Robert A Heinlein - To Sail Beyond the Sunset

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TO SAIL BEYOND THE SUNSET

THE LIVES AND LOVES OF MAUREEN JOHNSON

(Being the Memoirs of a Somewhat Irregular Lady)

Robert A. Heinlein

To little girls and butterflies and kittens.

To Susan and Eleanor and Chris and (always) to Ginny.

With my Love,

R.A.H.

CONTENTS

1 The Committee for Aesthetic Deletions

2 The Garden of Eden

3 The Serpent in the Garden

4 The Worm in the Apple

5 Exit from Eden

6 ‚When Johnny Comes Marching Home...’

7 Ringing the Cash Register

8 Seacoast Bohemia

9 Dollars and Sense

10 Random Numbers

11 A Dude in a Derby

12 ‚Hang the Kaiser!’

13 ‚Over There!’

14 Black Tuesday

15 Torrid Twenties-Threadbare Thirties

16 The Frantic Forties

17 Starting Over

18 Bachelorhood

19 Cats and Children

20 Soothsayer

21 Serpent’s Tooth

22 The Better-Dead List

23 The Adventures of Prudence Penny

24 Decline and Fall

25 Rebirth in Boondock

26 Pixel to the Rescue

27 At the Coventry Cusp

28 Eternal Now

Appendix: People in this Memoir

Come, my friends,

Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

Tennyson, Ulysses

Chapter 1 - The Committee for Aesthetic Deletions

I woke up in bed with a man and a cat. The man was a stranger; the cat was

not.

I closed my eyes and tried to pull myself together - hook ‚now’ to mp memory

of last night.

No good. There wasn’t any ‚last night’. My last dear memory was of being a

passenger in a Burroughs irrelevant bus, bound for New Liverpool, when

there was a loud bang, my head hit the seat in front of me, then a lady

handed me a baby and we started filing out of the starboard emergency exit,

me with a cat in one arm and a baby in the other, and I saw a man with his

right arm off -

I gulped and opened my eyes. A stranger in my bed was better than a man

bleeding to death from a stump where his right forearm ought to be. Had it

been a nightmare? I fervently hoped so.

If it was not, then what had I done with the baby? And whose baby was it?

Maureen, this won’t do. Mislaying a baby is inexcusable. ‚Pixel, have you

seen a baby?’ The cat stood mute and a plea of not guilty was directed by

the court.

My father once told me that I was the only one of his daughters capable of

sitting down in church and finding that I had sat on a hot lemon meringue

pie... anyone else would have looked. (I had looked, But my cousin Nelson -

Oh, never mind.)

Regardless of lemon pies, bloody stumps, or missing babies, there was still

this stranger in my bed, his bony back toward me - husbandly rather than

loverly. (But I did not recall marrying him.)

I’ve shared beds with men before, and with women, and wet babies, and cats

who demand most of the bed, and (once) with a barbershop quartet. But I do

like to know with whom I am sleeping (just an old-fashioned girl, that’s me).

So I said to the cat, ‚Pixel, who is he? Do we know him?’

‚No-o-o-o.’

‚Well, let’s check: I put a hand on the man’s shoulder, intending to shake him

awake and then ask where we had met - or had we?

His shoulder was cold.

He was quite dead.

This is not a good way to start the day.

I grabbed Pixel and got out of bed by instantaneous translation; Pixel

protested. I said sharply, ‚Shut up, you! Mama has problems.’ I forced a

thalamic pause of at least a microsecond, maybe longer, and decided not to

flee headlong outdoors, or out into the hallway, as the case may be... but to

slow down and attempt to assess the situation, before screaming for help.

Perhaps just as well, as I found that I was barefooted all the way up. I am not

jumpy about skin but it did seem prudent to dress before reporting a corpse.

Police were certain to want to question me and I have known cops who

would exploit any advantage in order to throw one off balance.

But first a look at the corpse.

Still clutching Pixel I went round and bent over the other side of the bed.

(Gulp.) No one I knew. No one I would choose to bed with, even were he in

perfect health. Which he was not; that side of the bed was soggy with blood.

(Two gulps and a frisson.) He had bled from his mouth - or his throat had

been cut; I was not sure which and was unwilling to investigate.

So I backed away and looked around for my clothes. I knew in my bones that

this bedroom was part of a hostelry; rooms for hire do not taste like private

homes. It was a luxury suite; it took me a longish time to poke through all the

closets and cubbyholes and drawers and cupboards et cetera . . . and then to

do it all over again when the first search failed to locate my clothes. The

second search, even more thorough, found not a rag - neither his size nor my

size, neither women’s clothes nor men’s.

I decided willy-nilly to telephone the manager, tell him the problem, and let

him cal the cops - and ask him for a courtesy bathing robe or kimono or some

such.

So I looked for a telephone.

Alexander Graham Bell had lived in vain.

I stopped in frustration. ‚Name of a dog! Where have they hidden that

frimping phone?’

A bodyless voice said, ‚Madam, may we offer you breakfast? We are proud

of our Harvest Brunch: a lavish bowl of assorted fresh fruits; a tray of

cheeses; a basket of freshly baked hot breads, crisp breads, and soft breads

with jams and jellies and syrups and Belgian butter. Basted baby barlops en

brochette; drawn eggs Octavian; smoked savannah slinker; farkels in

sweetsour; Bavarian strudel; your choice of still and sparkling wines,

skullbuster Strine beer, Mocha, Kona, Turkish and Proxima coffees~ blended

or straight; all served with -‚

I repressed a gagging reflex. ‚I don’t want breakfast!’

‚Perhaps Madam would enjoy our Holiday Eyeopener: your choice of fruit

juice, a roll hot from our oven, your choice of gourmet jams or jellies, your

choice in a filling but non-fattening hot cup. Served with the latest news, or

background music, or restful silence.’

‚I don’t want to eat!’

The voice answered thoughtfully, ‚Madam, I am a machine programmed for

our food and beverage services. May I switch you to another programme?

Housekeeping? Head porter? Engineering?’

‚Get me the manager!’

There was a short delay. ‚Guest services! Hospitality with a smile! How may I

help you?’

‚Get me the manager!’

‚Do you have a problem?’

‚You’re the problem! Are you a man, or a machine?’

Is that relevant? Please tell me how I can help you.’

‚If you are not the manager, you can’t. Do you run on testicles? Or

electrons?’

‚Madam, I am a machine but a very flexible one. My memories include all

curricula of Procrustes Institute of Hotelier Science, including all case studies

updated to midnight yesterday. If you will be so good as to state your

problem, I will match it at once with a precedent case and show how it was

solved to the satisfaction of the guest. Please?’

‚If you don’t put me through to the manager in nothing flat, I guarantee that

the manager will take an axe to your rusty gizzard and install a Burroughs-

Libby analogue brain in your place. Who shaved the barber? What do your

case studies say about that? Moron.’

This time I got a female voice. ‚Manager’s office. How may I help you?’

‚You can take this dead man out of my bed!’

Short pause. ‚Housekeeping, Hester speaking. How may we help you?’

‚There’s a dead man in my bed. I don’t like it. Untidy:

Another pause. ‚Caesar Augustus Escort Service, serving all tastes. Do I

understand that one of our gentleman companions died in your bed?’

‚I don’t know who he is; I just know that he’s dead. Who takes care of such

things? Room service? Garbage removal? House physician? And I want the

sheets changed, too.’

This time they gave me background music while I waited... and waited -

through the first two operas of the Ring Cyde and well into the third.

‚Accounting and bookkeeping, our Mister Munster speaking. That room was

not rented for double occupancy. There will be an additional -‚

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TOSAILBEYONDTHESUNSETTHELIVESANDLOVESOFMAUREENJOHNSON(BeingtheMemoirsofaSomewhatIrregularLady)RobertA.HeinleinTolittlegirlsandbutterfliesandkittens.ToSusanandEleanorandChrisand(always)toGinny.WithmyLove,R.A.H.CONTENTS1TheCommitteeforAestheticDeletions2TheGardenofEden3TheSerpentintheGarden4TheWormint...

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