Heinlein, Robert A – Have Space Suit will Travel

My jaw dropped. “But, Professor, Peewee is much smarter than I am. She runs me ragged.”

He glanced at me. “She’s run me ragged for years-and I’m not stupid. Don’t downgrade yourself, Kip.”

“It’s the truth.”

“So? The greatest mathematical psychologist of our time, a man who always wrote his own ticket even to retiring when it suited him-very difficult, when a man is in demand-this man married his star pupil. I doubt if their offspring is less bright than my own child.”

I had to untangle this to realize that he meant me. Then I didn’t know what to Say. How many kids really know their parents? Apparently I didn’t.

He went on, “Peewee is a handful, even for me. Here’s the airport. When you return for school, please plan on visiting us. Thanksgiving, too, if you will-no doubt you’ll go home Christmas.”

“Uh, thank you, sir. I’ll be back.”

“Good.”

“Uh, about Peewee-if she gets too difficult, well, you’ve got the beacon. The Mother Thing can handle her.”

“Mmm, that’s a thought.”

“Peewee tries to get around her but she never does. Oh-I almost forgot. Whom may I tell? Not about Peewee. About the whole thing.”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

“Sir?”

“Tell anybody anything. You won’t very often. Almost no one will believe you.”

I rode home in a courier jet-those things go fast. Professor Reisfeld had insisted on lending me ten dollars when he found out that I had only a dollar sixty-seven, so I got a haircut at the bus station and bought two tickets to Centerville to keep Oscar out of the luggage compartment; he might have been damaged. The best thing about that scholarship was that now I needn’t ever sell him-not that I would.

Centerville looked mighty good, from elms overhead to the chuckholes under foot. The driver stopped near our house because of Oscar; he’s clumsy to carry. I went to the barn and racked Oscar, told him I’d see him later, and went in the back door.

Mother wasn’t around. Dad was in his study. He looked up from reading. “Hi, Kip.”

“Hi, Dad.”

“Nice trip?”

“Uh, I didn’t go to the lake.”

“I know. Dr. Reisfeld phoned-he briefed me thoroughly.”

“Oh. It was a nice trip-on the whole.” I saw that he was holding a volume of the Britannica, open to “Magellanic Clouds.”

He followed my glance. “I’ve never seen them,” he said regretfully. “I had a chance once, but I was busy except one cloudy night.”

“When was that. Dad?”

“In South America, before you were born.”

“I didn’t know you had been there.”

“It was a cloak-and-daggerish government job-not one to talk about. Are they beautiful?”

“Uh, not exactly.” I got another volume, turned to “Nebulae” and found the Great Nebula of Andromeda. “Here is beauty. That’s the way we look.”

Dad sighed. “It must be lovely.”

“It is. I’ll tell you all about it. I’ve got a tape, too.”

“No hurry. You’ve had quite a trip. Three hundred and thirty-three thousand light-years-is that right?”

“Oh, no, just half that.”

“I meant the round trip.”

“Oh. But we didn’t come back the same way.”

“Eh?”

“I don’t know how to put it, but in these ships, if you make a jump, any jump, the short way back is the long way ’round. You go straight ahead until you’re back where you started. Well, not ‘straight’ since space is curved-but straight as can be. That returns everything to zero.”

“A cosmic great-circle?”

“That’s the idea. All the way around in a straight line.”

“Mmm-” He frowned thoughtfully. “Kip, how far is it, around the Universe? The red-shift limit?”

I hesitated. “Dad, I asked-but the answer didn’t mean anything.” (The Mother Thing had said, “How can there be ‘distance’ where there is nothing?”) “It’s not a distance; it’s more of a condition. I didn’t travel it; I just went. You don’t go through, you slide past.”

Dad looked pensive. “I should know not to ask a mathematical question in words.”

I was about to suggest that Dr. Bruck could help when Mother sang out: “Hello, my darlings!”

For a split second I thought I was hearing the Mother Thing.

She kissed Dad, she kissed me. “I’m glad you’re home, dear.”