Heinlein, Robert A – Friday

“Think, dear. The house above us is blasted down around our ears. Or perhaps it is occupied by invaders. Or even our own police, looking for you and Georges. What else is needed?”

“Well . . . anything that lives underground-foxes, rabbits, gophers-has a back door.”

“Good girl! Where is it?”

I pretended to look around and try to find it. But in fact an itchy feeling dating clear back to intermediate training (“Don’t relax until you have spotted your escape route”) had caused me to search earlier. “If it’s feasible to tunnel in that direction, I think the back door would be inside that clothes cupboard.”

“I don’t know whether to congratulate you or to study how I should have concealed it better. Yes, through that wardrobe and turn left. The lights come on from thirty-seven-degree radiation just as they did when we came out of the pool tunnel. Those lights are powered by their own Shipstones, and they should last forever, practically, but I think it is smart to take along a fresh torch and you know where they are. The tunnel is quite long, because it comes out well outside our walls in a clump of thornbush. There is a camouflaged door, rather heavy, but you just push it aside, then it swings back.”

“Sounds awfully well planned. But, Jan? What if somebody found it and came in that way? Or I did? After all, I’m practically a stranger.”

“You’re not a stranger; you’re an old friend we haven’t known very long. Yes, it is just barely possible that someone might find our back door despite its location and the way it is hidden. First, a horrid alarm would sound all through the house. Then we would look down the tunnel by remote, with the picture showing on one of the house terminals. Then steps would be taken, the gentlest being tear gas. But if we weren’t home when our back door was breached, I would feel very sorry for Ian or Georges or both.”

“Why do you put it that way?”

“Because it would not be necessary to be sorry for me. I would have a sudden attack of swooning feminine weakness. I do not dispose of dead bodies, especially ones that have had several days in which to get ripe.”

“Mmm . . . yes.”

“Although that body would not be dead if its owner were smart enough to pour pee out of a boot. Remember, I’m a professional designer of defenses, Marj, and note the current two-layer policy. Suppose somebody does claw his way up a steep bank, spots our door, and breaks his nails getting it open-he’s not dead at that point. If it’s one of us-conceivable but unlikely-we open a switch concealed a short distance inside, I would have to show you where. If it is indeed an intruder, he would see at once a sign: PRIVATE PROPERTY-KEEP OUT. He ignores this and comes on in and a few meters farther along a voice gives the same warning and adds that the property has active defense. The idiot keeps coming. Sirens and red lights-and still he persists . . . and then poor Ian or Georges has to drag this stinking garbage out of the tunnel. Not outdoors, though, or back into the house. If someone kills himself persisting in trying to break through our defenses, his body will not be found; he will stay missing. Do you feel any need to know how?”

“I feel quite sure that I have no ‘need to know.’ “(A camouflaged side tunnel, Janet, and a lime pit-and I wonder what bodies are already in it? Janet looks as gentle as rosy-fingered dawn . . . and if anyone lives through these crazy years, she will be one of them. She is about as tender-minded as a Medici.)

“I think so, too. Anything more you want to see?”

“I don’t think so, Jan. Especially as I am not likely ever to use

your wonderful hideaway. Go back now?”

“Before long.” She closed the interval between us, placed her hands on my shoulders. “What did you whisper to me?”

“I think you heard it.”

“Yes, I did.” She pulled me to her.