Heinlein, Robert A – Have Space Suit will Travel

I want to sleep at once.

It was the wildest space opera I had ever seen, loaded with dragons and Arcturian maidens and knights in shining space armor and shuttling between King Arthur’s Court and the Dead Sea Bottoms of Barsoom. I didn’t mind that but I did mind the announcer. He had the voice of Ace Quiggle and the face of him. He leaned out of the screen and leered, those wormy cilia writhing. “Will Beowulf conquer the Dragon? Will Tristan return to Iseult? Will Peewee find her dolly? Tune in this channel tomorrow night and in the meantime, wake up and hurry to your neighborhood druggist for a cake of Skyway’s Kwikbrite Armor Polish, the better polish used by the better knights sans peur et sans reproche. Wake up!” He shoved a snaky arm out of the screen and grabbed my shoulder.

I woke up.

“Wake up,” Peewee was saying, shaking my shoulder. “Please wake up, Kip.”

“Lea’ me alone!”

“You were having a nightmare.”

The Arcturian princess had been in a bad spot. “Now I’ll never know how it came out. Wha’ did y’ want to wake me for? I thought the idea was to sleep?”

“You’ve slept for hours-and now perhaps there is something we can do.”

“Breakfast, maybe?”

She ignored that. “I think we should try to escape.”

I sat up suddenly, bounced off the floor, settled back. “Wups! How?”

“I don’t know exactly. But I think they have gone away and left us. If so, we’ll never have a better chance.”

“They have? What makes you think so?”

“Listen. Listen hard.”

I listened. I could hear my heart beat, I could hear Peewee breathing, and presently I could hear her heart beating. I’ve never heard deeper silence in a cave.

I took my knife, held it in my teeth for bone conduction and pushed it against a wall. Nothing. I tried the floor and the other walls. Still nothing. The ship ached with silence-no throb, no thump, not even those vibrations you can sense but not hear. “You’re right, Peewee.”

“I noticed it when the air circulation stopped.”

I sniffed. “Are we running out of air?”

“Not right away. But the air stopped-it comes out of those tiny holes up there. You don’t notice it but I missed something when it stopped.”

I thought hard. “I don’t see where this gets us. We’re still locked up.”

“I’m not sure.”

I tried the blade of my knife on a wall. It wasn’t metal or anything I knew as plastic, but it didn’t mind a knife. Maybe the Comte de Monte Cristo could have dug a hole in it-but he had more time. “How do you figure?”

“Every time they’ve opened or closed that door panel, I’ve heard a click. So after they took you out I stuck a wad of bubble gum where the panel meets the wall, high up where they might not notice.”

“You’ve got some gum?”

“Yes. It helps, when you can’t get a drink of water. I-”

“Got any more?” I asked eagerly. I wasn’t fresh in any way but thirst was the worst-I’d never been so thirsty.

Peewee looked upset. “Oh, poor Kip! I haven’t any more . . . just an old wad I kept parked on my belt buckle and chewed when I felt driest.” She frowned. “But you can have it. You’re welcome.”

“Uh, thanks, Peewee. Thanks a lot. But I guess not.”

She looked insulted. “I assure you, Mr. Russell, that I do not have anything contagious. I was merely trying to-”

“Yes, yes,” I said hastily. “I’m sure you were. But-”

“I assumed that these were emergency conditions. It is surely no more unsanitary than kissing a girl-but then I don’t suppose you’ve ever kissed a girl!”

“Not lately,” I evaded. “But what I want is a drink of clear cold water- or murky warm water. Besides, you used up your gum on the door panel. What did you expect to accomplish?”

“Oh. I told you about that click. Daddy says that, in a dilemma, it is helpful to change any variable, then reexamine the problem. I tried to introduce a change with my bubble gum.”