Have Space Suit—Will Travel

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**Title** **Have Space Suit — Will Travel**
First Edition cover of Have Space Suit—Will Travel
Author	Robert A. Heinlein
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel
Publisher	Scribner's
Released	1958
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
ISBN	NA
Preceded by	Citizen of the Galaxy

Have Space Suit—Will Travel is a juvenile science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, originally serialised in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (August, September, October 1958) and published by Scribner's in hardcover in 1958 as the last of the Heinlein juveniles. The title is a take-off of the title of a hit television show from the late 1950s and early 1960s, Have Gun — Will Travel.

Like his other juveniles, it is a well-constructed adventure story, but compared to many of them, it takes a more philosophical approach, examining what is noble and ignoble about the human race through a varied cast of characters that includes humans, aliens, and even a cave-man. The "What is man?" theme is also explored in another of his juveniles, The Star Beast, but there the tone is more comedic and ironic, whereas Have Space Suit—Will Travel is heroic, and sometimes even tragic. A further theme, familiar in many Heinlein novels and of great value to the age group the novel is directed at, is the notion that great work is built upon small concentrated beginnings, that vast journeys begin with but a single step. Kip wants to go to the Moon 'right now', but is taught that while luck may happen, putting in the groundwork is even more basic.

Heinlein makes good use of his engineering expertise to bring a sense of realism to the story; for a time during World War II, he had been a civilian engineer working at a laboratory where pressure suits were developed for use at high altitudes.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Kip, a bright high school senior with a very eccentric father, enters an advertising jingle writing contest for Skyway Soap, hoping to win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Moon. He doesn't, but does get a used, obsolete space suit as a consolation prize. Resigned to making the best of a disappointing situation, he fixes it up. Ace Quiggle, the chronically unemployed town ne'er-do-well, makes fun of him, both for having won a space suit and for trying to repair it. With the help of townspeople, and using parts from other equipment (which he "vandalize[s]", presumably meaning "cannibalize"), Kip gets the suit (which he dubs "Oscar") into serviceable condition. He tests it by pressurizing it and walking around the fields near his home. (See Spacesuits in fiction#Heinlein for more about the spacesuit.)

Kip wants badly to go into space, but has not yet gotten accepted by a college with a good engineering program. He reluctantly decides to return his space suit to the contest for a cash prize to help him pay for college, but puts it on for one last walk. He broadcasts on his radio; someone identifying herself as "Peewee" responds with a Mayday signal. He helps her home in on his location, and is shocked when a flying saucer lands practically on top of him. The young girl and an alien being (later identified as the "Mother Thing") debark, but all three are quickly captured and taken to the Moon.

Their alien kidnapper is nicknamed "Wormface" by Kip and its species "wormfaces". They are horrible-looking, vaguely anthropomorphic creatures. Their social structure is briefly mentioned to include hives and a Queen. They do not recognize any other species as equals, referring to all others as "animals". It is reported by other characters that they eat human beings. (Kip briefly muses that this can't be called cannibalism: "We may be mutton to them.")

Wormface has two human flunkies who had assisted him in capturing the Mother Thing and Peewee, a preteen genius and the daughter of one of Earth's most prominent scientists. Kip considers the collaborators to be worse than the wormfaces because they are turncoats against the human race.

Front cover of another edition

The Mother Thing is the equivalent of a cop or social worker in a rough neighborhood. She has befriended Peewee and proceeds to do the same with Kip. She speaks in birdsong, with a few musical notations in the text giving a flavor of her language. However, Kip and Peewee understand her as if she was speaking English. It is hinted, although not stated explicitly, that her communication is partially telepathic in nature.

Kip, Peewee and the Mother Thing try to escape to the human lunar base by hiking cross-country; they are recaptured and taken to the main alien base, on Pluto. Kip is thrown into a cell to await his fate. He is later joined by the two human traitors who have apparently outlived their usefulness. Both are later taken away, presumably to become dinner for the wormfaces.

The Mother Thing, meanwhile, makes herself useful to the wormfaces by constructing advanced devices for them. In the process, she steals enough parts to assemble a bomb and a rescue transmitter. The bomb takes care of the most of the wormfaces. But the Mother Thing freezes solid when she takes the transmitter outside without a spacesuit. Kip nearly freezes to death himself while retrieving her body and activating the distress beacon, but help arrives almost instantly. It turns out that the Mother Thing was far hardier than Kip had suspected. She was not in danger; her body "would not permit" her cells to rupture in the hyperlow temperatures.

Kip and Peewee are transported to Vega 5, the Mother Thing's home planet. There, they find that not all the Vegans are "mother things"; there are "father things" and "professor things" as well, and the status of "mother" and "father" don't necessarily relate to sex (Kip implies that Vegans have twelve sexes, and that the Mother Thing is not precisely female). While the Vegans heal Kip, "Prof Joe", a "professor thing", records information about Earth from Peewee and him.

Once Kip is well, he, Peewee, and the Mother Thing travel to a planet in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, to face an intergalactic tribunal which judges whether new races pose a danger to other, member, species.

The wormfaces are put on trial first, represented by a wormface who makes a long very racist speech denouncing all other sentient races as inferior and not worthy of rights. The wormfaces are found guilty and their planet is rotated out of three-dimensional space without their star, most likely to freeze, though the authorities do not bar them from finding a way to survive.

Then, it is humanity's turn to be tried, as represented by Peewee, Kip, Iunio (a Roman legionnaire), and a Neanderthal man who Kip calls JoJo (after Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy). The tribunal decides that JoJo is from a different species, not directly ancestral to humans; but the trial proceeds anyway, as only three species samples are required. Iunio believes that he is dead and that the tribunal are demons or monsters; he gives aggressive testimony, which is not helpful.

Peewee's and Kip's previously recorded remarks are admitted into evidence. In humanity's defense, Kip makes a stirring speech, quoting Shakespeare and other famous works. In an explosive climax, he shouts, "All right, take away our star -- You will if you can and I guess you can. Go ahead. We'll make a star! Then, someday, we'll come back and hunt you down -- all of you!" The Mother Thing and the representative of another race resembling a chimpanzee argue that the short-lived species should be granted more time to learn and grow. In the end, the decision of what to do about humanity is deferred for several half-lives of radium (= several thousand years).

Kip and Peewee are then returned to Earth. Kip brings with him information and equations from the Vegans that they hope will help humans make progress. Kip passes the information to Peewee's father, a world-renowned synthesist (an expert on correlating various scientific fields, who makes sense of what more specialized scientists discover). He calls in several colleagues who become very excited about the possibilities they see in the equations. Kip agrees to let them be published, with the author listed as "Dr. M. Thing". He is amazed to find that Peewee's father knows his father by reputation; Peewee's father learns that Kip is not yet enrolled in college. He calls the president of M.I.T. and cajoles him into giving Kip a full scholarship in return for giving the university first crack at the equations.

Back at his job as a soda jerk before his first semester, Kip encounters Ace again, who resumes needling Kip about being a "wannabe" space hero. The book ends with Kip launching a milkshake into Ace's face.

[edit] Legacy

An Amateur Radio satellite, dubbed SuitSat as launched from the International Space Station in February of 2006. This was an obsolete space suit with a ham radio transmitter inside it. Since the advent of ham satellites in 1969, each has always been known as Orbital Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio -- OSCAR.