Heinlein, Robert A – Friday

Three of those days I had spent in Florida in what felt like a hospital but was (I knew!) a superbly equipped genetic engineering laboratory. I could infer which one it was but I kept my guesses to myself as speculation about anything was not encouraged. While I was there I was given the most thorough physical examination I have ever heard of. I did not know why they were checking my health in a style ordinarily reserved for heads of state and chairmen of multinationals but I presumed that they were jumpy about entrusting to anyone not in perfect health the protecting and delivering of an ovum that would become, in the course of years, First Citizen of the fabulously wealthy Realm. It was a good time to keep my mouth shut.

Mr. Sikmaa used none of the sharpshooting that both Fawcett and Mosby had tried. Once he decided that I would do, he sent Mosby home and catered to me so lavishly that I had no need to dicker. Twenty-five percent for casual money?Änot enough; make that fifty percent. Here it is; take itÄin gold and in Luna City gold

certificatesÄand, if you need more, just tell the purser and sign for it, a draft on me. No, we won’t use a written contract; this is not that sort of a missionÄjust tell me what you want and youshall have it. And here is a little booklet that tells you who you are and where you went to school and all the rest. You will have plenty of time in the next three days to memorize it and if you forget to burn it, don’t fret; the fibers are impregnated so that it self-destroys in the next three daysÄdon’t be surprised if the pages are yellow and somewhat brittle on the fourth day.

Mr. Sikmaa had thought of everything. Before we left Beverly Hills, he brought a photographer in; she shot me from several angles, me dressed in a smile, in high heels, in low heels, in bare feet. When my luggage showed up in the Forward, every item fitted me perfectly, all the styles and colors suited me, and the clothes carried a spread of famous designer’s names from Italy, from Paris, from Bei-Jing, et al.

I’m not used to haute couture and don’t know how to handle it, but Mr. Sikmaa had that covered, too. I was met at the airlock by a pretty little Oriental creature named Shizuko who told me that she was my personal maid. Since I had been bathing and dressing myself since I was five, I felt no need for a maid, but again it was time to roll with the blow.

Shizuko conducted me to cabin BB (not quite big enough for a volley-ball court). Once there, it appeared that (in Shizuko’s opinion) there was just barely time enough to get me ready for dinner.

With dinner three hours away this struck me as excessive. But she was firm and I was going along with whatever was suggestedÄI did not need a diagram to tell me that Mr. Sikmaa had planted her there.

She bathed me. While this was going on, there was a sudden surge in the gray control as the ship warped away. Shizuko steadied me and kept it from being a wet disaster and did it so skillfully that she convinced me that she was used to warp ships. She didn’t look old enough.

She spent a full hour on my hair and my face. In the past I had washed my face when it seemed to need it and styled my hair mostly by whacking it off enough to keep it out of way. I learned what a

bumpkin I was. While Shizuko was reincarnating me as the Goddess of Love and Beauty the cabin’s little terminal chimed. Letters appeared on the screen while the same message extruded from the printout, an impudent tongue:

The Master of HyperSpaceShip Forward

Requests the Pleasure of the Company

of Miss Marjorie Friday

for Sherry and Bonhomie in the Captain’s Lounge at nineteen hundred hours

regrets only

I was surprised. Shizuko was not. She had already hung out and touched up a cocktail dress. It covered me completely and I have never been so indecently dressed.