The Rolling Stones Read Online Free PDF

His father immediately called him back. “Hey, Pol! What’s your hurry?”
    “Don’t you want to see our ship?”
    “Your ship? Are you still laboring under the fancy that I am going to let you two refugees from a correction school buy that Detroiter ?”
    “Huh? Then what did we come out here for?”
    “I want to look at some ships. But I am not interested in a Detroiter VII.”
    Pollux said, “Huh? See here, Dad, we aren’t going to settle for a jumpbug. We need a—” The rest of his protest was cut off as Castor reached over and switched off his walkie-talkie; Castor picked it up:
    “What sort of a ship, Dad? Pol and I have looked over most of these heaps, one time or another.”
    “Well, nothing fancy. A conservative family job. Let’s look at that Hanshaw up ahead.”
    Hazel said, “I thought you said Hanshaws were fuel hogs, Roger?”
    “True, but they are very comfortable. You can’t have everything.”
    “Why not?”
    Pollux had switched his radio back on immediately. He put in, “Dad, we don’t want a runabout. No cargo space.” Castor reached again for his belt switch; he shut up.
    But Mr. Stone answered him. “Forget about cargo space. You two boys would lose your shirts if you attempted to compete with the sharp traders running around the system. I’m looking for a ship that will let the family make an occasional pleasure trip; I’m not in the market for a commercial freighter.”
    Pollux shut up; they all went to the Hanshaw Mr. Stone had pointed out and swarmed up into her control room. Hazel used both hands and feet in climbing the rope ladder but was only a little behind her descendants. Once they were in the ship she went down the hatch into the power room; the others looked over the control room and the living quarters, combined in one compartment. The upper or bow end was the control station with couches for pilot and co-pilot. The lower or after end had two more acceleration couches for passengers; all four couches were reversible, for the ship could be tumbled in flight, caused to spin end over end to give the ship artificial “gravity” through centrifugal force—in which case the forward direction would be “down,” just the opposite of the “down” of flight under power.
    Pollux looked over these arrangements with distaste. The notion of cluttering up a ship with gadgetry to coddle the tender stomachs of groundhogs disgusted him. No wonder Hanshaws were fuel hogs!
    But his father thought differently. He was happily stretched out in the pilot’s couch, fingering the controls. “This baby might do,” he announced, “if the price is right.”
    Castor said, “I thought you wanted this for the family, Dad?”
    “I do.”
    “Be pretty cramped in here once you rigged extra couches. Edith won’t like that.”
    “You let me worry about your mother. Anyhow, there are enough couches now.”
    “With only four? How do you figure?”
    “Me, your mother, your grandmother, and Buster. If Meade is along we’ll rig something for the baby. By which you may conclude that I am really serious about you two juvenile delinquents finishing your schooling. Now don’t blow your safeties!—I have it in mind that you two can use this crate to run around in— after you finish school. Or even during vacations, once you get your unlimited licenses. Fair enough?”
    The twins gave him the worst sort of argument to answer; neither of them said anything. Their expressions said everything that was necessary. Their father went on, “See here—I’m trying to be fair and I’m trying to be generous. But how many boys your age do you know, or have even heard of, who have their own ship? None—right? You should get it through your heads that you are not supermen.”
    Castor grabbed at it. “How do you know that we are not ‘supermen’?”
    Pollux followed through with, “Conjecture, pure conjecture.”
    Before Mr. Stone could think of an effective answer his mother poked her head up the