The Door Into Summer (27 page)

But I don’t worry about philosophy any more than Pete does. Whatever the truth about this world, I like it. I’ve found my Door into Summer and I would not time-travel again for fear of getting off at the wrong station. Maybe my son will, but if he does I will urge him to go forward, not back. “Back” is for emergencies; the future is better than the past. Despite the crepehangers, romanticists, and anti-intellectuals, the world steadily grows better because the human mind, applying itself to environment,
makes
it better. With hands…with tools…with horse sense and science and engineering.

Most of these long-haired belittlers can’t drive a nail nor use a slide rule. I’d like to invite them into Dr. Twitchell’s cage and ship them back to the twelfth century—then let them enjoy it.

But I am not mad at anybody and I like now. Except that Pete is getting older, a little fatter, and not as inclined to choose a younger opponent; all too soon he must take the very Long Sleep. I hope with all my heart that his gallant little soul may find its Door into Summer, where catnip fields abound and tabbies are complacent, and robot opponents are programmed to fight fiercely—but always lose—and people have friendly laps and legs to strop against, but never a foot that kicks.

Ricky is getting fat, too, but for a temporary happier reason. It has just made her more beautiful and her sweet eternal
Yea!
is unchanged, but it isn’t comfortable for her. I’m working on gadgets to make things easier. It just isn’t very
convenient
to be a woman; something ought to be done and I’m convinced that some things can be done. There’s that matter of leaning over, and also the backaches—I’m working on those, and I’ve built her a hydraulic bed that I think I will patent. It ought to be easier to get in and out of a bathtub than it is too. I haven’t solved that yet.

For old Pete I’ve built a “cat bathroom” to use in bad weather—automatic, self-replenishing, sanitary, and odorless. However, Pete, being a proper cat, prefers to go outdoors, and he has never given up his conviction that if you just try
all
the doors one of them is bound to be the Door into Summer.

You know, I think he is right.

Robert A. Heinlein, a graduate of Annapolis, served as a naval officer for five years.

He began writing science fiction in 1939 and is considered by many the most influential author in the field.

He has won the coveted Hugo award for the Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year on four separate occasions—an unequaled record. In 1975 he received the First Grand Master Nebula award from the Science Fiction Writers of America.

He lives in California with his wife, Virginia, in an extraordinary house of his own design.