Robert A. Heinlein - Podkayne of Mars

Table of Contents

I went back to my room and closed the door and thought about it. The room was still not made up and still cluttered with dirty dishes. The clumsy, two-decker, roll-around table that had fetched my breakfast was still by my bed, looking like a plundered city.

I took everything off the lower shelf, stowed it here and there in my bath, covered the stuff on top of the table with the extra cloth used to shield the tender eyes of cash customers from the sight of dirty dishes.

Then I grabbed the house phone and told them I wanted my breakfast dishes cleared away immediately.

Im not very big. I mean you can fit forty-nine mass kilos only one hundred fifty-seven centimeters long into a fairly small space if you scrunch a little. That lower shelf was hard but not too cramped.

Somebody wheeled me off the lift many levels down and shoved me into a corner. I waited a few moments, then crawled out. Two minutes later I was in a taxi...

ASSIGNMENT IN ETERNITY
THE BEST OF ROBERT HEINLEIN
BETWEEN PLANETS
THE CAT WHO WALKS
THROUGH WALLS
CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW
DESTINATION MOON
THE DOOR INTO SUMMER
DOUBLE STAR
EXPANDED UNIVERSE: MORE
WORLDS OF ROBERT A.
HEINLEIN
FARMER IN THE SKY
FARNHAMS FREEHOLD
FRIDAY
GLORY ROAD
THE GREEN HILLS OF EARTH
HAVE SPACE SUITWILL TRAVEL
I WILL FEAR NO EVIL
JOB: A COMEDY OF JUSTICE
THE MAN WHO SOLD THE MOON
THE MENACE FROM EARTH
METHUSELAHS CHILDREN
THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS
THE NOTEBOOKS OF LAZARUS
LONG
THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST
ORPHANS OF THE SKY
THE PAST THROUGH
TOMORROW: FUTURE
HISTORY STORIES
PODKAYNE OF MARS
THE PUPPET MASTERS
RED PLANET
REVOLT IN 2100
ROCKET SHIP GALILEO
THE ROLLING STONES
SIXTH COLUMN
SPACE CADET
THE STAR BEAST
STARMAN JONES
STARSHIP TROOPERS
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
THREE BY HEINLEIN
TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE
TIME FOR THE STARS
TOMORROW THE STARS (ED.)
TO SAIL BEYOND THE SUNSET
TRAMP ROYALE
TUNNEL IN THE SKY
THE UNPLEASANT PROFESSION
OF JONATHAN HOAG
WALDO & MAGIC, INC.
THE WORLDS OF ROBERT A.
HEINLEIN

For Gale and Astrid

ONE

All my life Ive wanted to go to Earth. Not to live, of coursejust to see it. As everybody knows, Terra is a wonderful place to visit but not to live. Not truly suited to human habitation.

Personally, Im not convinced that the human race originated on Earth. I mean to say, how much reliance should you place on the evidence of a few pounds of old bones plus the opinions of anthropologists who usually contradict each other anyhow when what you are being asked to swallow so obviously flies in the face of all common sense?

Think it throughThe surface acceleration of Terra is clearly too great for the human structure; it is known to result in flat feet and hernias and heart trouble. The incident solar radiation on Terra will knock down dead an unprotected human in an amazingly short timeand do you know of any other organism which has to be artificially protected from what is alleged to be its own natural environment in order to stay alive? As to Terran ecology

Never mind. We humans just couldnt have originated on Earth. Nor (I admit) on Mars, for that matteralthough Mars is certainly as near ideal as you can find in this planetary system today. Possibly the Missing Planet was our first homeeven though I think of Mars as home and will always want to return to it no matter how far I travel in later years... and I intend to travel a long, long way.

But I do want to visit Earth as a starter, not only to see how in the world eight billion people manage to live almost sitting in each others laps (less than half of the land area of Terra is even marginally habitable) but mostly to see oceans... from a safe distance. Oceans are not only fantastically unlikely but to me the very thought of them is terrifying. All that unimaginable amount of water, unconfined. And so deep that if you fell into it, it would be over your head. Incredible!

But now we are going there!

Perhaps I should introduce us. The Fries Family, I mean. Myself: Podkayne FriesPoddy to my friends and we might as well start off being friendly. Adolescent female: Im eight plus a few months, at a point in my development described by my Uncle Tom as frying size and just short of husband higha fair-enough description since a female citizen of Mars may contract plenary marriage without guardians waiver on her ninth birthday, and I stand 157 centimeters tall in my bare feet and mass 49 kilograms. Five feet two and eyes of blue my daddy calls me, but he is a historian and romantic. But I am not romantic and would not consider even a limited marriage on my ninth birthday; I have other plans.

Not that I am opposed to marriage in due time, nor do I expect to have any trouble snagging the male of my choice. In these memoirs I shall be frank rather than modest because they will not be published until I am old and famous, and I will certainly revise them before then. In the meantime I am taking the precaution of writing English in Martian Oldscripta combination which Im sure Daddy could puzzle out, only he wouldnt do such a thing unless I invited him to. Daddy is a dear and does not snoopervise me. My brother Clark would pry, but he regards English as a dead language and would never bother his head with Oldscript anyhow.

Perhaps you have seen a book titled: Eleven Years Old: The Pre-Adolescent Adjustment Crisis in the Male. I read it, hoping that it would help me to cope with my brother. Clark is just six, but the Eleven Years referred to in that title are Terran years because it was written on Earth. If you will apply the conversion factor of 1.8808 to attain real years, you will see that my brother is exactly eleven of those undersized Earth years old.

That book did not help me much. It talks about cushioning the transition into the social groupbut there is no present indication that Clark ever intends to join the human race. He is more likely to devise a way to blow up the universe just to hear the bang. Since I am responsible for him much of the time and since he has an I.Q. of 160 while mine is only 145, you can readily see that I need all the advantage that greater age and maturity can give me. At present my standing rule with him is: Keep your guard up and never offer hostages.

Back to meIm colonial mongrel in ancestry, but the Swedish part is dominant in my looks, with Polynesian and Asiatic fractions adding no more than a not-unpleasing exotic flavor. My legs are long for my height, my waist is 48 centimeters and my chest is 90not all of which is rib cage, I assure you, even though we old colonial families all run to hypertrophied lung development; some of it is burgeoning secondary sex characteristic. Besides that, my hair is pale blond and wavy and Im pretty. Not beautifulPraxiteles would not have given me a second lookbut real beauty is likely to scare a man off, or else make him quite unmanageable, whereas prettiness, properly handled, is an asset.

Up till a couple of years ago I used to regret not being male (in view of my ambitions), but I at last realized how silly I was being; one might as well wish for wings. As Mother says: One works with available materials... and I found that the materials available were adequate. In fact I found that I