The Rolling Stones (26 page)

Sometimes they varied it by having Meade sing. She was not of concert standards, but she had a warm, intimate contralto. After hearing her, a man possessing not even a flat cat felt lonely indeed. She pulled even better than the slick professional recordings; the twins found it necessary to cut her in for a percentage.

But in the main they depended on the flat cats themselves. The boomers from Mars, almost to a man, bought flat cats as soon as they heard that they were available, and each became an unpaid traveling salesman for the enterprise. Hardrock men from Luna, or directly from Earth, who had never seen a flat cat, now had opportunities to see them, pet them, listen to their hypnotic purr—and were lost. The little things not only stirred to aching suppressed loneliness, but, having stimulated it, gave it an outlet.

Castor would hold Fuzzy Britches to the mike and coo, “Here is a little darling—Molly Malone. Sing for the boys, honey pet.” While he stroked Fuzzy Britches Pollux would step up the power. “No, we can’t let Molly go—she’s a member of the family. But here is Bright Eyes. We’d like to keep Bright Eyes, too, but we mustn’t be selfish. Say hello to the folks, Bright Eyes.” Again he would stroke Fuzzy Britches. “Mr. P., now hand me Velvet.”

The stock of flat cats in deep freeze steadily melted. Their stock of high grade grew.

Roger Stone received their suggestion that they save out a few for breeding stock with one of his more emphatic refusals; once, he declaimed, was enough to be swamped in flat cats. Fuzzy Britches could stay, safely on short rations—but one was enough.

They had reached the last few at the back of the hold and were thinking about going out of business when a tired-looking, grey-haired man showed up after their broadcast. There were several other customers; he hung back and let the twins sell flat cats to the others. He had with him a girl child, little older than Lowell. Castor had not seen him before but he guessed that he might be Mr. Erska; bachelors far outnumbered families in the node and families with children were very rare. The Erskas picked up a precarious living down orbit and north; they were seldom seen at City Hall. Mr. Erska spoke Basic with some difficulty; Mrs. Erska spoke it not at all. The family used some one of the little lingos—Icelandic, it might have been.

When the other customers had left the
Stone
Castor put on his professional grin and introduced himself. Yes, it was Mr. Erska. “And what can I do for you today, sir? A flat cat?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“How about a projector? With a dozen tapes thrown in? Just the thing for a family evening.”

Mr. Erska seemed nervous. “Uh, very nice, I’m sure. No.” He tugged at the little girl’s hand. “We better go now, babykin.”

“Don’t rush off. My baby brother is around somewhere—or was. He’d like to meet your kid. Maybe he’s wandered over into the store. I’ll look for him.”

“We better go.”

“What’s the rush? He can’t be far.”

Mr. Erska swallowed in embarrassment. “My little girl. She heard your program and she wanted to see a flat cat. Now she’s seen one, so we go.”

“Oh.” Castor brought himself face to face with the child. “Would you like to hold one, honey?” She did not answer, but nodded solemnly. “Mr. P., bring up the Duchess.”

“Right, Mr. C.” Pollux went aft and fetched the Duchess—the first flat cat that came to hand, of course. He came back, warming it against his belly to revive it quickly.

Castor took it and massaged it until it flattened out and opened its eyes. “Here, honeybunch. Don’t be afraid.”

Still silent, the child took it, cuddled it. The small furry bundle sighed and began to purr. Castor turned to her father. “Don’t you want to get it for her?”

The man turned red. “No, no!”

“Why not? They’re no trouble. She’ll love it. So will you.”

“No!” He reached out and tried to take the flat cat from his daughter, speaking to her in another language.

She clung to it, replying in what was clearly the negative. Castor looked at them thoughtfully. “You would like to buy it for her, wouldn’t you?”

The man looked away. “I
can’t
buy it.”

“But you want to.” Castor glanced at Pollux. “Do you know what you are, Mr. Erska. You are the
five hundredth
customer of Flat Cat Alley.”

“Uh?”

“Didn’t you hear our grand offer? You must have missed some of our programs. The five hundredth flat cat is
absolutely free.
”

The little girl looked puzzled but clung to the flat cat. Her father looked doubtful. “You’re fooling?”

Castor laughed. “Ask Mr. P.”

Pollux nodded solemnly. “The bare truth, Mr. Erska. It’s a celebration of a successful season. One flat cat, absolutely free with the compliments of the management. And with it goes either one pin-up, or two candy bars—your choice.”

Mr. Erska seemed only half convinced, but they left with the child clinging to “Duchess” and the candy bars. When the door was closed behind them Castor said fretfully, “You didn’t need to chuck in the candy bars. They were the last; I didn’t mean us to sell them.”

“Well, we didn’t sell them; we gave ’em away.”

Castor grinned and shrugged. “Okay, I hope they don’t make her sick. What was her name?”

“I didn’t get it.”

“No matter. Or Mrs. Fries will know.” He turned around, saw Hazel behind them in the hatch. “What are
you
grinning about?”

“Nothing, nothing. I just enjoy seeing a couple of cold-cash businessmen at work.”

“Money isn’t everything!”

“Besides,” added Pollux, “it’s good advertising.”

“Advertising? With your stock practically gone?” She snickered. “There wasn’t any ‘grand offer’—and I’ll give you six to one it wasn’t your five hundredth sale.”

Castor looked embarrassed. “Aw, she wanted it! What would you have done?”

Hazel moved up to them, put an arm around the neck of each. “My boys! I’m beginning to think you may grow up yet. In thirty, forty, fifty more years you may be ready to join the human race.”

“Aw, lay off it!”

THE WORM IN THE MUD

C
OST-ACCOUNTING ON THE FLAT-CAT DEAL

turned out to be complicated. The creatures were all descendants of Fuzzy Britches, chattel of Lowell. But the increase was directly attributable to food fed to them by everyone—which in turn had forced them to eat most of the luxury foods stocked by the twins for trade. But it had been the twins’ imaginative initiative which had turned a liability into an asset. On the other hand they had used freely the capital goods (ship and electronic equipment) belonging to the entire family. But how to figure the probable worth of the consumed luxury foods? Whatever the figure was, it was not just original cost plus lift fuel.

Roger Stone handed down a Solomon’s decision. From the gross proceeds would be subtracted Meade’s percentage for singing; the twins would be reimbursed for the trade goods that had been commandeered; the balance would be split three ways among the twins and Lowell—all to be settled after they had traded high grade for refined metal at Ceres, then sold their load at Luna.

In the meantime he agreed to advance the twins’ money to operate further, Fries having promised to honor his sight draft on Luna City National.

But for once the twins found no immediate way to invest money. They toyed with the idea of using their time to prospect on their own, but a few trips out in the scooter convinced them that it was a game for experts and one in which even the experts usually made only a bare living. It was the fixed illusion that the next mass would be “the glory rock”—the one that would pay for years of toil—that kept the old rockmen going. The twins knew too much about statistics now, and they believed in their ability rather than their luck. Finding a glory rock was sheer gamble.

They made one fairly long trip into the thickest part of the node, fifteen hundred miles out and back, taking all one day and the following night to do it. They got the scooter up to a dawdling hundred and fifty miles per hour and let it coast, planning to stop and investigate if they found promising masses, having borrowed a stake-out beacon from Fries with the promise that they would pay for it if they kept it.

They did not need it. Time after time they would spot a major blip in the stereo radar, only to have someone else’s beacon wink on when they got within thirty miles of the mass. At the far end they did find a considerable collection of rock traveling loosely in company; they matched, shackled on their longest lines (their father had emphatically forbidden free jumping) and investigated. Having neither experience nor a centrifuge, their only way of checking on specific gravity was by grasping a mass and clutching it to them vigorously, thus getting a rough notion of its inertia by its resistance to being shoved around. A Geiger counter (borrowed) had shown no radioactivity; they were searching for the more valuable core material.

Two hours of this exercise left them tired but no richer. “Grandpa,” announced Pollux, “this is a lot of left-over country rock.”

“Not even that. Most of it’s pumice, I’d say.”

“Git for home?”

“Check.”

They turned the scooter around by flywheel and homed on the City Hall beacon, boosting it up to four hundred miles per hour before letting it coast, that being the top maneuver they could figure on for the juice they had left in their tanks. They would have preferred to break the speed limit, being uneasily aware that they were late—and being anxious to get home; the best designed suit is not comfortable for too long periods. They knew that their parents would not be especially worried; while they were out of range for their suit radios, they had reported in by the gossip grapevine earlier.

Their father was not worried. But the twins spent the next week under hatches, confined to the ship for failing to get back on time.

For a longer period nothing more notable took place than the incident in which Roger Stone lost his breathing mask while taking a shower and almost drowned (so he claimed) before he could find the water cut-off valve. There are very few tasks easier to do in a gravity field than in free fall, but bathing is one of them.

Dr. Stone continued her practice, now somewhat reduced. Sometimes she was chauffeured by the miner assigned to that duty; sometimes the twins took her around. One morning following her office hours in City Hall she came back into the
Stone
looking for the twins. “Where are the boys?”

“Haven’t seen them since breakfast,” answered Hazel. “Why?”

Dr. Stone frowned slightly. “Nothing, really. I’ll ask Mr. Fries to call a scooter for me.”

“Got to make a call? I’ll take you—unless those lunks have taken our scooter.”

“You needn’t, Mother Hazel.”

“I’d enjoy it. I’ve been promising Lowell a ride for weeks. Or will it take too long?”

“Shouldn’t. It’s only eight hundred miles or so out.” The doctor was not held down to the local speed limit in her errands of mercy.

“Do it in two hours, with juice to spare.” Off they went, with Buster much excited. Hazel allotted one-fourth her fuel as safety margin, allotted the working balance for maximum accelerations, figuring the projected mass-ratios in her head. Quite aside from the doctor’s privilege to disregard the law, high speed was not dangerous in the sector they would be in, it being a “thin” volume of the node.

Their destination was an antiquated winged rocket, the wings of which had been torched off and welded into a tent-shaped annex to give more living room. Hazel thought that it had a shanty-town air—but so did many of the ships in Rock City. She was pleased enough to go inside and have a sack of tea and let Lowell out of his spacesuit for a time. The patient, Mr. Eakers, was in a traction splint; his wife could not pilot their scooter, which was why Dr. Stone granted the house call.

Dr. Stone received a call by radio while they were there; she came back into the general room looking troubled. “’Smatter?” inquired Hazel.

“Mrs. Silva. I’m not really surprised; it’s her first child.”

“Did you get the co-ordinates and beacon pattern? I’ll run you right over.”

“Lowell?”

“Oh. Oh, yes.” It would be a long time in a suit for a youngster.

Mrs. Eakers suggested that they leave the child with her. Before Lowell could cloud up at the suggestion Dr. Stone said, “Thanks, but it isn’t necessary. Mr. Silva is on his way here. What I was trying to say, Mother Hazel, is that I probably had better go with him and let you and Lowell go back alone. Do you mind?”

“Of course not. Pipe down, Lowell! I’ll have us home in three-quarters of an hour and Lowell can have his nap or his spanking on time, as the case may be.”

She gave Dr. Stone one of two spare oxygen bottles before she left; Dr. Stone refused to take both of them. Hazel worked the new mass figures over; with Edith, her suit, and the spare bottle subtracted she had spare fuel. Better hit it up pretty fast and get home before the brat got cranky—

She lined up on City Hall by flywheel and stereo, spun on that axis to get the sun out of her eyes, clutched her gyros, and gave it the gun.

The next thing she knew she was tumbling like a liner in free fall. She remembered from long habit to cut the throttle but only after a period of aimless acceleration, for she had been chucked around in her saddle, thrown against her belts, and could not at first find the throttle.

When they were in free fall again she remembered to laugh. “Some ride, eh, Lowell?”

“Do it again, Grandma!”

“I hope not.” Quickly she checked things over. There was not much that could go wrong with the little craft, it being only a rocket motor, an open rack with saddles and safety harness, and a minimum of instruments and controls. It was the gyros, of course; the motor had been sweet and hot. They were hunting the least bit, she found, that being the only evidence that they had just tumbled violently. Delicately she adjusted them by hand, putting her helmet against the case so that she could hear what she was doing.

Only then did she try to find where they were and where they were going. Let’s see—the Sun is over there—and that’s Betelgeuse over yonder—so City Hall must be out that way. She ducked her helmet into the hemispherical “eye shade” of the stereo. Yup! there she be!