Burt was tired of taking his family out to the asteroids
for a picnic every week-end. But with a wife and
two spoiled brats to goad him into the regular routine,
what could a man do? Only, as it turned out,
this particular picnic wasn't quite regular routine!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Rocket Stories, July 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Burt reached out for the stud that would fire the fore-rockets, but a
small white hand already rested on the button.
"Let me, Daddy. You promised--"
When he wanted something, Johnny's voice took on that wailing quality.
He wanted something now; Burt had promised him that he could land the
ship.
"Okay," Burt said. "Press it--now. Now!"
Johnny took his hand off the stud. "Don't holler at _me_," he told his
father severely.
Burt swore under his breath and jammed down on the stud. A red light
overhead winked on and off furiously, and he knew that if he had
waited another moment they would have plowed into the asteroid like a
battering ram into a tub of soft butter.
"Marcia, oh Marcia!" he turned and called over his shoulder to his wife.
She stuck her head in through the galley door. "Dear," she said, "let
me make these sandwiches, will you? I don't tell you how to pilot the
ship, but I'll never get this lunch all packed unless you let me alone."
Burt scowled. "That's the general idea. I want to be let alone, too. So
if you'll just take your darling little son the devil out of here--"
"Why, Burt Rogers! Johnny's only eight, and he's quite harmless. If I
had known ten years ago that you didn't like children--"
Burt shook his head. "Joan's fine. Joan is two years younger than
Johnny, but she doesn't bother anyone. She just sits in the galley
and--"
"Hah!" Marcia snorted. "She sits in the galley and digs her arms into
the mayonnaise tub up to the elbows, that's all."
"Well, then they're both brats."
"Burt!"
"They are, and it's your fault, Marcia. You always say let the children
express themselves, we can't frustrate them or cut them short in any
way--so look what happens."
"You look what happens," Marcia declared dramatically. "If we don't
pull out of the dive in a couple of seconds, we'll splatter all over
that planetoid."
"Let me land it, let me land it!" wailed Johnny.
Burt spun to the controls, and his fingers flicked rapidly over
the buttons. He was sweating when he brought the ship down with a
none-too-gentle dump. He heard Joan's whimper from inside the galley,
and Marcia began to tell him what a lousy pilot he was. Johnny was
playing cops and robbers with the topography through the foreport.
"This," Burt said, "is the last week-end picnic for me. Definitely the
last."
Marcia opened her mouth to say something, but Burt cut her off. "I
don't want to hear any more about it. You'll just have to find another
way for the kids to express themselves...."
* * * * *
They usually found an asteroid with a weird terrain, and just looking
at it through the portable bubble-sphere kept the kids pretty busy.
This time, however, things were different. The asteroid was only
twenty miles in diameter, yet it had an atmosphere of oxygen and inert
gases, and it was comfortably warm. No bubble-sphere this time to keep
the kids hemmed in--and Johnny and Joan would be roving all over the
uncharted surface.
Burt shuddered. What a job he'd have today. But then, this was the last
time: they could talk themselves blue in the face and plead, but this
was the last time.... And maybe there'd be life, since there was air
and warmth. But that was silly: a body this size would not have life,
and even if Johnny took advantage of the low gravity and jumped thirty
feet in the air, he wouldn't get hurt--he'd float down gently as a
feather.
Marcia pouted as she spread the table-cloth out on a flat expanse of
rock. Burt put his hand on her shoulder, but she pulled away from him.
"Brats, eh?" she muttered.
"Well, maybe I didn't mean it that way. But you just name me another
father at Marsport who takes his family up in a spaceship every Sunday
to go picnicking. And a different asteroid each week. Ed Jones sits on
his fanny all week-end, and Tom Ferris spends Saturday night in the
gambling joints so he's dead on his feet Sunday and can hardly stay
awake during the church services."
Marcia took his hand and placed it back on her shoulder. "Okay,
dear--you're wonderful. But that doesn't give you permission to call my
children 'brats'."
Burt smiled. "_My_ children, too. And, well--if they're not brats,
we've certainly spoiled them...."