill the little things. I can't manage to hate them. Drat it, they're too cute."

"We'll hold it about a hundred below, about like a normal Martian winter night. Or perhaps warmer will do."

"We certainly will. Get a shovel. Get a net Get a barrel." He began snagging flat cats out of the air.

"You aren't going to freeze Fuzzy Britches!" Lowell was floating in the stateroom door behind them, clutching an adult flat cat to his small chest. It may or may not have been Fuzzy Britches; none of the others could tell the adults apart and naming had been dropped after the first litter. But Lowell was quite sure and it did not seem to matter whether or not he was right The twins had discussed slipping in a ringer on him while he was asleep, but they had been overheard and the project forbidden. Lowell was content and his mother did not wish him disturbed in his belief.

"Dear, we aren't going to hurt your pet"

"You better not! You do and I'll - I'll space you!"

"Oh, dear, he's been helping Hazel with her serial!" Dr. Stone got face to face with her son. "Lowell, Mother has never lied to you, has she?"

"Uh, I guess not"

"We aren't going to hurt Fuzzy Britches. We aren't going to hurt any of the flat kitties. But we haven't got room for all of them. You can keep Fuzzy Britches, but the other kittens, are going for a long nap. They'll be perfectly safe; I promise.

"By the code of the Galaxy?"

"By the code of the Galaxy."

Lowell left, still guarding his pet. Roger said, "Edith, we've got to put a stop to that collaboration."

"Don't worry dear; it won't harm him." She frowned. "But I'm afraid I will have to disappoint him on another score."

"Such as?"

"Roger, I didn't have much time to study the fauna of Mars - and I certainly didn't study flat cats, beyond making sure that they were harmless."

"Harmless!" He batted a couple of them out of the way. "Woman, I'm drowning."

"But Martian fauna have certain definite patterns, survival adaptations. Except for the water-seekers, which probably aren't Martian in origin anyhow, their methods are both pas­sive and persistent. Take the flat cat-"

"You take it!" He removed one gently from his chest.

"It is defenseless. It can't even seek its own food very well. I understand that in its native state it is a benign parasite attaching itself to some more mobile animal-"

"If only they would quit attaching to me! And you look as if you were wearing a fur coat Let's put 'em in freeze!"

"Patience, dear. Probably it has somewhat the same pleasing effect on the host that ithas on us; consequently the host tolerates it and lets it pick up the crumbs. But its other char­acteristic it shares with almost anything Martian. It can last long periods in hibernation, or if that isn't necessary, in a state of lowered vitality and activity - say when there is no food available. But with any increase in the food supply, then at once - almost like throwing a switch - it expands, multiplies to the full extent of the food 'supply."

"I'll say it does!"

"Cut off the food supply and it simply waits for more good times. Pure theory, of course, since I am reasoning by analogy from other Martian life forms - but that's why I'm going to have to disappoint Lowell - Fuzzy Britches will have to go on very short rations."

Her husband frowned. "That won't be easy; he feeds it all the time. We'll just have to watch him - or there will be more little visitors from heaven. Honey, let's get busy. Right now."

"Yes, dear. I just had to get my thoughts straight"

Roger called them all to general quarters; Operation Round-up began. They shooed them aft and into the hold; they slithered back, purring and seeking companionship. Pollux got into the hold and tried to keep them herded together while the others scavenged through the ship. His father stuck his head in; tried to make out his son in a cloud of flat cats; 'How many have you got so far?"

"I can't count them - they keep moving around. Close the door!"

"How can I keep the door closed and still send them in to you?"

"How can I keep them in here if you keep opening the door?" Finally they all got into space suits - Lowell insisted on taking Fuzzy Britches inside with him, apparently not trusting even 'the code of the Galaxy' too far. Captain Stone reduced the temperature of the entire ship down to a chilly twenty below; the flat cats, frustrated by the space suits and left on their own resources, gave up and began forming themselves into balls, like fur-covered grape fruit. They were then easy to gather in, easy to count, easy to store in the hold.

Nevertheless the Stones kept finding and incarcerating fugi­tives for the next several days.