Mr Stone brushed it aside. 'Two weeks you were there - not time enough to find out what the place is like. You'll love it, once you get used to it. Learn to ride horseback, play baseball, see the Ocean'
'A lot of impure water,' Castor answered.
'Horses are to eat'
'Take baseball,' Castor continued. 'It's not practical. How can you figure a one-g trajectory and place your hand at the point of contact in the free-flight time between bases? We're not miracle men.'
'I played it.'
'But you grew up in a one-g field; you've got a distorted notion of physics. Anyhow, why would we want to learn to play baseball? When we come back, we wouldn't be able to play it here. Why, you might crack your helmet'
Mr Stone shook his head. 'Games aren't the point. Play base-ball or not, as suits you. But you should get an education.'
'What does Luna City Technical lack that we need? And if so, why? After all, Dad, you were on the Board of Education'
'I was not; I was mayor.'
'Which made you a member ex-officio - Hazel told us.'
Mr Stone glanced at his mother; she was looking elsewhere. He went on, 'Tech is a good school, of its sort' but we don't pretend to offer everything at Tech. After all, the Moon is still an outpost, a frontier -'
'But you said' Pollux interrupted, 'in your retiring speech as mayor, that Luna City was the Athens of the future and the hope of the new age.'
'Poetic license. Tech is still not Harvard. Don't you boys want to see the world's great works of art? Don't you want to study the world's great literature?'
'We've read lvanhoe,' said Castor.
'And we don't want to read The Mill on the Floss,' added Pollux.
'We prefer your stuff.'
'My stuff? My stuff isn't literature. It's more of an animated comic strip.'
'We like it' Castor said firmly.
His father took a deep breath. 'Thank you. Which reminds me that I still have a full episode to sweat out tonight, so I will cut this discussion short. In the first place you can't touch the money without my thumbprint - from now on I am going to wear gloves. In the second place both of you are too young for an unlimited license.'
'You could get us a waiver for out-system. When we got back we'd probahly be old enough for unlimited.'
'You're too young!'
Castor said, 'Why, Dad, not half an hour ago you accepted a gimmick from me in which you were going to have an eleven-year-old kid driving a ship.'
'I'll raise his age!'
'It'll ruin your gimmick.'
'Confound it! That's just fiction - and poor fiction at that It's hokum, dreamed up to sell merchandise.' He suddenly looked suspiciously at his son. 'Cas, you planted that gimmick on me. Just to give yourself an argument in favor of this hair-brained scheme - didn't you?'
Castor looked pious. 'Why, Father, how could you think such a thing?'
'Don't Father me! I can tell a hawk from a handsaw.'
'Anybody can,' Grandmother Hazel commented. 'The Hawk class is a purely commercial type while the Hanshaw runabout is a sport job. Come to think about it, boys, a Hanshaw might be better than a Douglas. I like its fractional controls and -'
'Hazel!' 'napped her. son. 'Quit encouraging the boys. And quit showing off. You're not the only engineer in the family.'
'I'm the only good one,' she answered smugly.
'Oh, yes? Nobody ever complained about my work.'
'Then why did you quit?'
'You know why. Fiddle with finicky figures for months on end - and what have you got? A repair dock. Or a stamping mill. And who Ceres?'
'So you aren't an engineer. You're merely a man who knows engineering.'
'What about yourself? You didn't stick with it.'
'No,' she admitted, 'but my reasons were different. I saw three big, hairy, male men promoted over my head and not one of them could do a partial integration without a pencil. Presently I figured out that the Atomic Energy Commission had a bias on the subject of women no matter what the civil service rules said. So I took a job dealing blackjack. Luna City didn't offer much choice in those days - and I had you to support.'
The argument seemed about to die out; Castor judged it was time to mix it up again. 'Hazel, do you really think we should get a Hanshaw? I'm not sure we can afford it.'
'Well, now, you really need a third crewnaan for a -'
'Do you want to buy in?'
'Mr Stone interrupted. 'Hazel, I will not stand by and let you ecourage this. I'm putting my foot down.'
'You look silly standing there on one foot. Don't try to bring me up, Roger. At ninety-five my habits are fairly well set.'
'Ninety-five indeed! Last week you were eighty-five.'
'It's been a hard week. Back to our muttons - why don't you buy in with them? You could go along and keep them out of trouble.'
'What? Me?' Mr Stone took a deep breath. '(A) a marine guard couldn't keep these two junior-model Napoleons out of trouble. I know; Ive tried. (B) I do not like a Hanshaw; they are fuel hogs. (C) l have to turn out three episodes a week of The Scourge of the Spaceways - including one which must be taped tonight, if this family will ever quiet down!'
'Roger,' his mother answered' 'trouble in this family is like water for fish. And nobody asked you to buy a Hanshaw, As to your third point' give me a blank spool and I'll dictate the next three episodes tonight while I'm brushing my hair.' Hazel's hair was still thick and quite red. So far, no one had caught her dyeing it. 'It's about time you broke that contract anyway; you've won your bet.'
Her son winced. Two years before be had let himself be trapped into a bet that he could write better stuff than was being channeled up from Earth - and had gotten himself caught in a quicksand of fat checks and options. 'I can't afford to quit' he said feebly.
'What good is money if you don't have time to spend it? Give me that spool and the box'
'You can't write it.'
'Want to bet?'
Her son backed down; no one yet had won a bet with Hazel.
