Short Stories by Robert A. Heinlein Vol 2 Part 58

Grimes said, 'Howdy, Baldur. How's your conduct?'

The dog looked at him, whined, and wagged his tail.

Stevens looked for the source of the commanding voice, found it.

The room was huge and spherical; floating in its centre was a fat man - Waldo.

He was dressed conventionally enough in shorts and singlet, except that his feet were bare. His hands and forearms were covered by metallic gauntlets - primary waldoes. He was softly fat, with double chin, dimples, smooth skin; he looked like a great, pink cherub, floating attendance on a saint. But the eyes were not cherubic, and the forehead and skull were those of a man. He looked at Stevens. 'Permit me to introduce you to my pet,' he said in a high, tired voice. 'Give the paw, Baldur.'

The dog offered a foreleg, Stevens shook it gravely. 'Let him smell you, please.'

The dog did so, as the waldo at his collar permitted him to come closer. Satisfied, the animal bestowed a wet kiss on

Stevens's wrist. Stevens noted that the dog's eyes were surrounded by large circular patches of brown in contrast to his prevailing white, and mentally tagged it the Dog with Eyes as Large as Saucers, thinking of the tale of the soldier and the flint box. He made noises to it of 'Good boy!' and 'That's a nice old fellow!' while Waldo looked on with faint distaste.

'Heel, sir!' Waldo commanded when the ceremony was complete.

The dog turned in mid air, braced a foot against Stevens's thigh, and shoved, projecting himself in the direction of his master.

Stevens was forced to steady himself by clutching at a handgrip.

Grimes shoved himself away from the manhole and arrested his flight on a stanchion near their host. Stevens followed him.

Waldo looked him over slowly. His manner was not overtly rude, but was somehow, to Stevens, faintly annoying. He felt a slow flush spreading out from his neck; to inhibit it he gave his attention to the room around him. The s.p.a.ce was commodious, yet gave the impression of being cluttered because of the a.s.semblage of, well, junk which surrounded Waldo.

There were half a dozen vision receptors of various sizes around him at different angles, all normal to his line of sight. Three of them had pickups to match. There were control panels of several sorts, some of which seemed obvious enough in their purpose - one for lighting, which was quite complicated, with little ruby tell-tales for each circuit, one which was the keyboard of a voder, a multiplex television control panel, a board which seemed to be power relays, although its design was unusual. But there were at least half a dozen which stumped Stevens completely.

There were several pairs of waldoes growing out of a steel ring which surrounded the working s.p.a.ce. Two pairs, mere monkey fists in size, were equipped with extensors. It had been one of these which had shot out to grab Baldur by his collar.

There were waldoes rigged near the spherical wall, too, including one pair so huge that Stevens could not conceive of a use for it.

Extended, each hand spread quite six feet from little finger tip to thumb tip.

There were books in plenty on the wall, but no bookshelves.

They seemed to grow from the wall like so many cabbages.

It puzzled Stevens momentarily, but he inferred - correctly it turned out later - that a small magnet fastened to the binding did the trick.

The arrangement of lighting was novel, complex, automatic, and convenient for Waldo. But it was not so convenient for anyone else in the room. The lighting was, of course, indirect; but, furthermore, it was subtly controlled, so that none of the lighting came from the direction in which

Waldo's head was turned. There was no glare - for Waldo.

Since the lights behind his head burned brightly in order to provide more illumination for whatever he happened to be looking at, there was glare aplenty for anyone else. An electric eye circuit, obviously. Stevens found himself wondering just how simple such a circuit could be made.

Grimes complained about it. 'd.a.m.n it, Waldo; get those lights under control. You'll give us headaches.'

'Sorry, Uncle Gus.' He withdrew his right hand from its gauntlet and placed his fingers over one of the control panels. The glare stopped. Light now came from whatever direction none of them happened to be looking, and much more brightly, since the area source of illumination was much reduced. Lights rippled across the walls in pleasant patterns. Stevens tried to follow the ripples, a difficult matter, since the setup was made not to be seen. He found that he could do so by rolling his eyes without moving his head. It was movement of the head which controlled the lights; movement of an eyeball was a little too much for it.

'Well, Mr Stevens, do you find my house interesting?'

Waldo was smiling at him with faint superciliousness.

'Oh - quite! Quite! I believe that it is the most remarkable place I have ever been in.'

'And what do you find remarkable about it?'

'Well - the lack of definite orientation, I believe. That and the remarkable mechanical novelties. I suppose I am a bit of a groundlubber, but I keep expecting a floor underfoot and a ceiling overhead.'

'Mere matters of functional designs, Mr Stevens; the conditions under which I live are unique; therefore, my house is unique. The novelty you speak of consists mainly in the elimination of unnecessary parts and the addition of new conveniences.

'To tell the truth, the most interesting thing I have seen yet is not a part of the house at all.'

'Really? What is it, pray?'

'Your dog, Baldur.' The dog looked around at the mention of his name. 'I've never before met a dog who could handle himself in free flight.'

Waldo smiled; for the first time his smile seemed gentle and warm.

'Yes, Baldur is quite an acrobat. He's been at it since he was a puppy.' He reached out and roughed the dog's cars, showing momentarily his extreme weakness, for the gesture had none of the strength appropriate to the size of the brute. The finger motions were flaccid, barely sufficient to disturb the coa.r.s.e fur and to displace the great ears. But he seemed unaware, or unconcerned, by the disclosure. Turning back to Stevens, he added, 'But if Baldur amuses you, you must see Ariel.'

'Ariel?'

Instead of replying, Waldo touched the keyboard of the voder, producing a musical whistling pattern of three notes. There was a rustling near the wall of the room 'above' them; a tiny yellow shape shot towards them - a canary. It sailed through the air with wings folded, bullet fashion. A foot or so away from Waldo it spread its wings, cupping the air, beat them a few times with tail down and spread, and came to a dead stop, hovering in the air with folded wings. Not quite a dead stop, perhaps, for it drifted slowly, came within an inch of Waldo's shoulder, let down its landing gear, and dug its claws into his singlet.

Waldo reached up and stroked it with a fingertip. It preened.

'No earth-hatched bird can learn to fly in that fashion,' he stated. 'I know. I lost half a dozen before I was sure that they were incapable of making the readjustment. Too much thalamus.'

'What happens to them?'

'In a man you would call it acute anxiety psychosis. They try to fly; their own prime skill leads them to disaster. Naturally, everything they do is wrong and they don't understand it.

Presently they quit trying; a little later they die. Of a broken heart, one might say, poetically.' He smiled thinly.

'But Ariel is a genius among birds. He came here as an egg; he invented, una.s.sisted, a whole new school of flying.'

He reached up a finger, offering the bird a new perch, which it accepted.

'That's enough, Ariel. Fly away home.'

The bird started the 'Bell Song' from Lakme.

He shook it gently. 'No, Ariel. Go to bed.'

The canary lifted its feet clear of the finger, floated for an instant, then beat its wings savagely for a second or two to set course and pick up speed, and bulleted away whence he bad come, wings folded, feet streamlined under.

'Jimmie's got something he wants to talk with you about,'