Read Online Beyond This Horizon by Robert A. Heinlein - Free Book Online Page B

with you. I’m a skeleton at the feast. I’m morose by nature. That’s what.”
    “Hummph right back at you. You haven’t found her because you haven’t been looking for her. You’ve fallen into a rut, Cliff. Tuesdays and Fridays, dinner with Hazel. Mondays and Thursdays, work out at the gymnasium. Weekends, go to the country and soak up some natural vitamin D. You need to be shaken out of that. I’m going down tomorrow and register a consent.”
    “You wouldn’t really!”
    “I certainly shall. Then, if you find someone who pleases your fancy, you can confirm it without any delay.”
    “But Hazel, I don’t want you to turn me loose.”
    “I’m not turning you loose. I’m just trying to encourage you to have a roving eye. You can come to see me whenever you like, even if you remarry. But no more of this Tuesday-and-Friday stuff. That’s out. Try phoning me in the middle of the night, or duck out of your sacred office during working hours.”
    “Hazel, you don’t really want me to go chasing after other women, do you?”
    She took his chin in her hand. “Clifford, you are a big sweet dope. You know all there is to know about figures, but what you don’t know about women would fill reels.” She kissed him. “Relax. Mamma knows best.”
    “But—”
    “The party waits.”
    He raised the shell of the car. They got out and went on in.
    The town house of the Johnson-Smith Estaire occupied the entire top platform of the warren. It was a conspicuous example of conspicuous waste. The living quarters (that great pile of curiously assembled building materials could hardly be called a home) occupied perhaps a third of the space, the rest was given over to gardens, both open and covered. Her husband’s ridiculously large income was derived from automatic furniture; it was her fancy to have her house display no apparent evidence of machine domination.
    So it was that real live servants offered to take their wraps—they had none—and escorted them to the foot of the broad flight of stairs at the top of which the hostess was greeting her guests. She extended both arms as Clifford and Hazel approached. “My dear!” she bubbled to Hazel. “So gentle of you to come! And your brilliant husband.” She turned to her guest of honor, standing at her side. “Doctor Thorgsen, these are two of my dearest friends. Larsen Hazel—such a clever little person, really. And Master Monroe-Alpha Clifford. He does things about money at the Department of Finance. Dreadfully intricate. I’m sure you would understand it—I don’t.”
    Thorgsen managed to frown and smile simultaneously. “ The Larsen Hazel? But you are—I recognize you. Will you be dancing for us tonight?”
    “I no longer dance.”
    “What a pity! That is the first unfavorable change I’ve found on earth. I’ve been away ten years.”
    “You’ve been on Pluto. How fares it there, Doctor?”
    “Chilly.” He repeated his somewhat frightening mixed expression. Clifford caught his eye and bowed deeply. “I am honored, learned sir.”
    “Don’t let it—I mean, not at all. Or something like that. Damn it sir, I’m not used to all this fancy politeness. Forgotten how to do it. We have a communal colony, you know. No weapons.”
    Monroe-Alpha had noticed with surprise that Thorgsen was unarmed and brassarded, yet he carried himself with the easy arrogance of an armed citizen, sure of his position. “The life must be quite different,” he offered.
    “It is. It is. Nothing like this. Work, a little gossip, bed, and back to work again. You’re in finance, eh? What sort of thing?”
    “I compute the re-investment problem.”
    “That? Now I know who you are. We heard of your refinement of the general solution—even out on Pluto. High computation, that. Makes our little stereo-parallax puzzles look fiddlin’.”
    “I would hardly say so.”
    “I would. Perhaps we can find a chance to talk later. You could give me some advice.”
    “I would be