Robert A Heinlein - Expanded Universe (Collected Stories)

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EXPANDED UNIVERSE

Heinlein

Robert A. Heinlein

A. Heinlein

Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon © Boy Scouts of America, ©

1976 Robert

A. Heinlein

Pandora’s Box, A different version under the title of Where To?,

by Gaiaxy Publishing Corp.

A. Heinlein

Paul Dirac, Antimatter, and You, © F. E. Compton Company, a

division of

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. 1975

Table of Contents

Foreword

Life-Line

Successful Operation

Blowups Happen

Solution Unsatisfactory

The Last Days of the United States

How to Be a Survivor

Pie from the Sky

They Do It With Mirrors

Free Men

No Bands Playing, No Flags Flying-

A Bathroom of Her Own

On the Slopes of Vesuvius

Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon

Pandora’s Box

Where To?

Cliff and the Calories

Ray Guns and Rocket Ships

The Third Millennium Opens

Who Are the Heirs of Patrick Henry?

“Pravda” Means “Truth”

Inside Intourist

Searchlight

The Pragmatics of Patriotism

Paul Dirac, Antimatter, and You

Larger Than Life

Spinoff

The Happy Days Ahead

To William Targ

FOREWORD

Warning! Truth in advertising requires me to tell you that this volume

contains THE WORLDS OF ROBERTA. HEINLEIN, published 1966.

But this new volume is about three times as long. It contains fiction

stories that have never before appeared in book form, nonfiction

articles not available elsewhere, a 30-year updating on my 1950

prognostications (as well as the 15-year updating that appeared in

THE WORLDS OF R.A.H.), with the usual weasel-worded excuses as

to why I guessed wrong-and (ruffles & flourishes) not one but two

scenarios for the year 2000, one for people who like happy endings

and another for people who can take bad news without a quiver-as

long as it happens to somebody else.

On these I will do a really free-swinging job as the probability (by a

formula I just now derived) that either I or this soi-disant civilization

will be extinct by 2000 A.D. approaches 99.92+%. This makes it

unlikely that I will again have to explain my mistakes.

But do not assume that I will be the one extinct. My great-great-great-

grandfather Lawrence Heinlein died prematurely at the age of ninety-

seven, through having carelessly left his cabin one winter morning

without his gun - and found a buck deer on the ice of

his pond. Lack of his gun did not stop my triple-greatgrandfather; this

skinful of meat must not be allowed to escape. He went out on the ice

and bulldogged the buck, quite successfully.

But in throwing the deer my ancestor slipped on the ice, went down,

and a point of the buck’s rack stabbed between his ribs and pierced

his heart.

No doubt it taught him a lesson-it certainly taught me one. So far I’ve

beaten the odds three times: continued to live when the official

prognosis called for something less active. So I intend to be careful-

not chopped down in my prime the way my ancestor was. I shan’t

bulldog any buck deer, or cross against the lights, or reach

barehanded into dark places favored by black widow spiders, or-most

especially!-leave my quarters without being adequately armed.

Perhaps the warmest pleasure in life is the knowledge that one has

no enemies. The easiest way to achieve this is by outliving them. No

action is necessary; time wounds all heels.

In this peaceful crusade I have been surprisingly successful; most of

those rascals are dead . . . and three of the survivors are in very poor

health. The curve seems to indicate that by late 1984 I won’t have an

enemy anywhere in the world.

Of course someone else may appoint himself my enemy (all my

enemies are self-appointed) but I would not expect such an unlikely

event to affect the curve much. There appears to be some unnamed

ESP force at work here; the record shows that it is not healthy to hate

me.

I don’t have anything to do with this. The character can be more than

a thousand miles away, with me doing my utter best to follow

Sergeant Dogberry’s advice; nevertheless it happens: He starts

losing weight, suffering from insomnia and from nightmares,

headaches, stomach trouble, and, after a bit, he starts hearing

voices.

The terminal stages vary greatly. Anyhow, they are

unpleasant and I should not be writing about such things as I am

supposed to be writing a blurb that will persuade you to buy this book

despite the fact that nearly a third of it is copy you may have seen

before.

Aside from this foreword the items in this book are arranged in the

order in which written, each with a comment as to how and why it

was written (money, usually, but also- Well, money)-then a bridging

comment telling what I was writing or doing between that item and

the next.

The span is forty years. But these are not my memoirs of those four

decades. The writing business is not such as to evoke amusing

memoirs (yes, I do mean you and you and you and especially you). A

writer spends his professional time in solitary confinement, refusing to

accept telephone calls and declining to see visitors, surrounded by a

dreary forest of reference books and somewhat-organized papers.

The high point of his day is the breathless excitement of waiting for

the postman. (The low point is usually immediately thereafter.)

How can one write entertaining memoirs about such an occupation?

Answer: By writing about what this scrivener did when not writing, or

by resorting to fiction, or both. Usually both.

I could write entertaining memoirs about things I did when not writing.

I shan’t do so because a) I hope those incidents have been forgotten,

or b) I hope that any not forgotten are covered by the statute of

limitations.

Meanwhile I hope you enjoy this. The fiction is plainly marked fiction;

the nonfiction is as truthful as I can make it-and here and there,

tucked into space that would otherwise be blank are anecdotes and

trivia ranging from edifying to outrageous.

Each copy is guaranteed-or double your money back-to be printed on

genuine paper of enough pages to hold the covers apart.

• R.A.H.

FOREWORD

The beginning of 1939 found me flat broke following a disastrous

political Campaign (I ran a strong second best, but in politics there

are no prizes for place or show). I was highly skilled in ordnance,

gunnery, and fire control for Naval vessels, a skill for which there was

no demand ashore-and I had a piece of paper from the Secretary of

the Navy telling me that I was a waste of space-“totally and

permanently disabled” was the phraseology. I “owned” a heavily-

mortgaged house.

About then THRILLING WONDER STORIES ran a house ad

reading (more or less):

GIANT PRIZE CONTEST-Amateur Writers!!!!!!

First Prize $50 Fifty Dollars $50

In 1939 one could fill three station wagons with fifty dollars worth of

groceries. Today I can pick up fifty dollars in groceries unassisted-

perhaps I’ve grown stronger. So I wrote the story LIFE-LINE. It took

me four days-I am a slow typist. But I did not send it to THRILLING

WONDER; I sent it to ASTOUNDING, figuring they would not be so

swamped with amateur short stories.

ASTOUNDING bought it. . . for $ 70, or $ 20 more than that “Grand

Prize”-and there was never a chance that I would ever again look for

honest work.

Life-Line

THE chairman rapped loudly for order. Gradually the catcalls and

boos died away as several self-appointed sergeants-at-arms

persuaded a few hot-headed individuals to sit down. The speaker on

the rostrum by the chairman seemed unaware of the disturbance. His

bland, faintly insolent face was impassive. The chairman turned to

the speaker, and addressed him, in a voice in which anger and

annoyance were barely restrained.

“Doctor Pinero,” - the “Doctor” was faintly stressed - “I must apologize

to you for the unseemly outburst during your remarks. I am surprised

that my colleagues should so far forget the dignity proper to men of

science as to interrupt a speaker, no matter,” he paused and set his

mouth, “no matter how great the provocation.” Pinero smiled in his

face, a smile that was in some way an open insult. The chairman

visibly controlled his temper and continued, “I am anxious that the

program be concluded decently and in order. I want you to finish your

remarks. Nevertheless, I must ask you to refrain from affronting our

intelligence with ideas that any educated man knows to be fallacious.

Please confine yourself to your discovery - if you have made one.”

Pinero spread his fat white hands, palms down. “How can I possibly

put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your

delusions?”

The audience stirred and muttered. Someone shouted from the rear

of the hail, “Throw the charlatan out! We’ve had enough.” The

chairman pounded his gavel.

“Gentlemen! Please!” Then to Pinero, “Must I remind you that you are

not a member of this body, and that we did not invite you?”

Pinero’s eyebrows lifted. “So? I seem to remember an invitation on

the letterhead of the Academy?”

The chairman chewed his lower lip before replying. “True. I wrote that

invitation myself. But it was at the request of one of the trustees - a

fine public-spirited gentleman, but not a scientist, not a member of

the Academy.”

Pinero smiled his irritating smile. “So? I should have guessed. Old

Bidwell, not so, of Amalgamated Life Insurance? And he wanted his

trained seals to expose me as a fraud, yes? For if I can tell a man the

day of his own death, no one will buy his pretty policies. But how can

you expose me, if you will not listen to me first? Even supposing you

had the wit to understand me? Bah! He has sent jackals to tear down

a lion.” He deliberately turned his back on them. The muttering of the

crowd swelled and took on a vicious tone. The chairman cried vainly

for order. There arose a figure in the front row.

“Mister Chairman!”

The chairman grasped the opening and shouted, “Gentlemen! Doctor

Van RheinSmitt has the floor.” The commotion died away.

The doctor cleared his throat, smoothed the forelock of his beautiful

white hair, and thrust one hand into a side pocket of his smartly

tailored trousers. He assumed his women’s club manner.

“Mister Chairman, fellow members of the Academy of Science, let us

have tolerance. Even a murderer has the right to say his say before

the state exacts its tribute. Shall we do less? Even though one may

be intellectually certain of the verdict? I grant Doctor Pinero every

consideration that should be given by this august body to any

unaffiliated colleague, even though” - he bowed slightly in Pinero’s

direction - “we may not be familiar with the university which bestowed

his degree. If what he has to say is false, it can not harm us. If what

he has to say is true, we should know it.” His mellow cultivated voice

rolled on, soothing and calming. “If the eminent doctor’s manner

appears a trifle in urbane for our tastes, we must bear in mind that

the doctor may be from a place, or a stratum, not so meticulous in

these little matters. Now our good friend and benefactor has asked us

to hear this person and carefully assess the merit of his claims. Let

us do so with dignity and decorum.”

He sat down to a rumble of applause, comfortably aware that he had

enhanced his reputation as an intellectual leader. Tomorrow the

papers would again mention the good sense and persuasive

personality of “America’s handsomest University President”. Who

knew? Perhaps old Bidwell would come through with that swimming

pool donation.

When the applause had ceased, the chairman turned to where the

center of the disturbance sat, hands folded over his little round belly,

face serene.

“Will you continue, Doctor Pinero?”

“Why should I?”

The chairman shrugged his shoulders. “You came for that

purpose.”

Pinero arose. “So true. So very true. But was I wise to come? Is there

anyone here who has an open mind who can stare a bare fact in the

face without blushing? I think not. Even that so beautiful gentleman

who asked you to hear me out has already judged me and

condemned me. He seeks order, not truth. Suppose truth defies

order, will he accept it? Will you? I think not. Still, if I do not speak,

you will win your point by default. The little man in the street will think

that you little men have exposed me, Pinero, as a hoaxer, a

pretender. That does not suit my plans. I will speak.”

“I will repeat my discovery. In simple language I have invented a

technique to tell how long a man will live. I can give you advance

billing of the Angel of Death. I can tell you when the Black Camel will

kneel at your door. In five minutes time with my apparatus I can tell

any of you how many grains of sand are still left in your hourglass.”

He paused and folded his arms across his chest. For a moment no

one spoke. The audience grew restless. Finally the chairman

intervened.

“You aren’t finished, Doctor Pinero?”

“What more is there to say?”

“You haven’t told us how your discovery works.”

Pinero’s eyebrows shot up. “You suggest that I should turn over the

fruits of my work for children to play with. This is dangerous

knowledge, my friend. I keep it for the man who understands it,

myself.” He tapped his chest.

“How are we to know that you have anything back of your wild

claims?”

“So simple. You send a committee to watch me demonstrate. If it

works, fine. You admit it and tell the world so. If it does not work, I am

discredited, and will apologize. Even I, Pinero, will apologize.”

A slender stoop-shouldered man stood up in the back of the hail. The

chair recognized him and he spoke:

“Mr. Chairman, how can the eminent doctor seriously propose such a

course? Does he expect us to wait around for twenty or thirty years

for some one to die and prove his claims?”

Pinero ignored the chair and answered directly:

“Pfui! Such nonsense! Are you so ignorant of statistics that you do

not know that in any large group there is at least one who will die in

the immediate future? I make you a proposition; let me test each one

of you in this room and I will name the man who will die within the

fortnight, yes, and the day and hour of his death.” He glanced fiercely

around the room. “Do you accept?”

Another figure got to his feet, a portly man who spoke in measured

syllables. “I, for one, can not countenance such an experiment. As a

medical man, I have noted with sorrow the plain marks of serious

heart trouble in many of our elder colleagues. If Doctor Pinero knows

those symptoms, as he may, and were he to select as his victim one

of their number, the man so selected would be likely to die on

schedule, whether the distinguished speaker’s mechanical egg-timer

works or not.”

Another speaker backed him up at once. “Doctor Shepard is right.

Why should we waste time on voodoo tricks? It is my belief that this

person who calls himself Doctor Pinero wants to use this body to give

his statements authority. If we participate in this farce, we play into

his hands. I don’t know what his racket is, but you can bet that he has

figured out some way to use us for advertising for his schemes. I

move, Mister Chairman, that we proceed with our regular business.”

The motion carried by acclamation, but Pinero did not sit down.

Amidst cries of “Order! Order!” he shook his untidy head at them, and

had his say:

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摘要：

EXPANDEDUNIVERSECopyright©1980byRobertA.HeinleinLife-Line,©1939,byStreet&SmithPubs.Inc.,©1967RobertA.HeinleinBlowupsHappen,©1940byStreet&SmithPubs.Inc.,©1967RobertA.HeinleinSolutionUnsatisfactory,byStreet&SmithPubs.Inc.©1968RobertA.HeinleinTheyDoltWithMirrors,©byBetterPublications,Inc.©1974Robe tA...

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