Clark and I are such exceptions. We have one other exception in the ship, Miss-well, I’ll call her Miss Girdie FitzSnugglie, because if I used her right name and perchance anybody ever sees this, it would be all too easily recognizable. I think Girdie is a good sort. I don’t care what the gossips in this ship say. She doesn’t act jealous of me even though it appears that the younger officers in the ship were all her personal property until I boarded-all the trip out from Earth,

 

 

I mean. I’ve cut into her monopoly quite a bit, but she isn’t catty to me; she tre~ats me warmly woman-towoman, and I’ve learned quite a lot about Life and Men from her… more than Mother ever taught me.

 

 

(It is just possible that Mother is slightly naïve on subjects that Girdie knows best. A woman who tackles engineering and undertakes to beat men at their own game might have had a fairly limited social life, wouldn’t you think? I must study this seriously because it seems possible that much the same might happen to a female space pilot and it is no part of my Master Plan to become a soured old maid.)

 

 

Girdie is about twice my age, which makes her awfully young in this company; nevertheless it may be that I cause her to look just a bit wrinkled around the eyes. Contrariwise, my somewhat unfinished look may make her more mature contours appear even more Helen-of-Troyish. As may be, it is certain that my presence has relieved the pressure on her by giving the gossips two targets instead of one.

 

 

And gossip they do. I heard one of them say about her: “She’s been in more laps than a napkin!”

 

 

If so, I hope she had fun.

 

 

Those gay ship’s dances in the mammoth ballroom! Like this: they happen every Tuesday and Saturday night, when the ship is spacing. The music starts at 20.30 and the Ladies’ Society for Moral Rectitude is seated around the edge of the floor, as if for a wake. Uncle Tom is there, as a concession to me, and very proudsome and distinguished he looks in evening formal. I am there in a party dress which is not quite as girlish as it was when Mother helped me pick it out, in consequence of some very careful retailoring I have done with my door locked. Even Clark attends because there is nothing else going on and he’s afraid he might miss something-and looking so nice I’m proud of him, because he has to climb into his own monkey suit or he can’t come to the ball.

 

 

Over by the punch bowl are half a dozen of the ship’s junior officers, dressed in mess jacket uniforms and looking faintly uncomfortable.

 

 

The Captain, by some process known only to him, selects one of the widows and asks her to dance. Two husbands dance with their wives. Uncle Tom offers me his arm and leads me to the floor. Two or three of the junior officers follow the Captain’s example. Clark takes advantage of the breathless excitement to raid the punch bowl.

 

 

But nobody asks Girdie to dance.

 

 

This is no accident. The Captain has given the Word (I have this intelligence with utter certainty through My Spies) that no ship’s officer shall dance with Miss FitzSnugglie until he has danced at least two dances with other partners-and I am not an “other partner,” because the proscription, since leaving Mars, has been extended to me.

 

 

This should be proof to anyone that a captain of a ship is, in sober fact, the Last of the Absolute Monarchs.

 

 

There are now six or seven couples on the floor and the fun is at its riotous height. The floor will never again be so crowded. Nevertheless nine-tenths of the chairs are still occupied and you could ride a bicycle around the floor without endangering the dancers. The spectators look as if they were knitting at the tumbrels. The proper finishing touch would be a guillotine in the empty space in the middle of the floor.

 

 

The music stops; Uncle Tom takes me back to my chair, then asks Girdie to dance-since he is a Cash Customer, the Captain has not attempted to make him toe the mark. But I am still out of bounds, so I walk over to the punch bowl, take a cup out of Clark’s hands, finish it, and say, “Come on, Clark. I’ll let you practice on me.”

 

 

“Aw, it’s a waltz!” (Or a “flea hop,” or a “chassé,” or “five step”-but whatever it is, it is just too utterly impossible.)

 

 

“Do it-or I’ll tell Madame Grew that you want to dance with her, only you’re too shy to ask her.”

 

 

“You do and I’ll trip her! I’ll stumble and trip her.”

 

 

However, Clark is weakening, so I move in fast. “Look, Bub, you either take me out there and walk on my feet for a while-or I’ll see to it that Girdie doesn’t dance with you at all.”

 

 

That does it. Clark is in the throes of his first case of puppy love, and Girdie is such a gent that she treats him as an equal and accepts his attentions with warm courtesy. So Clark dances with me. Actually he is quite a good dancer and I have to lead him only a tiny bit. He likes to dance-but he wouldn’t want anyone, especially me, to think that he likes to dance with his sister. We don’t look too badly matched, since I am short. In the meantime Girdie is looking very good indeed with Uncle Tom, which is quite an accomplishment, as Uncle Tom dances with great enthusiasm and no rhythm. But Girdie can follow anyone-if her partner broke his leg, she would follow, fracturing her own at the same spot. But the crowd is thinning out now; husbands that danced the first dance are too tired for the second and no one has replaced them.

 

 

Oh, we have gay times in the luxury liner Tricorn!

 

 

Truthfully we do have gay times. Starting with the third dance Girdie and I have our pick of the ship’s officers, most of whom are good dancers, or at least have had plenty of practice. About twentytwo o’clock the Captain goes to bed and shortly after that the chaperones start putting away their whetstones and fading, one by one. By midnight there is just Girdie and myself and half a dozen of the younger officers-and the Purser, who has dutifully danced with every woman and now feels that he owes himself the rest of the night. He is quite a good dancer, for an old man.

 

 

Oh, and there is usually Mrs. Grew, too-but she isn’t one of the chaperones and she is always nice to Girdie. She is a fat old woman, full of sin and chuckles. She doesn’t expect anyone to dance with her but she likes to watch-and the officers who aren’t dancing at the moment like to sit with her; she’s fun.

 

 

About one o’clock Uncle Tom sends Clark to tell me to come to bed or he’ll lock me out. He wouldn’t but I do-my feet are tired.

 

 

Good old Tricorn!

 

 

VI

 

 

The Captain is slowly increasing the spin of the ship to make the fake gravity match the surface gravitation of Venus, which is 84 percent of one standard gravity or more than twice as much as I have been used to all my life. So, when I am not busy studying astrogation or ship handling, I spend much of my time in the ship’s gymnasium, hardening myself for what is coming, for I have no intention of being at a disadvantage on Venus in either strength or agility.

 

 

If I can adjust to an acceleration of 0.84 gee, the later transition to the full Earth-normal of one gee should be sugar pie with chocolate frosting. So I think.

 

 

I usually have the gymnasium all to myself. Most of the passengers are Earthmen or Venusmen who feel no need to prepare for the heavy gravitation of Venus.

 

 

Of the dozen-odd Marsmen I am the only one who seems to take seriouslv the coming burden-and the handful of aliens in the ship we never see; each remains in his specially conditioned stateroom. The ship’s officers do use the gym; some of them are quite fanatic about keeping fit. But they use it mostly at hours when passengers are not likely to use it.

 

 

So, on this day (Ceres thirteenth actually but the Tricorn uses Earth dates and time, which made it March ninth-I don’t mind the strange dates but the short Earth day is costing me a half-hour’s sleep each night)-on Ceres thirteenth I went charging into the gym, so angry I could spit venom and intending to derive a double benefit by working off my mad (at least to the point where I would not be clapped in irons for assault), and by strengthening my muscles, too.

 

 

And found Clark inside, dressed in shorts and with a massy barbell.

 

 

I stopped short and blurted out, “What are you doing here?”

 

 

He grunted, “Weakening my mind.”

 

 

Well, I had asked for it; there is no ship’s regulation forbidding Clark to use the gym. His answer made sense to one schooled in his devious logic, which I certainly should be. I changed the subject, tossed aside my robe, and started limbering exercises to warm up. “How massy?” I asked.

 

 

“Sixty kilos.”

 

 

I glanced at a weight meter on the wall, a loaded spring scale marked to read in fractions of standard gee; it read 52%. I did a fast rough in my mind-fiftytwo thirty-sevenths of sixty-or unit sum, plus nine hundred over thirty-seven, so add about a ninth, top and bottom for a thousand over forty, to yield twentyfive-or call it the same as lifting eighty-five kilos back home on Mars. “Then why are you sweating?”

 

 

“I am not sweating!” He put the barbell down. “Let’s see you lift it.”

 

 

“All right.” As he moved I squatted down to raise the barbell-and changed my mind.

 

 

Now, believe me, I work out regularly with ninety kilos at home and I had been checkii~ig that weight meter on the wall each day and loading that same barbell to match the weight I use at home, plus a bit extra each day. My objective (hopeless, it is beginning to seem) is eventually to lift as much mass under Venus conditions as I had been accustomed to lifting at home.

 

 

So I was certain I could lift sixty kilos at 52 percent of standard gee.

 

 

But it is a mistake for a girl to beat a male at any test of physical strength … even when it’s. your brother. Most especially when it’s your brother and he has a fiendish disposition and you’ve suddenly had a glimmering of a way to put his fiendish proclivities to work. As I have said, if you’re in a mood to hate something or somebody, Clark is the perfect partner.

 

 

So I grunted and strained, making a good show, got it up to my chest, started it on up-and squeaked, “Help me!”

 

 

Clark gave a one-handed push at the center of the bar and we got it all the way up. Then I said, “Catch for me,” through clenched teeth, and he eased it down. I sighed. “Gee, Clark, you must be getting awful strong.”

 

 

“Doing all right.”

 

 

It works; Clark was now as mellow as his nature permits. I suggested companion tumbling-if he didn’t mind being the bottom half of the team?-because I wasn’t sure I could hold him, not at point-five-two gee

 

 

did he mind?

 

 

He didn’t mind at all; it gave him another chance to be muscular and masculine-and I was certain he could lift me; I massed eleven kilos less than the barbell he had just been lifting. When he was smaller, we used to do quite a bit of it, with me lifting him-it was a way to keep him quiet when I was in charge of

 

 

him. Now that he is as big as I am (and stronger, I fear), we still tumble a little, but taking turns at the ground-and-air parts-back home, I mean.

 

 

But with my weight almost half again what it ought to be I didn’t risk any fancy capers. Presently, when he had me in a simple handstand over his head, I broached the subject on my mind. “Clark, is Mrs. Royer any special friend of yours?”

 

 

“Her?” He snorted and added a rude noise. “Why?”

 

 

“I just wondered. She-Mmm, perhaps I shouldn’t repeat it.”

 

 

He said, “Look, Pod, you want me to leave you standing on the ceiling?”

 

 

“Don’t you dare!”

 

 

“Then don’t start to say something and not finish it.”

 

 

“All right. But steady while I swing my feet down to your shoulders.” He let me do so, then I hopped down to the floor. The worst part about high acceleration is not how much you weigh, though that is bad enough, but how fast you fall-and I suspected that Clark was quite capable of leaving me head downwards high in the air if I annoyed him.

 

 

“What’s this about Mrs. Royer?” he asked.

 

 

“Oh, nothing much. She thinks Marsmen are trash, that’s all.”

 

 

“She does, huh? That makes it mutual.”

 

 

“Yes. She thinks it’s disgraceful that the Line allows us to travel first class-and the Captain certainly ought not to allow us to eat in the same mess with decent people.”

 

 

“Tell me more.”

 

 

“Nothing to tell. We’re riffraff, that’s all. Convicts. You know.”

 

 

“Interesting. Very, very interesting.”

 

 

“And her friend Mrs. Garcia agrees with her. But I suppose I shouldn’t have repeated it. After all, they are entitled to their own opinions. Aren’t they?”

 

 

Clark didn’t answer, which is a very bad sign. Shortly thereafter he left without a word. In a sudden panic that I might have started more than I intended to, I called after him but he just kept going. Clark is not hard of hearing but he can be very hard of listening.

 

 

Well, it was too late now. So I put on a weight harness, then loaded myself down all over until I weighed as much as I would on Venus and started trotting on the treadmill until I was covered with sweat and ready for a bath and a change.

 

 

Actually I did not really care what bad luck overtook those two harpies; I simply hoped that Clark’s sleightof-hand would be up to its usual high standards so that it could not possibly be traced back to him. Nor even guessed at. For I had not told Clark half of what was said.

 

 

Believe you me, I had never guessed, .until we were in the Tri corn, that anyone could despise other persons simply over their ancestry or where they lived. Oh, I had encountered tourists from Earth whose manners left something to be desired-but Daddy had told me that all tourists, everywhere, seem obnoxious simply because tourists are strangers who do not know local customs … and I believed it, because Daddy is never wrong. Certainly the occasional visiting professor that Daddy brought home for dinner was always charming, which proves that Earthmen do not have to have bad manners.

 

 

I had noticed that the passengers in the Tnicorn seemed a little bit stand-offish when we first boarded, but I did not think anything of it. After all, strangers do not run up and kiss you, even on Mars-and we Marsmen are fairly informal, I suppose; we’re still a frontier society. Besides that, most passengers had been in the ship at least from Earth; they had already formed their friendships and cliques. We were like new kids in a strange school.

 

 

But I said “Good morning!” to anyone I met in the passageway and if I was not answered I just checked it off to hard-of-hearing-so many of them obviously could be hard of hearing. Anyhow, I wasn’t terribly interested in getting chummy with passengers; I wanted to get acquainted with the ship’s officers, pilot officers especially, so that I could get some practical experience to chink in what I already knew from reading. It’s not easy for a girl to get accepted for pilot training; she has to be about four times as good as a male candidate-and every little bit helps.

 

 

I got a wonderful break right away. We were seated at the Captain’s table!

 

 

Uncle Tom, of course. I am not conceited enough to think that “Miss Podkayne Fries, Marsopolis” means anything on a ship’s passenger list (but wait ten years!)-whereas Uncle Tom, even though he is just my pinochle-playing, easygoing oldest relative, is nevertheless senior Senator-at-Large of the Republic, and it is certain that the Marsopolis General Agent for the Triangle Line knows this and no doubt the agent would see to it that the Purser of the Triconn would know it if he didn’t already.

 

 

As may be-I am not one to scorn gifts from heaven, no matter how they arrive. At our very first meal I started working on Captain Darling. That really is his name, Barrington Babcock Darling-and does his wife call him “Baby Darling”?

 

 

But of course a captain does not have a name aboard ship; he is “the Captain,” “the Master,” “the Skipper,” or even “the Old Man” if it is a member of the ship’s company speaking not in his august presence. But never a name-simply a majestic figure of impersonal authority.

 

 

(I wonder if I will someday be called “the Old Woman” when I am not in earshot? Somehow it doesn’t sound quite the same.)

 

 

But Captain Darling is not too majestic or impersonal with me. I set out to impress him with the idea that I was awfully sweet, even younger than I am, terribly impressed by him and overawed … and not too bright. It does not do to let a male of any age know that one has brains, not on first acquaintance; intelligence in a woman is likely to make a man suspicious and uneasy, much like Caesar’s fear of Cassius’ “lean and hungry look.” Get a man solidly on your side first; after that it is fairly safe to let him become gradually aware of your intellect. He may even feel unconsciously that it rubbed off from his own.

 

 

So I set out to make him feel that it was a shame that I was not his daughter. (Fortunately he only has sons.) Before that first meal was over I confided in him my great yearning to take pilot training … suppressing, of course, any higher ambition.

 

 

Both Uncle Tom and Clark could see what I was up to. But Uncle Tom would never give me away and Clark just looked bored and contemptuous and said nothing, because Clark would not bother to interfere with Armageddon unless there was ten percent in it for him.

 

 

But I do not mind what my relatives think of my tactics; they work. Captain Darling was obviously amused at my grandiose and “impossible” ambition… but he offered to show me the control room.

 

 

Round one to Poddy, on points.

 

 

I am now the unofficial ship’s mascot, with free run of the control room-and I am almost as privileged in the engineering department. Of course the Captain does not really want to spend hours teaching me the practical side of astrogation. He did show me through the control room and gave me a kindergarten explanation of the work-which I followed with wide-eyed awe-but his interest in me is purely social. He wants to not-quite hold me in his lap (he is much too practical and too discreet to do anything of the sort!), so I not-quite let him and make it a point to keep up my social relations with him, listening with my best astonished-kitten look to his anecdotes while he feeds me liters of tea. I really am a good listener because you never can tell when you will pick up something useful-and all in the world any woman has to do to be considered “charming” by men is to listen while they talk.

 

 

But Captain Darling is not the only astrogator in the ship.

 

 

He gave me the run of the control room; I did the rest. The second officer, Mr. Savvonavong, thinks it is simply amazing how fast I pick up mathematics. You see, he thinks he taught me differential equations. Well, he did, when it comes to those awfully complicated ones used in correcting the vector of a constantboost ship, but if I hadn’t worked hard in the supplementary course I was allowed to take last semester, I wouldn’t know what he was talking about. Now he is showing me how to program a ballistic computer.

 

 

The junior third, Mr. Clancy, is still studying for his unlimited license, so he has all the study tapes and reference books I need and is just as helpful. He is near enough my age to develop groping hands… but only a very stupid male will make even an indirect pass unless a girl manages to let him know that it won’t be resented, and Mr. Clancy is not stupid and I am very careful to offer neither invitation nor opportunity.

 

 

I may kiss him-two minutes before I leave the ship for the last time. Not sooner.

 

 

They are all very helpful and they think it is cute of nie to be so dead serious about it. But, in truth, practical astrogation is much harder than I had ever dreamed.

 

 

I had guessed that part of the resentment I sensed-resentment that I could not fail to notice despite my cheery “Good mornings!”-lay in the fact that we were at the Captain’s table. To be sure, the Welcome in the Tn corn! booklet in each stateroom states plainly that new seating arrangements are made at each port and that it is the ship’s custom to change the guests at the Captain’s table each time, making the selections from the new passengers.

 

 

But I don’t suppose that warning makes it any pleasanter to be bumped, because I don’t expect to like it when I’m bumped off the Captain’s table at Venus. But that is only part-Only three of the passengers were really friendly to

 

 

me: Mrs. Grew, Girdie, and Mrs. Rover. Mrs. Royer I met first and at first I thought that I was going to like her, in a bored sort of way, as she was awfully friendly and I have great capacity for enduring boredom if it suits my purpose. I met her in the lounge the first day and she immediately caught my eye, smiled, invited me to sit by her, and quizzed me about myself.

 

 

I answered her questions, mostly. I told her that Daddy was a teacher and that Mother was raising babies and that my brother and I were traveling with our uncle. I didn’t boast about our family; boasting is not polite and it often is not believed-far better to let people find out nice things on their own and hope they won’t notice any unnice things. Not that there is anything unnice about Daddv and Mother.

 

 

I told her that my name was Poddv Fries.

 

 

“Poddy?” she said. “I thought I saw something else on the passenger list.”

 

 

“Oh. It’s really ‘Podkayne,’ ” I explained. “For the Martian saint, you know.”

 

 

But she didn’t know. She answered, “It seems very odd to give a girl a man’s name.”

 

 

Well, my name is odd, even among Marsmen. But not for that reason. “Possibly,” I agreed. “But with Martians gender is rather a matter of opinion, wouldn’t you say?”

 

 

She blinked. “You’re jesting.”

 

 

I started to explain-how a Martian doesn’t select which of three sexes to be until just before it matures

 

 

and how, even so, the decision is operative only during a relatively short period of its life.

 

 

But I gave up, as I could see that I was talking to a blank wall. Mrs. Royer simply could not imagine any pattern other than her own. So I shifted quickly. “Saint Podkayne lived a very long time ago. Nobody actually knows whether the saint was male or female. There are just traditions.”

 

 

Of course the traditions are pretty explicit and many living Martians claim descent from Saint Podkayne. Daddy says that we know Martian history of millions of years ago much more accurately than we know human history a mere two thousand years ago. In any case, most Martians include “Podkayne” in their long lists of names (practically genealogies in synopsis) because of the tradition that anyone named for Saint Podkayne can call on him (or “her”-or “it”) in time of trouble.

 

 

As I have said, Daddy is romantic and he thought it would be nice to give a baby the luck, if any, that is attached to the saint’s name. I am neither romantic nor superstitious, but it suits me just fine to have a name that belongs to me and to no other human. I like being Podkayne “Poddy” Fries-It’s better than being one of a multitude of Elizabeths, or Dorothys, or such.

 

 

But I could see that it simply puzzled Mrs. Royer, so we passed to other matters, speaking from her seniority as an “old space hand,” based on her one just-completed trip out from Earth, she told me a great many things about ships . and space fravel, most of which weren’t so, but I indulged her. She introduced me to a number of people and handed me a large quantity of gossip about passengers, ship’s officers, et cetera. Between times she filled me in on her aches, pains, and symptoms, what an important executive her son was, what a very important person her late husband had been, and how, when I reached Earth, she really must see to it that I met the Right People. “Perhaps such things don’t matter in an outpost like Mars, my dear child, but it is Terribly Important to get Started Right in New York.”

 

 

I tabbed her as garrulous, stupid, and well intentioned.

 

 

But I soon found that I couldn’t get rid of her. If I passed through the lounge-which I had to do in order to reach the control room-she would snag me and I couldn’t get away short of abrupt rudeness or flat lies.

 

 

She quickly started using me for chores. “Podkayne darling, would you mind just slipping around to my stateroom and fetching my mauve wrap? I feel a tiny chill. It’s on the bed, I think-or perhaps in the wardrobe-that’s a dear.” Or, “Poddy child, I’ve rung and I’ve rung and the stewardess simply won’t answer. Would you get my book and my knitting? Oh, and while you’re at it, you might bring me a nice cup of tea from the pantry.”

 

 

Those things aren’t too bad; she is probably creaky in the knees and I’m not. But it went on endlessly… and shortly, in addition to being her personal stewardess, I was her private ‘nurse. First she asked me to read her to sleep. “Such a blinding headache and your voice is so soothing, my sweet.”

 

 

I read to her for an hour and then found myself rubbing her head and temples for almost as long. Oh

 

 

well, a person ought to manage a little kindness now and then, just for practice-and Mother sometimes has dreadful headaches when she has been working too hard; I know that a rub does help.

 

 

That time she tried to tip me. I refused it. She insisted. “Now, now, child, don’t argue with your Aunt Flossie.”

 

 

I said, “No, really, Mrs. Royer. If you want to give it to the fund for disabled spacemen as a thank-you, that’s all right. But I can’t take it.”

 

 

She said pish and tosh and tried to shove it into my pocket. So I slid out and went to bed.

 

 

I didn’t see her at breakfast; she always has a tray in her room. But about midmorning a stewardess told me that Mrs. Royer wanted to see me in her room. I was hardly gruntled at the summons, as Mr. Savvonavong had told me that if I showed up just before ten during his watch, I could watch the whole process of a ballistic correction and he would explain the steps to me. If she wasted more than five minutes of my time, I would be late.

 

 

But I called on her. She was as cheery as ever. “Oh, there you are, darling! I’ve been waiting ever so long! That stupid stewardess-Poddy dear, you did such wonders for my head last night … and this morning I find that I’m positively crippled with my back. You can’t imagine, dear; it’s ghastly! Now if you’ll just be an angel and give me a few minutes massage-oh, say a half hour-I’m sure it’ll do wonders for me. You’ll find the cream for it over there on the dressing table, I think … And now, if you’ll just help me slide out of this robe …

 

 

“Mrs. Royer-“

 

 

“Yes, dear? The cream is in that big pink tube. Use just-“

 

 

“Mrs. Royer, I can’t do it. I have an appointment.”

 

 

“What, dear? Oh, tosh, let them wait. No one is ever on time aboard ship. Perhaps you had better warm your hands before-‘

 

 

“Mrs. Royer, I am not going to do it. If something is wrong with your back, I shouldn’t touch it; I might injure you. But I’ll take a message to the Surgeon if you like and ask him to come see you.”

 

 

Suddenly she wasn’t at all cheery. “You mean you won’t do it!”

 

 

“Have it your way. Shall I tell the Surgeon?”

 

 

“Why, you impertinent-Get out of here!”

 

 

I got.

 

 

I met her in a passageway on my way to lunch. She stared straight through me, so I dldn t speak either. She was walking as nimbly as I was; I guess her back had taken a turn for the better. I saw her twice more that day and twice more she simply couldn’t see me.

 

 

The following morning I was using the viewer in the lounge to scan one of Mr. Clancy’s study tapes, one on radar approach and contact. The viewer is off in a corner, behind a screen of fake potted palms, and perhaps they didn’t notice me. Or perhaps they didn’t care.

 

 

I stopped the scan to give my eyes and ears a rest, and heard Mrs. Garcia talking to Mrs. Royer.

 

 

“… that I simply can’t stand about Mars is that it is so commercialized. Why couldn’t they have left it primitive and beautiful?”

 

 

MRS. ROYER: “What can you expect? Those dreadful people!”

 

 

The ship’s official language is Ortho but many passengers talk English among themselves-and often act as if no one else could possibly understand it. These two weren’t keeping their voices down. I went on listening.

 

 

MRS. GARCIA: “Just what I was saying to Mrs. Rimski. After all, they’re all criminals.”

 

 

MRS. ROYER: “Or worse. Have you noticed that little Martian girl? The niece-or so they claim-of that big black savage?”

 

 

I counted ten backwards in Old Martian and reminded myself of the penalty for murder. I didn’t mind being called a “Martian.” They didn’t know any better, and anyhow, it’s no insult; the Martians were civilized before humans learned to walk. But “big black savage”!- Uncle Tom is as dark as I am blond; his Maori blood and desert tan make him the color of beautiful old leather … and I love the way he looks. As for the rest-he is learned and civilized and gentle … and highly honored wherever he goes.

 

 

MRS. GARCIA: “I’ve seen her. Common, I would say. Flashy but cheap. A type that attracts a certain sort of man.”

 

 

MRS. ROYER: “My dear, you don’t know the half of it. I’ve tried to help her-I really felt sorry for her, and I always believe in being gracious, especially to one’s social inferiors.”

 

 

MRS. GARCIA: “Of course, dear.”

 

 

MRS. ROYER: “I tried to give her a few hints as to proper conduct among gentle people. Why, I was even paying her for little trifles, so that she wouldn’t be uneasy among her betters. But she’s an utterly ungrateful little snip-she thought she could squeeze more money out of me. She was rude about it, so rude that I feared for my safety. I had to order her out of my room, actually.”

 

 

MRS. GARCIA: “You were wise to drop her. Blood will tell-bad blood or good blood-blood will always tell. And mixed blood is the Very Worst Sort. Criminals to start with … and then that Shameless Mixing of Races. You can see it right in that family. The boy doesn’t look a bit like his sister, and as for the unclehmmm-My dear, you halfway hinted at something.

 

 

Do you suppose that she is not his niece but something, shall we say, a bit closer?”

 

 

MRS. ROYER: “I wouldn’t put it past one of them!” MRS. GARCIA: “Oh, come, ‘fess up, Flossie. Tell me what you found out.”

 

 

MRS. ROYER: “I didn’t say a word. But I have eyes-and so have you.”

 

 

MRS. GARCIA: “Right in front of everyone!”

 

 

MRS. ROYER: “What I can’t understand is why the Line permits them to mix with us. Perhaps they have to sell them passage-treaties or some such nonsense-but we shouldn’t be forced to associate with them … and certainly not to eat with them!”

 

 

MRS. GARCIA: “I know. I’m going to write a very strong letter about it as soon as I get home. There are limits. You know, I had thought that Captain Darling was a gentleman … but when I saw those creatures actually seated at the Captain’s table … well, I didn’t believe my eyes. I thought I would faint.”

 

 

MRS. ROYER: “I know. But after all, the Captain does come from Venus.”

 

 

MRS. GARCIA: “Yes, but Venus was never a prison colony. That boy … he sits in the very chair I used to sit in, right across from the Captain.”

 

 

(I made a mental note to ask the Chief Steward for a different chair for Clark; I didn’t want him contaminated.)

 

 

After that they dropped us “Martians” and started dissecting Girdie and complaining about the food and the service, and even stuck pins in some of their shipboard coven who weren’t present. But I didn’t listen:

 

 

I simply kept quiet and prayed for strength to go on doing so, because if I had made my presence known I feel sure that I would have stabbed them both with their own knitting needles.

 

 

Eventually they left-to rest a while to fortiI~’ themselves for lunch-and I rushed out and changed into

 

 

my gym suit and hurried to the gymnasium to work up a good sweat instead of engaging in violent crime.

 

 

It was there that I found Clark and told him just enough-or maybe too much.

 

 

VII

 

 

Mr. Savvonavong tells me that we are likely to have a radiation storm almost any time now and that we’ll have an, emergency drill today to practice for it. The solar weather station on Mercury reports that “flare” weather is shaping up and has warned all ships in space and all manned satellites to be ready for it. The flares are expected to continue for about-Wups! The emergency alarm caught me in the middle of a sentence. We’ve had our drill and I think the Captain has all the passengers properly scared now. Some ignored the alarm, or tried to, whereupon crewmen in heavy armor fetched them. Clark got fetched. He was the very last they tracked down, and Captain Darling gave him a public scolding that was a work of art and finished by warning Clark that if he failed to be the first passenger to reach shelter the next time the alarm sounded, Clark could expect to spend the rest of the trip in the shelter, twenty-four hours of the day, instead of having free run of passenger country.

 

 

Clark took it with his usual wooden face, but I think it hit home, especially the threat to confine him. I’m sure the speech impressed the other passengers; it was the sort that raises blisters at twenty paces. Perhaps the Captain intended it mostly for their benefit.

 

 

Then the Captain changed his tone to that of a patient teacher and explained in simple words what we could expect, why it was necessary to reach shelter at once even if one were taking a bath, why we would be perfectly safe if we did.

 

 

The solar flares trigger radiation, he told us, quite ordinary radiation, much like X-rays (“and other sorts,” I mentally added), the sort of radiation which is found in space at all times. But the intensity reaches levels from a thousand to ten thousand times as high as “normal” space radiation-and, since we are already inside the orbit of Earth, this is bad medicine indeed; it would kill an unprotected man about as quickly as shooting him through the head.

 

 

Then he explained why we would not require a thousand to ten thousand times as much shielding in order to be safe. It’s the cascade principle. The outer hull stops over 90 percent of any radiation; then comes the “cofferdam” (cargo holds and water tanks) which absorbs some more; then comes the inner hull which is actually the floor of the cylinder which is first-class passenger country.

 

 

This much shielding is plenty for all normal conditions; the radiation level in our staterooms is lower than it is at home, quite a lot lower than it is most places on Earth, especially in the mountains. (I’m looking forward to seeing real mountains. Scary!)

 

 

Then one day comes a really bad storm on the Sun and the radiation level jumps suddenly to 10,000 times

 

 

normal-and you could get a killing dose right in your own bed and wake up dying.

 

 

No trouble. The emergehcy shelter is at the center of the ship, four shells farther in, each of which stops more than 90 percent of what hits it. Like this:

 

 

10,000

 

 

1,000 (after the first inner shell, the ceiling of passenger country.)

 

 

100 (after the second inner shell)

 

 

10 (third)

 

 

1 (fourth-and you’re inside the shelter)

 

 

But actually the shielding is better than that and it is safer to be in the ship’s shelter during a bad solar storm than it is to be in Marsopolis.

 

 

The only trouble is-and no small matter-the shelter space is the geometrical core of the ship, just abaft the control room and not a whole lot bigger; passengers and crew are stacked into it about as intimately as puppies in a basket. My billet is a shelf space half a meter wide, half a meter deep, and just a trifle longer than I am-with other females brushing my elbows on each side of me. I am not a claustrophobe, but a coffin would be roomier.

 

 

Rations are canned ones, kept there against emergencies; sanitary facilities can only be described as “dreadful.” I hope this storm is only a solar squall and is followed by good weather on the Sun. To finish the trip to Venus in the shelter would turn a wonderful experience into a nightmare.

 

 

The Captain finished by saying, “We will probably have five to ten minutes’ warning from Hermes Station. But don’t take five minutes getting here. The instant the alarm sounds head for the shelter at once as fast as possible. If you are not dressed, be sure you have clothes ready to grab-and dress when you get

 

 

here. If you stop to worry about anything, it may kill you.

 

 

“Crewmen will search all passenger spaces the moment the alarm sounds-and each one is ordered to use force to send to shelter any passenger who fails to move fast. He won’t argue with you-he’ll hit you, kick you, drag you-and I’ll back him up.

 

 

“One last word. Some of you have not been wearing your personal radiation meters. The law permits me to levy a stiff fine for such failure. Ordinarily I overlook such technical offenses-it’s your health, not mine. But during this emergency, this regulation will be enforced. Fresh personal meters are now being passed out to each of you; old ones will be turned over to the Surgeon, examined, and exposures entered in your records for future guidance.”

 

 

He gave the “all clear” order then and we all went back down to passenger country, sweaty and mussed-at least I was. I was just washing my face when the alarm sounded again, and I swarmed up those four decks like a frightened cat.

 

 

But I was only a close second. Clark passed me on the way.

 

 

It was just another drill. This time all passengers were in the shelter within four minutes. The Captain seemed pleased.

 

 

I’ve been sleeping raw but I’m going to wear pajamas tonight and all nights until this is over, and leave a robe where I can grab it. Captain Darling is a darling but I think he means exactly what he says-and I won’t play Lady Godiva; there isn’t a horse in the whole ship.

 

 

Neither Mrs. Royer nor Mrs. Garcia were at dinner this evening, although they were both amazingly agile both times the alarm sounded. They weren’t in the lounge after dinner; their doors are closed,

 

 

and I saw the Surgeon coming out of Mrs. Garcia’s room.

 

 

I wonder. Surely Clark’ wouldn’t poison them? Or would he? I don’t dare ask him because of the remote possibility that he might tell me.

 

 

I don’t want to ask the Surgeon, either, because it might attract attention to the Fries family. But I surely would like to have ESP sight (if there truly is such a thing) long enough to find out what is behind those two closed doors.

 

 

I hope Clark hasn’t let his talents run away with him. Oh, I’m as angry at those two as ever… because there is just enough truth in the nasty things they said to make it hurt. I am of mixed races and I know that some people think that is bad, even though there is no bias against it on Mars. I do have “convicts” among my ancestors-but I’ve never been ashamed of it. Or not much, although I suppose I’m inclined to dwell more on the highly selected ones. But. a “convict” is not always a criminal. Admittedly there was that period in the early history of Mars when the commissars were running things on Earth, and Mars was used as a penal colony; everybody knows that and we don’t try to hide

 

 

it.

 

 

But the vast majority of the transportees were political prisoners-“counterrevolutionists,” “enemies of the people.” Is this bad?

 

 

In any case there was the much longer period, involving fifty times as many colonists, when every new Marsman was selected as carefully as a bride selects her wedding gown and much more scientifically. And finally, there is the current period, since our Revolution and Independence, when we dropped all bars to immigration and welcome anyone who is healthy and has normal intelligence.

 

 

No, I’m not ashamed of my ancestors or my people, whatever their skin shades or backgrounds; I’m proud

 

 

of them. It makes me boiling mad to hear anyone sneer at them. Why, I’ll bet those two couldn’t qualify for permanent visa even under our present “open door” policy! Feeble-minded- But I do hope Clark hasn’t done anything too drastic. I wouldn’t want Clark to have to spend the rest of his life on Titan; I love the little wretch.

 

 

Sort of.

 

 

VIII

 

 

We’ve had that radiation storm. I prefer hives. I don’t mean the storm itself, it wasn’t too bad. Radiation jumped to about 1500 times normal for where we are now-about eight-tenths of an astronomical unit from the Sun, say 120,000,000 kilometers in units you can get your teeth in. Mr. Savvonavong says that we would have been all right if the first-class passengers had simply gone up one deck to second-class passenger country-which certainly would have been more comfortable than stuffing all the passengers and crew into that maximum-safety mausoleum at the center of the ship. Second-class accommodations are cramped and cheerless, and as for third class, I would rather be shipped as freight. But either one would be a picnic compared with spending eighteen hours in the radiation shelter.

 

 

For the first time I envied the half-dozen aliens aboard. They don’t take shelter; they simply remain locked in their specially conditioned staterooms as usual. No, they aren’t allowed to fry; those X-numbered rooms are almost at the center of the ship anyhow, in officers’ and crew’s country, and they have their own extra layer of shielding, because you can’t expect a Martian, for example, to leave the pressure and humidity he requires and join us humans in the shelter; it would be equivalent to dunking him in a bathtub and holding his head under. If he had a head, I mean.

 

 

Still, I suppose eighteen hours of discomfort is better than being sealed into one small room for the whole trip. A Martian can simply contemplate the subtle difference between zero and nothing for that long or longer and a Venerian just estivates. But not me. I need unrest oftener than I need rest-or my circuits get tangled and smoke pours out of my ears.

 

 

But Captain Darling couldn’t know ahead of time that the storm would be short and relatively mild; he had to assume the worst and protect his passengers and crew. Eleven minutes would have been long enough for us to be in the shelter, as shown later by instrument records. But that is hindsight … and a captain doesn’t save his ship and the lives depending on him by hindsight.

 

 

I am beginning to realize that being a captain isn’t all glorious adventure and being saluted and wearing four gold stripes on your shoulders. Captain Darling is younger than Daddy and yet he has worry lines that make him look years older.

 

 

QUERY: Poddy, are you sure you have what it takes to captain an explorer ship?

 

 

ANSWERS: What did Columbus have that you don’t? Aside from Isabella, I mean. Semper toujours, girl!

 

 

I spent a lot of time before the storm in the control room. Hermes Solar Weather Station doesn’t actually

 

 

warn us when the storm is coming; what they do is fail to warn us that the storm is not coming. That sounds silly but here is how it works:

 

 

The weathermen at Hermes are perfectly safe, as they are underground on the dark side of Mercury. Their instruments peek cautiously over the horizon in the twilight zone, gather data about Solar weather including running telephotos at several wave lengths.

 

 

But the Sun takes about twentyfive days to turn around, so Hermes Station can’t watch all of it all the time. Worse yet. Mercury is going around the Sun in the same direction that the Sun rotates, taking eightyeight days for one lap, so when the Sun again faces where Mercury was, Mercury has moved on. What this adds up to is that Hermes Station faces exactly the same face of the Sun about every seven weeks.

 

 

Which is obviously not good enough for weatherpredicting storms that can gather in a day or two, peak in a few minutes, and kill you dead in seconds or less.

 

 

So the Solar weather is watched from Earth’s Luna and from Venus’ satellite station as well, plus some help from Deimos. But there is speed-of-light lag in getting information from these more distant stations back to the main station on Mercury. Maybe fifteen minutes for Luna and as high as a thousand seconds for Deimos … not good when seconds count.

 

 

But the season of bad storms is only a small part of the Sun’s cycle as a variable star-say about a year out of each six. (Real years, I mean-Martian years. The Sun’s cycle is about eleven of those Earth years that astronomers still insist on using.)

 

 

That makes things a lot easier; five years out of six a ship stands very little chance of being hit by a radiation storm.

 

 

But during the stormy season a careful skipper (the only sort who lives to draw a pension) will plan his orbit so that he is in the worst danger zone, say inside

 

 

the orbit of Earth, only during such time as Mercury lies between him and the Sun, so that Hermes Station can always warn him of coming trouble. That is exactly what Captain Darling had done; the Tricorn waited at Deimos nearly three weeks longer than the guaranteed sightseeing time on Mars called for by the Triangle Line’s advertising, in order to place his approach to Venus so that Hermes Station could observe and warn-because we are right in the middle of the stormy season.

 

 

I suppose the Line’s business office hates these expensive delays. Maybe they lose money during the stormy season. But three weeks’ delay is better than losing a whole shipload of passengers.

 

 

But when the storm does start, radio communication goes all to pieces at once-Hermes Station can’t warn the ships in the sky.

 

 

Stalemate? Not quite. Hermes Station can see a storm shaping up; they can spot the conditions on the Sun which are almost certainly going to produce a radiation storm very shortly. So they send out a storm warning-and the Tricorn and other ships hold radiation-shelter drills. Then we wait. One day, two days, or a whole week, and the storm either fails to develop, or it builds up and starts shooting nasty stuff in great quantities.

 

 

All during this time the space guard radio station on the dark side of Mercury sends a continuous storm warning, never an instant’s break, giving a running account of how the weather looks on the Sun.

 

 

and suddenly it stops.

 

 

Maybe it’s a power failure and the stand-by transmitter will cut in. Maybe it’s just a “fade” and the storm hasn’t broken yet and transmission will resume with reassuring words.

 

 

But it may be that the first blast of the storm has hit Mercury with the speed of light, no last-minute

 

 

warning at all, and the station’s eyes are knocked out and its voice is swallowed up.in enormously more powerful radiation.

 

 

The officer-of-the-watch in the control room can’t be sure and he dare not take a chance. The instant he loses Hermes Station he slaps a switch that starts a big clock with just a second hand. When that clock has ticked off a certain number of seconds-and Hermes Station is still silent-the general alarm sounds. The exact number of seconds depends on where the ship is, how far from the Sun, how much longer it will take the first blast to reach the ship after it has already hit Hermes Station.

 

 

Now here is where a captain bites his nails and gets gray hair and earns his high pay… because he has to decide how many seconds to set that clock for. Actually, if the first and worst blast is at the speed of light, he hasn’t any warning time at all because the break in the radio signal from Hermes and that first wave front from the Sun will reach him at the same instant. Or, if the angle is unfavorable, perhaps it is his own radio reception that has been clobbered, and Hermes Station is still trying to reach him with a last-moment warning. He doesn’t know.

 

 

But he does know that if he sounds the alarm and chases everybody to shelter every time the radio fades for a few seconds, he will get people so worn out and disgusted from his crying “Wolfi” that when the trouble really comes they may not move fast enough.

 

 

He knows, too, that the outer hull of his ship will stop almost anything in the electromagnetic spectrum. Among photons (and nothing else travels at speed-oflight) only the hardest X-radiation will get through to, passenger country and not much of that. But traveling along behind, falling just a little behind each second, is the really dangerous stuff-big particles, little particles, middle-sized particles, all the debris of nuclear

 

 

explosion. This stuff is moving very fast but not quite at speed-of-light. He has to get his people safe before it hits.

 

 

Captain Darling picked a delay of twentyfive seconds, for where we were and what he expected from the weather reports. I asked him how he picked it and he just grinned without looking happy and said, “I asked my grandfather’s ghost.”

 

 

Five times while I was in the control room the officer of the watch started that clock … and five times contact with Hermes Station was picked up again before time ran out and the switch was opened.

 

 

The sixth time the seconds trickled away while all of us held our breaths … and contact with Hermes wasn’t picked up again and the alarm sounded like the wakeful trump of doom.

 

 

The Captain looked stony-faced and turned to duck down the hatch into the radiation shelter. I didn’t move, because I expected to be allowed to remain in the control room. Strictly speaking, the control room is part of the radiation shelter, since it is just above it and is enclosed by the same layers of cascade shielding.

 

 

(It’s amazing how many people think that a captain controls his ship by peering out a port as if he were driving a sand wagon. But he doesn’t, of course. The control room is inside, where he can watch things much more accurately and conveniently by displays and instruments. The only viewport in the Tricorn is one at the top end of the main axis, to allow passengers to look out at the stars. But we have never been headed so that the mass of the ship would protect that sightseeing room from solar radiation, so it has been locked off this whole trip.)

 

 

I knew I was safe where I was, so I hung back, intending to take advantage of being “teacher’s pet”- for I certainly didn’t want to spend hours or days stretched out on a shelf with gabbling and maybe hysterical women crowding me on both sides~

 

 

I should have known. The Captain hesitated a split second as he started down the hatch and snapped, “Come along, Miss Fries.”

 

 

I came. He always calls me “Poddy”-and his voice had spank in it.

 

 

Third-class passengers were already pouring in, since they have the shortest distance to go, and crew members were mustering them into their billets. The crew has been on emergency routine ever since we first were warned by Hermes Station, with their usual one watch in three replaced by four hours on and four hours off. Part of the crew had been staying dressed in radiation armor (which must be very uncomfortable) and simply hanging around passenger country. They can’t take that heavy armor off for any reason at all until their reliefs show up, dressed also in armor. These crewmen are the “chasers” who bet their lives that they can check every passenger space, root out stragglers, and still reach the shelter fast enough not to accumulate radiation poisoning. They are all volunteers and the chasers on duty when the alarm sounds get a big bonus and the other half of them who were lucky enough not to be on duty get a little bonus.

 

 

The, Chief Officer is in charge of the first section of chasers and the Purser is in charge of the second-but they don’t get any bonus even though the one on duty when the alarm sounds is by tradition and law the last man to enter the safety of the shelter. This hardly seems fair … but it is considered their honor as well as their duty.

 

 

Other crewmen take turns in the radiation shelter and are equipped with mustering lists and billeting diagrams.

 

 

Naturally, service has been pret’ty skimpy of late, with so many of the crew pulled off their regular

 

 

duties in order to do just one thing and do it fast at the first jangle of the alarm. Most of these emergencyduty assignments have to be made from the stewards and clerks; engineers and communicators and such usually can’t be spared. So staterooms may not be made up until late afternoon-unless you make your own bed and tidy your room yourself, as I had been doing-and serving meals takes about twice as long as usual, and lounge service is almost nonexistent.

 

 

But of course the passengers realize the necessity for this temporary mild austerity and are grateful because it is all done for safety.

 

 

You think so? My dear, if you believe that, you will believe anything. You haven’t Seen Life until you’ve seen a rich, elderly Earthman deprived of something he feels is his rightful due, because he figures he paid for it in the price of his ticket. I saw one man, perhaps as old as Uncle Tom and certainly old enough to know better, almost have a stroke. He turned purple, really purple and gibbered-all because the bar steward didn’t show up on the bounce to fetch him a new deck of playing cards.

 

 

The bar steward was in armor at the time and couldn’t leave his assigned area, and the lounge steward was trying to be three places at once and answer stateroom rings as well. This didn’t mean anything to our jolly shipmate; he was threatening to sue the Line and all its directors, when his speech became incoherent.

 

 

Not everybody is that way, of course. Mrs. Grew, fat as she is, has been making her own bed and she is never impatient. Some others who are ordinarily inclined to demand lots of service have lately been making a cheerful best of things.

 

 

But some of them act like children with tantrums-which isn’t pretty in children and is even uglier in grandparents.

 

 

The instant I followed the Captain into the radiation shelter I discovered just hçw efficient Tricorn service can be when it really matters. I was snatched-snatched like a ball, right out of the air-and passed from hand to hand. Of course I don’t weigh much at onetenth gravity, all there is at the main axis; but it is rather breath-taking. Some more hands shoved me into my billet, already stretched out, as casually and impersonally as a housewife stows clean laundry, and a voice called out, “Fries, Podkayne!” and another voice answered, “Check.”

 

 

The spaces around me, and above and below and across from me, filled up awfully fast, with the crewmen working with the unhurried efficiency of automatic machinery sorting mail capsules. Somewhere a baby was crying and through it I heard the Captain saying, “Is that the last?”

 

 

“Last one, Ca~tain,” I heard the Purser answer. “How’s the time?’

 

 

“Two minutes thirty-seven seconds-and your boys can start figuring their payoff, because this one is no drill.”

 

 

“I didn’t think it was, Skipper-and I’ve won a small bet from the Mate myself.” Then the Purser walked past my billet carrying someone, and I tried to sit up and bumped my head and my eyes bugged out.

 

 

The passenger he was carrying had fainted; her head lolled loosely over the crook of his arm. At first I couldn’t tell who it was, as the face was a bright, bright red. And then I recognized her and I almost fainted. Mrs. Royer-Of course the first symptom of any bad radiation exposure is emythema. Even with a sunburn, or just carelessness with an ultraviolet lamp, the first thing you see is the skin turning pink or bright red.

 

 

But was it possible that Mrs. Royer had been hit with such extremely sharp radiation in so very little time that her skin had already turned red in the worst “sunburn” imaginable? Just from being last man in? In that case she hadn’t fainted; she was dead.

 

 

And if that was true, then it was equally true that the passengers who were last to reach the shelter must all have received several times the lethal dosage. They might not feel ill for hours yet; they might not die for days. But they were just as dead as if they were already stretched out still and cold.

 

 

How many? I had no way of guessing. Possibly-probably I corrected myself-all the first-class passengers; they had the farthest to go and were most exposed to start with.

 

 

Uncle Tom and Clark-I felt sudden sick sorrow and wished that I had not been in the control, room. If my brother and Uncle Tom were dying, I didn’t want to be alive myself.

 

 

I don’t think I wasted any sympathy on Mrs. Royer. I did feel a shock of horror when I saw that flaming red face, but truthfully, I didn’t like her, I thought she was a parasite with contemptible opinions, and if she had died of heart failure instead, I can’t honestly say that it would have affected my appetite. None of us goes around sobbing over the millions and billions of people who have died in the past … nor over those still living and yet to be born whose single certain heritage is death (including Podkayne Fries herself). So why should you cry foolish tears simply because you happen to be in the neighborhood when someone you don’t like-despise, in fact-comes to the end of her string?

 

 

In any case, I did not have time to feel sorrow for Mrs. Royer; my heart was filled with grief over my brother and my uncle. I was sony that I hadn’t been sweeter to Uncle Tom, instead of imposing on him and expecting him always to drop whatever he was doing to help me with my silly problems. I regretted all the many times I had fought with my brother. After all, he was a child and I am a woman; “I should have made allowances.

 

 

Tears were welling out of my eyes and I almost missed the Captain’s first words:

 

 

“Shipmates,’ he said, in a voice firm and very soothing, “my crew and our guests aboard … this is not a drill; this is indeed a radiation storm.

 

 

“Do not be alarmed; we are all, each and every one of us, perfectly safe. The Surgeon has examined the personal radiation exposure meter of the very last one to reach the shelter. It is well within safe limits. Even if it were added to the accumulated exposure of the most exposed person aboard-who is not a passenger, by the way, but one of the ship’s company-the total would still be inside the conservative maximum for personal health and genetic hygiene.

 

 

“Let me say it again. No one has been hurt, no one is going to be hurt. We are simply going to suffer a mild inconvenience. I wish I could tell you how long we will have to remain here in the safety of the shelter. But I do not know. It might be a few hours, it might be several days. The longest radiation storm of record lasted less than a week. We hope that Old Sol is not that bad-tempered this time. But until we receive word from Hermes Station that the storm is over, we will all have to stay inside here. Once we know a storm is over it usually does not take too long to check the ship and make sure that your usual comfortable quarters are safe. Until then, be patient and be patient with each other.”

 

 

I started to feel better as soon as the Captain started to talk. His voice was almost hypnotic; it had the soothing all-better-now effect of a mother reassuring a child. I relaxed and was simply weak with the aftereffects of my fears.

 

 

But presently I began to wonder. Would Captain Darling tell us that everything was all right when really everything was All Wrong simply because it was too late and nothing could be done about it?

 

 

I thought over everything I had ever learned about radiation poisoning, from the simple hygiene they teach in kindergarten to a tape belonging to Mr. Clancy that I had scanned only that week.

 

 

And I decided that the Captain had been telling the truth.

 

 

Why? Because, even if my very worst fears had been correct, and we had been hit as hard and unexpectedly as if a nuclear weapon had exploded by us, nevertheless something can always be done about it. There would be three groups of us-those who hadn’t been hurt at all and were not going to die (certainly everybody who was in the control room or in the shelter when it happened, plus all or almost all the third-class passengers if they had moved fast), a second group so terribly exposed that they were certain to die, no matter what (let’s say everybody in first class country), and a third group, no telling how large, which had been dangerously exposed but could be saved by quick and drastic treatment.

 

 

In which case that quick and drastic action would be going on.

 

 

They would be checking our exposure meters and reshuffling us-sorting out the ones in danger who required rapid treatment, giving morphine shots to the ones who were going to die anyhow and moving them off by themselves, stacking those of us who were safe by ourselves to keep us from getting in the way, or drafting us to help nurse the ones who could be helped.

 

 

That was certain. But there was nothing going on, nothing at all-just some babies crying and a murmur of voices. Why, they hadn’t even looked at the exposure meters of most of us; it seemed likely that the Surgeon had checked only the last few stragglers to reach the shelter.

 

 

Therefore the Captain had told us the simple, heartwarming truth.

 

 

I felt so good that I forgot to wonder why Mrs. Royer had looked like a ripe tomato. I relaxed and soaked in the warm and happy fact that darling Uncle Tom wasn’t going to die and that my kid brother would live to cause me lots more homey grief. I almost went to sleep and was yanked out of it by the woman on my right starting to scream: “Let me out of here! Let me out of here!”

 

 

Then I did see some fast and drastic emergency action.

 

 

Two crewmen swarmed up to our shelf and grabbed her; a stewardess was right behind them. She slapped a gag over the woman’s mouth and gave her a shot in the arm, all in one motion. Then they held her until she stopped struggling. When she was quiet, one of the crewmen picked her up and took her somewhere.

 

 

Shortly thereafter a stewardess showed up who was collecting exposure meters and passing out sleeping pills. Most people took them but I resisted-I don’t like pills at best and I certainly won’t take one to knock me out so that I won’t know what is going on. The stewardess was insistent but I can be awfully stubborn, so she shrugged and went away. After that there were three or four more cases of galloping claustrophobia or maybe just’plain screaming funk; I wouldn’t know. Each was taken care of promptly with no fuss and shortly the shelter was quiet except for snores, a few voices, and’ fairly continuous sounds of babies crying.

 

 

There aren’t any babies in first class and not many children of any age. Second class has quite a few kids, but third class is swarming with them and every family seems to have at least one young baby. It’s why they are there, of course; almost all of third class are Earth people emigrating to Venus. With Earth so crowded, a man with a big family can easily reach the point where emigration to Venus looks like the best way out of an impossible situation, so he signs a labor contract and Venus Corporation pays for their tickets as an advance against his wages.

 

 

I suppose it’s all right. They need to get away and Venus needs all the people they can get. But I’m glad Mars Republic doesn’t subsidize immigration, or we would be swamped. We take immigrants but they have to pay their own way and have to deposit return tickets with the PEG board, tickets they can’t cash in for two of our years.

 

 

A good thing, too. At least a third of the immigrants who come to Mars just can’t adjust. They get homesick and despondent and use those return tickets to go back to Earth. I can’t understand anyone’s not liking Mars, but if they don’t then it’s better if they don’t stay.

 

 

I lay there, thinking about such things, a little bit excited and a little bit bored, and mostly wondering why somebody didn’t do something about those poor babies.

 

 

The lights had been dimmed and when somebody came up to my shelf I didn’t see who it was at first. “Poddy?” came Girdie’s voice, softly but clearly. “Are you in there?”

 

 

“I think so. What’s up, Girdie?” I tried to keep my voice down too.

 

 

“Do you know how to change a baby?”

 

 

“I certainly do!” Suddenly I wondered how Duncan was doing … and realized that I hadn’t really thought about him in days. Had he forgotten me? Would he know Grandmaw Poddy the next time he saw her?

 

 

“Then come along, chum. There’s work to be done.” There certainly was! The lowest part of the shelter, four catwalks below my billet and just over the engineering spaces, was cut like a pie into four quarters-sanitary units, two sick bays, for men and for women and both crowded wall-to-wall and jammed into a little corner between the infirmaries was a sorry pretense for a nursery, not more than two meters in any dimension. On three walls of it babies were stacked high in canvas crib baskets snap-hooked to the walls, and more overflowed into the women’s sick bay. A sweeping majority of those babies were crying.

 

 

In the crowded middle of this pandemonium two harassed stewardesses were changing babies, working on a barely big enough shelf let down out of one wall. Girdie tapped one of them on the shoulder. “All right, girls, reinforcements have landed. So get some rest and a bite to eat.”

 

 

The older one protested feebly, but they were awfully glad to take a break; they backed out and Girdie and I moved in and took over. I ‘don’t know how long we worked, as we never had time to think abut it-there was always more than we could do and we never quite got caught up. But it was better than lying on a shelf and staring at another shelf just centimeters above your nose. The worst of it was that there simply wasn’t enough room. I worked with both elbows held in close, to keep from bumping Girdie on one side and a basket crib that was nudging me on the other side.

 

 

But I’m not complaining about that. The engineer who designed that shelter into the Tricorn had been forced to plan as many people as possible into the smallest possible space; there wasn’t any other way to do it and still give us all enough levels of shielding during a storm. I doubt if he worried much about getting babies changed and dry; he had enough to do just worrying about how to keep them alive.

 

 

But you can’t tell that to a baby.

 

 

Girdie worked with an easy, no-lost-motions efficiency that surprised me; I would never have guessed that she had ever had her hands on a ‘baby. But she knew what she was doing and was faster than I was. “Where are their mothers?” I asked, meaning: “Why aren’t those lazy slobs down here helping instead of leaving it to the stewardesses and some volunteers?”

 

 

Girdie understood me. “Most of them-all of them, maybe-have other small children to keep quiet; they have their hands full. A couple of them went to pieces themselves; they’re in there sleeping it off.” She jerked her head toward the sick bay.

 

 

I shut up, as it made sense. You couldn’t possibly take care of an infant properly in one of those shallow niches the passengers were stacked in, and if each mother tried to bring her own baby down here each time, the traffic jam would be indescribable. No, this assembly-line system was necessary. I said, “We’re running out of Disposies.”

 

 

“Stacked in a cupboard behind you. Did you see what happened to Mrs. Garcia’s face?”

 

 

“Huh?’ I squatted and got out more supplies. “You mean Mrs. Royer, don’t you?”

 

 

“I mean both of them. But I saw milady Garcia first and got a better look at her, while they were quieting her down. You didn’t see her?”

 

 

“Sneak a look into the women’s ward first chance you get. Her face is the brightest, most amazing chrome yellow I’ve ever seen in a paint pot, much less on a human face.”

 

 

I gasped. “Gracious! I did see Mrs. Royer-bright red instead of yellow. Girdie-what in the world happened to them?”

 

 

“I’m fairly sure I know what happened,” Girdie answered slowly, “but no one can figure out how it happened.”

 

 

“I don’t follow you.”

 

 

“The colors tell the story. Those are the exact shades of two of the water-activated dyes used in photography. Know anything about photography, hon?”

 

 

“Not much,” I answered. I wasn’t going to admit what little I did know, because Clark is a very accomplished amateur photographer. And I wasn’t going to mention that, either!

 

 

“Well, surely you’ve seen someone taking snapshots. You pull out the tab and there is your picture-only there’s no picture as yet. Clear as glass. So you dip it in water and slosh it around for about thirty seconds. Still no picture. Then you lay it anywhere in the light and the picture starts to show… and when the colors are bright enough to suit you, you cover it up and let it finish drying in darkness, so that the colors won’t get too garish.” Girdie suppressed a chuckle. “From the results, I would say that they didn’t cover their faces in time to stop the process. They probably tried to scrub it off and made it worse.”

 

 

I said, in a puzzled tone-and I was puzzled, about part of it-“I still don’t see how it could happen.”

 

 

“Neither does anybody else. But the Surgeon has a theory. Somebody booby-trapped their washcloths.”

 

 

“Huh?”

 

 

“Somebody in the ship must have a supply of the pure dyes. That somebody soaked two washcloths in the inactive dyes-colorless, I mean-and dried them carefully, all in total darkness. Then that same somebody sneaked those two prepared washcloths into those two staterooms and substituted them for washcloths they found there on the stateroom wash trays. That last part wouldn’t be hard for anyone with cool nerves-service in the staterooms has been pretty haphazard the last day or two, what with this flap over the radiation storm. Maybe a fresh washcloth appears in your room, maybe it doesn’t-and all the ship’s washcloths and towels are the same pattern. You just wouldn’t know.”

 

 

I certainly hope not! I said to myself-and added aloud, “I suppose not.”

 

 

“Certainly not. It could be one of the stewardesses-or any of the passengers. But the real mystery is: where did the dyes come from? The ship’s shop doesn’t carry them… just the rolls of prepared film and the Surgeon says that he knows enough about chemistry to be willing to stake his life that no one but a master chemist, using a special laboratory, could possibly separate out pure dyes from a roll of film. He thinks, too, that since the dyes aren’t even manufactured on Mars, this somebody must be somebody who came aboard at Earth.” Girdie glanced at me and smiled. “So you’re not a suspect, Poddy. But I am.”

 

 

“Why are you a suspect?” (And if I’m not a suspect then my brother isn’t a suspect!) “Why, that’s silly!”

 

 

“Yes, it is … because I wouldn’t have known how even if I’d had the dyes. But it isn’t, inasmuch as I

 

 

could have bought them before I left Earth, and I don’t have reason to like either of those women.”

 

 

“I’ve never heard you say a word against them.”

 

 

“No, but they’ve said a few thousand words about me-and other people have ears. So I’m a hot suspect, Poddy. But don t fret about it. I didn t do it, so there is no possible way to show that I did.” She chuckled. “And I hope they never catch the somebody who did!”

 

 

I didn’t even answer, “Me, too!” I could think of one person who might figure out a way to get pure dyes out of a roll of film without a complete chemistry laboratory, and I was checking quickly through my mind every item I had seen when I searched Clark’s room.

 

 

There hadn’t been anything in Clark’s room which could have been photographic dyes. No, not even film.

 

 

Which proves precisely nothing where Clark is concerned. I just hope that he was careful about fingerprints.

 

 

Two other stewardesses came in presently and we fed all the babies, and then Girdie and I managed a sort of a washup and had a snack standing up, and then I went back up to my assigned shelf and surprised myself by falling asleep.

 

 

I must have slept three or four hours, because I missed the happenings when Mrs. Dirkson had her baby. She is one of the Terran emigrants to Venus and she shouldn’t have had her baby until long after we reach Venus-I suppose the excitement stirred things up. Anyhow, when she started to groan they carried her down to that dinky infirmary, and Dr. Torland took one look at her and ordered her carried up into the control room because the control room was the only place inside the radiation-safe space roomy enough to let him do what needed to be done.

 

 

So that’s where the baby was born, on the deck of the control room, right between the chart tank and the computer. Dr. Torland and Captain Darling are godfathers and the senior stewardess is godmother and the baby’s name is “Radiant,” which is a poor pun but rather pretty.

 

 

They jury-rigged an incubator for Radiant right there in the control room before they moved Mrs. Dirkson back to the infirmary and gave her something to make her sleep. The baby was still there when I woke up and heard about it.

 

 

I decided to take a chance that the Captain was feeling more mellow now, and sneaked up to the control room and stuck my head in. “Could I please see the baby?”

 

 

The Captain looked annoyed, then he barely smiled and said, “All right, Poddy. Take a quick look and get out.”

 

 

So I did. Radiant masses about a kilo and, frankly, she looks like cat meat, not worth saving. But Dr. Torland says that she is doing well and that she will grow up to be a fine, healthy girl-prettier than I am. I suppose he knows what he is talking about, but if she is ever going to be prettier than I am, she has lots of kilometers to go. She is almost the color of Mrs. Royer and she’s mostly wrinkles.

 

 

But no doubt she’ll outgrow it, because she looks like one of the pictures toward the end of the series in a rather goody-goody schoolbook called The Miracle of Life-and the earlier pictures in that series were even less appetizing. It is probably just as well that we can’t possibly see babies until they are ready to make their debut, or the human race would lose interest and die out.

 

 

It would probably ‘be still better to lay eggs. Human engineering isn’t all that it might be, especially for us female types.

 

 

I went back down where the more mature babies were to see if they needed me. They didn’t, not right then, as the babies had been fed again and a stewardess and a young woman I had never met were on duty and claimed that they had been working only a few minutes. I hung around anyhow, rather than go back up to my shelf. Soon I was pretending to be useful by reaching past the two who really were working and checking the babies, then handing down the ones who needed servicing as quickly as shelf space was cleared.

 

 

It speeded things up a little. Presently I pulled a little wiggler out of his basket and was cuddling him; the stewardess looked up and said, “I’m ready for him.”

 

 

“Oh, he’s not wet,” I answered. “Or ‘she’ as the case may be. Just lonely and needs loving.”

 

 

“We haven’t time for that.”

 

 

“I wonder.” The worst thing about the midget nursery was the high noise leyel. The babies woke each other and egged each other on and the decibels were something fierce. No doubt they were all lonely and probably frightened-I’m sure I would be. “Most of the babies need loving more than they need anything else.”

 

 

“They’ve all had their bottles.”

 

 

“A bottle can’t cuddle.”

 

 

She didn’t answer, just started checking the other infants. But I didn’t think what I had said was silly. A baby can’t understand your words and he doesn’t know where he is if you put him in a strange place, nor what has happened. So he cries. Then he needs to be soothed.

 

 

Girdie showed up just then. “Can I help?”

 

 

“You certainly can. Here … hold this one.”

 

 

In a few minutes I rounded up three girls about my age and I ran across Clark prowling around the catwalks instead of staying quietly in his assigned billet so I drafted him, too. He wasn’t exactly eager to volunteer, but doing anything was slightly better than doing nothing; he came along.

 

 

I couldn’t use any more help as standing room was almost nonexistent. We worked it only by having two baby-cuddllers sort of back into each of the infirmaries with the mistress of ceremonies (me) standing in the little space at the bottom of the ladder, ready to scrunch in any direction to let people get in and out of the washrooms and up and down the ladder-and with Girdie, because she was tallest, standing back of the two at the changing shelf and dealing out babies, the loudest back to me for further assignment and the wet ones down for service-and vice versa: dry ones back to their baskets unless they started to yell; ones that had fallen asleep from being held and cuddled.

 

 

At least seven babies could receive personal attention at once, and sometimes as high as ten or eleven, because at onetenth gee your feet never get tired and a baby doesn’t weigh anything at all worth mentioning; it was possible to hold one in each arm and sometimes we did.

 

 

In ten minutes we had that racket quieted down to an occasional whimper, quickly soothed. I didn’t think Clark would stick it out, but he did-probably because Girdie was part of the team. With a look of grim nobility on his face, the like of which I have never before seen there, he cuddled babies and presently was saying “Kitchy-koo ldtchy-koo!” and “There, there, honey bun,” as if he had been doing it all his life. Furthermore, the babies seemed to like him; he could soothe one down and put it to sleep quickest of any of us. Hypnotism, maybe?

 

 

This went on for several hours, with volunteers moving in and tired ones moving out and positions rotating. I was relieved once and had another snatched meal and then stretched out on my shelf for about an hour before going back on duty.

 

 

I was back at the changing shelf when the Captain called us all by speaker: “Attention, please. In five minutes power will be cut and the ship will be in free fall while a repair is made outside the ship. All passengers strap down. All crew members observe precautions for free fall.”

 

 

I went right on changing the baby under my hands; you can’t walk off on a baby. In the meantime, babies that had been being cuddled were handed back and stowed, and the cuddling team was chased back to their shelves to strap down-and spin was being taken off the ship. One rotation every twelve seconds you simply don’t notice at the center of the ship, but you do notice when the unspinning starts. The stewardess with me on the changing bench said, “Poddy, go up and strap down. Hurry.”

 

 

I said, “Don’t be silly, Bergitta, there’s work to be done,” and popped the baby I had just’ dried into its basket and fastened the zipper.

 

 

“You’re a passenger. That’s an order-please!”

 

 

“Who’s going to check all these babies? You? And how about those four in on the floor of the women’s sick bay?”

 

 

Bergitta looked startled and hurried to fetch them. All the other stewardesses were busy checking on strap-down; she didn’t bother me any more with That’s-an-order; she’ was too busy hooking up the changing shelf and fastening baby baskets to the space. I was checking all the others and almost all of them had been left unzipped-logical enough while we were working with them, but zipping the cover on a baby basket is the same as strapping down for a grown-up. It holds them firmly but comfortably with just their heads free.

 

 

I still hadn’t finished when the siren ‘sounded and the Captain cut the power.

 

 

Oh, brother! Pandemonium. The siren woke the babies who were asleep and scared any who were awake, and every single one of those squirmy little worms started to cry at the top of its lungs-and one I hadn’t zipped yet popped right out of its basket and floated out into the middle of the space and I snagged it by one leg and was loose myself, and the baby and I bumped gently against the baskets on one wall-only it wasn’t a wall any longer, it was just an obstacle to further progress. Free fall can be very confusing when you are not used to it, which I admit I am not. Or wasn’t.

 

 

The stewardess grabbed us both and shoved the elusive little darling back into her straitjacket and zipped it while I hung onto a handhold. And by then two more were loose.

 

 

I did better this time-snagged one without letting go and just kept it captive while Bergitta took care of the other one. Bergitta really knew how to handle herself in zero gravity, with unabrupt graceful movements like a dancer in a slow-motion solly. I made a mental note that this was a skill I must acquire.

 

 

I thought the emergency was over; I was wrong. Babies don’t like free fall; it frightens them. It also makes their sphincters most erratic. Most of the latter we could ignore-but Disposies don’t catch everything; regrettably some six or seven of them had been fed in the last hour.

 

 

I know now why stewardesses are all graduate nurses; we kept five babies from choking to death in the next few minutes. That is, Bergitta cleared the throat of the first one that upchucked its milk and, seeing what she had done, I worked on the second one in trouble while she grabbed the third. And so on.

 

 

Then we were very busy trying to clear the air with clean Disposies because-Listen, dear, if you think you’ve had it tough because your baby brother threw up all over your new party dress, then you should try somewhat-used baby formula in free fall, where it doesn’t settle anywhere in particular but just floats around like smoke until you either get it or it gets you.

 

 

From six babies. In a small compartment.

 

 

By the time we had that mess cleaned up, or 95 percent or so anyway, we were both mostly sour milk from hair part to ankle and the Captain was warning us to stand by for acceleration, which came almost at once to my great relief. The Chief Stewardess showed up and was horrified that I had not strapped down and I told her in a ladylike way to go to hell, using a more polite idiom suitable to my age and sex-and asked her what Captain Darling would think about a baby passenger choking to death simply because I had strapped down all regulation-like and according to orders? And Bergitta backed me up and told her that I had cleared choke from at least two and maybe more-she had been too busy to count.

 

 

Mrs. Peal, the C.S., changed her tune in a hurry and was sony and thanked me, and sighed and wiped her forehead and trembled and you could see that she was dead on her feet. But nevertheless, she checked all the babies herself and hurried out. Pretty quickly we were relieved and Bergitta and I crowded into the women’s washroom and tried to clean up some. Not much good, as we didn’t have any clean clothes to change into.

 

 

The “All Clear” felt like a reprieve from purgatory, and a hot bath was heaven itself with the Angels singing. “A” deck had already been checked for radiation level and pronounced safe while the repair outside the ship was being made. The repair itself, I learned, was routine. Some of the antennas and receptors and things outside the ship can’t take a flare storm; they burn out-so immediately after a storm, men go outside in armored space suits and replace them. This is normal and unavoidable,’ like replacing lighting tubes at home. But the men who do it get the same radiation bonus that the passenger chasers get, because old Sol could burn them down with one tiny little afterthought.

 

 

I soaked in warm, clean water and thought how miserable an eighteen hours it had been. Then I decided that it hadn’t been so bad after all.

 

 

It’s lots better to be miserable than to be bored.

 

 

IX

 

 

I am now twenty-seven years old.

 

 

Venus years, of course, but it sounds so much better. All is relative.

 

 

Not that I would stay here on Venus even if guaranteed the Perfect Age for a thousand years. Venusberg is sort of an organized nervous breakdown and the country outside the city is even worse. What little I’ve seen of it. And I don’t want to see much of it. Why they ever named this dreary, smog-ridden place for the Goddess of Love and Beauty I’ll never know. This planet appears to have been put together from the scrap left over after the rest of the Solar System was finished.

 

 

I don’t think I would go outside Venusberg at all except that I’ve just got to see fairies in Right. The only one I’ve seen so far is in the lobby of the hilton we are staying in and is stuffed.

 

 

Actually I’m just marking time until we shape for Earth, because Venus is a Grave Disappointment-