Heinlein, Robert A – Have Space Suit will Travel

“I’m in favor. They tell me it won’t be long now.”

“It had better not be. Here, I’ll show you.” She hauled off and slapped herself. Her hand smacked into something inches from her face.

“Now watch,” she went on. She moved her hand very slowly; it sank through the barrier, she thumbed her nose at me and giggled.

This impressed me-a space suit you could reach into! Why, I would have been able to give Peewee water and dexedrine and sugar pills when she needed them. “I’ll be darned! What does it?”

“A power pack on my back, under the air tank. The tank is good for a week, too, and hoses can’t give trouble because there aren’t any.”

“Uh, suppose you blow a fuse. There you are, with a lungful of vacuum.”

“The Mother Thing says that can’t happen.”

Hmm-I had never known the Mother Thing to be wrong when she made a flat statement.

“That’s not all,” Peewee went on. “It feels like skin, the joints aren’t clumsy, and you’re never hot or cold. It’s like street clothes.”

“Uh, you risk a bad sunburn, don’t you? Unhealthy, you tell me. Unhealthy even on the Moon.”

“Oh, no! The field polarizes. That’s what the field is, sort of. Kip, get them to make you one-we’ll go places!”

I glanced at Oscar. (“Please yourself, pal,” he said distantly. “I’m not the jealous type.”)

“Uh, Peewee, I’ll stick to one I understand. But I’d like to examine that monkey suit of yours.”

“Monkey suit indeed!”

I woke up one morning, turned over, and realized that I was hungry.

Then I sat up with a jerk. I had turned over in bed.

I had been warned to expect it. The “bed” was a bed and my body was back under my control. Furthermore, I was hungry and I hadn’t been hungry the whole time I had been on Vega Five. Whatever that machinery was, it included a way to nourish me without eating.

But I didn’t stop to enjoy the luxury of hunger; it was too wonderful to be a body again, not just a head. I got out of bed, was suddenly dizzy, recovered and grinned. Hands! Feet!

I examined those wonderful things. They were unchanged and unhurt.

Then I looked more closely. No, not quite unchanged.

I had had a scar on my left shin where I had been spiked in a close play at second; it was gone. I once had “Mother” tattooed on my left forearm at a carnival. Mother had been distressed and Dad disgusted, but he had said to leave it as a reminder not to be a witling. It was gone. There was not a callus on hand or foot.

I used to bite my nails. My nails were a bit long but perfect. I had lost the nail from my right little toe years ago through a slip with a hatchet. It was back.

I looked hastily for my appendectomy scar-found it and felt relieved. If it had been missing, I would have wondered if I was me.

There was a mirror over the chest of drawers. It showed me with enough hair to warrant a guitar (I wear a crew cut) but somebody had shaved me.

On the chest was a dollar and sixty-seven cents, a mechanical pencil, a sheet of paper, my watch, and a handkerchief. The watch was running. The dollar bill, the paper, and the handkerchief had been laundered.

My clothes, spandy clean and invisibly repaired, were on the desk. The socks weren’t mine; the material was more like felt, if you will imagine felted material no thicker than Kleenex which stretches instead of tearing. On the floor were tennis shoes, like Peewee’s even to a “U.S. Rubber” trademark, but in my size. The uppers were heavier felted material. I got dressed.

I was wearing the result when Peewee kicked the door. “Anybody home?” She came in, bearing a tray. “Want breakfast?”

“Peewee! Look at me!”

She did. “Not bad,” she admitted, “for an ape. You need a haircut.”

“Yes, but isn’t it wonderful! I’m all together again!”

“You never were apart,” she answered, “except in spots-I’ve had daily reports. Where do you want this?” She put the tray on the desk.