Lowell, reeling, writhing, and fainting in coils — or whatever his mother deems necessary
1200 End of morning session
1215 Lunch
1300 School C&P,math
Hydroponics chores, Meade
1600 End of afternoon session
1800 Dinner — All Hands initial ship’s maintenance schedule.
SATURDAY ROUTINE — turn to after breakfast and clean ship, Hazel in charge. Captain’s inspection at 1100. Personal laundry in afternoon.
SUNDAY ROUTINE — meditation, study, and recreation. Make & Mend in afternoon.
Hazel looked it over. ‘Where are we headed, Rog? Botany Bay? You forgot to set a time to flog the peasants.’
‘It seems very reasonable to me.’
‘Possibly. Six gets you ten it won’t last a week.’
‘Done. Let’s see your money.’
The twins had read it with dismay. Pollux blurted out, ‘But Dad! You haven’t left us any time to repair our bikes — do you want us to lose our investment?’
‘I’ve assigned thirty hours of study a week. That leaves one hundred and thirty-eight other hours. How you use them is your business as long as you keep our agreement about studying.’
Castor said, ‘Suppose we want to start math at eight-thirty and again right after lunch? Can we get out of school that much earlier?’
‘I see no objection.’
‘And suppose we study evenings sometimes? Can we work up some velvet?’
Their father shrugged. ‘Thirty hours a week — any reasonable variations in the routine will be okay, provided you enter in the log the exact times.’
‘Now that that’s settled,’ Hazel commenced, ‘I regret to inform you, Captain, that there is one other little item on that Procrustean program that will have to be canceled for the time being at least. Much as I would enjoy inducing our little blossom into the mysteries of astrogation I don’t have the time right now. You’ll have to teach her yourself.’
‘Why?’
“‘Why” the man asks? You should know better than anyone. The Scourge of the Spaceways, that’s why. I’ve got to hole up and write like mad for the next three or four weeks; I’ve got to get several months of episodes ahead before we get out of radio range.’
Roger Stone looked at his mother sadly. ‘I knew it was bound to come, Hazel, but I didn’t expect it to hit you so young. The mental processes dull, the mind tends to wander, the —’
‘Whose mind does what? Why you young -‘-
‘Take it easy. If you’ll look over your left shoulder out the starboard port and squint your eyes, you might imagine that you see a glint on the War God. It can’t be much over ten thousand miles away.’
‘What’s that got to do with me?’ she demanded suspiciously.
‘Poor Hazel! We’ll take good care of you, Mother, we’re riding in orbit with several large commercial vessels; every one of them has burners powerful enough to punch through to Earth. We won’t ever be out of radio contact with Earth.’
Hazel stared out the port as if she could actually spot the War God. ‘Well, I’ll be dogged,’ she breathed. ‘Roger, lead me to my room — that’s a good boy. It’s senile decay, all right. You’d better take back your show; I doubt if I can write it.’
‘Huh, uh! You let them pick up that option; you’ve got to write it. Speaking of The Scum of the Waste Spaces, I’ve been meaning to ask you a couple of questions about it and this is the first spare moment we’ve had. In the first place, why did you let them sign us up again?’
‘Because they waved too much money under my nose, as you know full well. It’s an aroma we Stones have hardly ever been able to resist.’
‘I just wanted to make you admit it. You were going to get me off the hook — remember? So you swallowed it yourself.’
‘More bait.’
‘Surely. Now the other point: I don’t see how you dared to go ahead with it, no matter how much money they offered. The last episode you showed me, while you had killed off the Galactic Overlord you had also left Our Hero in a decidedly untenable position. Sealed in a radioactive sphere, if I remember correctly, at the bottom of an ammonia ocean on Jupiter. The ocean was swarming with methane monsters, whatever they are, each hypnotised by the Overlord’s mind ray to go after John Sterling at the first whiff — and him armed only with his Scout knife. How did you get him out of it?’