Heinlein, Robert A – Friday

What I had to do was obvious.

What was not obvious was how I could do it.

It no longer seemed a clerical error that my name had not been on the list to go down to the surface at Outpost.

At the cocktail hour the next evening I saw Jerry and asked him to dance with me. It was a classic waltz, which brought my face close enough to his to talk privately. “How’s the tummy?” he asked.

“The blue pills do the trick,” I assured him. “Jerry, who knows about this besides you and me?”

“Now there’s an odd thing. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to enter anything in your medical folder. The notes are in my safe.”

“So? How about the lab technician?”

“He’s been so overworked that I ran those tests myself.”

“Well, well. Do you think that there is a possibility that those notes might be lost? Burned, maybe?”

“We never burn anything in the ship; it annoys the air-conditioning engineer. Instead we shred and recycle. Fear not, little girl; your shameful secret is safe with me.”

“Jerry, you’re my pal. Dear, if it hadn’t been for my maid, I think I could have blamed this baby on you. My first night in the shipÄ remember?”

“I’m not likely to forget. I had an attack of acute frustration.”

“Having a maid along is not my idea; my family planted her on me, and she sticks to me like a leech. One would think my family does not trust me merely because they know they can’tÄas you know all too well. Can you think of a way to avoid her chaperonage? I’m feeling very pliable. With you. A man I can trust with secrets.”

“Um. I must give it some thought. My stateroom is no good; you have to pass two dozen other officers’ rooms and go through the wardroom to reach it. Watch it; here comes Jimmy.”

Yes, of course I was trying to bribe him into silence. But besides that I was grateful and felt that I owed him something. If congress with my unvirgin carcass was what he wanted (and it was), I was willingÄand willing on my own account, too; I had been quite underprivileged lately and Jerry is an attractive man. I was not embar

rassed over being pregnant (although the idea was decidedly novel to me) but I did want to keep my condition secret (if possibleÄif there were not already a platoon of people in the ship who knew of it!)Ä keep it secret, if it was, while I sorted out what to do.

The extent of my predicament may not be clear; maybe I had better draw a diagram. If I went on to The Realm, I expected to be killed in a surgical operating room, all quiet and legal and proper. If you don’t believe that such things can happen, we aren’t living in the same world and there is no point in your reading any more of this memoir. Throughout history the conventional way of dealing with an awkward witness has been to arrange for him to stop breathing.

This might not happen to me. But all the signs suggested that it wouldÄif I went to The Realm.

Just stay aboard? I thought of that. . . but Pete-Mac’s words echoed in my ears: “When we arrive, an officer of the palace guard comes aboard and then you’re his problem.” Apparently they weren’t even going to wait for me to go groundside and pretend to fall ill.

Ergo, I must leave the ship before we reached The RealmÄi.e., Botany Bay, no other choice.

Simple. Just walk off the ship.

Oh, sure! Walk down the gangway and wave good-bye from the ground.

This is not an ocean ship. The closest the Forward ever gets to a planet is its stationary orbitÄfor Botany Bay that is about thirty-five thousand kilometers. That’s a long way to go in some very thin vacuum. The only possible way I could get down to the surface of Botany Bay would be in one of the ship’s landing boats, just as I had at Outpost.

Friday, they are not going to let you walk aboard that landing boat. At Outpost you bulled your way aboard. That has alerted them; you won’t manage it a second time. What will happen? Mr. Woo or somebody will be at the airlock with a listÄand again your name is not on it. But this time he has an armed master-at-arms with him. What do you do?