Have Space Suit—Will Travel
First Edition cover of Have Space Suit—Will Travel. The suit's "microwave horn" antenna is drawn as
though it were an animal horn (instead of the open musical
instrument-style horn of real microwave gear).
Have Space Suit—Will Travel is a science fiction novel for young readers 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.
Heinlein made use of his engineering expertise to bring a sense of realism to
the story; for a time during World War II, he was a civilian aeronautics
engineer working at a laboratory where pressure suits were developed
for use at high altitudes.
Have Space Suit—Will Travel was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1959.[1]
Clifford "Kip" Russell, a bright high school senior with an eccentric father,
enters an advertising jingle writing contest for Skyway Soap, hoping to
win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Moon. He instead gets an obsolete,
but genuine, used space suit. Though a few make fun of him, with the
help of sympathetic townspeople, and using his own ingenuity and
determination, Kip puts the suit (which he dubs "Oscar") back into
working condition.
Kip wants to go into space; he reluctantly decides to return his space suit for a cash prize to help pay for
college, but puts it on for one last walk. As he idly broadcasts on his
radio, someone identifying herself as "Peewee" answers 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. A 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, who refers to the species as
"Wormfaces". They are horrible-looking, vaguely anthropomorphic
creatures who contemptuously refer to all others as "animals". 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 eminent scientists. The Mother Thing speaks in what sounds to Kip
like birdsong, with a few musical notations in the text giving a flavor
of her language. However, Kip and Peewee have no trouble understanding
her.
Front cover of the 1981 Del Rey edition
Kip, Peewee, and the Mother Thing try to escape to the human lunar base by hiking
cross-country, but they are recaptured and taken to a more remote base
on Pluto. Kip is thrown into a cell, later to be joined by the two human
traitors, who have apparently outlived their usefulness. Before they
later disappear, one mentions to Kip that his former employers eat humans.
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