Heinlein, Robert A – Have Space Suit will Travel

I hesitated. It had a shifty logic; Wormface couldn’t walk into Lunar Base commissary and buy these rations; probably Fats or his partner had bought them. I wouldn’t mind signing I.O.U.s-a hundred dollars a meal, a thousand, or a million; money no longer meant anything. Why not humor him?

No! If I gave in, if I admitted I had to dicker with him for my prison rations, he would own me. I’d wait on him hand and foot, do anything he told me, just to eat.

I let him see my tin dagger. “I’ll fight you for it.”

Fats glanced at my hand and grinned broadly. “Can’t you take a joke?”

He tossed me the can. There was no trouble at feeding times after that, We lived like that “Happy Family” you sometimes see in traveling zoos: a lion caged with a lamb. It is a startling exhibit but the lamb has to be replaced frequently. Fats liked to talk and I learned things from him, when I could sort out truth from lies. His name-so he said-was Jacques de Barre de Vigny (“Call me ‘Jock.’ “) and the older man was Timothy Johnson-but I had a hunch that their real names could be learned only by inspecting post office bulletin boards. Despite Jock’s pretense of knowing everything, I soon decided that he knew nothing about Wormface’s origin and little about his plans and purposes. Wormface did not seem the sort to discuss things with “lower animals”; he would simply make use of them, as we use horses.

Jock admitted one thing readily. “Yeah, we put the snatch on the brat. There’s no uranium on the Moon; those stories are just to get suckers. We were wasting our time-and a man’s got to eat, don’t he?”

I didn’t make the obvious retort; I wanted information. Tim said, “Shaddap!”

“Aw, what of it, Tim? You worried about the F.B.I.? You think the Man can put the arm on you-here?”

“Shaddap, I said.”

“Happens I feel like talking. So blow it.” Jock went on, “It was easy. The brat’s got more curiosity than seven cats. He knew she was coming and when.” Jock looked thoughtful. “He always knows-he’s got lots of people working for him, some high up. All I had to do was be in Luna City and get acquainted-I made the contact because Tim here ain’t the fatherly type, the way I am. I get to talking with her, I buy her a coke, I tell her about the romance of hunting uranium on the Moon and similar hogwash. Then I sigh and say it’s too bad I can’t show her the mine of my partner and I. That’s all it took. When the tourist party visited Tombaugh Station, she got away and sneaked out the lock-she worked that part out her ownself. She’s sly, that one. All we had to do was wait where I told her -didn’t even have to be rough with her until she got worried about taking longer for the crawler to get to our mine than I told her.” Jock grinned. “She fights pretty well for her weight. Scratched me some.”

Poor little Peewee! Too bad she hadn’t drawn and quartered him! But the story sounded true, for it was the way Peewee would behave-sure of herself, afraid of no one, unable to resist any “educational” experience.

Jock went on, “It wasn’t the brat he wanted. He wanted her old man. Had some swindle to get him to the Moon, didn’t work.” Jock grinned sourly. “That was a bad time, things ain’t good when he don’t have his own way. But he had to settle for the brat. Tim here pointed out to him he could trade.”

Tim chucked in one word which I took as a general denial. Jock raised his eyebrows. “Listen to vinegar puss. Nice manners, ain’t he?”

Maybe I should have kept quiet since I was digging for facts, not philosophy. But I’ve got Peewee’s failing myself; when I don’t understand, I have an unbearable itch to know why. I didn’t (and don’t) understand what made Jock tick. “Jock? Why did you do it?”

“Huh?”

“Look, you’re a human being.” (At least he looked like one.) “As you pointed out, we humans had better stick together. How could you bring yourself to kidnap a little girl-and turn her over to him?”