HEINLEN, Robert A. - Between Planets (v.01)

VIP免费

2024-12-08 0 0 410.07KB 116 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

ACE BOOKS

A Division of Charter Communications Inc. 1120 Avenue of the Americas

New York, N. Y. 10036

An Ace Book,

by arrangement with Charles Scribner's Sons

Cover art by Steele Savage.

Frontispiece by Clifford Geary.

Scanned by BAX / Proofed by FRENCHIE

For Scott and KENT

A condensed version under the title Planets in Combat appeared in three parts in Blue Book

Magazine.

Printed in U.S.A.

CONTENTS

INew Mexico 7

11 "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin" 16

III Hunted 30

IV The Glory Road 42

VCircum-Terra 52

VI The Sign in the Sky 66

VII Detour 75

VIII "Foxes Have Holes and Birds of the Air Have Nest-" 86

IX "Bone" Money 97

X"While I Was Musing the fire Burned" 109

XI "You Could Go Back to Earth" 118

XII Wet Desert 125

XIII Fog-Eaters 133

XIV "Let's Have It, Then." 142

XV "Judge Not According to the appearance" 150

XVI Multum in Parvo 161

XVII To Reset the Clock 171

XVIII Little David 179

NEW MEXICO

"EASY, boy, easy."

Don Harvey reined in the fat little cow pony. Ordinarily Lazy lived up to his name; today he

seemed to want to go places. Don hardly blamed him. It was such a day as comes only to New

Mexico, with sky scrubbed clean by a passing shower, the ground already dry but with a piece of

rainbow still hanging in the distance. The sky was too blue, the buttes too rosy, and the far reaches

too sharp to be quite convincing. Incredible peace hung over the land and with it a breathless

expectancy of something wonderful about to happen.

"We've got all day," he cautioned Lazy, "so don't get yourself in a lather. That's a stiff climb

ahead." Don was riding alone because he had decked out Lazy in a magnificent Mexican saddle his

parents had ordered sent to him for his birthday. It was a beautiful thing, as gaudy with silver as an

Indian buck, but it was as out of place at the ranch school he attended as formal clothes at a

branding - a point which his parents had not realized. Don was proud of it, but the other boys rode

plain stock saddles; they kidded him unmercifully and had turned "Donald James Harvey" into "Don

Jaime" when he first appeared with it.

Lazy suddenly shied. Don glanced around, spotted the cause, whipped out his gun, and fired. He

then dismounted, throwing the reins forward so that Lazy would stand, and examined his work. In

the shadow of a rock a fair-sized snake, seven rattles on its tail, was still twitching. Its head lay by it,

burned off. Don decided not to save the rattles; had he pinpointed the head he would have taken it in

to show his marksmanship. As it was, he had been forced, to slice sidewise with the beam before he

got it. If he brought in a snake killed in such a clumsy fashion someone would be sure to ask him why

he hadn't used a garden hose.

He let it lie and remounted while talking to Lazy. "Just a no-good old sidewinder," he said

reassuringly. "More scared of you than you were of it."

He clucked and they started off. A few hundred yards further on Lazy shied again, not from a

snake this time but from an unexpected noise. Don pulled him in and spoke severely. "You bird-

brained butterball! When are you going to learn not to jump when the telephone rings?"

Lazy twitched his shoulder muscles and snorted. Don reached for the pommel, removed the

phone, and answered.

"Mobile 6-J-233309, Don Harvey speaking."

"Mr. Reeves, Don," came back the voice of - the headmaster of Ranchito Alegre. "Where are

you?"

"Headed up Peddler's Grave Mesa, sir."

"Get home as quickly as you can."

"Uh, what's up, sir?"

"Radiogram from your parents. I'll send the copter out for you if the cook is back-with someone

to bring your horse in."

Don hesitated. He didn't want just anybody to ride Lazy, like as not getting him overheated and

failing to cool him off. On the other hand a radio from his folks could not help but be important. His

parents were on Mars and his mother wrote regularly, every ship-but radiograms, other than

Christmas and birthday greetings, were almost unheard of.

"I'll hurry, sir."

"Right!" Mr. Reeves switched off. Don turned Lazy and headed back down the trail. Lazy

seemed disappointed and looked back accusingly.

As it turned out, they were only a half-mile from the school when the ranch copter spotted them.

Don waved it off and took Lazy on in himself. Despite his curiosity he delayed to wipe down the

pony and water it before he went in. Mr. Reeves was waiting in his office and motioned for him to

come in. He handed Don the message.

It read: DEAR SON, PASSAGE RESERVED FOR YOU VALKYRIE CIRCUM-TERRA

TWELVE APRIL LOVE MOTHER AND DAD.

Don blinked at it, having trouble taking in the simple facts. "But that's right away"

"Yes. You weren't expecting it?"

Don thought it over. He had halfway expected to go home-if one could call it going home when

he had never set foot on Mars-at the end of the school year. If they had arranged his passage for the

Vanderdecken three months from now . . . "Uh, not exactly. I can't figure out why they would send

for me before the end of the term."

Mr. Reeves fitted his fingertips carefully together. "I'd say that it was obvious."

Don looked startled. "You mean? Mr. Reeves, you don't really think there is going to be trouble,

do you?"

The headmaster answered gravely, "Don, I'm not a prophet. But it is my guess that your parents

are sufficiently worried that they want you out of a potential war zone as quickly as possible."

He was still having trouble readjusting. Wars were something you studied, not something that

actually happened. Of course his class in contemporary history had kept track of the current crisis in

colonial affairs, but, even so, it had seemed something far away, even for one as widely traveled as

himself-a matter for diplomats and politicians, not something real.

"Look, Mr. Reeves, they may be jumpy but I'm not. I'd like to send a radio telling them that I'll be

along on the next ship, as soon as school is out."

Mr. Reeves shook his head. "No. I can't let you go against your parents' explicit instructions. In

the second place, ah-" The headmaster seemed to have difficulty in choosing his words. "-that is to

say, Donald, in the event of war, you might find your position here, shall we call it, uncomfortable?"

A bleak wind seemed to have found its way into the office. Don felt lonely and older than he

should feel. "Why?" he asked gruffly.

Mr. Reeves studied his fingernails. "Are you quite sure where your loyalties lie?" he said slowly.

Don forced himself to think about it. His father had been born on Earth; his mother was a second-

generation Venus colonial. But neither planet was truly their home; they had met and married on

Luna and had pursued their researches in planetology in many sectors of the solar system. Don

himself had been born out in space and his birth certificate, issued by the Federation, had left the

question of his nationality open. He could claim dual citizenship by parental derivation. He did not

think of himself as a Venus colonial; it had been so long since his family had last visited Venus that

the place had grown unreal in his mind. On the other hand he had been eleven years old before he

had ever rested his eyes on the lovely hills of Earth.

"I'm a citizen of the System," he said harshly.

"Mmmm-" said the headmaster. "That's a fine phrase and perhaps someday it will mean

something. In the meantime, speaking as a friend, I agree with your parents. Mars is likely to be

neutral territory; you'll be safe there. Again, speaking as your friend-things may get a little rough here

for anyone whose loyalty is not perfectly clear."

"Nobody has any business questioning my loyalty under the law, I count as native born!"

The man did not answer. Don burst out, "The whole thing is silly! If the Federation wasn't trying

to bleed Venus white there wouldn't be any war talk."

Reeves stood up. "That will be all, Don. I'm not going to argue politics with you."

"It's true! Read Chamberlain's Theory of Colonial Expansion!"

Reeves seemed startled. "Where did you lay hands on that book? Not in the school library."

Don did not answer. His father had sent it to him but had cautioned him not to let it be seen; it

was one of the suppressed books-on Earth, at least. Reeves went on, "Don, have you been dealing

with a booklegger?"

Don remained silent. "Answer me!"

Presently Reeves took a deep breath and said, "Never mind. Go up to your room and pack. The

copter will take you to Albuquerque at one o'clock."

"Yes, sir." He had started to leave when the headmaster called him back.

"Just a moment. In the heat of our, uh, discussion I almost forgot that there was a second message

for you."

"Oh?" Don accepted the slip; it said: DEAR SON, BE SURE TO SAY GOODBYE TO

UNCLE DUDLEY BEFORE YOU LEAVE - MOTHER.

This second message surprised him in some ways even more than the first; he had trouble realizing

that his mother must mean Dr. Dudley Jefferson-a friend of his parents but no relation, and a person

of no importance in his own life. But Reeves seemed not to see anything odd in the message, so he

stuck it in his Levis and left the room.

Long as he had been earthbound he approached packing with a true spaceman's spirit. He knew

that his passage would entitle him to only fifty pounds of free lift; he started discarding right and left.

Shortly he had two piles, a very small one on his own bed-indispensable clothing, a few capsules of

microfilm, his slide rule, a stylus, and a vreetha, a flutelike Martian instrument which he had not

played in a long time as his schoolmates had objected. On his roommate's bed was a much larger

pile of discards.

He picked up the vreetha, tried a couple of runs, and put it on the larger pile. Taking a Martian

product to Mars was coal to Newcastle. His roommate, Jack Moreau, came in as he did so. "What

in time goes on? House cleaning?"

"Leaving."

Jack dug a finger into his ear. "I must be getting deaf. I could have sworn you said you were

leaving."

"I am." Don stopped and explained, showing Jack the message from his parents.

Jack looked distressed. "I don't like this. Of course I knew this was our last year, but I didn't

figure on you jumping the gun. I probably won't sleep without your snores to soothe me. What's the

rush?"

"I don't know. I really don't. The Head says that my folks have war jitters and want to drag their

little darling to safety. But that's silly, don't you think? I mean, people are too civilized to go to war

today."

Jack did not answer. Don waited, then said sharply, "You agree, don't you? There won't be any

war."

Jack answered slowly, "Could be. Or maybe not."

"Oh, come off it!"

His roommate answered, "Want me to help you pack?"

"There isn't anything to pack."

"How about all that stuff?"

"That's yours, if you want it. Pick it over, then call in the others and let them take what they like."

"Huh? Gee, Don, I don't want your stuff. I'll pack it and ship it after you."

"Ever ship anything 'tween planets? It's not worth it."

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

2ACEBOOKSADivisionofCharterCommunicationsInc.1120AvenueoftheAmericasNewYork,N.Y.10036Copyright,1951,byMcCallCorporationandRobertA.HeinleinAnAceBook,byarrangementwithCharlesScribner'sSonsAllRightsReserved.CoverartbySteeleSavage.FrontispiecebyCliffordGeary.ScannedbyBAX/ProofedbyFRENCHIEForScottandKENT...

展开>> 收起<<

HEINLEN, Robert A. - Between Planets (v.01).PDF

共116页,预览6页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

HEINLEN, Robert A. - Between Planets (v.01)

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: