Double Star

Robert A. Heinlein Double Star

To Henry and Catherine Kuttner

One

If a man walks in dressed like a hick and acting as if he owned the place, he's a spaceman.

It is a logical necessity. His profession makes him feel like boss of all creation; when he sets foot dirtside he is slumming among the peasants. As for his sartorial inelegance, a man who is in uniform nine tenths of the time and is more used to deep space than to civilization can hardly be expected to know how to dress properly. He is a sucker for the alleged tailors who swarm around every spaceport peddling «ground outfits.»

I could see that this big-boned fellow had been dressed by Omar the Tentmaker — padded shoulders that were too big to start with, shorts cut so that they crawled up his hairy thighs as he sat down, a ruffled chemise that might have looked well on a cow.

But I kept my opinion to myself and bought him a drink with my last half-Imperial, considering it an investment, spacemen being the way they are about money. «Hot jets!» I said as we touched glasses. He gave me a quick glance.

That was my initial mistake in dealing with Dak Broadbent. Instead of answering, «Clear space!» or, «Safe grounding!» as he should have, he looked me over and said softly, «A nice sentiment, but to the wrong man. I've never been out.»

That was another good place to keep my mouth shut. Spacemen did not often come to the bar of Casa Maсana; it was not their sort of hotel and it's miles from the port. When one shows up in ground clothes, seeks a dark corner of the bar, and objects to being called a spaceman, that's his business. I had picked that spot myself so that I could see without being seen. I owed a little money here and there at the time, nothing important but embarrassing. I should have assumed that he had his reasons, too, and respected them.

But my vocal cords lived their own life, wild and free. «Don't give me that, shipmate,» I replied. «If you're a ground hog, I'm Mayor of Tycho City. I'll wager you've done more drinking on Mars,» I added, noticing the cautious way he lifted his glass, a dead giveaway of low-gravity habits, «than you've ever done on Earth.»

'Keep your voice down!» he cut in without moving his lips. «What makes you sure that I am a voyageur? You don't know me.»

«Sorry,» I said. «You can be anything you like. But I've got eyes. You gave yourself away the minute you walked in.»

He said something under his breath. «How?»

«Don't let it worry you. I doubt if anyone else noticed. But I see things other people don't see.» I handed him my card, a little smugly perhaps. There is only one Lorenzo Smythe, the One-Man Stock Company. Yes, I'm «“The Great Lorenzo” — stereo, canned opera, legit — “Pantomimist and Mimicry Artist Extraordinary”.»

He read my card and dropped it into a sleeve pocket — which annoyed me; those cards had cost me money — genuine imitation hand engraving. «I see your point,» he said quietly, «but what was wrong with the way I behaved?»

«I'll show you,» I said. «I'll walk to the door like a ground hog and come back the way you walk. Watch.» I did so, making the trip back in a slightly exaggerated version of his walk to allow for his untrained eye — feet sliding softly along the floor as if it were deck plates, weight carried forward and balanced from the hips, hands a trifle forward and clear of the body, ready to grasp.

There are a dozen other details which can't be set down in words; the point is you have to be a spaceman when you do it, with a spaceman's alert body and unconscious balance — you have to live it. A city man blunders along on smooth floors all his life, steady floors with Earth-normal gravity, and will trip over a cigarette paper, like as not. Not so a spaceman.

«See what I mean?» I asked, slipping back into my seat.

«I'm afraid I do,» he admitted sourly. «Did I walk like that?»

«Yes.»

«Hmm ... Maybe I should take lessons from you.»

«You could do worse,» I admitted.

He sat there looking me over, then started to speak — changed his mind and wiggled a finger at the bartender to refill our glasses. When the drinks came, he paid for them, drank his, and slid out of his seat all in one smooth motion. «Wait for me,» he said quietly.

With a drink he had bought sitting in front of me I could not refuse. Nor did I want to; he interested me. I liked him, even on ten minutes' acquaintance; he was the sort of big ugly-handsome galoot that women go for and men take orders from.

He threaded his way gracefully through the room and passed a table of four Martians near the door. I didn't like Martians. I did not fancy having a thing that looks like a tree trunk topped off by a sun helmet claiming the privileges of a man. I did not like the way they grew pseudo limbs; it reminded me of snakes crawling out of their holes. I did not like the fact that they could look all directions at once without turning their heads — if they had had heads, which of course they don't. And I could not stand their smell!

Nobody could accuse me of race prejudice. I didn't care what a man's color, race, or religion was. But men were men, whereas Martians were things. They weren't even animals to my way of thinking. I'd rather have had a wart hog around me any day. Permitting them in restaurants and bars used by men struck me as outrageous. But there was the Treaty, of course, so what could I do?

These four had not been there when I came in, or I would have whiffed them. For that matter, they certainly could not have been there a few moments earlier when I had walked to the door and back. Now there they were standing on their pedestals around a table, pretending to be people. I had not even heard the air conditioning speed up.

The free drink in front of me did not attract me; I simply wanted my host to come back so that I could leave politely. It suddenly occurred to me that he had glanced over that way just before he had left so hastily and I wondered if the Martians had anything to do with it. I looked over at them, trying to see if they were paying attention to our table — but how could you tell what a Martian was looking at or what it was thinking? That was another thing I didn't like about them.

I sat there for several minutes fiddling with my drink and wondering what had happened to my spaceman friend. I had hoped that his hospitality might extend to dinner and, if we became sufficiently simpatico, possibly even to a small temporary loan. My other prospects were — I admit it! — slender. The last two times I had tried to call my agent his auto-secretary had simply recorded the message, and unless I deposited coins in the door, my room would not open to me that night ... That was how low my fortunes had ebbed: reduced to sleeping in a coin-operated cubicle.

In the midst of my melancholy ponderings a waiter touched me on the elbow. «Call for you, sir.»

«Eh? Very well, friend, will you fetch an instrument to the table?»

«Sorry, sir, but I can't transfer it. Booth 12 in the lobby.»

«Oh. Thank you,» I answered, making it as warm as possible since I was unable to tip him. I swung wide round the Martians as I went out.

I soon saw why the call had not been brought to the table; No. 12 was a maximum-security booth, sight, sound, and scramble. The tank showed no image and did not clear even after the door locked behind me. It remained milky until I sat down and placed my face within pickup, then the opalescent clouds melted away and I