Have Space Suit - Will Travel - Robert A. Heinlein, ebook, Temp
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Have Space Suit Will Travel -- Robert A. Heinlein
(Version 2002.03.20 -- Done)
Chapter 1
You see, I had this space suit.
How it happened was this way:
"Dad," I said, "I want to go to the Moon."
"Certainly," he answered and looked back at his book. It was Jerome K.
Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, which he must know by heart.
I said, "Dad, please! I'm serious."
This time he closed the book on a finger and said gently, "I said it was
all right. Go ahead."
"Yes...but how?"
"Eh?" He looked mildly surprised. "Why, that's your problem, Clifford."
Dad was like that. The time I told him I wanted to buy a bicycle he
said, "Go right ahead," without even glancing up -- so I had gone to the money
basket in the dining room, intending to take enough for a bicycle. But there
had been only eleven dollars and forty-three cents in it, so about a thousand
miles of mowed lawns later I bought a bicycle. I hadn't said anymore to Dad
because if money wasn't in the basket, it wasn't anywhere; Dad didn't bother
with banks -- just the money basket and one next to it marked "UNCLE SAM," the
contents of which he bundled up and mailed to the government once a year. This
caused the Internal Revenue Service considerable headache and once they sent a
man to remonstrate with him.
First the man demanded, then he pleaded. "But, Dr. Russell, we know your
background. You've no excuse for not keeping proper records."
"But I do," Dad told him. "Up here." He tapped his forehead.
"The law requires written records."
"Look again," Dad advised him. "The law can't even require a man to read
and write. More coffee?"
The man tried to get Dad to pay by check or money order. Dad read him
the fine print on a dollar bill, the part about "legal tender for all debts,
public and private."
In a despairing effort to get something out of the trip he asked Dad
please not to fill in the space marked "occupation" with "Spy".
"Why not?"
"What? Why, because you aren't -- and it upsets people."
"Have you checked with the F.B.I.?"
"Eh? No."
"They probably wouldn't answer. But you've been very polite. I'll mark
it 'Unemployed Spy.' Okay?"
The tax man almost forgot his brief case. Nothing fazed Dad, he meant
what he said, he wouldn't argue and he never gave in. So when he told me I
could go to the Moon but the means were up to me, he meant just that. I could
go tomorrow -- provided I could wangle a billet in a space ship.
But he added meditatively, "There must be a number of ways to get to the
Moon, son. Better check 'em all. Reminds me of this passage I'm reading.
They're trying to open a tin of pineapple and Harris has left the can opener
back in London. They try several ways." He started to read aloud and I sneaked
out -- I had heard that passage five hundred times. Well, three hundred.
I went to my workshop in the barn and thought about ways. One way was to
go to the Air Academy at Colorado Springs -- if I got an appointment, if I
graduated, if I managed to get picked for the Federation Space Corps, there
was a chance that someday I would be ordered to Lunar Base, or at least one of
the satellite stations.
Another way was to study engineering, get a job in jet propulsion, and
buck for a spot that would get me sent to the Moon. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of
engineers had been to the Moon, or were still there -- for all sorts of work:
electronics, cryogenics, metallurgy, ceramics, air conditioning, as well as
rocket engineering.
Oh, yes! Out of a million engineers a handful got picked for the Moon.
Shucks, I rarely got picked even playing post office.
Or a man could be an M.D., or a lawyer, or geologist, or toolmaker, and
wind up on the Moon at a fat salary -- provided they wanted him and nobody
else. I didn't care about salary -- but how do you arrange to be number one in
your specialty?
And there was the straightforward way: trundle in a wheelbarrow of money
and buy a ticket.
This I would never manage -- I had eighty-seven cents at that moment --
but it had caused me to think about it steadily. Of the boys in our school
half admitted that they wanted to space, half pretended not to care, knowing
how feeble the chances were -- plus a handful of creeps who wouldn't leave
Earth for any reason. But we talked about it and some of us were determined to
go. I didn't break into a rash until American Express and Thos. Cook & Son
announced tourist excursions.
I saw their ads in National Geographic while waiting to have my teeth
cleaned. After that I never was the same.
The idea that any rich man could simply lay cash on the line and go was
more than I could stand. I just had to go. I would never be able to pay for it
-- or, at least, that was so far in the future there was no use thinking about
it. So what could I do to be sent?
You see stories about boys, poor-but-honest, who go to the top because
they're smarter than anyone in the county, maybe the state. But they're not
talking about me. I was in the top quarter of my graduating class but they do
not give scholarships to M.I.T. for that -- not from Centerville High. I am
stating a fact; our high school isn't very good. It's great to go to -- we're
league champions in basketball and our square-dance team is state runner-up
and we have a swell sock hop every Wednesday. Lots of school spirit.
But not much studying.
The emphasis is on what our principal, Mr. Hanley, calls "preparation
for life" rather than on trigonometry. Maybe it does prepare you for life; it
certainly doesn't prepare you for CalTech.
I didn't find this out myself. Sophomore year I brought home a
questionnaire cooked up by our group project in "Family Living" in social
studies. One question read: "How is your family council organized?"
At dinner I said, "Dad, how is our family council organized?"
Mother said, "Don't disturb your father, dear."
Dad said, "Eh? Let me see that."
He read it, then told me to fetch my textbooks. I had not brought them
home, so he sent me to school to get them. Fortunately the building was open -
- rehearsals for the Fall Blow-Out. Dad rarely gave orders but when he did he
expected results.
I had a swell course that semester -- social study, commercial
arithmetic, applied English (the class had picked "slogan writing" which was
fun), handicrafts (we were building sets for the Blow-Out), and gym -- which
was basketball practice for me; I wasn't tall enough for first team but a
reliable substitute gets his varsity letter his senior year. All in all, I was
doing well in school and knew it.
Dad read all my textbooks that night; he is a fast reader. In social
study I reported that our family was an informal democracy; it got by -- the
class was arguing whether the chairmanship of a council should rotate or be
elective, and whether a grandparent living in the home was eligible. We
decided that a grandparent was a member but should not be chairman, then we
formed committees to draw up a constitution for an ideal family organization,
which we would present to our families as the project's findings.
Dad was around school a good bit the next few days, which worried me --
when parents get overactive they are always up to something.
The following Saturday evening Dad called me into his study. He had a
stack of textbooks on his desk and a chart of Centerville High School's
curriculum, from American Folk Dancing to Life Sciences. Marked on it was my
course, not only for that semester but for junior and senior years the way my
faculty advisor and I had planned it.
Dad stared at me like a gentle grasshopper and said mildly, "Kip, do you
intend to go to college?"
"Huh? Why, certainly, Dad!"
"With what?"
I hesitated. I knew it cost money. While there had been times when
dollar bills spilled out of the basket onto the floor, usually it wouldn't
take long to count what was in it. "Uh, maybe I'll get a scholarship. Or I
could work my way."
He nodded. "No doubt...if you want to. Money problems can always be
solved by a man not frightened by them. But when I said, 'With what?' I was
talking about up here." He tapped his skull.
I simply stared. "Why, I'll graduate from high school, Dad. That'll get
me into college."
"So it will. Into our State University, or the State Aggie, or State
Normal. But, Kip, do you know that they are flunking out 40 per cent of each
freshman class?"
"I wouldn't flunk!"
"Perhaps not. But you will if you tackle any serious subject --
engineering, or science, or pre-med. You would, that is to say, if your
preparation were based on this." He waved a hand at the curriculum.
I felt shocked. "Why, Dad, Center is a swell school." I remembered
things they had told us in P.T.A. Auxiliary. "It's run along the latest, most
scientific lines, approved by psychologists, and -- "
" -- and paying excellent salaries," he interrupted, "for a staff highly
trained in modern pedagogy. Study projects emphasize practical human problems
to orient the child in democratic social living, to fit him for the vital,
meaningful tests of adult life in our complex modern culture. Excuse me, son;
I've talked with Mr. Hanley. Mr. Hanley is sincere -- and to achieve these
noble purposes we are spending more per student than is any other state save
California and New York."
"Well...what's wrong with that?"
"What's a dangling participle?"
I didn't answer. He went on, "Why did Van Buren fail of re-election? How
do you extract the cube root of eighty-seven?"
Van Buren had been a president; that was all I remembered. But I could
answer the other one. "If you want a cube root, you look in a table in the
back of the book."
Dad sighed. "Kip, do you think that table was brought down from on high
by an archangel?" He shook his head sadly. "It's my fault, not yours. I should
have looked into this years ago -- but I had assumed, simply because you liked
to read and were quick at figures and clever with your hands, that you were
getting an education."
"You think I'm not?"
"I know you are not. Son, Centerville High is a delightful place, well
equipped, smoothly administered, beautifully kept. Not a 'blackboard jungle,'
oh, no! -- I think you kids love the place. You should. But this -- " Dad
slapped the curriculum chart angrily. "Twaddle! Beetle tracking! Occupational
therapy for morons!"
I didn't know what to say. Dad sat and brooded. At last he said, "The
law declares that you must attend school until you are eighteen or have
graduated from high school."
"Yes, sir."
"The school you are in is a waste of time. The toughest course we can
pick won't stretch your mind. But it's either this school, or send you away."
I said, "Doesn't that cost a lot of money?"
He ignored my question. "I don't favor boarding schools, a teen-ager
belongs with his family. Oh, a tough prep school back east can drill you so
that you can enter Stanford, or Yale, or any of the best -- but you can pick
up false standards, too -- nutty ideas about money and social position and the
right tailor. It took me years to get rid of ones I acquired that way. Your
mother and I did not pick a small town for your boyhood unpurposefully. So
you'll stay in Centerville High."
I looked relieved.
"Nevertheless you intend to go to college. Do you intend to become a
professional man? Or will you look for snap courses in more elaborate ways to
make bayberry candles? Son, your life is yours, to do with as you wish. But if
you have any thought of going to a good university and studying anything of
importance, then we must consider how to make best use of your next three
years."
"Why, gosh, Dad, of course I want to go to a good -- "
"See me when you've thought it over. Good night."
I did for a week. And, you know, I began to see that Dad was right. Our
project in "Family Living" was twaddle. What did those kids know about running
a family? Or Miss Finchley? -- unmarried and no kids. The class decided
unanimously that every child should have a room of his own, and be given an
allowance "to teach him to handle money." Great stuff...but how about the
Quinlan family, nine kids in a five-room house? Let's not be foolish.
Commercial arithmetic wasn't silly but it was a waste of time. I read
the book through the first week; after that I was bored.
Dad switched me to algebra, Spanish, general science, English grammar
and composition; the only thing unchanged was gym. I didn't have it too tough
catching up; even those courses were watered down. Nevertheless, I started to
learn, for Dad threw a lot of books at me and said, "Clifford, you would be
studying these if you were not in overgrown kindergarten. If you soak up what
is in them, you should be able to pass College Entrance Board Examinations.
Possibly."
After that he left me alone; he meant it when he said that it was my
choice. I almost bogged down -- those books were hard, not the predigested pap
I got in school. Anybody who thinks that studying Latin by himself is a snap
should try it.
I got discouraged and nearly quit -- then I got mad and leaned into it.
After a while I found that Latin was making Spanish easier and vice versa.
When Miss Hernandez, my Spanish teacher, found out I was studying Latin, she
began tutoring me. I not only worked my way through Virgil, I learned to speak
Spanish like a Mexicano.
Algebra and plane geometry were all the math our school offered; I went
ahead on my own with advanced algebra and solid geometry and trigonometry and
might have stopped so far as College Boards were concerned -- but math is
worse than peanuts. Analytical geometry seems pure Greek until you see what
they're driving at -- then, if you know algebra, it bursts on you and you race
through the rest of the book. Glorious!
I had to sample calculus and when I got interested in electronics I
needed vector analysis. General science was the only science course the school
had and pretty general it was, too -- about Sunday supplement level. But when
you read about chemistry and physics you want to do it, too. The barn was mine
and I had a chem lab and a darkroom and an electronics bench and, for a while,
a ham station. Mother was perturbed when I blew out the windows and set fire
to the barn -- just a small fire -- but Dad was not. He simply suggested that
I not manufacture explosives in a frame building.
When I took the College Boards my senior year I passed them.
It was early March my senior year that I told Dad I wanted to go to the
Moon. The idea had been made acute by the announcement of commercial flights
but I had been "space happy" ever since the day they announced that the
Federation Space Corps had established a lunar base. Or earlier. I told Dad
about my decision because I felt that he would know the answer. You see. Dad
always found ways to do anything he decided to do.
When I was little we lived lots of places -- Washington, New York, Los
Angeles, I don't know where -- usually in hotel apartments. Dad was always
flying somewhere and when he was home there were visitors; I never saw him
much. Then we moved to Centerville and he was always home, his nose in a book
or working at his desk. When people wanted to see him they had to come to him.
I remember once, when the money basket was empty, Dad told Mother that "a
royalty was due." I hung around that day because I had never seen a king (I
was eight) and when a visitor showed up I was disappointed because he didn't
wear a crown. There was money in the basket the next day so I decided that he
had been incognito (I was reading The Little Lame Prince) and had tossed Dad a
purse of gold -- it was at least a year before I found out that a "royalty"
could be money from a patent or a book or business stock, and some of the
glamour went out of life. But this visitor, though not king, thought he could
make Dad do what he wanted rather than what Dad wanted:
"Dr. Russell, I concede that Washington has an atrocious climate. But
you will have air-conditioned offices."
"With clocks, no doubt. And secretaries. And soundproofing."
"Anything you want. Doctor."
"The point is, Mr. Secretary, I don't want them. This household has no
clocks. Nor calendars. Once I had a large income and a larger ulcer; I now
have a small income and no ulcer. I stay here."
"But the job needs you."
"The need is not mutual. Do have some more meat loaf."
Since Dad did not want to go to the Moon, the problem was mine. I got
down college catalogs I had collected and started listing engineering schools.
I had no idea how I could pay tuition or even eat -- but the first thing was
to get myself accepted by a tough school with a reputation.
If not, I could enlist in the Air Force and try for an appointment. If I
missed, I could become an enlisted specialist in electronics; Lunar Base used
radar and astrar techs. One way or another, I was going.
Next morning at breakfast Dad was hidden behind the New York Times while
Mother read the Herald-Trib. I had the Centerville Clarion but it's fit only
for wrapping salami. Dad looked over his paper at me. "Clifford, here's
something in your line."
"Huh?"
"Don't grunt; that is an uncouth privilege of seniors. This." He handed
it to me.
It was a soap ad.
It announced that tired old gimmick, a gigantic super-colossal prize
contest. This one promised a thousand prizes down to a last hundred, each of
which was a year's supply of Skyway Soap.
Then I spilled cornflakes in my lap. The first prize was -- " -- AN ALL-
EXPENSE TRIP TO THE MOON!!!"
That's the way it read, with three exclamation points -- only to me
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