Read Online Have space suit-- will travel by Robert A. Heinlein - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Robert A. Heinlein
Ads: Link
Reisfeld. And my name is Patricia Wynant Reisfeld. Isn’t that awful? Better call me Peewee.”
“Professor Reisfeld- What does he teach?”
“Huh? You don’t know? You don’t know about Daddy’s Nobel Prize? Or anything?”
“I’m just a country boy, Peewee. Sorry.”
“You must be. Daddy doesn’t teach anything. He thinks. He thinks better than anybody . . . except me, possibly. He’s the synthesist. Everybody else specializes. Daddy knows everything and puts the pieces together.”
Maybe so, but I hadn’t heard of him. It sounded like a good idea . . . but it would take an awfully smart man-if I had found out anything, it was that they could print it faster than I could study it. Professor Reisfeld must have three heads. Five.
“Wait till you meet him,” she added, glancing at her watch. “Kip, I think we had better get braced. We’ll be landing in a few minutes . . . and he won’t care how he shakes up passengers.”
So we crowded into the narrow end and braced each other. We waited. After a bit the ship shook itself and the floor tilted. There was a slight bump and things got steady and suddenly I felt very light. Peewee pulled her feet under her and stood up. “Well, we’re on the Moon.”
Chapter 5
When I was a kid, we used to pretend we were making the first landing on the Moon. Then I gave up romantic notions and realized that I would have to go about it another way. But I never thought I would get there penned up, unable to see out, like a mouse in a shoe box.
The only thing that proved I was on the Moon was my weight. High gravity can be managed anywhere, with centrifuges. Low gravity is another matter; on Earth the most you can squeeze out is a few seconds going off a high board, or by parachute delay, or stunts in a plane.
If low gravity goes on and on, then wherever you are, you are not on Earth. Well, I wasn’t on Mars; it had to be the Moon.
On the Moon I should weigh a little over twenty-five pounds. It felt about so-I felt light enough to walk on a lawn and not bend the grass.
For a few minutes I simply exulted in it, forgetting him and the trouble we were in, just heel-and-toe around the room, getting the wonderful feel of it, bouncing a little and bumping my head against the ceiling and feeling how slowly, slowly, slowly I settled back to the floor. Peewee sat down, shrugged her shoulders and gave a little smile, an annoyingly patronizing one. The “Old Moon-Hand”-all of two weeks more of it than I had had.
Low gravity has its disconcerting tricks. Your feet have hardly any traction and they fly out from under you. I had to learn with muscles and reflexes what I had known only intellectually: that when weight goes down, mass and inertia do not. To change direction, even in walking, you have to lean the way you would to round a turn on a board track- and even then if you don’t have traction (which I didn’t in socks on a smooth floor) your feet go out from under you.
A fall doesn’t hurt much in one-sixth gravity but Peewee giggled. I sat up and said, “Go and laugh, smartie. You can afford to-you’ve got tennis shoes.”
“I’m sorry. But you looked silly, hanging there like a slow-motion picture and grabbing air.”
“No doubt. Very funny.”
“I said I was sorry. Look, you can borrow my shoes.”
I looked at her feet, then at mine, and snorted. “Gee, thanks!”
“Well . . . you could cut the heels out, or something. It wouldn’t bother me. Nothing ever does. Where are your shoes. Kip?”
“Uh, about a quarter-million miles away-unless we got off at the wrong stop.”
“Oh. Well, you won’t need them much, here.”
“Yeah.” I chewed my lip, thinking about “here” and no longer interested in games with gravity. “Peewee? What do we do now?”
“About what?”
“About him.”
“Nothing. What can we do?”
“Then what do we do?”
“Sleep.”
“Huh?”
“Sleep. ‘Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care.’
“Professor Reisfeld- What does he teach?”
“Huh? You don’t know? You don’t know about Daddy’s Nobel Prize? Or anything?”
“I’m just a country boy, Peewee. Sorry.”
“You must be. Daddy doesn’t teach anything. He thinks. He thinks better than anybody . . . except me, possibly. He’s the synthesist. Everybody else specializes. Daddy knows everything and puts the pieces together.”
Maybe so, but I hadn’t heard of him. It sounded like a good idea . . . but it would take an awfully smart man-if I had found out anything, it was that they could print it faster than I could study it. Professor Reisfeld must have three heads. Five.
“Wait till you meet him,” she added, glancing at her watch. “Kip, I think we had better get braced. We’ll be landing in a few minutes . . . and he won’t care how he shakes up passengers.”
So we crowded into the narrow end and braced each other. We waited. After a bit the ship shook itself and the floor tilted. There was a slight bump and things got steady and suddenly I felt very light. Peewee pulled her feet under her and stood up. “Well, we’re on the Moon.”
Chapter 5
When I was a kid, we used to pretend we were making the first landing on the Moon. Then I gave up romantic notions and realized that I would have to go about it another way. But I never thought I would get there penned up, unable to see out, like a mouse in a shoe box.
The only thing that proved I was on the Moon was my weight. High gravity can be managed anywhere, with centrifuges. Low gravity is another matter; on Earth the most you can squeeze out is a few seconds going off a high board, or by parachute delay, or stunts in a plane.
If low gravity goes on and on, then wherever you are, you are not on Earth. Well, I wasn’t on Mars; it had to be the Moon.
On the Moon I should weigh a little over twenty-five pounds. It felt about so-I felt light enough to walk on a lawn and not bend the grass.
For a few minutes I simply exulted in it, forgetting him and the trouble we were in, just heel-and-toe around the room, getting the wonderful feel of it, bouncing a little and bumping my head against the ceiling and feeling how slowly, slowly, slowly I settled back to the floor. Peewee sat down, shrugged her shoulders and gave a little smile, an annoyingly patronizing one. The “Old Moon-Hand”-all of two weeks more of it than I had had.
Low gravity has its disconcerting tricks. Your feet have hardly any traction and they fly out from under you. I had to learn with muscles and reflexes what I had known only intellectually: that when weight goes down, mass and inertia do not. To change direction, even in walking, you have to lean the way you would to round a turn on a board track- and even then if you don’t have traction (which I didn’t in socks on a smooth floor) your feet go out from under you.
A fall doesn’t hurt much in one-sixth gravity but Peewee giggled. I sat up and said, “Go and laugh, smartie. You can afford to-you’ve got tennis shoes.”
“I’m sorry. But you looked silly, hanging there like a slow-motion picture and grabbing air.”
“No doubt. Very funny.”
“I said I was sorry. Look, you can borrow my shoes.”
I looked at her feet, then at mine, and snorted. “Gee, thanks!”
“Well . . . you could cut the heels out, or something. It wouldn’t bother me. Nothing ever does. Where are your shoes. Kip?”
“Uh, about a quarter-million miles away-unless we got off at the wrong stop.”
“Oh. Well, you won’t need them much, here.”
“Yeah.” I chewed my lip, thinking about “here” and no longer interested in games with gravity. “Peewee? What do we do now?”
“About what?”
“About him.”
“Nothing. What can we do?”
“Then what do we do?”
“Sleep.”
“Huh?”
“Sleep. ‘Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care.’
Similar Books
