Short Stories by Robert A. Heinlein Vol 2 Part 108

Nixie was voted into Troop Four in his tenderfoo status unanimously. . . Alfred Rheinhardt, Tenderfool abstaining.

After the meeting the troop treasurer b.u.t.tOnhole Charlie. "You want to pay your dues now, Chuck?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure-I brought some money."

"Good." The other Scout accepted payment. "Here'~ your receipt."

"Just mark it down in your book." -

"Take it. No tickee, no washee. I'm nasty about it-that's why they made me treasurer. Now about Nixi-You pay? Or do I speak to him?"

The other boy was not smiling and Charlie could noi decide whether or not he was joking. He decided to pla) it just as soberly. "I settle for Nixie. You see, he doesn't have pockets." He dug down in his diminis.h.i.+ng resources, managed to piece out enough to pay the small amount for Nixie. "Here."

"Thanks." The treasurer handed back a s.h.i.+lling. "Tenderfeet get by cheaper, under Troop by-laws. But every little bit helps. You know, when I took this job, the troop was in the hole. Now we got money in the bank."

"I believe it!" Charlie agreed. He was secretly delighted at the transaction. Nixie was no longer an honorary Scout," he was a Scout-he kept the Law and his dues were paid.

Nixie's eligibility to take part in all troop doings wa~ fbi questioned until the first hike thereafter. Mr. Qu'ar looked troubled when Charlie showed up with him. "You had better take Nixie home. We'll wait for you."

Charlie was upset. "But, Mr. Qu'an, I thought-Well, Nixie always goes on hikes."

"No doubt, back Earthside. Charlie, I'm not being

arbitrary. I don't want your dog to get hurt."

"He won't get hurt!- He's real smart."

The Scoutmaster frowned. Hans Kuppenheimer spoke up. "I think Nixie could come along, Mr. Qu'an."

"Eh?" - The Scoutmaster looked at Hans thoughtfully.

"You'll have your hands full with Chuck, since it's his first time out."

Hans had a habit of saying nothing when he had nothing to say;- he did so now. Mr. Qu'an persisted, "You'd have to look out for them both, you know."

Hans still kept quiet. "Well," Mr. Qu'an said doubtfully, "Nixie is a member of the troop. If you can take care of him-and Charlie, too-I'll let him come."

"Yes, sir."

The- Scoutmaster turned away. Charlie whispered, "Thanks, Hans. That was swell." Hans said nothing.

Hans had surprised Charlie by his first reaction to Nixie the night Nixie had been taken into the troop. While other boys were cl.u.s.tering around making much of Nixie, Hans had stayed a wary distance away. Charlie had felt offended. Since he was a.s.signed with Hans as a buddy team, Charlie decided to do something about it.

After the meeting he sought out Hans. "Don't be in a hurry, Hans. I want you to get acquainted with Nixie."

The country boy still avoided the dog. "Does it bite?"

"Huh? Nixie? Of course not. Well, he would if you took a poke at me. -Not otherwise."

"I thought so. And suppose I gave you a friendly slap on- the back. He could kill a man, huh?"

Nixie had listened, tense and watchful. He could feel the fear in Hans' mind; he understood, without understanding why, that his boy was arguing with this other boy. Charlie did not seem in immediate danger, but Nixie stayed at yellow alert.

It showed. The savage carnivores who were Nixie's remote ancestors showed in his stance and his watchful eyes. The Venus-born jungle rat, drilled since babyhoo~ to keep his eyes open for just such unknown dangers could see the carnivore-and failed to see the gentle household pet. He watched the dog carefully.

Charlie said, "Why, that's nonsense, Hans. Pat him Rough him up a bit. Shake hands with him. Let hin learn your smell." When Hans still did not move Charlie asked incredulously, "Don't you like dogs?"

"I don't know. I've never seen one before, up close." Charlie's jaw dropped. But Hans had spoken thc simple truth. Some town boys in the troop, immigrant~ like Charlie, had once owned dogs Earthside. Others had friends among the handful of dogs in Borealis. But Hans alone, born on Venus and living outside town, knew so little of dogs that they were as strange to him as a tiger shark would have been.

When Charlie finally got this incredible fact firmjyin his mind he persisted even more strongly inJiis-~fibrt to get his team buddy acquainted witJi-his~ther partner. Before Hans went home that nght he had touched the dog, patted him, even picked hith up and held him. Nixie could feel the fear go away, to be replaced by a sudden warm feeling. So Nixie snuffled Hans and licked his chin.

Hans showed up the next day at Charlie's home. He wanted to see Nixie.

In the two weeks that followed before the hike, Nixie adopted Hans as another member of Charlie's family. Subject always to his first loyalty, he accepted the other boy, took orders from him, even worked to hand signals, which he had never done with anyone but Charlie. At first he did it to please Charlie, but in time he was doing so because it was right and proper in his doggy mind, as long as it was all right with Charlie.

The troop set out on the hike. Before they reacbed~ the jungle at the edge of town Hans said to Charlie, "Better have him heel."

"Why? He likes to run around and poke his nose into things. But he always stays in earshot. He'll come if he's called."

Hans scowled. "Suppose he can't? Maybe he goes into bush and doesn't come out. You want to lose him?"

This was a long speech for Hans. Charlie looked surprised, then called, "Nixie! Heel!"

The dog had been supervising the van; he turned and came at once to Charlie's left and rear. Hans relaxed, said, "Better," and placed himself so that the dog trotted between them.

When the jungle loomed up over them, pierced here by a road, Mr. Qu'an held up his arm and called out, "Halt! Check watches." He held up his wrist and waited; everybody else did the same.

Jock Quentin, an Explorer Scout equipped with twoway radio, spoke into his microphone, then said, "Stand by. . . oh nine eleven."

"Anybody fail to check?" continued Mr. Qu'an. "All you with polarizers, establish base line."

Hans took out an odd-looking pair of spectacles with double lenses which rotated and a sighting device which snapped out. "Try it."

"Okay." Charlie accepted them gingerly. He did not yet own a light-polarizing sighter. "Why are we going to establish base line if we're going to stay on marked roads?"

Hans did not answer and Charlie felt foolish, realizing that the time to lea~rn how not to get lost was before you got lost. He put on the polarizers and tried to establish base line.

"Base line" was the prime meridian of Venus, the direction from Borealis of the Sun at noon. To find that direction it was necessary first to find the Sun itself (in a grey, thickly overcast sky), then, using a watch, figure where the Sun would be at noon.

That direction would be south-but all directions from Borealis were south; the city lay on the north pole of the planet. The mapmakers used Borealis as a zero point and the direction of the Sun at noon as a base line With the aid of transceivers, radar beacons, and radi compa.s.s, they were gradually establis.h.i.+ng a grid o reference points for the few hundred square mile around Borealis. A similar project was going on at Souti Pole City. But the millions of square miles between pole were unknown country, more mysterious and incredibl3 vaster than any jungle on Earth. There- was a sayin~ among the Scouts that streams at the equator were "hol enough to boil eggs," but n.o.body knew. As yet, no s.h.i.+p had landed near the equator and managed to come back.

The difficulty of telling directions on Venus is very great. The stars are always invisible. Neither magnetic compa.s.ses nor gyro compa.s.ses were of any use at the poles. Nor is there moss on the north sides of trees, nor any shadows to read-Venus is not only the land that time forgot; it is also the place of no directions.

So the colonists were forced to establish new directions. From Borealis toward the Sun at noon was prime meridian, called "base line," and any direction parallel to that was "base."- Back the other way was "reverse"; the two intermediate directions were "Left demi" and "right demi." By counting clockwise from "base," any other direction could be named.

It was not a perfect system since it used square coordinates for a spherical surface. But it was better than nothing in a place where the old directions had turned slippery-where all directions away from the city were "south" and where east and west, instead of being straight lines, were circular.

At first, Charlie could not see why, if they were going to use four directions, they didn't call them "north," "south," "east" and "west," instead of ringing in these silly names, "base," "reverse," "right demi," and "left demi." It was not until he saw in school a map of the colony, with the old familiar directions, north, south, east, west, on it and a "base line" grid drawn on top of it that he realized that the problem was not that simple. To go east on that map you went counterclockwise on one of those little circles-but how could you tell what direction "east" was unless you knew where you were? And how could you tell how much to curve left in order to keep going east? When compa.s.ses were no good and the Sun might be in any direction, north, south, east, or west, depending on which side of the city you were on?