Podkayne of Mars

III

Hold it! Stop the machines! Wipe the, tapes! Cancel all bulletins- WE ARE GOING TO EARTH AFTER ALL!!!!

Well, not all of us. Daddy and Mother aren't going, and of course, the triplets are not. But- Never mind; I had better tell it in order.

Yesterday things just got to be Too Much. I had changed them in rotation, only to find as I got the third one dry and fresh that number one again needed service. I had been thinking sadly that just about that moment I should have been entering the dining saloon of S.S. Wanderlust to the strains of soft music. Perhaps on the arm of one of the officers

perhaps even on the arm of the Captain himself had I the chance to arrange an accidental Happy Encounter, then make judicious use of my "puzzled kitten" expression.

And, as I reached that point in my melancholy daydream, it was then that I discovered that my chores

had started all over again. I thought of the Augean Stables and suddenly it was just Too Much and my eyes got blurry with tears.

Mother came in at that point and I asked if I could please have a couple of hours of recess?

She answered, "Why, certainly dear," and didn't even glance at me. I'm sure that she didn't notice that I was crying; she was already doing over, quite u

Mother's behavior had been utterly unbelievable. Her cortex has tripped out of circuit and her primitive instincts are in full charge. She reminds me of a cat we had when I was a little girl-Miss Polka Dot Ma'am and her first litter of kittens. Miss Pokie loved and trusted all of us-except about kittens. If we touched one of them, she was uneasy about it. If a kitten was taken out of her box and placed on the floor to be admired, she herself would hop out, grab the kitten in her teeth and immediately return it to the box, with an indignant waggle to her seat that showed all too plainly what she thought of irresponsible people who didn't know how to handle babies.

Mother is just like that now. She accepts my help simply because there is too much for her to do alone. But she doesn't really believe that I can even pick up a baby without close supervision.

So I left and followed my own blind instincts, which told me to go look up Uncle Tom.

I found him at the Elks Club, which was reasonably certain at that time of day, but I had to wait in the

ladies' lounge until he came out of the card room. Which he did in about ten minutes, counting a wad of money as he came. "Sbny to make you wait," he said, "but I was teaching a fellow citizen about the uncertainties in the laws of chance and I had to stay long enough to collect the tuition. How marches it, Podkayne mavourneen?"

I tried to tell him and got all choked up, so he walked me to the park under the city hail and sat me on a bench and bought us both packages of Chokiatpops and I ate mine and most of his and watched the stars on the ceiling and told him all about it and felt better.

He patted my hand. "Cheer up, Flicka. Always remember that, when things seem darkest, they usually get considerably worse." He took his phone out of a pocket and made a call. Presently he said, "Never mind the protocol routine, miss. This is Senator Fries. I want the Director." Then he added, in a moment, "Hymie? Tom Fries here. How's Judith? Good, good... Hymie, I just called to tell you that I'm coming over to stuff you into one of your own liquid helium tanks. Oh, say about fourteen or a few minutes after. That'll give you time to get out of town. Clearing." He pocketed his phone. "Let's get some lunch. Never commit suicide on an empty stomach, my dear; it's bad for the digestion."

Uncle Tom took me to the Pioneers Club where I have been only once before and which is even more impressive than I had recalled- It has real waiters

men so old that they might have been pioneers themselves, unless they met the first ship. Everybody fussed over Uncle Tom and he called them all by their first names and they all called him "Tom" but made it sound like "Your Majesty" and the master of the hostel came over and prepared my sweet himself with about six other people standing around to hand him

things, like a famous surgeon operating against the swift onrush of death.

Presently Uncle Tom belched behind his napkin and I thanked everybody as we left while wishing that I had had the forethought to wear my unsuitable gown that Mother won't let me wear until I'm nine and almost made me take back-one doesn't get to the Pioneers Club every day.

We took the James Joyce Fogarty Express Tu

I didn't really realize that we were going to the Marsopolis Crèche until we were there, so bemused had I been earlier with my own tumultuous emotions. But when we were there and facing a sign reading: OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR-PLEASE USE OTHER DOOR, Uncle Tom said, "Hang around somewhere; I'll need you later," and went on in.

The waiting room was crowded and the only magazines not in use were Kiddie Kapers and Modern Homemaker, so I wandered around a bit and presently found a corridor that led to the Nursery.

The sign on the door said that visiting hours were from 16 to 18.30. Furthermore, it was locked, so I moved on and found another door which seemed much more promising. It was marked: POSITIVELY NO ADMITFANCE-but it didn't say "This Means You" and it wasn't locked, so I went in.

You never saw so many babies in your whole life!

Row upon row upon row, each in its own little transparent cubicle. I could really see only the row nearest me, all of which seemed to be about the same age- and much more finished than the three we had at

home. Little brown dumplings they were, cute as puppies. Most of them were asleep, some w~re awake and kicking and cooing and grabbing at dangle toys that were just in reach. If there had not been a sheet of glass between me and them I would have grabbed me a double armful of babies.

There were a lot of girls in the room, too-well, young women, really. Each of them seemed to be busy with a baby and they didn't notice me. But shortly one of the babies nearest me started to cry whereupon a light came on over its cubicle, and one of the nurse girls hurried over, slid back the cover, picked it up and started patting its bottom. It stopped crying.

"Wet?" I inquired.

She looked up, saw me. "Oh, no, the machines take care of that. Just lonely, so I'm loving it." Her voice came through clearly in spite of the glass-a hear and speak circuit, no doubt, although the pickups were not in evidence. She made soft noises to the baby, then added, "Are you a new employee? You seem to be lost.

"Oh, no," I said hastily, "I'm not an employee. I just-'

"Then you don't belong here, not at this hour. Unless"-she looked at me rather skeptically-"just possibly you are looking for the instruction class for young mothers?"

"Oh, no, no!" I said hastily. "Not yet." Then I added still more hastily, "I'm a guest of the Director."

Well, it wasn't a fib. Not quite. I was a guest of a guest of the Director, one who was with him by appointment. The relationship was certainly concatenative, if not equivalent.

It seemed to reassure her. She asked, "Just what did you want? Can I help you?"