“But how could they make such a mistake? I mean, obviously, with clouds all over it and — ”
“The clouds didn’t show water vapor, not through a spectroscope they didn’t. Showed lots of carbon dioxide, though, and by the science of the last century they figured they had proved that Venus couldn’t support life.”
“Funny sort of science! I guess they were pretty ignorant in those days.”
“Don’t go running down our~grandfathers. If it weren’t for them, you and I would be squatting in a cave, scratching fleas. No, Bub, they were pretty sharp; they just didn’t have all the facts. We’ve got more facts, but that doesn’t make us smarter. Put them biscuits over here. The way I see it, it just goes to show that the only way to tell what’s in a stew is to eat it…and even then you aren’t always sure. Venus turned out to be a very nice place. For ducks. If there were any ducks there. Which there ain’t.”
“Do you like Venus?”
“I like any place I don’t have to stay in too long. Okay, let’s feed the hungry mob.”
The food in the Hesperus was as good as the living accommodations were bad. This was partly Slim’s genius, but was also the fact that food in a space ship costs by its weight; what it had cost Earthside matters little compared with the expense of lifting it off Earth. The choicest steaks cost the spaceline owners little more than the same weight of rice — and any steaks left over could be sold at high prices to colQnists weary .for a taste of Earth food. So the emigrants ate as well as the first class passengers, even though not with fine service and fancy surroundings. When Slim was ready he opened a shutter in the galley partition and Charlie dealt out the wonderful viands like chow in a Scout camp to passengers queued up with plates. Charlie enjoyed this chore. It made him feel like a member of the crew, a spaceman himself.
Charlie almost managed not to worry about Nixie, having told himself that there was nothing to worry about. They were a month past midpoint, with Venus only six weeks away before he discussed it with Slim. “Look, Slim, you know a lot about such things. Nixie’ll make it all right…won’t he?”
“Hand me that paddle; Mmm…don’t know as I ever ran across a dog in space before. Cats now…cats belong in space. They’re clean and neat and help to keep down mice and rats.”
“I don’t like cats.”
“Ever lived with a cat? No, I see you haven’t. How can you have the gall not to like something you don’t know anything about? Wait till you’ve lived with a cat, then tell me what you think. Until then…well, who told you were entitled to an opinion?”
“Huh? Why, everybody is entitled to his own opinion!”
“Nonsense, Bub. Nobody is entitled to an opinion about something he is ignorant of. If the Captain told me how to bake a cake, I would politely suggest that he not stick his nose into my trade…contrariwise, I never tell him how to plot an orbit to Mars.”
“Slim, you’re changing the subject. How about Nixie? He’s going to be all right…isn’t he?”
“As I was saying, I don’t have opinions about things I don’t know. Happens I don’t know dogs. Never had one as a kid; I was raised in a big city. Since then I’ve been in space. No dogs.”
“Darn it, Slim! — you’re being evasive: You know about sleep-freeze. I know you do.”
Slim sighed. “Kid, you’re going to die someday and so am I. And so is your pup. It’s the one thing we can’t avoid. Why, the ship’s reactor could blow up and nOne of us would know what hit us till they started fitting us with haloes. So why fret about whether your dog comes out of sleep-freeze? Either he does and you’ve worried unnecessarily…or he doesn’t and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“So you don’t think he will?”
“I didn’t say that. I said it was foolish to worry.”
But Charlie did worry; the talk with Slim brought it to the top of his mind, worried him more and more as the day got closer. The last month seemed longer to him than the four dreary months that had preceded it. —