Podkayne of Mars Read Online Free PDF Page A

impossible it now is and always will be in the future for such a mistake to take place again, under our new procedures. Nevertheless”—he looked helpless again—“if you were to talk, merely tell the simple truth about what did indeed happen once . . . you could ruin us.”
    I felt so sorry for him that I was about to blurt out that I wouldn’t even dream of talking!—even though they had ruined my life—when Clark cut in. “Watch it, Pod! It’s loaded.”
    So I just gave the Director my Sphinx expression and said nothing. Clark’s instinctive self-interest is absolutely reliable.
    Dr. Schoenstein motioned Mr. Poon to keep quiet. “But, my dear lady, I am not asking you not to talk. As your uncle the Senator says, you are not here to blackmail and I have nothing with which to bargain. The Marsopolis Crèche Foundation, Limited, always carries out its obligations even when they do not result from formal contract. I asked you to come in here in order to suggest a measure of relief for the damage we have unquestionably—though unwittingly—done you and your brother. Your uncle tells me that he had intended to travel with you and your family . . . but that now he intends to go via the next Triangle Line departure. The Tricorn, I believe it is, about ten days from now. Would you feel less mistreated if we were to pay first-class fares for your brother and you—round trip, of course—in the Triangle Line?”
    Would I! The Wanderlust has, as her sole virtue, the fact that she is indeed a spaceship and she was shaping for Earth. But she is an old, slow freighter. Whereas the Triangle Liners, as everyone knows, are utter palaces! I could but nod.
    “Good. It is our privilege and we hope you have a wonderful trip. But, uh, young lady . . . do you think it possible that you could give us some assurance, for no consideration and simply out of kindness, that you wouldn’t talk about a certain regrettable mishap?”
    “Oh? I thought that was part of the deal?”
    “There is no deal. As your uncle pointed out to me, we owe you this trip, no matter what.”
    “Why—why, Doctor, I’m going to be so busy, so utterly rushed, just to get ready in time, that I won’t have time to talk to anyone about any mishaps that probably weren’t your fault anyhow!”
    “Thank you.” He turned to Clark. “And you, son?”
    Clark doesn’t like to be called “son” at best. But don’t think it affected his answer. He ignored the vocative and said coldly, “What about our expenses?”
    Dr. Schoenstein flinched. Uncle Tom guffawed and said, “That’s my boy! Doc, I told you he had the simple rapacity of a sand gator. He’ll go far—if somebody doesn’t poison him.”
    “Any suggestions?”
    “No trouble. Clark. Look me in the eye. Either you stay behind and we weld you into a barrel and feed you through the bunghole so that you can’t talk—while your sister goes anyhow—or you accept these terms. Say a thousand each—no, fifteen hundred—for travel expenses, and you keep your snap-per shut forever about the baby mix-up . . . or I personally, with the aid of four stout, blackhearted accomplices, will cut your tongue out and feed it to the cat. A deal?”
    “I ought to get ten percent commission on Sis’s fifteen hundred. She didn’t have sense enough to ask for it.”
    “No cumshaw. I ought to be charging you commission on the whole transaction. A deal?”
    “A deal,” Clark agreed.
    Uncle Tom stood up. “That does it, Doc. In his own unappetizing way he is as utterly reliable as she is. So relax. You, too, Kwai Yau, you can breathe again. Doc, you can send a check around to me in the morning. Come on, kids.”
    “Thanks, Tom. If that is the word. I’ll have the check over before you get there. Uh . . . just one thing . . .”
    “What, Doc?”
    “Senator, you were here long before I was born, so I don’t know too much about your early life. Just the traditional stories and what it says about you in Who’s