Who can afford to travel in luxury liners? Ans.: Rich old widows, wealthy retired couples, high-priced executives whose time is so valuable that their corporations gladly send them by the fastest ships-and an occasional rare exception of some other sort.
Clark and I are such exceptions. We have one other exception in the ship, Miss-well, I'll call her Miss Girdle Fitz-Snugglie, because if I used her right name and perchance anybody ever sees this, it would be all too easily recognizable. I think Girdie is a good sort. I don't care what the gossips in this ship say. She doesn't act jealous of me even though it appears that the younger officers in the ship were all her personal property until I boarded-all the trip out from Earth,
I mean. I've cut into her monopoly quite a bit, but she isn't catty to me; she tre~ats me warmly woman-towoman, and I've learned quite a lot about Life and Men from her... more than Mother ever taught me.
(It is just possible that Mother is slightly naïve on subjects that Girdie knows best. A woman who tackles engineering and undertakes to beat men at their own game might have had a fairly limited social life, wouldn't you think? I must study this seriously
because it seems possible that much the same might happen to a female space pilot and it is no part of my Master Plan to become a soured old maid.)
Girdle is about twice my age, which makes her awfully young in this company; nevertheless it may be that I cause her to look just a bit wrinkled around the eyes. Contrariwise, my somewhat unfinished look may make her more mature contours appear even more Helen-of-Troyish. As may be, it is certain that my presence has relieved the pressure on her by giving the gossips two targets instead of one.
And gossip they do. I heard one of them say about her: "She's been in more laps than a napkin!"
If so, I hope she had fun.
Those gay ship's dances in the mammoth ballroom! Like this: they happen every Tuesday and Saturday night, when the ship is spacing. The music starts at 20.30 and the Ladies' Society for Moral Rectitude is seated around the edge of the floor, as if for a wake. Uncle Tom is there, as a concession to me, and very proudsome and distinguished he looks in evening formal. I am there in a party dress which is not quite as girlish as it was when Mother helped me pick it out, in consequence of some very careful retailoring I have done with my door locked. Even Clark attends because there is nothing else going on and he's afraid he might miss something-and looking so nice I'm proud of
him, because he has to climb into his own monkey suit or he can't come to the ball.
Over by the punch bowl are half a dozen of the ship's junior officers, dressed in mess jacket uniforms and looking faintly uncomfortable.
The Captain, by some process known only to him, selects one of the widows and asks her to dance. Two husbands dance with their wives. Uncle Tom offers me his arm and leads me to the floor. Two or three of the junior officers follow the Captain's example. Clark takes advantage of the breathless excitement to raid the punch bowl.
But nobody asks Girdle to dance.
This is no accident. The Captain has given the Word (I have this intelligence with utter certainty through My Spies) that no ship's officer shall dance with Miss Fitz-Snugglie until he has danced at least two dances with other partners-and I am not an "other partner," because the proscription, since leaving Mars, has been extended to me.
This should be proof to anyone that a captain of a ship is, in sober fact, the Last of the Absolute Monarchs.
There are now six or seven couples on the floor and the fun is at its riotous height. The floor will never again be so crowded. Nevertheless nine-tenths of the chairs are still occupied and you could ride a bicycle around the floor without endangering the dancers. The spectators look as if they were knitting at the tumbrels. The proper finishing touch would be a guillotine in the empty space in the middle of the floor.
The music stops; Uncle Tom takes me back to my chair, then asks Girdie to dance-since he is a Cash Customer, the Captain has not attempted to make him toe the mark. But I am still out of bounds, so I walk over to the punch bowl, take a cup out of Clark's
hands, finish it, and say, "Come on, Clark. I'll let you practice on me."
"Aw, it's a waltz!" (Or a "flea hop," or a "chassé," or "five step"-but whatever it is, it is just too utterly impossible.)
"Do it-or I'll tell Madame Grew that you want to dance with her, only you're too shy to ask her."
"You do and I'll trip her! I'll stumble and trip her."
However, Clark is weakening, so I move in fast. "Look, Bub, you either take me out there and walk on my feet for a while-or I'll see to it that Girdle doesn't dance with you at all."
That does it. Clark is in the throes of his first case of puppy love, and Girdle is such a gent that she treats him as an equal and accepts his attentions with warm courtesy. So Clark dances with me. Actually he is quite a good dancer and I have to lead him only a tiny bit. He likes to dance-but he wouldn't want anyone, especially me, to think that he likes to dance with his sister. We don't look too badly matched, since I am short. In the meantime Girdle is looking very good indeed with Uncle Tom, which is quite an accomplishment, as Uncle Tom dances with great enthusiasm and no rhythm. But Girdle can follow anyone-if her partner broke his leg, she would follow, fracturing her own at the same spot. But the crowd is thinning out now; husbands that danced the first dance are too tired for the second and no one has replaced them.
Oh, we have gay times in the luxury liner Tricorn!
Truthfully we do have gay times. Starting with the third dance Girdle and I have our pick of the ship's officers, most of whom are good dancers, or at least have had plenty of practice. About twenty-two o'clock the Captain goes to bed and shortly after that the chaperones start putting away their whetstones and fading, one by one. By midnight there is just Girdie and myself and half a dozen of the younger officers-
and the Purser, who has dutifully danced with every woman and now feels that he owes himself the rest of the night. He is quite a good dancer, for an old man.
Oh, and there is usually Mrs. Grew, too-but she isn't one of the chaperones and she is always nice to Girdie. She is a fat old woman, full of sin and chuckles. She doesn't expect anyone to dance with her but she likes to watch-and the officers who aren't dancing at the moment like to sit with her; she's fun.
About one o'clock Uncle Tom sends Clark to tell me to come to bed or he'll lock me out. He wouldn't but I do-my feet are tired.
Good old Tricorn!
VI
The Captain is slowly increasing the spin of the ship to make the fake gravity match the surface gravitation of Venus, which is 84 percent of one standard gravity or more than twice as much as I have been used to all my life. So, when I am not busy studying astrogation or ship handling, I spend much of my time in the ship's gymnasium, hardening myself for what is coming, for I have no intention of being at a disadvantage on Venus in either strength or agility.
If I can adjust to an acceleration of 0.84 gee, the later transition to the full Earth-normal of one gee should be sugar pie with chocolate frosting. So I think.
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passengt'rs are Fart1~ ~neii or \enht~II1en \\ ho feel
need to prepare for the iiea~ V gravitation of Venus.
if th~ dozen-odd Marsmeii I aiii the only one who ani~ to take senouslv the coming burden-and the lociudhil of aliens in the ship we never see; each rtn iiains in his specially conditioned stateroom. The