Heinlein, Robert A – Have Space Suit will Travel

“Push hard, Kip, and brace your hands against the deck.”

I did so. “How do you know when they’ll turn over, Peewee?”

“I haven’t been unconscious-they just tripped me and carried me inside-so I know when we took off. If we assume that the Moon is their destination, as it probably is, and if we assume one gravity the whole jump -which can’t be far off; my weight feels normal. Doesn’t yours?”

I considered it. “I think so.”

“Then it probably is, even though my own sense of weight may be distorted from being on the Moon. If those assumptions are correct, then it is almost exactly a three-and-a-half-hour trip and-” Peewee looked at her watch. “-E.T.A. should be nine-thirty in the morning and turn-over at seven-forty-five. Any moment now.”

“Is it that late?” I looked at my watch. “Why, I’ve got a quarter of two.”

“You’re on your zone time. I’m on Moon time-Greenwich time, that is. Oh, oh! Here we go!”

The floor tilted, swerved, and swooped like a roller coaster, and my semicircular canals did a samba. Things steadied down as I pulled out of acute dizziness.

“You all right?” asked Peewee.

I managed to focus my eyes. “Uh, I think so. It felt like a one-and-a-half gainer into a dry pool.”

“This pilot does it faster than I dared to. It doesn’t really hurt, after your eyes uncross. But that settles it. We’re headed for the Moon. We’ll be there in an hour and three quarters.”

I still couldn’t believe it. “Peewee? What kind of a ship can gun at one gee all the way to the Moon? They been keeping it secret? And what were you doing on the Moon anyhow? And why were you stealing a ship?”

She sighed and spoke to her doll. “He’s a quiz kid, Madame Pompadour. Kip, how can I answer three questions at once? This is a flying saucer, and-”

“Flying saucer! Now I’ve heard everything.”

“It’s rude to interrupt. Call it anything you like; there’s nothing official about the term. Actually it’s shaped more like a loaf of pumpernickel, an oblate spheroid. That’s a shape defined-”

“I know what an oblate spheroid is,” I snapped. I was tired and upset from too many things, from a cranky air conditioner that had ruined a good pair of pants to being knocked out while on an errand of mercy. Not to mention Ace Quiggle. I was beginning to think that little girls who were geniuses ought to have the grace not to show it.

“No need to be brisk,” she said reprovingly. “I am aware that people have called everything from weather balloons to street lights ‘flying saucers.’ But it is my considered opinion-by Occam’s Razor-that-”

“Whose razor?”

“Occam’s. Least hypothesis. Don’t you know anything about logic?”

“Not much.”

“Well … I suspected that about every five-hundredth ‘saucer sighting’ was a ship like this. It adds up. As for what I was doing on the Moon-” She stopped and grinned. “I’m a pest.”

I didn’t argue it.

“A long time ago when my Daddy was a boy, the Hayden Planetarium took reservations for trips to the Moon. It was just a publicity gag, like that silly soap contest recently, but Daddy got his name on the list. Now, years and years later, they are letting people go to the Moon-and sure enough, the Hayden people turned the list over to American Express- and American Express notified the applicants they could locate that theywould be given preference.”

“So your father took you to the Moon?”

“Oh, heavens, no! Daddy filled out that form when he was only a boy. Now he is just about the biggest man at the Institute for Advanced Study and hasn’t time for such pleasures. And Mama wouldn’t go if you paid her. So I said I would. Daddy said ‘No!’ and Mama said Good gracious, no!’ . . . and so I went. I can be an awful nuisance when I put my mind on it,” she said proudly. “I have talent for it. Daddy says I’m an amoral little wretch.”

“Uh, do you suppose he might be right?”

“Oh, I’m sure he is. He understands me, whereas Mama throws up her hands and says she can’t cope. I was perfectly beastly and unbearable for two whole weeks and at last Daddy said ‘For Blank’s sake let her go! -maybe we’ll collect her insurance!’ So I did.”