Roger Stone turned back to his sons. ‘See here, boys — when the Chamber of Commerce decided to include pilot training in their Youth-Welfare program I was all for it. I even favored it when they decided to issue junior licenses to anybody who graduated high in the course. When you two got your jets I was proud as could be. It’s a young man’s game; they license commercial pilots at eighteen and —’
‘And they retire them at thirty,’ added Castor. ‘We haven’t any time to waste. We’ll be too old for the game before you know it.’
‘Pipe down. I’ll do the talking for a bit. If you think I’m going to draw that money out of the bank and let you two young yahoos go gallivanting around the system in a pile of sky junk that will probably blow the first time you go over two g’s, you had better try another think. Besides, you’re going down to Earth for school next September.’
‘We’ve been to Earth,’ answered Castor.
‘We didn’t like it’ added Pollux.
‘Too dirty.’
‘Likewise too noisy.’
‘Groundhogs everywhere,’ Castor finished.
Mr Stone brushed it aside. ‘Two weeks you were there — not time enough to find out what the place is like. You’ll love it, once you get used to it. Learn to ride horseback, play baseball, see the Ocean.’
‘A lot of impure water,’ Castor answered.
‘Horses are to eat’
‘Take baseball,’ Castor continued. ‘It’s not practical. How can you figure a one-g trajectory and place your hand at the point of contact in the free-flight time between bases? We’re not miracle men.’
‘I played it.’
‘But you grew up in a one-g field; you’ve got a distorted notion of physics. Anyhow, why would we want to learn to play baseball? When we come back, we wouldn’t be able to play it here. Why, you might crack your helmet’
Mr Stone shook his head. ‘Games aren’t the point. Play baseball or not, as suits you. But you should get an education.’
‘What does Luna City Technical lack that we need? And if so, why? After all, Dad, you were on the Board of Education’
‘I was not; I was mayor.’
‘Which made you a member ex-officio — Hazel told us.’
Mr Stone glanced at his mother; she was looking elsewhere. He went on, ‘Tech is a good school, of its sort’ but we don’t pretend to offer everything at Tech. After all, the Moon is still an outpost, a frontier —’
‘But you said,’ Pollux interrupted, ‘in your retiring speech as mayor, that Luna City was the Athens of the future and the hope of the new age.’
‘Poetic license. Tech is still not Harvard. Don’t you boys want to see the world’s great works of art? Don’t you want to study the world’s great literature?’
‘We’ve read lvanhoe,’ said Castor.
‘And we don’t want to read The Mill on the Floss,’ added Pollux.
‘We prefer your stuff.’
‘My stuff? My stuff isn’t literature. It’s more of an animated comic strip.’
‘We like it’ Castor said firmly.
His father took a deep breath. ‘Thank you. Which reminds me that I still have a full episode to sweat out tonight, so I will cut this discussion short. In the first place you can’t touch the money without my thumbprint — from now on I am going to wear gloves. In the second place both of you are too young for an unlimited license.’
‘You could get us a waiver for out-system. When we got back we’d probably be old enough for unlimited.’
‘You’re too young!’
Castor said, ‘Why, Dad, not half an hour ago you accepted a gimmick from me in which you were going to have an eleven-year-old kid driving a ship.’
‘I’ll raise his age!’
‘It’ll ruin your gimmick.’
‘Confound it! That’s just fiction — and poor fiction at that. It’s hokum, dreamed up to sell merchandise.’ He suddenly looked suspiciously at his son. ‘Cas, you planted that gimmick on me. Just to give yourself an argument in favor of this hair-brained scheme — didn’t you?’
Castor looked pious. ‘Why, Father, how could you think such a thing?’
‘Don’t “Father” me! I can tell a hawk from a handsaw.’