Robert A Heinlein - A tenderfoot in space (original version)

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A TENDERFOOT IN SPACE
When this book was in process, Dr. Kondo asked me whether there
were any stories of Robert’s which had not been reprinted. On
looking over the list of stories, I found that “A Tenderfoot in Space”
had never been printed in anything except when it originally
appeared in Boys’ Life. All copies in our possession had been sent to
the UCSC Archives, so! asked them to Xerox those and send them to
me. And found this introduction by Robert, which he had added to the
carbon in the library before he sent it down there. I was completely
surprised, and asked Dr. Kondo whether he would like to use it? Here
it is.
• Virginia Heinlein
This was written a year before Sputnik and is laid on the Venus
earthbound astronomers inferred before space probes. Two hours of
rewriting—a word here, a word there—could change it to a planet
around some other star. But to. what purpose? Would The Tempset
be improved if Bohemia had a sea coast? If! ever publish that
collection of Boy Scout stories, this story will appear unchanged.
Nixie is (of course) my own dog. But in 1919, when I was 12 and a
Scout, he had to leave me—a streetcar hit him.
If this universe has any reasonable teleology whatever (a point on
which I am unsure), then there is some provision for the Nixies in it.
I
“Heel, Nixie,” the boy said softly, “and keep quiet.”
The little mongrel took position left and rear of his boy, waited. He
could feel that Charlie was upset and he wanted to know why—but
an order from Charlie could not be questioned.
The boy tried to see whether or not the policeman was. noticing
them. He felt light-headed—neither he nor his dog had eaten that
day. They had stopped in front of this supermarket, not to buy for the
boy had no money left, but because of a “BOY WANTED” sign in the
window.
It was then that he had noticed the reflection of the policeman in
the glass.
The boy hesitated, trying to collect his cloudy thoughts. Should he go
inside and ask for the job? Or should he saunter past the policeman?
Pretend to be just out for a walk?
The boy decided to go on, get out of sight. He signalled the dog to
stay close and turned away from the window. Nixie came along, tail
high. He did not care where they went as long as he was with
Charlie. Charlie had belonged to him as far back as he could
remember; he could imagine no other condition. In fact Nixie would
not have lived past his tenth day had not Charlie fallen in love with
him; Nixie had been the least attractive of an unfortunate litter; his
mother was Champion Lady Diana of Ojai—his father was unknown.
But Nixie was not aware that a neighbor boy had begged his life from
his first owners. His philosophy was simple: enough to eat, enough
sleep, and the rest of his time spent playing with Charlie. This present
outing had been Charlie’s idea, but any outing was welcome. The
shortage of food was a nuisance but Nixie automatically forgave
Charlie such errors—after all, boys will be boys and a wise dog
accepted the fact. The only thing that troubled him was that Charlie
did not have the happy heart which was a proper part of all hikes.
As they moved past the man in the blue uniform, Nixie felt the man’s
interest in them, sniffed his odor, but could find no real unfriendliness
in it. But Charlie was nervous, alert, so Nixie kept his own attention
high.
The man in uniform said, “Just a moment, son—”
Charlie stopped, Nixie stopped. “You speaking to me, officer?”
“Yes. What’s your dog’s name?”
Nixie felt Charlie’s sudden terror, got ready to attack. He had never
yet had to bite anyone for his boy—but he was instantly ready. The
hair between his shoulder blades stood up.
Charlie answered, “Uh. . . his name is ‘Spot.”
“So?” The stranger said sharply, “Nixie!”
2
Nixie had been keeping his eyes elsewhere, in order not to distract
his ears, his nose, and the inner sense with which he touched
people’s feelings. But he was so startled at hearing this stranger call
him by name that he turned his head and looked at him.
“His name is ‘Spot,’ is it?” the policeman said quietly. “And mine is
Santa Claus. But you’re Charlie Vaughn and you’re going home.” He
spoke into his helmet phone: “Nelson, reporting a pickup on that
Vaughn missing-persons flier. Send a car. I’m in front of the new
supermarket.”
Nixie had trouble sorting out Charlie’s feelings; they were both sad
and glad. The stranger’s feelings were slightly happy but mostly
nothing; Nixie decided to wait
and see. He enjoyed the ride in the police car, as he always enjoyed
rides, but Charlie did not, which spoiled it a little.
They were taken to the local Justice of the Peace. “You’re Charles
Vaughn?”
Nixie’s boy felt unhappy and said nothing.
“Speak up, son,” insisted the old man. “If you aren’t, then you must
have stolen that dog.” He read from a paper “—accompanied by a
small brown mongrel, male, well trained, responds to the name
‘Nixie.’ Well?”
Nixie’s boy answered faintly, “I’m Charlie Vaughn.”
“That’s better. You’ll stay here until your parents pick you up.” The
judge frowned. “I can’t understand your running away. Your folks are
emigrating to Venus, aren’t they?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re the first boy I ever met who didn’t want to make the Big
Jump.” He pointed to a pin on the boy’s lapel. “And I thought Scouts
were trustworthy. Not to mention obedient. What got into you, son?
Are you scared of the Big Jump? ‘A Scout is Brave.’ That doesn’t
mean you don’t have to be scared—everybody is at times. ‘Brave’
simply means you don’t run even if you are scared.”
“I’m not scared,” Charlie said stubbornly. “I want to go to Venus.”
“Then why run away when your family is about to leave?”
3
Nixie felt such a burst of warm happy-sadness from Charlie that he
licked his hand. “Because Nixie can’t go!”
“Oh.” The judge looked at boy and dog. “I’m sorry, son. That problem
is beyond my jurisdiction.” He drummed his desk top. “Charlie. . . will
you promise, Scout’s honor, not to run away again until your parents
show up?”
“Uh . . . yes, sir.”
“Okay. Joe, take them to my place. Tell my wife she had better see
how recently they’ve had anything to eat.”
The trip home was long. Nixie enjoyed it, even though Charlie’s father
was happy-angry and his mother was happy-sad and Charlie himself
was happy-sad-worried. When Nixie was home he checked quickly
through each room, making sure that all was in order and that there
were no new smells. Then he returned to Charlie.
The feelings had changed. Mr. Vaughn was angry, Mrs. Vaughn was
sad, Charlie himself gave out such bitter stubbornness that Nixie
went to him, jumped onto his lap, and tried to lick his face. Charlie
settled Nixie beside him, started digging fingers into the loose skin
back of Nixie’s neck. Nixie quieted at once, satisfied that he and his
boy could face together whatever it was—but it distressed him that
the other two were not happy. Charlie belonged to him; they
belonged to Charlie; things were better when they were happy, too.
Mr. Vaughn said, “Go to bed, young man, and sleep on it. I’ll speak
with you again tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir. Good night, sir.”
“Kiss your mother goodnight. One thing more—Do I need to lock
doors to be sure you will be here in the morning?”
“No, sir.”
Nixie got on the foot of the bed as usual, tromped out a space, laid
his tail over his nose, and started to go to sleep. But his boy was not
sleeping; his sadness was taking the distressing form of heaves and
sobs. So Nixie got up, went to the other end of the bed and licked
away tears—then let himself be pulled into Charlie’s arms and tears
applied directly to his neck. It was not comfortable and too hot,
besides being taboo. But it was worth enduring as Charlie started to
quiet down, presently went to sleep.
4
Nixie waited, gave him a lick on the face to check his sleeping,
then moved to his end of the bed.
Mrs. Vaughn said to Mr. Vaughn, “Charles, isn’t there anything we
can do for the boy?”
“Confound it, Nora. We’re getting to Venus with too little money as it
is. If anything goes wrong, we’ll be dependent on charity.”
“But we do have a little spare cash.”
“Too little. Do you think I haven’t considered it? Why, the fare for that
worthless dog would be almost as much as it is for Charlie himself!
Out of the question! So why nag me? Do you think I enjoy this
decision?”
“No, dear.” Mrs. Vaughn pondered. “How much does Nixie weigh? I. .
. well, I think I could reduce ten more pounds if I really tried.”
“What? Do you want to arrive on Venus a living skeleton? You’ve
reduced all the doctor advises, and so have I.”
“Well.. . I thought that if somehow, among us, we could squeeze out
Nixie’s weight—it’s not as if he were a St. Bernard! —we could swap
it against what we weighed for our tickets.”
Mr. Vaughn shook his head unhappily. “They don’t do it that way.”
“You told me yourself that weight was everything. You even got rid
of your chess set.”
“We could afford thirty pounds of chess sets, or china, or cheese,
where we can’t afford thirty pounds of dog.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Let me explain. Surely, it’s weight; it’s always weight in a space ship.
But it isn’t just my hundred and sixty pounds, or your hundred and
twenty, not Charlie’s hundred and ten. We’re not dead weight; we
have to eat and drink and breathe air and have room to move—that
last takes more weight because it takes more ship weight to hold a
live person than it does for an equal weight in the cargo hold. For a
human being there is a complicated formula—hull weight equal to
twice the passenger’s weight, plus the number of days in space times
four pounds. It takes a hundred and forty-six days to get to Venus—
so it means that the calculated weight for each
5
of us amounts to six hundred and sixteen pounds before they even
figure in our actual weights. But for a dog the rate is even higher—
five pounds per day instead of four.”
“That seems unfair. Surely a little dog can’t eat as much as a man?
Why, Nixie’s food costs hardly anything.”
Her husband snorted. “Nixie eats his own rations and half of what
goes on Charlie’s plate. However, it’s not only the fact that a dog
does eat more for his weight, but also they don’t reprocess waste
with a dog, not even for hydroponics.”
“Why not? Oh, I know what you mean. But it seems silly.”
“The passengers wouldn’t like it. Never mind; the rule is: five pounds
per day for dogs. Do you know what that makes Nixie’s fare? Over
three thousand dollars!”
“My goodness!”
“My ticket comes to thirty-eight hundred dollars and some, you get by
for thirty-four hundred, and Charlie’s fare is thirty-three hundred—yet
that confounded mongrel dog, which we couldn’t sell for his
veterinary bills, would cost three thousand dollars. If we had that to
spare—which we haven’t—the humane thing would be to adopt some
orphan, spend the money on him, and thereby give him a chance on
an uncrowded planet... not waste it on a dog. Confound it!—a year
from now Charlie will have forgotten this dog.”
“I wonder.”
“He will. When I was a kid, Ihad to give up dogs— more than once
they died, or something. I got over it. Charlie has to make up his mind
whether to give Nixie away. . . or have him put to sleep.” He chewed
his lip. “We’ll get him a pup on Venus.”
“It won’t be Nixie.”
“He can name it Nixie. He’ll love it as much.”
“But—Charles, how is it there are dogs on Venus if it’s so
dreadfully expensive to get them there?”
“Eh? I think the first exploring parties used them to scout. In any case
they’re always shipping animals to Venus; our own ship is taking a
load of milch cows.”
“That must be terribly expensive.”
6
“Yes and no. They ship them in sleep-freeze of course, and a lot of
them never revive. But they cut their losses by butchering the dead
ones and selling the meat at fancy prices to the colonists. Then the
ones that live have calves and eventually it pays off.” He stood up.
“Nora, let’s go to bed. It’s sad—but our boy is going to have to make
a man’s decision. Give the mutt away, or have him put to sleep.”
“Yes, dear.” She sighed. “I’m coming.”
Nixie was in his usual place at breakfast—lying beside Charlie’s
chair, accepting tidbits without calling attention to himself. He had
learned long ago the rules of the dining room: no barking, no whining,
no begging for food, no paws on laps, else the pets of his pet would
make difficulties. Nixie was satisfied. He had learned as a puppy to
take the world as it was, cheerful over its good points, patient with its
minor shortcomings. Shoes were not to be chewed, people were not
to be jumped on, most strangers must be allowed to approach the
hOuse (subject, of course, to strict scrutiny and constant alertness)—
a few simple rules and everyone was happy. Live and let live.
He was aware that his boy was not happy even this beautiful
morning. But he had explored this feeling carefully, touching his boy’s
mind with gentle care by means of his canine sense for feelings, and
had decided, from his superior maturity, that the mood would wear
off. Boys were sometimes sad and a wise dog was
resigned to it.
Mr. Vaughn finished his coffee, put his napkin aside. “Well, young
man?”
Charlie did not answer. Nixie felt the sadness in Charlie change
suddenly to a feeling more aggressive and
much stronger but no better. He pricked up his ears and waited.
“Chuck,” his father said, “last night I gave you a choice. Have you
made up your mind?”
“Yes, Dad.” Charlie’s voice was very low.
“Eh? Then tell me.”
Charlie looked at the tablecloth. “You and Mother go to Venus.
Nixie and I are staying here.”
Nixie could feel anger welling up in the man.. . felt him control it.
“You’re figuring on running away again?”
7
“No, sir,” Charlie answered stubbornly. “You can sign me over to
the state school.”
“Charlie!” It was Charlie’s mother who spoke. Nixie tried to sort out
the rush of emotions impinging on him.
“Yes,” his father said at last, “I could use your passage money to pay
the state for your first three years or so, and agree to pay your
support until you are eighteen. But I shan’t.”
“Huh? Why not, Dad?”
“Because, old-fashioned as it sounds, I am head of this family. I am
responsible for it—and not just food, shelter, and clothing, but its total
welfare. Until you are old enough to take care of yourself I mean to
keep an eye on you. One of the prerogatives which go with my
responsibility is deciding where the family shall live. I have a better
job offered me on Venus than I could ever hope for here, so I’m going
to Venus—and my family goes with me.” He drummed on the table,
hesitated. “I think your chances are better on a pioneer planet, too—
but, when you are of age, if you think otherwise, I’ll pay your fare
back to Earth. But you go with us. Understand?”
Charlie nodded, his face glum.
“Very well. I’m amazed that you apparently care more for that dog
than you do for your mother—and myself. But—”
“It isn’t that, Dad. Nixie needs—”
“Quiet. I don’t suppose you realize it, but I tried to
figure this out—I’m not taking your dog away from you out of
meanness. If I could afford it, I’d buy the hound a ticket. But
something your mother said last night brought up a third possibility.”
Charlie looked up suddenly, and so did Nixie; wondering why the
surge of hope in his boy.
“I can’t buy Nixie a ticket.. . but it’s possible to ship him as freight.”
“Huh? Why, sure, Dad! Oh, I know he’d have to be caged up—but I’d
go down and feed him every day and pet him and tell him it was all
right and—”
“Slow down! I don’t mean that. All I can afford is to have him shipped
the way animals are always shipped in space ships. . . in sleep-
freeze.”
8
Charlie’s mouth hung open. He managed to say, “But that’s—”
“That’s dangerous. As near as I remember, it’s about fifty-fifty
whether he wakes up at the other end. But if you want to risk it—well,
perhaps it’s better than giving him away to strangers, and I’m sure
you would prefer it to taking him down to the vet’s and having him put
to sleep.”
Charlie did not answer. Nixie felt such a storm of conflicting emotions
in Charlie that the dog violated dining room rules; he raised up and
licked the boy’s hand.
Charlie grabbed the dog’s ear. “All right, Dad,” he said gruffly. “We’ll
risk it—if that’s the only way Nixie and I can still be partners.”
Nixie did not enjoy the last few days before lçaving; they held too
many changes. Any proper dog likes excitement, but home is for
peace and quiet. Things should be orderly there—food and water
always in the same place, newspapers to fetch at certain hours,
milkmen to supervise at regular times, furniture all in its proper place.
But during that week all was change—nothing on time, nothing in
order. Strange men came into the house
(always a matter for suspicion), and he, Nixie, was not even
allowedto protest, much less give them the what-for they had coming.
He was assured by Charlie and Mrs. Vaughn that it was “all right” and
he had to accept it, even though it obviously was not all right. His
knowledge of English was accurate for a few dozen words but there
was no way to explain to him that almost everything owned by the
Vaughn family was being sold, or thrown away. . . nor would it have
reassured him. Some things in life were permanent; he had never
doubted that the Vaughn home was first among these certainties
By the night before they left, the rooms were bare except for beds.
Nixie trotted around the house, sniffing places where familiar objects
had been, asking his nose to tell him that his eyes deceived him,
whining at the results. Even more upsetting than physical change
was emotional change, a heady and not entirely happy excitement
which he could feel in all three of his people.
There was a better time that evening, as Nixie was allowed to go to
Scout meeting. Nixie always went on hikes and had formerly
attended all meetings. But he now attended only outdoor meetings
since an incident the previous winter—Nixie felt that too much fuss
9
had been made about it. . . just some spilled cocoa and a few broken
cups and anyhow it had been that cat’s fault.
But this meeting he was allowed to attend because it was Charlie’s
last Scout meeting on Earth. Nixie was not aware of that but he
greatly enjoyed the privilege, especially as the meeting was followed
by a party at which Nixie became comfortably stuffed with hot dogs
and pop. Scoutmaster McIntosh presented Charlie with a letter of
withdrawal, certifying his status and merit badges and asking his
admission into any troop on Venus. Nixie joined happily in the
applause, trying to outbark the clapping.
Then the Scoutmaster said, ‘Okay, Rip.”
Rip was senior patrol leader. He got up and said, “Quiet, fellows.
Hold it, you crazy savages! Charlie, I don’t have to tell •you that we’re
all sorry to see you go. . . but we hope you have a swell time on
Venus and now and then send a postcard to Troop Twenty-Eight and
tell us about it—we’ll post ‘em on the bulletin board. Anyhow, we
wanted to get you a going-away present. But Mr. McIntosh pointed
out that you were on a very strict weight allowance and practically
anything would either cost you more to take with you than we had
paid for it, or maybe you couldn’t take it at all, which wouldn’t be
much of a present.
“But it finally occurred to us that we could do one thing. Nixie—”
Nixie’s ears pricked. Charlie said softly, “Steady, boy.”
“Nixie has been with us almost as long as you have. He’s been
around, poking his cold nose into things, longer than any of the
tenderfeet, and longer even than some of the second class. So we
decided he ought to have his own letter of withdrawal, so that the
troop you join on Venus will know that Nixie is a Scout in good
standing. Give it to him, Kenny.”
The scribe passed over the letter. It was phrased like Charlie’s letter,
save that it named “Nixie Vaughn, Tenderfoot Scout” and
diplomatically omitted the subject of merit badges. It was signed by
the scribe, the scoutmaster, and the patrol leaders and countersigned
by every member of the troop. Charlie showed it to Nixie, who sniffed
it. Everybody applauded, so Nixie joined happily in applauding
himself.
10
摘要：

ATENDERFOOTINSPACEWhenthisbookwasinprocess,Dr.KondoaskedmewhethertherewereanystoriesofRobert’swhichhadnotbeenreprinted.Onlookingoverthelistofstories,Ifoundthat“ATenderfootinSpace”hadneverbeenprintedinanythingexceptwhenitoriginallyappearedinBoys’Life.Allcopiesinourpossessionhadbeensentto heUCSCArch...

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