Podkayne of Mars (8 page)

Good old
Tricorn!

SIX

The Captain is slowly increasing the spin of the ship
to make the fake gravity match the surface gravitation of Venus, which is 84 percent of one standard gravity or more than twice as much as I have been used to all my life. So, when I am not busy studying astrogation or ship handling, I spend much of my time in the ship’s gymnasium, hardening myself for what is coming, for I have no intention of being at a disadvantage on Venus in either strength or agility.

If I can adjust to an acceleration of 0.84 gee, the later transition to the full Earth-normal of one gee should be sugar pie with chocolate frosting. So I think.

I usually have the gymnasium all to myself. Most of the passengers are Earthmen or Venusmen who feel no need to prepare for the heavy gravitation of Venus. Of the dozen-odd Marsmen I am the only one who seems to take seriously the coming burden—and the handful of aliens in the ship we never see; each remains in his specially conditioned stateroom. The ship’s officers do use the gym; some of them are quite fanatic about keeping fit. But they use it mostly at hours when passengers are not likely to use it.

So, on this day (Ceres thirteenth actually but the
Tricorn
uses Earth dates and time, which made it March ninth—I don’t mind the strange dates but the short Earth day is costing me a half-hour’s sleep each night)—on Ceres thirteenth I went charging into the gym, so angry I could spit venom and intending to derive a double benefit by working off my mad (at least to the point where I would not be clapped in irons for assault), and by strengthening my muscles, too.

And found Clark inside, dressed in shorts and with a massy barbell.

I stopped short and blurted out, “What are
you
doing here?”

He grunted, “Weakening my mind.”

Well, I had asked for it; there is no ship’s regulation forbidding Clark to use the gym. His answer made sense to one schooled in his devious logic, which I certainly should be. I changed the subject, tossed aside my robe, and started limbering exercises to warm up. “How massy?” I asked.

“Sixty kilos.”

I glanced at a weight meter on the wall, a loaded spring scale marked to read in fractions of standard gee; it read 52%. I did a fast rough in my mind—fifty-two thirty-sevenths of sixty—or unit sum, plus nine hundred over thirty-seven, so add about a ninth, top and bottom for a thousand over forty, to yield twenty-five—or call it the same as lifting eighty-five kilos back home on Mars. “Then why are you sweating?”

“I am not sweating!” He put the barbell down. “Let’s see
you
lift it.”

“All right.” As he moved I squatted down to raise the barbell—and changed my mind.

Now, believe me, I work out regularly with ninety kilos at home, and I had been checking that weight meter on the wall each day and loading that same barbell to match the weight I use at home, plus a bit extra each day. My objective (hopeless, it is beginning to seem) is eventually to lift as much mass under Venus conditions as I had been accustomed to lifting at home.

So I was certain I could lift sixty kilos at 52 percent of standard gee.

But it is a mistake for a girl to beat a male at any test of physical strength . . . even when it’s your brother. Most especially when it’s your brother and he has a fiendish disposition and you’ve suddenly had a glimmering of a way to put his fiendish proclivities to work. As I have said, if you’re in a mood to hate something or somebody, Clark is the perfect partner.

So I grunted and strained, making a good show, got it up on my chest, started it on up—and squeaked “Help me!”

Clark gave a one-handed push at the center of the bar and we got it all the way up. Then I said, “Catch for me,” through clenched teeth, and he eased it down. I sighed.

Gee, Clark, you must be getting awful strong.”

“Doing all right.”

It works; Clark was now as mellow as his nature permits. I suggested companion tumbling—if he didn’t mind being the bottom half of the team?—because I wasn’t sure I could hold him, not at point-five-two gee . . . did he mind?

He didn’t mind at all; it gave him another chance to be muscular and masculine—and I was certain he could lift me; I massed eleven kilos less than the barbell he had just been lifting. When he was smaller, we used to do quite a bit of it, with me lifting him—it was a way to keep him quiet when I was in charge of him. Now that he is as big as I am (and stronger, I fear), we still tumble a little, but taking turns at the ground-and-air parts—back home, I mean.

But with my weight almost half again what it ought to be I didn’t risk any fancy capers. Presently, when he had me in a simple handstand over his head, I broached the subject on my mind. “Clark, is Mrs. Royer any special friend of yours?”

“Her?” He snorted and added a rude noise. “Why?”

“I just wondered. She—Mmm, perhaps I shouldn’t repeat it.”

He said, “Look, Pod, you want me to leave you standing on the ceiling?”

“Don’t you dare!”

“Then don’t start to say something and not finish it.”

“All right. But steady while I swing my feet down to your shoulders.” He let me do so, then I hopped down to the floor. The worst part about high acceleration is not how much you weigh, though that is bad enough, but how
fast
you fall—and I suspected that Clark was quite capable of leaving me head downwards high in the air if I annoyed him.

“What’s this about Mrs. Royer?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing much. She thinks Marsmen are trash, that’s all.”

“She does, huh? That makes it mutual.”

“Yes. She thinks it’s disgraceful that the Line allows us to travel first class—and the Captain certainly ought not to allow us to eat in the same mess with decent people.”

“Tell me more.”

“Nothing to tell. We’re riffraff, that’s all. Convicts. You know.”

“Interesting. Very, very interesting.”

“And her friend Mrs. Garcia agrees with her. But I suppose I shouldn’t have repeated it. After all, they are entitled to their own opinions. Aren’t they?”

Clark didn’t answer, which is a very bad sign. Shortly thereafter he left without a word. In a sudden panic that I might have started more than I intended to, I called after him but he just kept going. Clark is not hard of hearing, but he can be very hard of listening.

Well, it was too late now. So I put on a weight harness, then loaded myself down all over until I weighed as much as I would on Venus and started trotting on the treadmill until I was covered with sweat and ready for a bath and a change.

Actually I did not really care what bad luck overtook those two harpies; I simply hoped that Clark’s sleight-of-hand would be up to its usual high standards so that it could not possibly be traced back to him. Nor even guessed at. For I had not told Clark half of what was said.

Believe you me, I had never guessed, until we were in the
Tricorn,
that anyone could despise other persons simply over their ancestry or where they lived. Oh, I had encountered tourists from Earth whose manners left something to be desired—but Daddy had told me that all tourists, everywhere, seem obnoxious simply because tourists are strangers who do not know local customs . . . and I believed it, because Daddy is never wrong. Certainly the occasional visiting professor that Daddy brought home for dinner was always charming, which proves that Earthmen do not have to have bad manners.

I had noticed that the passengers in the
Tricorn
seemed a little bit stand-offish when we first boarded, but I did not think anything of it. After all, strangers do not run up and kiss you, even on Mars—and we Marsmen are fairly informal, I suppose; we’re still a frontier society. Besides that, most passengers had been in the ship at least from Earth; they had already formed their friendships and cliques. We were like new kids in a strange school.

But I said “Good morning!” to anyone I met in the passageway, and if I was not answered I just checked it off to hard-of-hearing—so many of them obviously
could
be hard of hearing. Anyhow, I wasn’t terribly interested in getting chummy with passengers; I wanted to get acquainted with the ship’s officers, pilot officers especially, so that I could get some practical experience to chink in what I already knew from reading. It’s not easy for a girl to get accepted for pilot training; she has to be about four times as good as a male candidate—and every little bit helps.

I got a wonderful break right away. We were seated at the Captain’s table!

Uncle Tom, of course. I am not conceited enough to think that “Miss Podkayne Fries, Marsopolis” means anything on a ship’s passenger list (but wait ten years!)—whereas Uncle Tom, even though he is just my pinochle-playing, easygoing oldest relative, is nevertheless senior Senator-at-Large of the Republic, and it is certain that the Marsopolis General Agent for the Triangle Line knows this and no doubt the agent would see to it that the Purser of the
Tricorn
would know it if he didn’t already.

As may be—I am not one to scorn gifts from heaven, no matter how they arrive. At our very first meal I started working on Captain Darling. That really is his name, Barrington Babcock Darling—and does his wife call him “Baby Darling”?

But of course a captain does not have a name aboard ship; he is “the Captain,” “the Master,” “the Skipper,” or even “the Old Man” if it is a member of the ship’s company speaking not in his august presence. But never a name—simply a majestic figure of impersonal authority.

(I wonder if I will someday be called “the Old Woman” when I am not in earshot? Somehow it doesn’t sound quite the same.)

But Captain Darling is not too majestic or impersonal with
me.
I set out to impress him with the idea that I was awfully sweet, even younger than I am, terribly impressed by him and overawed . . . and not too bright. It does not do to let a male of any age know that one has brains, not on first acquaintance; intelligence in a woman is likely to make a man suspicious and uneasy, much like Caesar’s fear of Cassius’ “lean and hungry look.” Get a man solidly on your side first; after that it is fairly safe to let him become gradually aware of your intellect. He may even feel unconsciously that it rubbed off from his own.

So I set out to make him feel that it was a shame that I was not his daughter. (Fortunately he only has sons.) Before that first meal was over I confided in him my great yearning to take pilot training . . . suppressing, of course, any higher ambition.

Both Uncle Tom and Clark could see what I was up to. But Uncle Tom would never give me away and Clark just looked bored and contemptuous and said nothing, because Clark would not bother to interfere with Armageddon unless there was ten percent in it for him.

But I do not mind what my relatives think of my tactics; they work. Captain Darling was obviously amused at my grandiose and “impossible” ambition . . . but he offered to show me the control room.

Round one to Poddy, on points.

I am now the unofficial ship’s mascot, with free run of the control room—and I am almost as privileged in the engineering department. Of course the Captain does not really want to spend hours teaching me the practical side of astrogation. He did show me through the control room and gave me a kindergarten explanation of the work—which I followed with wide-eyed awe—but his interest in me is purely social. He wants to not-quite hold me in his lap (he is much too practical and too discreet to do anything of the sort!), so I not-quite let him and make it a point to keep up my social relations with him, listening with my best astonished-kitten look to his anecdotes while he feeds me liters of tea. I really am a good listener because you never can tell when you will pick up something useful—and all in the world any woman has to do to be considered “charming” by men is to listen while they talk.

But Captain Darling is not the only astrogator in the ship. He gave me the run of the control room; I did the rest. The second officer, Mr. Savvonavong, thinks it is simply amazing how fast I pick up mathematics. You see, he thinks he taught me differential equations. Well, he did, when it comes to those awfully complicated ones used in correcting the vector of a constant-boost ship, but if I hadn’t worked hard in the supplementary course I was allowed to take last semester, I wouldn’t know what he was talking about. Now he is showing me how to program a ballistic computer.

The junior third, Mr. Clancy, is still studying for his unlimited license, so he has all the study tapes and reference books I need and is just as helpful. He is near enough my age to develop groping hands . . . but only a very stupid male will make even an indirect pass unless a girl manages to let him know that it won’t be resented, and Mr. Clancy is not stupid and I am very careful to offer neither invitation nor opportunity.

I may kiss him—two minutes before I leave the ship for the last time. Not sooner.

They are all very helpful and they think it is cute of me to be so dead serious about it. But, in truth, practical astrogation is
much
harder than I had ever dreamed.

 

 

I had guessed that part of the resentment I sensed—resentment that I could not fail to notice despite my cheery “Good mornings!”—lay in the fact that we were at the Captain’s table. To be sure, the
Welcome in the Tricorn!
booklet in each stateroom states plainly that new seating arrangements are made at each port and that it is the ship’s custom to change the guests at the Captain’s table each time, making the selections from the new passengers.

But I don’t suppose that warning makes it any pleasanter to be bumped, because I don’t expect to like it when I’m bumped off the Captain’s table at Venus.

But that is only part—

Only three of the passengers were really friendly to me: Mrs. Grew, Girdie, and Mrs. Royer. Mrs. Royer I met first, and at first I thought that I was going to like her, in a bored sort of way, as she was awfully friendly and I have great capacity for enduring boredom if it suits my purpose. I met her in the lounge the first day and she immediately caught my eye, smiled, invited me to sit by her, and quizzed me about myself.