Read Online Have space suit-- will travel by Robert A. Heinlein - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert A. Heinlein
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‘Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep.’ ‘Blessings on him who invented sleep, the mantle that covers all human thoughts.’ “
“Quit showing off and talk sense!”
“I am talking sense. At the moment we’re as helpless as goldfish. We’re simply trying to survive-and the first principle of survival is not to worry about the impossible and concentrate on what’s possible. I’m hungry and thirsty and uncomfortable and very, very tired . . . and all I can do about it is sleep. So if you will kindly keep quiet, that’s what I’ll do.”
“I can take a hint. No need to snap at me.”
“I’m sorry. But I get cross as two sticks when I’m tired and Daddy says I’m simply frightful before breakfast.” She curled up in a little ball and tucked that filthy rag doll under her chin. “G’night, Kip.”
“Good night, Peewee.”
I thought of something and started to speak . . . and saw that she was asleep. She was breathing softly and her face had smoothed out and no longer looked alert and smart-alecky. Her upper lip pooched out in a baby pout and she looked like a dirty-faced cherub. There were streaks where she had apparently cried and not wiped it away. But she had never let me see her crying.
Kip, I said to myself, you get yourself into the darndest things; this is much worse than bringing home a stray pup or a kitten.
But I had to take care of her ... or die trying.
Well, maybe I would. Die trying, I mean. It didn’t look as if I were any great shakes even taking care of myself.
I yawned, then yawned again. Maybe the shrimp had more sense than I had, at that. I was more tired than I had ever been, and hungry and thirsty and not comfortable other ways. I thought about banging on the door panel and trying to attract the fat one or his skinny partner. But that would wake Peewee-and it might antagonize him.
So I sprawled on my back the way I nap on the living-room rug at home. I found that a hard floor does not require any one sleeping position on the Moon; one-sixth gravity is a better mattress than all the foam rubber ever made-that fussy princess in Hans Christian Andersen’s story would have had no complaints.
I want to sleep at once.
It was the wildest space opera I had ever seen, loaded with dragons and Arcturian maidens and knights in shining space armor and shuttling between King Arthur’s Court and the Dead Sea Bottoms of Barsoom. I didn’t mind that but I did mind the announcer. He had the voice of Ace Quiggle and the face of him. He leaned out of the screen and leered, those wormy cilia writhing. “Will Beowulf conquer the Dragon? Will Tristan return to Iseult? Will Peewee find her dolly? Tune in this channel tomorrow night and in the meantime, wake up and hurry to your neighborhood druggist for a cake of Skyway’s Kwikbrite Armor Polish, the better polish used by the better knights sans peur et sans reproche. Wake up!” He shoved a snaky arm out of the screen and grabbed my shoulder.
I woke up.
“Wake up,” Peewee was saying, shaking my shoulder. “Please wake up, Kip.”
“Lea’ me alone!”
“You were having a nightmare.”
The Arcturian princess had been in a bad spot. “Now I’ll never know how it came out. Wha’ did y’ want to wake me for? I thought the idea was to sleep?”
“You’ve slept for hours-and now perhaps there is something we can do.”
“Breakfast, maybe?”
She ignored that. “I think we should try to escape.”
I sat up suddenly, bounced off the floor, settled back. “Wups! How?”
“I don’t know exactly. But I think they have gone away and left us. If so, we’ll never have a better chance.”
“They have? What makes you think so?”
“Listen. Listen hard.”
I listened. I could hear my heart beat, I could hear Peewee breathing, and presently I could hear her heart beating. I’ve never heard deeper silence in a cave.
I took my knife, held it in my teeth for bone conduction and pushed it against a wall. Nothing. I tried
“Quit showing off and talk sense!”
“I am talking sense. At the moment we’re as helpless as goldfish. We’re simply trying to survive-and the first principle of survival is not to worry about the impossible and concentrate on what’s possible. I’m hungry and thirsty and uncomfortable and very, very tired . . . and all I can do about it is sleep. So if you will kindly keep quiet, that’s what I’ll do.”
“I can take a hint. No need to snap at me.”
“I’m sorry. But I get cross as two sticks when I’m tired and Daddy says I’m simply frightful before breakfast.” She curled up in a little ball and tucked that filthy rag doll under her chin. “G’night, Kip.”
“Good night, Peewee.”
I thought of something and started to speak . . . and saw that she was asleep. She was breathing softly and her face had smoothed out and no longer looked alert and smart-alecky. Her upper lip pooched out in a baby pout and she looked like a dirty-faced cherub. There were streaks where she had apparently cried and not wiped it away. But she had never let me see her crying.
Kip, I said to myself, you get yourself into the darndest things; this is much worse than bringing home a stray pup or a kitten.
But I had to take care of her ... or die trying.
Well, maybe I would. Die trying, I mean. It didn’t look as if I were any great shakes even taking care of myself.
I yawned, then yawned again. Maybe the shrimp had more sense than I had, at that. I was more tired than I had ever been, and hungry and thirsty and not comfortable other ways. I thought about banging on the door panel and trying to attract the fat one or his skinny partner. But that would wake Peewee-and it might antagonize him.
So I sprawled on my back the way I nap on the living-room rug at home. I found that a hard floor does not require any one sleeping position on the Moon; one-sixth gravity is a better mattress than all the foam rubber ever made-that fussy princess in Hans Christian Andersen’s story would have had no complaints.
I want to sleep at once.
It was the wildest space opera I had ever seen, loaded with dragons and Arcturian maidens and knights in shining space armor and shuttling between King Arthur’s Court and the Dead Sea Bottoms of Barsoom. I didn’t mind that but I did mind the announcer. He had the voice of Ace Quiggle and the face of him. He leaned out of the screen and leered, those wormy cilia writhing. “Will Beowulf conquer the Dragon? Will Tristan return to Iseult? Will Peewee find her dolly? Tune in this channel tomorrow night and in the meantime, wake up and hurry to your neighborhood druggist for a cake of Skyway’s Kwikbrite Armor Polish, the better polish used by the better knights sans peur et sans reproche. Wake up!” He shoved a snaky arm out of the screen and grabbed my shoulder.
I woke up.
“Wake up,” Peewee was saying, shaking my shoulder. “Please wake up, Kip.”
“Lea’ me alone!”
“You were having a nightmare.”
The Arcturian princess had been in a bad spot. “Now I’ll never know how it came out. Wha’ did y’ want to wake me for? I thought the idea was to sleep?”
“You’ve slept for hours-and now perhaps there is something we can do.”
“Breakfast, maybe?”
She ignored that. “I think we should try to escape.”
I sat up suddenly, bounced off the floor, settled back. “Wups! How?”
“I don’t know exactly. But I think they have gone away and left us. If so, we’ll never have a better chance.”
“They have? What makes you think so?”
“Listen. Listen hard.”
I listened. I could hear my heart beat, I could hear Peewee breathing, and presently I could hear her heart beating. I’ve never heard deeper silence in a cave.
I took my knife, held it in my teeth for bone conduction and pushed it against a wall. Nothing. I tried
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