Farnham’s Freehold By Robert A. Heinlein

in my department that is-and I’ll trot up to Memtok and tell him you said so. He knows-Uncle! we all know- that you enjoy the favor of Their Charity. You understand me? I don’t mean to presume. Memtok will write out a pass and I’ll be in the clear and so will the guard and the head guard. You wait here and be comfortable. I’ll hurry.”

“Don’t bother. There’s nothing in there I want to see,” Hugh lied. “You’ve seen one bath, you’ve seen ‘em all, I always say.”

The engineer smiled in relief. “That’s ‘a good one, I’ll remember that. ‘You’ve seen one bath, you’ve seen ‘em all!’ Ha ha! Well, we’ve still got the carpentry shop and the metal shop.”

Hugh went on with him, arm in arm and jovial, while fuming inside. So close! Yet letting Memtok suspect that he had any interest in sluts’ quarters was the last thing he wanted.

But the morning was well spent. Not only did Hugh acquire a burglar’s insight as to weak points of the building (that delivery door to ‘the unloading dock; if it was merely locked at night, it should be possible to break out) but also he picked up two prizes.

The first was a piece of spring steel about eight inches long. Hugh palmed it from some scrap in the metal shop; it wound up taped to his arm, after an unneeded plumbing call, for he had gone prepared to steal.

The second was even more of a prize: a printed drawing of the lowest level, with engineering installations shown boldly- but with every door and passage marked-including sluts’ quarters.

Hugh had admired it. “Uncle, but that’s a beautiful drawing! Your own work?”

The engineer shyly admitted that it was. Based on architect’s plans, you understand-but changes keep having to be added.

“Beautiful!” Hugh repeated. “It’s a shame there isn’t more than one copy.”

“Oh, plenty of copies, they wear out. Would you like one?”

“I would treasure it. Especially if the artist would inscribe it.” When ‘the man hesitated, Hugh moved in fast and said, “May I suggest a wording? Here, I’ll write it out and you copy it.”

Hugh walked away with the print, inscribed: To my dear Cousin Hugh, a fellow craftsman who appreciates beautiful work.

That night he showed it to Kitten. The child was awestruck. She had no concept of maps and was fascinated by the idea that it was possible to put down, just on a piece of paper, the long passages and twisty turns of her world. Hugh showed her how one went from his quarters to the ramp leading up to the executive servants’ dining room, where the servants’ main hall was, how the passage outside led, by two turns, to the garden. She confirmed the routes slowly, frowning in unaccustomed mental effort.

“You must live somewhere over here, Kitten. That is sluts’ quarters.”

“It is?”

“Yes. See if you can find where you live. I won’t show you, you know how. I’ll just sit back.”

“Oh. Uncle help me! Let me see. First, I have to come down this ramp-” She paused to think while Hugh kept his face impassive. She had confirmed what he had almost stopped suspecting; the child was a planted spy. “Then . . . this is the door?”

“That’s right.”

“Then I walk straight ahead past the slutmaster’s office, clear to the end, and I turn, and . . . I must live right there!” She clapped her hands and giggled.

“Your billet is across from your mess hail?”

“Yes.”

“Then you got it right, first time! That’s wonderful! Now let’s see what else you can figure out.”

For the next quarter hour she took him on a tour of sluts’ quarters-junior and senior common rooms, messes, virgins’ dormitory, bedwarmers’ sleep room, nursery, lying-in, children’s hall, service stalls, baths, playground door, garden door, offices, senior matron’s apartment, everything-and Hugh learned that Barbara was no longer billeted in lying-in. Kitten volunteered it.

“Barbra-you know, the savage slut you write to-she used to be there, and now she’s right there.”

“How can you tell? Those rooms all look alike.”

“I can tell. It’s the second one of the four-mother rooms on this side, when you walk away from the baths.”