I didn't waste time pretending that I didn't have jam all over my face; I simply said, "Clark Fries, what did you smuggle into this ship in my baggage?"
He looked blank-a look of malignant idiocy which has been known to drive well-balanced teachers to their therapists. "What in the world are you talking about, Pod?"
"You know what I'm talking about! Smuggling!"
"Oh!" His face lit up in a sunny smile. "You mean those two kilograms of happy dust. Goodness, Sis, is that still worrying you? There never were any two kilos of happy dust; I was just having my little joke with that stuffy inspector. I thought you knew that."
"I do not mean any 'two kilos of happy dust'! I am talking about at least three kilos of something else that you hid in my baggage!"
He looked worried. "Pod, do you feel well?"
"Ooooooh!-dandruffl Clark Fries, you stop that! You know what I mean! When I was centrifuged, my bags and I weighed three kilos over my allowance. Well?"
He looked at me thoughtfully, sympathetically. "It has seemed to me that you were getting a bit fat- but I didn't want to mention it. I thought it was all
this rich food you've been tucking away here in the ship. You really ought to watch that sort of thing, Pod. After all, if a girl lets her figure go to pieces- Well, she doesn't have much else. So I hear.'
Had that envelope been a blunt instrument I would have blunted him. I heard a low growling sound, and realized that I was making it. So I stopped. "Where's the letter that was in this envelope?"
Clark looked surprised. "Why, it's right there, in your other hand."
"This? This is all there was? No letter from somebody else?"
"Why, just that note from me, Sis. Didn't you like it? I thought that it just suited the occasion. .. I knew you would find it your very first chance." He smiled. "Next time you want to paw through my things, let me know and I'll help. Sometimes I have experiments running-and you might get hurt. That can happen to people who aren't very bright and don't look before they leap. I wouldn't want that to happen to you, Sis."
I didn't bandy any more words; I brushed past him and went to my own room and locked the door and bawled.
Then I got up and did very careful things to my face. I know when I'm licked; I don't have to have a full set of working drawings. I resolved never to mention the matter to Clark again.
But what was I to do? Go to the Captain? I already knew the Captain pretty well; his imagination extended as far as the next ballistic prediction and no further. Tell him that my brother had been smuggling something, I didn't know what-and that he had better search the entire ship most carefully, because, whatever it was, it was not in my brother's room? Don't be triple silly, Poddy. In the first place, he would laugh at you; in the second place, you don't want Clark to be caught- Mother and Daddy wouldn't like it.
Tell Uncle Tom about it? He might be just as unbelieving ... or, if he did believe me, he might go to the Captain himself-with just as disastrous results.
I decided not to go to Uncle Tom-at least not yet. Instead I would keep my eyes and ears open and try to find an answer myself.
In any case I did not waste much time on Clark's sins (if any, I had to admit in bare honesty); I was in my first real spaceship-halfway to my ambition thereby-and there was much to learn and do.
Those travel brochures are honest enough, I guess- but they do not give you the full picture.
For example, take this phrase right out of the text of the Triangle Line's fancy folder ... romantic days in ancient Marsopolis, the city older than time; exotic nights under the hurtling moons of Mars
Let's rephrase it into everyday language, shall we? Marsopolis is my hometown and I love it-but it is as romantic as bread and butter with no jam. The parts people live in are new and were designed for function, not romance. As for the ruins outside town (which the Martians never called "Marsopolis"), a lot of high foreheads including Daddy have seen to it that the best parts are locked off so that tourists will not carve their initials in something that was old when stone axes were the last thing in superweapons. Furthermore, Martian ruins are neither beautiful, nor picturesque, nor impressive, to human eyes. The way to appreciate them is to read a really good book with illustrations, diagrams, and simple explanations-such as Daddy's Other Paths Than Ours. (Adv.)
As for those exotic nights, anybody who is outdoors after sundown on Mars other than through sheer necessity needs to have his head examined. It's chilly out there. I've seen Deimos and Phobos at night exactly twice, each time through no fault of my own-
and I was so busy keeping from freezing to death that I wasted no thought on "hurtling moons."
This advertising brochure is just as meticulously accurate and just as deceptive in effect-concerning the ships themselves. Oh, the Tricorn is a palace; I'll vouch for that. It really is a miracle of engineering that anything so huge, so luxurious, so fantastically adapted to the health and comfort of human beings, should be able to "hurtle" (pardon the word) through space.
But take those pictures- You know the ones I mean: full color and depth,
showing groups of handsome young people of both sexes chatting or playing games in the lounge, dancing gaily in the ballroom-or views of a "typical stateroom."
That "typical stateroom" is not a fake. No, it has simply been photographed from an angle and with a lens that makes it look at least twice as big as it is. As for those handsome, gay, young people-well, they aren't along on the trip I'm making. It's my guess that they are professional models.
In the Tricor'n this trip the young and handsome passengers like those in the pictures can be counted on the thumb of one hand. The typical passenger we have with us is a great-grandmother, Terran citizenship, widowed, wealthy, making her first trip into space-and probably her last, for she is not sure she likes it.
Honest, I'm not exaggerating; our passengers look like refugees from a geriatrics clinic. I am not scoffing at old age. I understand that it is a condition I will one day attain myself, if I go on breathing in and out enough times-say about 900,000,000 more times, not counting heavy exercise. Old age can be a charming condition, as witness Uncle Tom. But old age is not an accomplishment; it is just something that happens to you despite yourself, like falling downstairs.
And I must say that I am getting a wee bit tired of having youth treated as a punishable offense.
Our typical male passenger is the same sort, only not nearly so numerous. He differs from his wife primarily in that, instead of looking down his nose at me, he is sometimes inclined to pat me in a "fatherly" way that I do not find fatherly, don't like, avoid if humanly possible-and which nevertheless gets me talked about.
I suppose I should not have been surprised to find the Tnicorn a super-deluxe old folks' home, but (I may as well admit it) my experience is still limited and I was not aware of some of the economic facts of life.
The Tricorn is expensive. It is very expensive. Clark and I would not be in it at all if Uncle Tom had not twisted Dr. Schoenstein's arm in our behalf. Oh, I suppose Uncle Tom can afford it, but, by age group though not by temperament, he fits the defined category. But Daddy and Mother had intended to take us in the Wanderlust, a low-fare, economy-orbit freighter. Daddy and Mother are not poor, but they are not rich-and after they finish raising and educating five children it is unlikely that they will ever be rich.