Heinlein, Robert A – Friday

My first impulse had been to demand a hearing before the full family council-only to learn that my case had already been tried in camera and the vote had gone against me, six to nothing.

I didn’t even go back to the house. That phone call Anita had received while we were in the botanic gardens had told her that my personal effects had been packed and delivered to Left Luggage at the shuttle station.

I could still have insisted on a poll of the house instead of taking Anita’s (slippery) word for it. But to what end? To win an argument? To prove a point? Or merely to split a hair? It took me all of five seconds to realize that all I had treasured was gone. As vanished as a rainbow, as burst as a soap bubble-I no longer “belonged.” Those children were not mine, I would never again roll on the floor with them.

I was thinking about this with dry-eyed grief and almost missed learning that Anita had been “generous” with me: In that contract I had signed with the family corporation the fine print made the principal sum due and payable at once if I breached the contract. Did being “nonhuman” constitute a breach? (Even though I had never missed a payment.) Looked at one way, if they were going to read me out of the family, then I had at least eighteen thousand Ennzedd dollars coming to me: looked at another way I not only forfeited the paid-up part of my share but owed more than twice that amount.

But they were “generous”: If I would quietly arid quickly vanish away, they would not pursue their claim against me. Unstated was what would happen if I stuck around and made a public scandal.

I slunk away.

I don’t need a psychiatrist to tell me that I did it to myself I realized that fact as soon as Anita announced the bad news. A deeper question is: Why did I do it?

I had not done it for Ellen and I could not hoodwink myself into thinking that I had. On the contrary, my folly had made it impossible for me to exert any effort on her behalf.

Why had I done it?

Anger.

I wasn’t able to find any better answer. Anger at the whole human race for deciding that my sort are not human and therefore not entitled to equal treatment and equal justice. Resentment that had been building up since the first day that I had been made to realize that there were privileges human children had just from being born and that I could never have simply because I was not human.

Passing as human gets one over on the side of privilege; it does not end resentment against the system. The pressure builds up even more because it can’t be expressed. The day came when it was more important to me to find out whether my adopted family could accept me as I truly am, an artificial person, than it was to preserve my happy relationship.

I found out. Not one of them stood up for me. . . just as none of them had stood up for Ellen. I think I knew that they would reject me as soon as I learned that they had failed Ellen. But that level of my mind is so far down that I’m not well acquainted with it-that’s the dark place where, according to Boss, I do all my real thinking.

I reached Auckland too late for the daily SB to Winnipeg. After reserving a cradle for the next day’s trajectory and checking everything but my jumpbag, I considered what to do with the twenty-one hours facing me, and at once thought of my curly wolf, Captain Ian. By what he had told me, the chances were five-to-one against his being in town-but his flat (if available) might be pleasanter than a hotel. So I found a public terminal and punched his code.

Shortly the screen lighted; a young woman’s face-cheerful, rather pretty-appeared. “Hi! I’m Torchy. Who’re you?”

“I’m Marj Baldwin,” I answered. “Perhaps I’ve punched wrong. I’m seeking Captain Tormey.”

“No, you’re with it, luv. Hold and I’ll let him out of his cage.” She turned and moved away from the pickup while calling out, “Bubber! A slashing tart on the honker. Knows your right name.”