Free Podkayne of Mars by Robert A. Heinlein Page A

they had already formed their friendships and cliques. We were like new kids in a strange school.
    But I said “Good morning!” to anyone I met in the passageway, and if I was not answered I just checked it off to hard-of-hearing—so many of them obviously could be hard of hearing. Anyhow, I wasn’t terribly interested in getting chummy with passengers; I wanted to get acquainted with the ship’s officers, pilot officers especially, so that I could get some practical experience to chink in what I already knew from reading. It’s not easy for a girl to get accepted for pilot training; she has to be about four times as good as a male candidate—and every little bit helps.
    I got a wonderful break right away. We were seated at the Captain’s table!
    Uncle Tom, of course. I am not conceited enough to think that “Miss Podkayne Fries, Marsopolis” means anything on a ship’s passenger list (but wait ten years!)—whereas Uncle Tom, even though he is just my pinochle-playing, easygoing oldest relative, is nevertheless senior Senator-at-Large of the Republic, and it is certain that the Marsopolis General Agent for the Triangle Line knows this and no doubt the agent would see to it that the Purser of the Tricorn would know it if he didn’t already.
    As may be—I am not one to scorn gifts from heaven, no matter how they arrive. At our very first meal I started working on Captain Darling. That really is his name, Barrington Babcock Darling—and does his wife call him “Baby Darling”?
    But of course a captain does not have a name aboard ship; he is “the Captain,” “the Master,” “the Skipper,” or even “the Old Man” if it is a member of the ship’s company speaking not in his august presence. But never a name—simply a majestic figure of impersonal authority.
    (I wonder if I will someday be called “the Old Woman” when I am not in earshot? Somehow it doesn’t sound quite the same.)
    But Captain Darling is not too majestic or impersonal with me. I set out to impress him with the idea that I was awfully sweet, even younger than I am, terribly impressed by him and overawed . . . and not too bright. It does not do to let a male of any age know that one has brains, not on first acquaintance; intelligence in a woman is likely to make a man suspicious and uneasy, much like Caesar’s fear of Cassius’ “lean and hungry look.” Get a man solidly on your side first; after that it is fairly safe to let him become gradually aware of your intellect. He may even feel unconsciously that it rubbed off from his own.
    So I set out to make him feel that it was a shame that I was not his daughter. (Fortunately he only has sons.) Before that first meal was over I confided in him my great yearning to take pilot training . . . suppressing, of course, any higher ambition.
    Both Uncle Tom and Clark could see what I was up to. But Uncle Tom would never give me away and Clark just looked bored and contemptuous and said nothing, because Clark would not bother to interfere with Armageddon unless there was ten percent in it for him.
    But I do not mind what my relatives think of my tactics; they work. Captain Darling was obviously amused at my grandiose and “impossible” ambition . . . but he offered to show me the control room.
    Round one to Poddy, on points.
    I am now the unofficial ship’s mascot, with free run of the control room—and I am almost as privileged in the engineering department. Of course the Captain does not really want to spend hours teaching me the practical side of astrogation. He did show me through the control room and gave me a kindergarten explanation of the work—which I followed with wide-eyed awe—but his interest in me is purely social. He wants to not-quite hold me in his lap (he is much too practical and too discreet to do anything of the sort!), so I not-quite let him and make it a point to keep up my social relations with him, listening with my best astonished-kitten look to his anecdotes