Podkayne of Mars

I had dozed off from lack of anything better to do when I was awakened. "Poddy, dear-"

"Oh! Hello, Mrs. Grew."

"Now, now, no quick moves," she said chidingly. I wasn't about to make any quick moves; she had a gun pointed at my belly button. I'm very fond of it, it's the only one I have.

"Now be a good girl and turn over and cross your wrists behind you." I did so and in a moment she had them tied, quite firmly. Then she looped the line around my neck and had me on a leash-and if I struggled, all I accomplished was choking myself. So I didn't struggle.

Oh, I'm sure there was at least a moment when she

didn't have that gun pointed at me and my wrists were not yet tied. One of those comic-book heroes would

have snatched that golden instant, rendered her helpless, tied her with her own rope.

Regrettably, none of those heroes was named "Poddy Fries." My education has encompassed cooking, sewing, quite a lot of math and history and science, and such useful tidbits as freehand drawing and how to dip candles and make soap. But hand-to-hand combat I have learned sketchily if at all from occasional border clashes with Clark. I know that Mother feels that this is a lack (she is skilled in both karate and kill-quick, and can shoot as well as Daddy does) but Daddy has put off sending me to classes-I've gathered the impression that he doesn't really want his "baby girl" to know such things.

I vote with Mother, it's a lack. There must have been a split second when I could have lashed out with a heel, caught Mrs. Grew in her solar plexus, then broken her neck while she was still helpless-and run down the Jolly Roger and run up the Union Jack, just like in Treasure Island.

Oppernockity tunes but once-and I wasn't in tune with it.

Instead I was led away like a puppy on a string. Titania eyed us as we went through the door but Mrs. Grew clucked at her and she settled back on her perch and cuddled Ariel to her.

She had me walk in front of her down a hallway, through that living room where I had last seen Uncle Tom and Clark, out another door and a passage and into a large room-

-and I gasped and suppressed a scream!

Mrs. Grew said cheerfully, "Take a good look, dear. He's your new roommate."

Half the room was closed off with heavy steel bars, like a cage in a zoo. Inside was-well, it was Pinhead, that's what it was, though it took me a long moment of fright to realize it. You may have gathered that I

do not consider Pinhead handsome. Well, dear, he was Apollo Belvedere before compared with the red-eyed maniacal horror he had become.

Then I was lying on the floor and Mrs. Grew was giving me smelling salts. Yes, sir, Captain Podkayne Fries the Famous Explorer had keeled over like a silly girl. All right, go ahead and laugh; I don't mind. You haven't ever been shoved into a room with a thing like that and had it introduced to you as "your new roommate."

Mrs. Grew was chuckling. "Feel better, dear?"

"You're not going to put me in there with him!"

"What? Oh, no, no, that was just my little joke. I'm sure your uncle will never make it necessary actually to do it." She looked at Pinhead thoughtfully-and he was straining one arm through the bars, trying again and again to reach us. "He's had only five milligrams, and for a long-time happy dust addict that's barely enough to make him tempeiy. If I ever do have to put you-or your brother-in with him. I've promised him at least fifteen. I need your advice, dear. You see, I'm about to send your uncle back to Venusberg so that he can catch his ship. Now which do you think would work best with your uncle? To put your brother in there right now, while your uncle watches? He's watching this, you know; he saw you faint-and that couldn't have been better if you had practiced. Or to wait and-"

"My uncle is watching us?"

"Yes, of course. Or to-"

"Uncle Tom!"

"Oh, do keep quiet, Poddy. He can see you but he can't hear you and he can't possibly help you. Hmm- You're such a silly billy that I don't think I want your advice. On your feet, now!"

She walked me back to my cell.

That was only hours ago; it merely seems like years. But it is long enough. Long enough for Poddy to lose her nerve. Look, I don't have to tell this, nobody knows but me. But I've been truthful all through these memoirs and I'll be truthful now: I have made up my mind that as soon as I get a chance to talk with Uncle I will beg him, plead with him, to do anything to keep me from being locked up with a happy-dusted native.

I'm not proud of it. I'm not sure Ill ever be proud of Poddy a~ain. But there it is and you can rub my nose in it. I ye come up against something that frightens me so much I've cracked.

I feel a little better about it to have admitted it baldly. I sort of hope that, when the time comes, I won't whimper and I won~t plead. But I ... just

don't ... know.

And then somebody was shoved in with me and it was Clark!

I jumped up off the bed and threw my arms around him and lifted him right off his feet and was blubbering over him. "Oh, Clarkie! Brother, brother, are you hurt? What did they do to you? Speak to me! Are you deaf?"

Ri~ht in my ear he said, "Cut out the sloppy stuff, Pod.'

So I knew he wasn't too badly hurt, he sounded just like Clark. I repeated, more quietly, "Are you deaf?"

He barely whispered in my ear, "No, but she thinks I am, so we'll go on letting her think so." He untangled himself from me, took a quick look in his bag, then rapidly and very thoroughly went over every bit of the room-giving Titania just wide enough berth to keep her from diving on him.

Then he came back, shoved his face close to mine and said, "Poddy,. can you read lips?"

"No. Why?"

"The hell you can't, you just did."

Well, it wasn't quite true; Clark had barely whispered-and I did find that I was "hearing" him as much from watching his mouth as I was from truly hearing him. This is a very fu

He had me talk so low that I couldn't hear it myself and he didn't talk much louder. He told me, "Look, Pod, I don't know that Old Lady Grew"-he didn't say "Lady"-"has this room wired. I can't find any changes in it since she had me in it before. But there are at least four places and maybe more where a mike could be. So we keep quiet-because it stands to reason she put us together to hear what we have to say to each other. So talk out loud all you want to... but just static. How scared you are and how dreadful it is that I can't hear anything and such-like noise."

So we did and I moaned and groaned and wept over my poor baby brother and he complained that he couldn t hear a word I was saying and kept asking me to find a pencil and write what I was saying-and in between we really did talk, important talk that Clark didn't want her to hear.

I wanted to know why he wasn't deaf-had he actually been in that tank? "Oh, sure," he told me, "but I wasn't nearly as limp by then as she thought I was, either. I had some paper in my pocket and I chewed it up into pulp and corked my ears." He looked pained. "A twenty-spot note. Most expensive earplugs anybody ever had, I'll bet. Then I wrapped my shirt around my head and ignored it. But stow that and listen."

He was even more vague about how he had managed to get himself trapped. "Okay, okay, so I got

hoaxed. You and Uncle don't look so smart, either- and anyhow, you're responsible."

"I am - not either responsible!" I whispered indignantly.

"If you're not responsible, then you're irresponsible, which is worse. Logic. But forget it, we've got important things to do now. Look, Pod, we're going to crush out of here."