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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31644-8.txt b/31644-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..14409e2 --- /dev/null +++ b/31644-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2307 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Helpfully Yours, by Evelyn E. Smith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Helpfully Yours + +Author: Evelyn E. Smith + +Illustrator: EMSH + +Release Date: March 14, 2010 [EBook #31644] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELPFULLY YOURS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + HELPFULLY YOURS + + By EVELYN E. SMITH + + Illustrated by EMSH + +[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction +February 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the +U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + + + +[Illustration] + +[Sidenote: _"Come down to Earth--and stay there!" is a humiliating order +for somebody with wings!_] + +Tarb Morfatch had read all the information on Terrestrial customs that +was available in the _Times_ morgue before she'd left Fizbus. And all +through the journey she'd studied her _Brief Introduction to Terrestrial +Manners and Mores_ avidly. Perhaps it was a bit overinspirational in +spots, but it had facts in it, too. + +So she knew that, since the natives were non-alate, she was not to take +wing on Earth. She had, however, forgotten to correlate the knowledge of +their winglessness with her own vertical habits. As a result, on leaving +the tender that had ferried her down from the Moon, she looked up +instead of right and narrowly escaped death at the jaws of a raging +groundcar that swerved out onto the field. + +She recognized it as a taxi from one of the pictures in the handbook. +It was a pity, she thought sadly as she was knocked off her feet, that +all those lessons she had so carefully learned were to go to waste. + +But it was only the wind of the car's passage that had thrown her down. +As she struggled to get up, hampered by her awkward native skirts, the +door of the taxi flew open. A tall young man--a Fizbian--burst out, the +soft yellowish-green down on his handsome face bristling with fright +until each feather stood out separately. + +"Miss Morfatch! Are you all right?" + +"Just--just a little shaky," she murmured, brushing dirt from her rosy +leg feathers. _Too young to be Drosmig; too good-looking to be anyone +important, she thought glumly. Must be the office boy._ + +To her surprise, he didn't help her up. Probably it would violate some +native taboo if he did, she deduced. The handbook hadn't mentioned +anything that seemed to apply, but, after all, a little book like that +couldn't cover everything. + + * * * * * + +She could see the young man was embarrassed--his emerald crest was +waving to and fro. + +"I'm Stet Zarnon," he introduced himself awkwardly. + +The Managing Editor! The handsome young employer of her girlish dreams! +But perhaps he had a wife on Fizbus--no, the Grand Editor made a point +of hiring people without families to use as a pretext for expensive +vacations on the Home Planet. + +As she opened her mouth to say something brilliantly witty, to show she +was no ordinary female but a creature of spirit and fire and +intelligence, a sudden cacophony of shrill cries and explosions arose, +accompanied by bursts of light. Her feathers stood erect and she clung +to her employer with both feathered legs. + +"If these are the friendly diplomatic relations Earth and Fizbus are +supposed to be enjoying," she said, "I'm not enjoying them one bit!" + +"They're only taking pictures of you with native equipment," he +explained, pulling away from her. What was the matter with him? "You're +the first Fizbian woman ever to come to Terra, you know." + +She certainly did know--and, what was more, she had made the semi-finals +for Miss Fizbus only the year before. Perhaps he had some Terrestrial +malady he didn't want her to catch. Or could it be that in the four +years he had spent in voluntary exile on this planet, he had come to +prefer the native females? Now it was her turn to shrink from him. + +He was conversing rapidly in Terran with the chattering natives who +milled about them. Although Tarb had been an honors student in Terran +back at school, she found herself unable to understand more than an +occasional word of what they said. Then she remembered that they were +not at the world capital, Ottawa, but another community, New York. +Undoubtedly they were all speaking some provincial dialect peculiar to +the locality. + +And nobody at all booed in appreciation, although, she told herself +sternly, she really couldn't have expected them to. Standards of beauty +were different in different solar systems. At least they were picking up +as souvenirs some of the feathers she'd shed in her tumble, which showed +they took an interest. + +Stet turned back to her. "These are fellow-members of the press." + +She was able to catch enough of what he said next in Terran to +understand that she was being formally introduced to the aboriginal +journalists. Although you could never call the natives attractive, with +their squat figures and curiously atrophied vestigial wings--_arms_, she +reminded herself--they were very Fizboid in appearance and, with their +winglessness cloaked, could have creditably passed for singed Fizbians. + +Moreover, they seemed friendly; at any rate, the sounds they uttered +were welcoming. She began to make the three ritual _entrechats_, but +Stat stopped her. "Just smile at them; that'll be enough." + +It didn't seem like enough, but he was the boss. + + * * * * * + +"Thank the stars we're through with that," he sighed, as they finally +were able to escape their confrères and get into the taxi. "I suppose," +he added, wriggling inside the clumsy Terrestrial jacket which, cut to +fit over his wings, did nothing either to improve his figure or to make +him look like a native, "it was as much of an ordeal for you as for me." + +"Well, I am a little bewildered by it all," Tarb admitted, settling +herself as comfortably as possible on the seat cushions. + +"No, don't do that!" he cried. "Here people don't crouch on seats. They +sit," he explained in a kindlier tone. "Like this." + +"You mean I have to bend myself in that clumsy way?" + +He nodded. "In public, at least." + +"But it's so hard on the wings. I'm losing feathers foot over claw." + +"Yes, but you could...." He stopped. "Well, anyhow, remember we have to +comply with local customs. You see, the Terrestrials have those things +called arms instead of legs. That is, they have legs, but they use them +only for walking." + +She sighed. "I'd read about the arms, but I had no idea the natives +would be so--so primitive as to actually use them." + +"Considering they had no wings, it was very clever of them to make use +of the vestigial appendages," he said hotly. "If you take their physical +limitations into account, they've done a marvelous job with their little +planet. They can't fly; they have very little sense of balance; their +vision is exceedingly poor--yet, in spite of all that, they have +achieved a quite remarkable degree of civilization." He gestured toward +the horizontal building arrangements visible through the window. "Why, +you could almost call those streets. As a matter of fact, the natives +do." + +At the moment, she could take an interest in Terrestrial civilization +only as it affected her personally. "But I'll be able to relax in the +office, won't I?" + +"To a certain extent," he replied cautiously. "You see, we have to use a +good deal of native help because--well, our facilities are limited...." + +"Oh," she said. + +Then she remembered that she was on Terra at least partly to demonstrate +the pluck of Fizbian femininity. Back on Fizbus, most of the _Times_ +executives had been dead set against having a woman sent out as +Drosmig's assistant. But Grupe, the Grand Editor, had overruled them. +"Time we broke with tradition," he had said. He'd felt she could do the +job, and, by the stars, she would justify his faith in her! + +"Sounds like rather a lark," she said hollowly. + +Stet brightened. "That's the girl!" His eyes, she noticed, were emerald +shading into turquoise, like his crest. "I certainly hope you'll like it +here. Very wise of Grupe to send a woman instead of a man, after all. +Women," he went on quickly, "are so much better at working up the human +interest angle. And Drosmig is out of commission most of the time, so +it's you who'll actually be in charge of 'Helpfully Yours.'" + +She herself in charge of the column that had achieved interstellar fame +in three short years! Basically, it had been designed to give guidance, +advice and, if necessary, comfort to those Fizbians who found themselves +living on Terra, for the Fizbus _Times_ had stood for public service +from time immemorial. As Grupe had put it, "We don't run this paper for +ourselves, Tarb, but for our readers. And the same applies to our +Terrestrial edition." + +With the growing development of trade and cultural relations between the +two planets, the Fizbians on Earth were an ever-increasing number. But +they were not the only readers of "Helpfully Yours." Reprinted in the +parent paper, it was read with edification and pleasure all over Fizbus. +Everyone wanted to learn more about the ancient and other-worldly Terran +culture. + +The handbook, _A Brief Introduction to Terrestrial Manners and Mores_, +owed much of its content to "Helpfully Yours." A grateful, almost +fulsome, introductory note had said so. But the column truly deserved +all the praise that had been lavished upon it by the handbook. How well +she had studied the thoughtful letters that filled it and the excellent +and well-reasoned advice--erring, if it erred at all, on the side of +overtolerance--that had been given in return. Of course, on Earth, +spiritual adjustment apparently was more important than the physical; +you could tell that from the questions that were asked. A number of the +letters had been reprinted in an appendix to the manual. + + _New York_ + + _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_ + + _When in contact with Terrestrial culture, I find myself constantly + overawed and weighed down by the knowledge of my own inadequacy. I + cannot seem to appreciate the local art forms as disseminated by + the juke box, the comic strip, the tabloid._ + + _How can I help myself toward a greater understanding?_ + + _Hopefully yours,_ + + _Gnurmis Plitt_ + + * * * * * + + Dear Mr. Plitt: + + Remember, Orkv was not excavated in a week. It took the + Terrestrials many centuries to develop their exquisite and esoteric + art forms. How can you expect to comprehend them in a few short + years? Expose yourself to their art. Work, study, meditate. + + Understanding will come, I promise you. + + Helpfully yours, + + Senbot Drosmig + + * * * * * + + _Paris_ + + Dear Senbot Drosmig: + + _To think that I am enjoying the benefits of Terra while my wife + and little ones are forced to remain on Fizbus makes my heart ache. + Surely it is not fair that I should have so much and they so + little. Imagine the inestimable advantage to the fledgling of even + a short contact with Terrestrial culture!_ + + _Why cannot my loved ones come to join me so that we can share all + these wonderful spiritual experiences and be enriched by them + together?_ + + _Poignantly yours,_ + + _Tpooly N'Ox_ + + * * * * * + + Dear Mr. N'Ox: + + After all, it has been only five years since Fizbian spaceships + first came into contact with Terra. In keeping with our usual + colonial policy--so inappropriate and anachronistic when applied to + a well-developed civilization like Terra's--at first only males are + allowed to go to the new world until it is made certain over a + period of years that the planet is safe for mothers and future + mothers of Fizbus. + + But Stet Zarnon himself, the celebrated and capable editor of the + Terran edition of _The Fizbus Times_, has taken up your cause, and + I promise you that eventually your loved ones will be able to join + you. + + Meanwhile, work, study, meditate. + + Helpfully yours, + + Senbot Drosmig + + * * * * * + + _Ottawa_ + + _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_ + + _Having just completed a two-year tour of duty on Earth as part of + a diplomatic mission, I am regretfully leaving this fair planet. + What books, what objects of art, what, in short, souvenirs shall I + take back to Fizbus which will give our people some small idea of + Earth's rich cultural heritage and, at the same time, serve as + useful and appropriate gifts for my friends and relatives back + Home?_ + + _Inquiringly yours,_ + + _Solgus Zagroot_ + + * * * * * + + Dear Mr. Zagroot: + + Take back nothing but your memories. They will be your best + souvenirs. + + Out of context, any other mementos might convey little, if + anything, of the true beauty and advanced spirituality of + Terrestrial culture, and you might cheapen them were you to use + them crassly as souvenirs. Furthermore, it is possible that you, in + your ignorance, might unwittingly select some items that give a + distorted and false idea of our extrafizbian friends. + + The Fizbian-Earth Cultural Commission, sponsored by _The Fizbian + Times_, in conjunction with the consulate, is preparing a vast + program of cultural interchange. Leave it to them to do the great + work, for you can be sure they will do it well. + + And be sure to tell your fellow-laborers in the diplomatic + vineyards that it is wiser not to send unapproved Terran souvenirs + back Home. They might cause a fatal misunderstanding between the + two worlds. Tell them to spend their time on Earth in working, + studying and meditating, rather than shopping. + + Helpfully yours, + + Senbot Drosmig + + * * * * * + +And now she--Tarb Morfatch--herself was going to be the guiding spirit +that brought enlightenment and uplift to countless thousands on Terra +and millions on Fizbus. Her name wouldn't appear on the columns, but the +reward of having helped should be enough. Besides, Drosmig was due to +retire soon. If she proved herself competent, she would take over the +column entirely and get the byline. Grupe had promised faithfully. + +But what, she wondered, had put Drosmig "out of commission"? + +The taxi drew up before a building with a vulgar number of floors +showing above ground. + +"Ah--before we--er--meet the others," Stet suggested, twitching his +crest, "I was wondering whether you would care to--er--have dinner with +me tonight?" + +This roused Tarb from her speculations. "Oh, I'd love to!" _A date with +the boss right away!_ + +Stet fumbled in his garments for appropriate tokens with which to pay +the driver. "You--you're not engaged or anything back Home, Miss +Morfatch?" + +"Why, no," she said. "It so happens that I'm not." + +"Splendid!" He made an abortive gesture with his leg, then let her get +out of the taxi by herself. "It makes the natives stare," he explained +abashedly. + +"But why shouldn't they?" she asked, wondering whether to laugh or not. +"How could they help but stare? We are different." _He must be joking._ +She ventured a smile. + +He smiled back, but made no reply. + +The pavement was hard under her thinly covered soles. Now that walking +looked as if it would present a problem, the ban on wing use loomed more +threateningly. She had, of course, walked before--on wet days when her +wings were waterlogged or in high winds or when she had surface +business. However, the sidewalks on Fizbus were soft and resilient. Now +she understood why the Terrestrials wore such crippling foot armor, but +that didn't make her feel any better about it. + +A box-shaped machine took the two Fizbians up to the twentieth story in +twice the time it would have taken them to fly the same distance. Tarb +supposed that the offices were in an attic instead of a basement because +exchange difficulties forced the _Times_ to such economy. She wondered +ruefully whether her own expense account would also suffer. + +But it was no time to worry about such sordid matters; most important +right now was making a favorable impression on her co-workers. She did +want them to like her. + +Taking out her compact, she carefully polished her eyeballs. The man at +the controls of the machine practically performed a ritual _entrechat_. + +"Don't do that!" Stet ordered in a harsh whisper. + +"But why not?" she asked, unable to restrain a trace of belligerence +from her voice. He hadn't been very polite himself. "The handbook said +respectable Terran women make up in public. Why shouldn't I?" + +He sighed. "It'll take time for you to catch on, I suppose. There's a +lot the handbook doesn't--can't--cover. You'll find the setup here +rather different from on Fizbus," he went on as he kicked open the door +neatly lettered _THE FIZBUS TIMES_ in both Fizbian and Terran. "We've +found it expedient to follow the local newspaper practice. For +instance--" he indicated a small green-feathered man seated at a desk +just beyond the railing that bisected the room horizontally--"we have a +Copy Editor." + +"What does he do?" she asked, confused. + +"He copies news from the other papers, of course." + +"And what are _you_ doing tonight, Miss Morfatch?" the Copy Editor +asked, springing up from his desk to execute the three ritual entrechats +with somewhat more verve than was absolutely necessary. + +"Having dinner with me," Stet said quickly. + +"Pulling rank, eh, old bird? Well, we'll see whether position or +sterling worth will win out in the end." + +As the rest of the staff crowded around Tarb, leaping and booing as +appreciatively as any girl could want, she managed to snatch a rapid +look around. The place wasn't really so very much different from a +Fizbian newsroom, once she got over the oddity of going across, not up +and down, with the desks--queerly shaped but undeniably desks--arranged +side by side instead of one over the other. There were chairs and +stools, no perches, but that was to be expected in a wingless society. +And it was noisy. Even though the little machines had stopped clattering +when she came in, a distant roaring continued, as if, concealed +somewhere close by, larger, more sinister machines continued their work. +A peculiar smell hung in the air--not unpleasant, exactly, but strange. + +She sniffed inquiringly. + +"Ink," Stet said. + +"What's that?" + +"Oh, some stuff the boys in the back shop use. The feature writers," he +went on quickly, before she could ask what the "back shop" was, "have +private offices where they can perch in comfort." + +He led the way down a corridor, opening doors. "Our drama editor." He +indicated a middle-aged man with faded blue feathers, who hung head +downward from his perch. "On the lobster-trick last night writing a +review, so he's catching fifty-one twinkles now." + +"Enchanted, Miss Morfatch," the critic said, opening one bright eye. "By +a curious chance, it so happens that tonight I have two tickets to--" + +"Tonight she's going out with me." + +"Well, I can get tickets to any play, any night. And you haven't laughed +unless you've seen a Terrestrial drama. Just say the word, chick." + +Stet got Tarb out of the office and slammed the door shut. "Over here is +the office of our food editor," he said, breathing hard, "whom you'll be +expected to give a claw to now and then, since your jobs overlap. Can't +introduce you to him right now, though, because he's in the hospital +with ptomaine poisoning. And this is the office you'll share with +Drosmig." + +Stet opened the door. + +Underneath the perch, Senbot Drosmig, dean of Fizbian journalists, lay +on the rug in a sodden stupor, letters to the editor scattered thickly +over his shriveled person. The whole room reeked unmistakably of +caffeine. + +Tarb shrank back and twined both feet around Stet's. This time he did +not repulse her. "But how can a--an educated, cultured man like Senbot +Drosmig sink to such depths?" + +"It's hard for anyone with even the slightest inclination toward the +stuff to resist it here," Stet replied somberly. "I can't deny it; the +sale of caffeine is absolutely unrestricted on Earth. Coffee shops all +over the place. Coffee served freely at even the best homes. And not +only coffee ... caffeine is insiduously present in other of their +popular beverages." + +Her eyes bulged sideways. "But how can a so-called civilized people be +so depraved?" + +"Caffeine doesn't seem to affect them the way it does us. Their nervous +systems are so very uncomplicated, one almost envies them." + +Drosmig stirred restlessly under his blanket of correspondence. "Go +back ... Fizbus," he muttered. "Warn you ... 'fore ... too late ... like +me." + +Tarb's rose-pink feathers stood on end. She looked apprehensively at +Stet. + +"Senbot can't go back because he's in no shape to take the interstel +drive." The young editor was obviously annoyed. "He's old and he's a +physical wreck. But that certainly doesn't apply to you, Miss Morfatch." +He looked long and hard into her eyes. + +"Few years on planet," Drosmig groaned, struggling to his wings, "'ply +to anybody." + +His feathers, Tarb noticed, were an ugly, darkish brown. She had never +seen any one that color before, but she'd heard rumors that too much +caffeine could do that to you. At least she hoped it was only the +caffeine. + +"For your information, he was almost as bad as this when he came!" Stet +snapped. "Frankly, that's why he was sent here--to get rid of his +unfortunate addiction. Grupe had no idea, when he assigned him to Earth, +that there was caffeine on the planet." + +The old man gave a sardonic laugh as he clumsily made his way to the +perch and gripped it with quivering toes. + +"That is, I don't _think_ he knew," Stet said dubiously. + +Tarb reached over and picked a letter off the floor. The Fizbian +characters were clumsy and ill-made, as if someone had formed them with +his feet. Could there be such poverty here that individuals existed who +could not afford a scripto? The letter didn't read like any that had +ever been printed in the column--at least none that had been picked up +in the Fizbus edition: + + * * * * * + + _New York_ + + _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_ + + _I am a subaltern clerk in the shipping department of the FizbEarth + Trading Company, Inc. Although I have held this post for only three + months, I have already won the respect and esteem of my superiors + through my diligence and good character. My habits are exemplary: I + do not gamble, sing, or take caffeine._ + + _Earlier today, while engaged in evening meditation at my modest + apartments, I was aroused by a peremptory knock at the door. I + flung it open. A native stood there with a small case in his hand._ + + _"Is the house on fire?" I asked, wondering which of my few humble + possessions I should rescue first._ + + _"No," he said. "I would like to interest you in some brushes."_ + + _"Are the offices of the FizbEarth Trading Company, Inc., on + fire?"_ + + _"Not to my knowledge," he replied, opening his case. "Now I have + here a very nice hairbrush--"_ + + _I wanted to give him every chance. "Have you come to tell me of + any disaster relative to the FizbEarth Trading Company, to myself, + or to anyone or anything else with whom or with which I am + connected?"_ + + _"Why, no," he said. "I have come to sell you brushes. Now here is + a little number I know you'll like. My company developed it with + you folks specially in mind. It's--"_ + + _"Do you know, sir, that you have wantonly interrupted me in the + midst of my meditations, which constitutes an established act of + privacy violation?"_ + + _"Is that a fact? Now this little item is particularly designed for + brushing the wings--"_ + + _At that point, I knocked him down and punched him into + insensibility with my feet. Then I summoned the police. To my + surprise, they arrested me instead of him._ + + _I am writing this letter from jail. I do not like to ask my + employers to get me out because, even though I am innocent, you + know how a thing like this can leave a smudge on the record._ + + _What shall I do?_ + + _Anxiously yours,_ + + _Fruzmus Bloxx_ + + * * * * * + +"What should he do?" Tarb asked, handing Stet the paper. "Or is the +question academic by now? The letter's five days old." + +Stet sighed. "I'll find out whether the consulate has been notified. +Native police usually do that, you know. Very thoughtful fellows. If +this Bloxx hasn't been bailed out already, I'll see that he is." + +"But how will we answer his letter? Advise him to sue for false arrest?" + +Stet smiled. "But he has no grounds for false arrest. He is guilty of +assault. The native was entirely within his rights in trying to sell him +a brush. Now--" he put out a foot--"brace yourself. Privacy violation is +not a crime on Terra. It is perfectly legal. In fact, it does not exist +as such!" + +At that point, everything went maroon. + +When Tarb came to, she found herself lying upon Drosmig's desk. A +skin-faced native woman was offering her water and clucking. + +"Are you all right, Tarb--Miss Morfatch?" Stet demanded anxiously. + +"Yes. I--I think so," she murmured, raising herself to a crouch. + +"Better ... have died," Drosmig groaned from his perch. "Fate +worse ... death ... awaits you." + +Tarb tried to smile. "Sorry to have been so much trouble." She stuck out +her tongue at both Stet and the native. + +The woman drew in her breath. + +"Miss Morfatch," Stet reminded Tarb, "sticking out the tongue is not an +apology on Terra; it is an insult. Fortunately, Miss Snow happens to be +perhaps the only Terran who would not be offended. She has become +thoroughly acquainted with us and our odd little customs. She even--" he +beamed at the Terran female--"has learned to speak our language." + +"Hail to thee, O visitor from the stars," Miss Snow said in Fizbian. +"May thy sojourn upon Earth be an incessant delight and may peace and +plenty shower their gifts in abundance upon thee." + +Tarb put her hand to her aching head. "I'm very glad to meet you," she +said, glad she did not have to get up to make the ritual _entrechats_. + +"Miss Snow is my right foot," Stet said, "but I'm going to be noble and +let her act as your secretary until you can learn to operate a +typewriter." + +"Secretary? Typewriter?" + +"Well, you see, there are no scriptos or superscriptos on Earth and we +can't import any from Home because the natives--" Miss Snow +smiled--"don't have the right kind of power here to run psychic +installations. All prosifying has to be done directly on prosifying +machines or--" he paused--"by foot." + +"Catch her!" Miss Snow exclaimed in Terran. + +Everything had gone maroon for Tarb again. As she fell, she could hear a +sudden thump. It was, she later discovered, Drosmig falling off his +perch again--the result of insecure grip, she was given to understand, +rather than excessive empathy. + + * * * * * + +"I didn't mean, of course, to give you the impression that we actually +produce the individual copies of the papers ourselves," Stet explained +over the dinner table that night. "We have native printers who do that. +They've turned out some really remarkable Fizbian type fonts." "Very +clever of them," Tarb said, knowing that was what she was expected to +say. She glanced around the restaurant. In their low-cut evening +garments, the Terrestrial females looked much less Fizboid than they had +during the day. All that naked-looking skin; one would think they'd want +to cover it. Probably they were sick with jealousy of her beautiful +rose-colored down--what they could see of it, anyway. + +"Of course, our real problem is getting proofreaders. The proofing +machines won't operate here either, of course, and so we need human +personnel. But what Fizbian would do such degrading work? We had thought +of convict labor, but--" + +"Why mustn't I take off my wrap?" Tarb interrupted. "No one else is +wearing one." + +Stet coughed. "You'll feel much less self-conscious about your wings if +you keep it on. And try not to use your feet so conspicuously. I'm sure +everyone understands you need them to eat with, but--" + +"But I'm not in the least self-conscious about my wings. On Fizbus, they +were considered rather nice-looking, if I do say so myself." + +"It's better," he said firmly, "not to emphasize the differences between +the natives and ourselves. You didn't object to wearing a Terrestrial +costume, did you?" + +"No, I realize I must make some concessions to native prudery, but--" + +"Matter of fact, I've been thinking it would be a good idea for you to +wear a stole or a cape or something in the daytime when you go to and +from the office. You wouldn't want to make yourself or the _Times_ +conspicuous, I'm sure.... No, waiter, no coffee. We'll take champagne." + +"I want to try coffee," Tarb said mutinously. "Champagne! You'd think I +was a fledgling, giving me that bubbly stuff!" + +He looked at her. "Now don't be silly, Miss Morfatch ... Tarb. I can't +let you indulge in such rash experiments. You realize I am responsible +for you." + +Tarb muttered darkly into her _coupe maison_. + +Stet raised his eyebrows. "What did you say?" + +"I was only wondering whether you'd remembered to check on whether that +young man--Bloxx--ever did get out of jail." + +Stet snapped his toes. "Glad you reminded me. Completely slipped my +mind. Let's go and see what happened to him, shall we?" + + * * * * * + +As they rose to leave, a dumpy Earthwoman rushed up to them, +enthusiastically babbling in Terran. Seizing Tarb's foot, she clung to +it before the Fizbian girl could do anything to prevent her. Tarb had to +spread her wings wide to retain her balance. Her cloak flew off and an +adjoining table of diners disappeared beneath it. + +[Illustration] + +Stet and the headwaiter rushed to the rescue with profuse apologies, +Stet's crest undulating as if it concealed a nest of snakes. But Tarb +was too much frightened to be calmed. + +"Is this a hostile attack?" she shrieked frantically at Stet. "Because +the handbook never said shaking feet was an Earth custom!" + +"No, no, she's a friend!" Stet yelled, leaving the diners still +struggling with the cloak as he sped back to her. "And shaking feet +isn't an Earth custom; she thinks it's a Fizbian one. You see.... Oh, +hell, never mind--I'll explain the whole thing to you later. But she's +just greeting you, trying to put you at your ease. It's Belinda Romney, +a very important Terrestrial. She owns the Solar Press--you must have +heard of it even on Fizbus--biggest news service on the planet. +Absolutely wouldn't do to offend her. Mrs. Romney, may I present Miss +Morfatch?" + +The woman beamed and continued to gush endlessly. + +"Tell her to let go my foot!" Tarb demanded. "It's getting so it feels +carbonated." + +He smiled deprecatingly. "Now, Tarb, we mustn't be rude--" + +For the first time in her life, Tarb spoke Terran to a Terrestrial. She +formed the words slowly and carefully: "Sorry we must leave, but we have +to go to jail." + +She looked to Stet for approval ... and didn't get it. He started to +explain something quickly to the woman. Every time she'd heard him speak +Terran, Tarb thought, he seemed to be introducing, explaining or +apologizing. + +It turned out that, through some oversight, the usually thoughtful +Terran police department had neglected to inform the Fizbian consul that +one of his people had been incarcerated, for the young man had already +been tried, found guilty of assault plus contempt of court, and +sentenced to pay a large fine. However, after Stet had given his version +of the circumstances to a sympathetic judge, the sum was reduced to a +nominal one, which the _Times_ paid. + +"But I don't see why you should have paid anything at all," Bloxx +protested ungratefully. "I didn't do anything wrong. You should have +made an issue of it." + +"According to Earth laws, you did do wrong," Stet said wearily, "and +this is Earth. What's more, if we take the matter up, it will naturally +get into print. You don't want your employers to hear about it, do +you--even if you don't care about making Fizbians look ridiculous to +Terrestrials?" + +"I suppose I wouldn't like FizbEarth to find out," Bloxx conceded. "As +it is, I'll have to do some fast explaining to account for my not having +shown up for nearly a week. I'll say I caught some horrible Earth +disease--that'll scare them so much, they'll probably beg me to take +another week off. Though I do wish you fellows over at the _Times_ would +answer your mail sooner. I'm a regular subscriber, you know." + + * * * * * + +"But the same kind of thing's going to happen over and over again, isn't +it, Stet?" Tarb asked as a taxi took them back to the hotel in which +most of the _Times_ staff was domiciled. "If privacy doesn't exist on +Earth, it's bound to keep occurring." + +"Eh?" Stet took his attention away from her toes with some difficulty. +"Some Earth people like privacy, too, but they have to fight for it. +Violations aren't legally punishable--that's the only difference." + +"Then surely the Terrestrials would understand about us, wouldn't they?" +she asked eagerly. "If they knew how strongly we felt about privacy, +maybe they wouldn't violate it--not as much, anyway. I'm sure they're +not vicious, just ignorant. And you can't just keep on getting Fizbians +out of jail each time they run up against the problem. It would be too +expensive, for one thing." + +"Don't worry," he said, pressing her toes. "I'll take care of the whole +thing." + +"An article in the paper wouldn't really help much," she persisted +thoughtfully, "and I suppose you must have run at least one already. It +would explain to the Fizbians that Terrestrials don't regard invasion of +privacy as a crime, but it wouldn't tell the Terrestrials that Fizbians +do. We'll have to think of--" + +"You're surely not going to tell me how to run my paper on your first +day here, are you?" + +He tried to take the sting out of his words by twining his toes around +hers, but she felt guilty. She had been presumptuous. Probably there +were lots of things she couldn't understand yet--like why she shouldn't +polish her eyeballs in public. Stet had finally explained to her that, +while Terrestrial women did make up in public, they didn't scour their +irises, ever, and would be startled and horrified to see someone else +doing so. + +"But I was horrified to see them raking their feathers in public!" Tarb +had contended. + +"Combing their hair, my dear. And why not? This is their planet." + +That was always his answer. _I wonder_, she speculated, _whether he +would expect a Terrestrial visitor to Fizbus to fly ... because, after +all, Fizbus is our planet._ But she didn't dare broach the question. + +However, if it was presumptuous of her to make helpful suggestions the +first day, it was more than presumptuous of Stet to ask her up to his +rooms to see his collection of rare early twentieth-century Terrestrial +milk bottles and other antiques. So she just told him courteously that +she was tired and wanted to go to roost. And, since the hotel had a +whole section fitted up to suit Fizbian requirements, she spent a more +comfortable night than she had expected. + +She awoke the next day full of enthusiasm and ready to start in on the +great work at once. Although she might have been a little too forward +the previous night, she knew, as she took a reassuring glance in the +mirror, that Stet would forgive her. + + * * * * * + +In the office, she was, at first, somewhat self-conscious about Drosmig, +who hung insecurely from his perch muttering to himself, but she soon +forgot him in her preoccupation with duty. The first letter she picked +up--although again oddly unlike the ones she'd read in the paper on +Fizbus--seemed so simple that she felt she would have no difficulty in +answering it all by herself: + + _Heidelberg_ + + _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_ + + _I am a professor of Fizbian History at a local university. Since + my salary is a small one, owing to the small esteem in which the + natives hold culture, I must economize wherever I can in order to + make both ends meet. Accordingly, I do my own cooking and shop at + the self-service supermarket around the corner, where I have found + that prices are lower than in the service groceries and the food no + worse._ + + _However, the manager and a number of the customers have objected + to my shopping with my feet. They don't so much mind my taking + packages off the shelves with them, but they have been quite + vociferous on the subject of my pinching the fruit with my toes. + Unripe fruit, however, makes me ill. What shall I do?_ + + _Sincerely yours,_ + + _Grez B'Groot_ + +Tarb dictated an unhesitating reply: + + Dear Professor B'Groot: + + Why don't you explain to the manager of the store that Fizbians + have wings and feet rather than arms and hands? + + I'm sure his attitude and the attitudes of his customers will + change when they learn that your pinching the fruit with your feet + is not mere pedagogical eccentricity, but the regular practice on + our planet. Point out to him that your feet are covered and, + therefore, more sanitary than the bare hands of his other + customers. + + And always put on clean socks before you go shopping. + + Helpfully yours, + + Senbot Drosmig + +Miss Snow raised pale eyebrows. + +"Is something wrong?" Tarb asked anxiously. "Should I have put in that +bit about work, study, meditate? It seems inappropriate somehow." + +"Oh, no, not that. It's just that your letter--well, violates Mr. +Zarnon's precept that, in Rome, one must do as the Romans do." + +"But this isn't Rome," Tarb replied, bewildered. "It's New York." + +"He didn't make the saying up," Miss Snow replied testily. "It's a +Terrestrial proverb." + +"Oh," Tarb said. + +She resented this creature's trying to tell her how to do her job. On +the other hand, Tarb was wise enough to realize that Miss Snow, +unpleasant though she might be, probably did know Stet well enough to be +able to predict his reactions. + +So Tarb not only was reluctant to show Stet what she had already done, +but hesitated about answering another and even more urgent letter that +had just been brought in by special messenger. She tried to compromise +by submitting the letters to Drosmig--for, technically speaking, it was +he who was her immediate superior--but he merely groaned, "Tell 'em all +to drop dead," from his perch and refused to open his eyes. + +In the end, Tarb had to take the letters to Stet's office. Miss Snow +trailed along behind her, uninvited. And, since this was a place of +business, Tarb could not claim a privacy violation. Even if it weren't a +place of business, she remembered, she couldn't--not here on Earth. +Advanced spirituality, hah! + +Advanced pain in the pinions! + +Stet read the first letter and her answer smilingly. "Excellent, Tarb--" +her hearts leaped--"for a first try, but I'd like to suggest a few +changes, if I may." + +"Well, of course," she said, pretending not to notice the smirk on Miss +Snow's face. + +"Just write this Professor B'Goot that he should do his shopping at a +grocery that offers service and practice his economies elsewhere. A +professor, of all people, is expected to uphold the dignity of his own +race--the idea, sneering at a culture that was thousands of years old +when we were still building nests! Terrestrials couldn't possibly have +any respect for him if they saw him prodding kumquats with his toes." + +"It's no sillier than writing with one's vestigial wings!" Tarb blazed. + +"Well!" Miss Snow exclaimed in Terran. "Well, _really_!" + +Tarb started to stick out her tongue, then remembered. "I didn't mean to +offend you, Miss Snow. I know it's your custom. But wouldn't you +understand if I typewrote with my feet?" + +Miss Snow tittered. + +"If you want the honest truth, hon, it would make you look like a +feathered monkey." + +"If you want the honest truth about what you look like to me, +dearie--it's a plucked chicken!" + +"Tarb, I think you should apologize to Miss Snow!" + +"All right!" Tarb stuck out her tongue. Miss Snow promptly thrust out +hers in return. + +"Ladies, ladies!" Stet cried. "I think there has been a slight confusion +of folkways!" He quickly changed the subject. "Is that another letter +you have there, Tarb?" + +"Yes, but I didn't try to answer it. I thought you'd better have a look +at it first, since Miss Snow didn't seem to think much of the job I did +with the other one." + +"Miss Snow always has the _Times'_ welfare at heart," Stet remarked +ambiguously, and read: + + _Chicago_ + + _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_ + + _I am employed as translator by the extraterrestrial division of + Burns and Deerhart, Inc., the well-known interstellar mail-order + house. As the company employs no other Fizbians and our offices are + situated in a small rural community where no others of our race + reside, I find myself rather lonely. Moreover, being a bachelor, + with neither chick nor child on Fizbus, I have nothing to look + forward to upon my return to the Home Planet some day._ + + _Accordingly, I decided to adopt a child to cheer my declining + years. I dispatched an interstellargram to a reliable orphanage on + Fizbus, outlining my hopes and requirements in some detail. After + they had satisfied themselves as to my income, strength of + character, etc., they sent me a fatherless and motherless egg in + cold storage, which I was supposed to hatch upon arrival._ + + _However, when the egg came to Earth, it was impounded by Customs. + They say it is forbidden to import extrasolar eggs. I have tried to + explain to them that it is not at all a question of importation but + of adoption; however, they cannot or will not understand._ + + _Please tell me what to do. I fear that they may not be keeping the + egg at the correct Fizbian freezing point--which, as you know, is a + good deal lower than Earth's. The fledgling may hatch by itself and + receive a traumatic shock that might very well damage its entire + psyche permanently._ + + _Frantically yours,_ + + _Glibmus Gluyt_ + +"Oh, for the stars' sake!" Stet exploded. "This is really too much! Viz +our consul, Miss Snow. That egg must go back to Fizbus at once, before +any Terrestrials hear of it! And I must notify the government back on +the Home Planet to keep a close check on all egg shipments. Something +like this must certainly not occur again." + +"Why shouldn't the Terrestrials hear of it?" Tarb asked, outraged. "And +I think it's mean of you to send back a poor little orphan egg like that +when it has a chance of getting a good home." + +"An egg!" Miss Snow repeated incredulously. "You mean you really...?" +She gave me one mad little hoot of laughter and then stopped and +strangled slightly. Her face turned purple in her efforts to restrain +mirth. _Really_, Tarb thought, _she looks so much better that color_. + +Stet's crest twitched violently. "I hope--" he began. "I do hope you +will keep this ... knowledge to yourself, Miss Snow." + +"But of course," she assured him, calming down. "I'm dreadfully sorry I +was so rude. Naturally I wouldn't dream of telling a soul, Mr. Zarnon. +You can trust me." + +"I'm sure I can, Miss Snow." + +Tarb almost choked with indignation. "You mean you've been keeping the +facts of our life from Terrestrials? As if they were fledglings ... no, +even fledglings are told these days." + +"One could hardly blame him for it, Miss Morfatch," Miss Snow said. "You +wouldn't want people to know that Fizbians laid eggs, would you?" + +"And why not?" + +"Tarb," Stet intervened, "you don't know what you're talking about." + +"Oh, don't I? You're ashamed of the fact that we bear our children in a +clean, decent, honorable way instead of--" She stopped. "I'm being as +bad as you two are. Probably the Terrestrials' way of reproduction +doesn't seem dirty to them--but, since they do reproduce _that_ way, +they could scarcely find our way objectionable!" + +"Tarb, that's not how a young girl should talk!" + +"Oh, go lay an egg!" she said, knowing that she had overstepped the +limits of propriety, but unable to let him get away with that. "I hope +to be a wife and mother some day," she added, "and I only hope that when +that time comes, I'll be able to lay good eggs." + +"Miss Morfatch," Stet said, keeping control of his temper with a visible +effort, "that will be enough from you. If common decency doesn't +restrain you, please remember that I am your employer and that _I_ set +the policies on _my_ paper. You'll do what you're told and keep a civil +tongue in your head or you'll be sent back to Fizbus. Do I make myself +clear?" + +"You do, indeed," Tarb said. How could she ever have thought he was +charming and handsome? Well, perhaps he still was handsome, but fine +feathers do not make fine deeds. And, if it came to that, it wasn't his +paper. + +"We have the same thing on Terra," Miss Snow murmured sympathetically to +Stet. "These young whippersnappers think they can start in running the +paper the very first day. Why, Belinda Romney herself--she's a distant +cousin of mine, you know--told me--" + +"Miss Snow," Tarb said, "I hope for the sake of Earth that you are not a +typical example of the Terrestrial species." + +"And you, hon," Miss Snow retorted, "don't belong on a paper, but in a +chicken coop." + +"Ladies!" Stet said helplessly. "Women," he muttered, "certainly do not +belong on a newspaper. Matter of fact, they don't belong anywhere; their +place is in the home only because there's nowhere else to put them." + +Both females glared at him. + + * * * * * + +During the next fortnight, Tarb gained fluency in Terran and also +learned to operate a Terrestrial typewriter equipped with Fizbian +type--mostly so that she could dispense with the services of the +invaluable Miss Snow. She didn't like typing, though--it chipped her +toenails and her temper. Besides, Drosmig kept complaining that the +noise prevented him from sleeping and she preferred him to sleep rather +than hang there making irrelevant and, sometimes, unpleasantly relevant +remarks. + +"Longing for the old scripto, eh?" one of the cameramen smiled as he +lounged in the open doorway of her office. Although she was fond of +fresh air, Tarb realized that she would have to keep the door shut from +now on. Too many of the younger members of the staff kept booing at her +as they passed, and now they had formed the habit of dropping in to +offer her advice, encouragement and invitations to meals. At first, the +attention had pleased her--but now she was much too busy to be bothered; +she was going to turn out acceptable answers to those letters or die +trying. + +"Well, if the power can't be converted, it can't," she said grimly. +"Griblo, I do wish you'd be a dear and flutter off. I--" + +He snorted. "Who says the power can't be converted? Stet, huh?" + +She took her feet off the keys and looked at him. "Why do you say 'Stet' +that way?" + +"Because that's a lot of birdseed he gives you about not being able to +convert Earth power. Could be done all right, but he and the consul have +it all fixed up to keep Fizbian technology off the planet. Consul's +probably being paid off by the International Association of +Manufacturers and Stet's in it for the preservation of indigenous +culture--and maybe a little cash, too. After all, those rare antique +collections of his cost money." + +"I don't believe it!" Tarb snapped. "Griblo, please--I have so much work +to get through!" + +"Okay, chick, but I warn you, you're going to have your bright-eyed +illusions shattered. Why don't you wake up to the truth about +Stet? What you should do is maybe eschew the society of all journalists +entirely, and a sordid lot they are, and devote yourself to +photographers--splendid fellows, all." + +"Please shut the door behind you!" + +The door slammed. + +Tarb gazed disconsolately at the letter before her. Would she ever be +able to answer letters to Stet's satisfaction? The purpose of the whole +column was service--but did she and Stet mean the same thing by the same +word? Or, if they did, whom was Stet serving? + +She was paying too much attention to Griblo's idle remarks. Obviously he +was a sorehead--had some kind of grudge against Stet. Perhaps Stet was a +bit too autocratic, perhaps he had even gone native to some extent, but +you couldn't say anything worse about him than that. All in all, he +wasn't a bad bird and she mustn't let herself be influenced by +rumormongers like Griblo. + + * * * * * + +Tarb got up and took the letter to Stet. He was in his office dictating +to Miss Snow. _After all_, Tarb could not repress the ugly thought, _why +should he care about the scriptos? He'll never have to use a +typewriter._ + +And he was perfectly nice about being interrupted. The only thing he +didn't like was being contradicted. _I'm getting bitter_, she told +herself in surprise. _And at my age, too. I wonder what I'll be like +when I'm old._ + +This thought alarmed her and so she smiled very sweetly at Stet as she +murmured, "Would you mind reading this?" and gave him the letter. + +"Run into another little snag, eh?" he said affably, giving her foot a +gentle pat with his. "Well, let's see what we can do about it." + + _Montreal_ + + _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_ + + _I am a chef at the Cafe Inter-stellaire, which, as everyone knows, + is one of the most chic eating establishments on this not very chic + planet. During my spare moments, I am a great amateur of the local + form of entertainment known as television. I am especially + fascinated by the native actress Ingeborg Swedenborg, who, in spite + of being a Terran, compares most favorably with our own Fizbian + footlight favorites._ + + _The other day, while I am in the kitchen engaged in preparing the + ragout celeste à la fizbe for which I am justly celebrated on nine + planets, I hear a stir outside in the dining room. I strain my + ears. I hear the cry, "It is Ingeborg Swedenborg!"_ + + _I cannot help myself. I rush to the doorway. There, behold, the + incomparable Ingeborg herself! She follows the headwaiter to a + choice table. She is even more ravishing in real life than on the + screen. On her, it does not matter that she has no feathers save on + the head--even skin looks good. Overcome by involuntary ardor, I + boo at her. Whereupon I am violently assailed by a powerfully built + native whom I have not previously noticed to be escorting her._ + + _I am rescued before he can do me any permanent damage, though, if + you wish the truth, it will be a long time before I can fly again. + However, I am given notice by the cold-hearted management. Now I am + without a job. And what is more, if on this planet one is not + permitted to express one's instinctive and natural admiration for a + beautiful woman, then all I have to say is that it is a lousy + planet and I wiggle my toes at it. How do I go about getting + deported?_ + + _Impatiently yours,_ + + _Rajois Sludd_ + +"Oh, I suppose it serves him right," Tarb said quickly, before Stet +could comment, "but don't you think it would be a good idea if the +_Times_ got up a Fizbian-Terrestrial handbook of its own? It's the only +solution that I can see. The regular one, I recognize now, is more than +inadequate, with all that spiritual gup--" Miss Snow drew in her breath +sharply--"and not much else. All these problems are bound to arise again +and again. Frankly speaking, Stet, your solutions only take care of the +individual cases; they don't establish a sound intercultural basis." + +He grunted. + +"What's more," she went on eagerly, "we could not only give copies to +every Fizbian planning to visit Earth, but also print copies in Terran +for Terrestrials who are interested in learning more about Fizbus and +the Fizbians. In fact, all Terrans who come in contact with us should +have the book. It would help both races to understand each other so much +better and--" + +"Unnecessary!" Stet snapped, so violently that she stopped with her +mouth open. "The standard handbook is more than adequate. Whatever +limitations it may have are deliberate. Setting down in cold print all +that ... stuff you want to have included would make a point of things we +prefer not to stress. I wouldn't want to have the Terrestrials humor me +as if I were a fledgling or a foreigner." + +He leaped out of his chair and paced up and down the office. One would +think he had forgotten he ever could fly. + +"But you are a foreigner, Stet," Tarb said gently. "No matter what you +do or say, Terrestrials and Fizbians are--well, worlds apart." + +"Spiritually, I am much closer to the Terrestrials than--but you +wouldn't understand." He and Miss Snow nodded sympathetically at each +other. "And you might be interested to know that I happen to be the +author of all that 'spiritual gup.' I wrote the handbook--as a service +to Fizbus, I might point out. I wasn't paid for it." + +"Oh, dear!" Tarb said. "Oh, _dear_! I really and truly am sorry, Stet." + +He brushed her apologies aside. "Answer that letter. Ignore the question +about deportation entirely." He ran a foot through his crest. "Just tell +the fellow to see our personnel manager. We could use a chef in the +company dining room. Haven't tasted a decent celestial ragout--at a +price I could afford--since I left Fizbus." + +"Would you want me to print that reply in the column?" she asked. "'If +you lose your job because you're unfamiliar with Terrestrial customs, +come to the _Times_. We'll give you another job at a much lower +salary.'" + +"Of course not! Send your answer directly to him. You don't think we put +any of those letters you've been answering in the column, do you? Or any +that come in at all, for that matter. I have to write all the letters +that are printed--and answer them myself." + +"I should have recognized the style," Tarb said. "So this is the service +the _Times_ offers to its subscribers. Nothing that would be of help. +Nothing that could prevent other Fizbians from making the same mistake. +Nothing that could be controversial. Nothing that would help +Terrestrials to understand us. Nothing, in short, but a lot of +birdseed!" + +"Impertinence!" Miss Snow remarked. "You shouldn't let her talk to you +like that, Mr. Zarnon." + +"Tarb!" Stet roared, casting an impatient glance at Miss Snow. "How dare +you talk to me in that way? And all this is none of your business, +anyway." + +"I'm a Fizbian," she stated, "and it certainly is my business. I'm not +ashamed of having wings. I'm proud of them and sorry for people who +don't have them. And, by the stars, I'm going to fly. If skirts are +improper to wear for flying, then I can wear slacks. I saw them in a +Terrestrial fashion magazine and they're perfectly respectable." + +"Not for working hours," Miss Snow sniffed. + +"I have no intention of flying during working hours," Tarb snapped back. +"Even you should be able to see that the ceiling's much too low." + +Stet ran a foot through his crest again. "I hate to say this, Tarb, but +I don't feel you're the right person for this job. You mean well, I'm +sure, but you're too--too inflexible." + +"You mean I have principles," she retorted, "and you don't." Which +wasn't entirely true; he had principles--it was just that they were +unprincipled. + +"That will be enough, Tarb," he said sternly. "You'd better go now while +I think this over. I'd hate to send you back to Fizbus, because +I'd--well, I'd miss you. On the other hand...." + +Tarb went back to her office and drafted a long interstel to a cousin on +Fizbus, explaining what she would like for a birthday present. "And +send it special delivery," she concluded, "because I am having an urgent +and early birthday." + + * * * * * + +"Tarb Morfatch!" Stet howled, a few months later. "What on Earth are you +doing?" + +"Dictating into my scripto," Tarb said cheerfully. "Some of the boys +from the print shop helped fix it up for me. They were very nice about +it, too, considering that the superscriptos will probably throw them out +of work. You know, Stet, Terrestrials can be quite decent people." + +"Where did you get that scripto?" + +"Cousin Mylfis sent it to me for my birthday. I must have complained +about wearing out my claws on a typewriter and he didn't understand that +scriptos won't work on Earth. Only they do." She beamed at her employer. +"All it needed was a transformer. I guess you're just not mechanically +minded, Stet." + +He clenched his feet. "Tarb, Terrestrials aren't ready for our +technology. You've done a very unwise thing in having that scripto sent +to you. And I've done a very unwise thing in keeping you here against my +better judgment." + +"Maybe the Terrestrials aren't ready," she said, ignoring his last +remark, "but I'm not going to wear my feet to the bone if I can get a +gadget that'll do the same thing with no expenditure of physical +energy." She placed a foot on his. "I don't see how a thing like this +could possibly corrupt the Terrestrials, Stet. It's made a better, +brighter girl out of me already." + +"Hear, hear!" said Drosmig hoarsely from his perch. + +"Shut up, Senbot. You just don't understand, Tarb. If you'll only--" + +"But I'm afraid I do understand, Stet. And I won't send my scripto +back." + +"May I come in?" Miss Snow tapped lightly on the door frame. "Is what I +hear true?" + +"About the scripto?" Tarb asked. "It certainly is. All you have to do is +talk into it and the words appear on the paper. Guess that makes you +obsolete, doesn't it, Miss Snow?" + +"And high time, too," commented Drosmig. "Never liked the old biddy." + +"Senbot...." Stet began, and stopped. "Oh, what's the use trying to talk +reasonably to either of you! Tarb, come back to my office with me." + +She could not refuse and so she followed. Miss Snow, torn between +curiosity and the scripto, hesitated and then made after them. + +"I've decided to take you off the column--for this morning, anyway--and +send you on an outside assignment," Stet told Tarb. "The consul's wife +is coming to Earth today. Once she heard there was another woman on +Terra, nothing could stop her. Consul seems to think it's my fault, +too," he added moodily. "Won't believe I had nothing to do with hiring +you. I told the Home Office not to send a woman, that she'd disrupt the +office, and you sure as hell have." + +"But I thought you said in your letters that you were doing everything +in your power to bring Fizbian womenfolk to their men on Terra!" Tarb +pointed out malevolently. + +"Yes," he confessed. "We must please our readers. You know that. Anyway, +all that's irrelevant right now. What I want you to do is go meet the +consul's wife. Nice touch, having the only other Fizbian woman here be +the one to interview her. Human interest angle for the Terrestrial +papers. Shouldn't be surprised if Solar Press picked it up--they like +items of that kind for fillers. Take Griblo along with you and make sure +he has film in his camera this time." + +"Yes, sir," Tarb said. "Anything you say, sir." + +He pretended not to notice her sarcasm. "I have a list of the questions +you should ask her." He fixed her with his eye. "You stick to them, do +you hear me? I don't want anything controversial." He rummaged among the +papers on his desk. "I know I had it half an hour ago. Sit down, will +you, Tarb? Stop hopping around." + +"If I can't have a perch, I want a stool," Tarb said. "This is a private +office and I think it's a gross affectation for you to have those silly, +uncomfortable chairs in it." + +"If you would have your wings clipped like Mr. Zarnon's--" Miss Snow +began before Stet could stop her. + +"Stet, you _didn't_!" + +His crest thrashed back and forth. "They'll grow back again and it's so +much more convenient this way. After all, I can't use them here and I do +have to associate with Terrestrials and use their equipment. The consul +has had his wings clipped also and so have several of our more prominent +industrialists--" + +"Oh, _Stet_!" Tarb wailed. "I was beginning to think some pretty hard +things about you, but I wouldn't ever have dreamed you'd do anything as +awful as that!" + +"Why should I have to apologize to you?" he raged. "Who do you think you +are, anyway? You're an incompetent little fool. I should have fired you +that first day. I've let you get away with so much only because you have +a pretty face. You've only been on Earth a couple of months; how can you +presume to think you know what's good and what's bad for the Fizbians +here?" + +"I may not know what's good," she retorted, "but I certainly do know +what's bad. And that's you, Stet--you and everything you stand for. You +not only don't have the courage of your convictions, you don't even have +any convictions. You're ashamed of being a Fizbian, ashamed of anything +that makes Fizbians different from Terrestrials, even if it's something +better, something that most Terrans would like to have. You're a damned +hypocrite, Stet Zarnon, that's what you are--professing to help our +people when actually you're hurting them by trying to force them into +the mold of an alien species." + +She brushed back her crest. "I take it I'm fired," she said more +quietly. "Do you want me to interview the consul's wife first or leave +right away?" + +It took Stet a moment to bring his voice under control. "Interview her +first. We'll talk this over when you get back." + + * * * * * + +It was pleasant to be away from the office, she thought as the taxi +pulled toward the airfield, and doing wingwork again, even if it proved +to be the first and last time on this planet. Griblo sat hunched in a +corner of the seat, too preoccupied with the camera, which, even after +two years, he hadn't fully mastered, to pay attention to her. + +Outside, it was raining, the kind of thin drizzle that, on Fizbus or +Earth, could go on for days. Tarb had brought along the native umbrella +she had purchased in the hotel gift shop--a delightful contraption that +was supposed to keep off the rain and didn't, and was supposed to +collapse and did, but at the wrong moments. She planned to take it back +with her when she returned to Fizbus. Approved souvenir or not, it was +the same beautiful purple as her eyes. And, besides, who had made the +ruling about approved souvenirs? Stet, of course. + +"No reason why we couldn't have autofax brought from Home," Griblo +suddenly grumbled. + +Tarb pulled herself back from her thoughts. "I suppose Stet wouldn't let +you," she said. "But now that one scripto's here," she went on somewhat +complacently, "he'll have to--" + +"Keep this planet charming and unspoiled, he says," Griblo interrupted +ungratefully. "Its spiritual values will be corrupted by too much +contact with a crass advanced technology. And, of course, he's got the +local camera manufacturers solidly behind him. I wonder whether they +advertise in the _Times_ because he helps keep autofax off Terra or +whether he keeps the autofax off Terra because they advertise in the +_Times_." + +"But what does he care about advertising? He may talk as if he owned the +_Times_, but he doesn't." + +Griblo gave a nasty laugh. "No, he doesn't, but if the Terran edition +didn't show a profit, it'd fold quicker than you can flip your wings and +he'd have to go back to nasty old up-to-date Fizbus as a lowly +sub-editor. And he wouldn't like that one bit. Our Stet, as you may have +noticed, is fond of running things to suit himself." + +"But Mr. Grupe told me that the _Times_ isn't interested in money. It's +running this edition of the paper only as a service to--oh, I suppose +all that was a lot of birdseed, too!" + +"Grupe!" Griblo snorted. "The sanctimonious old buzzard! He's a big +stockholder on the paper. Bet you didn't know that, did you? All they're +out for is money. Fizbian money, Terrestrial money--so long as it's +cash." + +"Tell me, Griblo," Tarb asked, "what does 'When in Rome, do as the +Romans do' mean?" + +Griblo grinned sourly. "Stet's favorite motto." He moved along the seat +closer to her. "I'll tell you what it means, chicken. When on Earth, +don't be a Fizbian." + + * * * * * + +The consul's wife, an old mauve creature, did not seem overpleased to +see Tarb, since the younger, prettier Fizbian definitely took the +spotlight away from her. The press had, of course, seen Tarb before, but +at that time they hadn't been able to communicate directly with her and +they didn't, she now found out, think nearly as much of Stet as he did +of them. + +Tarb couldn't attempt to deviate much from Stet's questions, for the +consul's wife was not very cooperative and the consul himself watched +both women narrowly. He was a good friend of Stet's, Tarb knew, and +apparently Stet had taken the other man into his confidence. + +When the interviews were over and the consular party had left, Tarb +remained to chat with the Terrestrial journalists. Despite Griblo's +worried objections, she joined them in the Moonfield Restaurant, where +she daringly partook of a cup of coffee and then another and another. + +After that, things weren't very clear. She dimly remembered the other +reporters assuring her that she shouldn't disfigure her lovely wings +with a stole ... and then pirouetting in the air over the bar to +prolonged applause ... and then she was in the taxi again with Griblo +shaking her. + +"Wake up, Tarb--we're almost at the office! Stet'll have me plucked for +this!" + +Tarb sat up and pushed her crest out of her eyes. The sky was growing +dark. They must have been gone a long time. + +"I'll never hear the end of this," Griblo moaned. "Why, if only he could +get someone to fill my place, Stet would fire me like a shot! Not that I +wouldn't quit if I could get another job." + +"Oh, it'll be mostly me he'll be mad at." Tarb pulled out her compact. +Stet had warned her not to polish her eyeballs in public, but the ground +with him! Her head hurt. And her feathers, she saw in the mirror, had +turned almost beige. She looked horrible. She felt horrible. And Stet +would probably think she was horrible. + +"When Stet's mad," Griblo prophesied darkly, "he's mad at _everybody_!" + +And Stet _was_ mad. He was waiting in the newsroom, his emerald-blue +eyes blazing as if he had not only polished but lacquered them. + +"What's the idea of taking six hours to cover a simple story!" he +shouted as soon as the door began to open. "Aside from the trivial +matter of a deadline to be met--Griblo, _where's Tarb_? Nothing's +happened to her, has it?" + +"Naaah," Griblo said, unslinging his camera. "She took a short cut, +only she got held up by a terrace. Snagged her umbrella on it, I +believe. I heard her yelling when I was waiting for the elevator; +I didn't know nice girls knew language like that. She should be up +any minute now.... There she is." + +He pointed to a window, through which the lissome form of the young +feature writer could be seen, tapping on the glass in order to attract +attention. + +[Illustration] + +"Somebody better open it for her," the cameraman suggested. "Probably +not meant to open from the outside. Not many people come in that way, I +guess." + + * * * * * + +Open-mouthed, the whole newsroom stared at the window. Finally the Copy +Editor got up and let a dripping Tarb in. + +"Nearly thought I wouldn't make it," she observed, shaking herself in a +flurry of wet pink feathers. The rest of the staff ducked, most of them +too late. "Umbrella didn't do much good," she continued, closing it. It +left a little puddle on the rug. "My wings got soaked right away." She +tossed her wet crest out of her eyes. "Golly, but it's good to fly +again. Haven't done it for months, but it seems like years." Her eye +caught Miss Snow's. "You don't know what you're missing!" + +"Tarb," Stet thundered, "you've been drinking coffee! _Griblo!_" But the +cameraman had nimbly sought sanctuary in the dark-room. + +"You'd better go home, Tarb." When Stet's eye tufts met across his nose, +he was downright ugly, she realized. "Griblo can give me the dope and +I'll write up the story myself. I can fill it out with canned copy. And +you and I will discuss this situation in the morning." + +"Won't go home when there's work to be done. Duty calls me." Giving a +brief and quite recognizable imitation of a Terrestrial trumpet, Tarb +stalked down the corridor to her office. + +Drosmig looked up from his perch, to which he was still miraculously +clinging at that hour. "So it got you, too?... Sorry ... nice girl." + +"It hasn't got me," Tarb replied, picking up a letter marked _Urgent_. +"I've got it." She scanned the letter, then made hastily for Stet's +office. + +He sat drumming on his desk with the antique stainless steel spatula he +used as a paperknife. + +"Read this!" she demanded, thrusting the letter into his face. "Read +this, you traitor--sacrificing our whole civilization to what's most +expedient for you! Hypocrite! Cad!" + +"Tarb, listen to me! I'm--" + +"Read it!" She slapped the letter down in front of him. "Read it and see +what you've done to us! Sure, we Fizbians keep to ourselves and so the +only people who know anything about us are the ones who want to sell us +brushes, while the people who want to help us don't know a damn thing +about us and--" + +"Oh, all right! I'll read it if you'll only keep quiet!" He turned the +letter right-side up. + + _Johannesburg_ + + _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_ + + _I represent the Dzoglian Publishing Company, Inc., of which I know + you have heard, since your paper has seen fit to give our books + some of the most unjust reviews on record. However, be that as it + may, I have opened an office on Earth with the laudable purpose of + effecting an interchange of respective literatures, to see which + Terrestrial books might most profitably be translated into Fizbian, + and which of the authors on our own list might have potential + appeal for the Earth reader._ + + _Dealing with authors is, of course, a nerve-racking business and I + soon found myself in dire need of mental treatment. What was my + horror to find that this primitive, although charming, planet had + no neurotones, no psychoscopes, not even any cerebrophones--in + fact, no psychiatric machines at all! The very knowledge of this + brought me several degrees closer to a breakdown._ + + _Perhaps I should have consulted you at this juncture, but I admit + I was a bit of a snob. "What sort of advice can a mere journalist + give me," I thought, "that I could not give myself?" So, more for + amusement than anything else, I determined to consult a native + practitioner. "After all," I said to myself, "a good laugh is a + step forward on the road to recovery."_ + + _Accordingly, I went to see this native fellow. They work entirely + without machines, I understand, using something like witchcraft. At + the same time, I thought I might pick up some material for a jolly + little book on primitive customs which I could get some unknown + writer to throw together inexpensively. Strong human interest items + like that always have great reader-appeal._ + + _The native chap--doctor, he calls himself--was most cordial, + which he should have been at the price I was paying him. One thing + I must say about these natives--backward they may be, but they have + a very shrewd commercial sense. You can't even imagine the trouble + I had getting those authors to sign even remotely reasonable + contracts ... which in part accounts for my mental disturbance, + I suppose._ + + _Well, anyway, I handed the native a privacy waiver carefully + filled out in Terran. He took it, smiled and said, "We'll discuss + this afterward. My contact lenses have disappeared; I suppose one + of my patients has stolen them again. Can't see a thing without + them."_ + + _So we sat down and had a bit of a chat. He seemed remarkably + intelligent for a native; never interrupted me once._ + + _"You are definitely in great trouble," he told me when I'd + finished. "You need to be psycho-analyzed."_ + + _"Good, good," I said. "I see I've come to the right shop."_ + + _"Now just lie down and make yourself comfortable."_ + + _"Lie down?" I repeated, puzzled. I have an excellent command of + Terran, but every now and then an idiom will throw me. "I tell the + truth, sir, and when I am required by force of circumstances to + lie, I lie up."_ + + _"No," he said, "not that kind of lying. You know, the kind you do + at night when you go to sleep."_ + + _"Oh, I get you," I said idiomatically. Without further ado, I + flung off my ulster and flew up to a thingummy hanging from the + ceiling--chandelier, I believe, is the native term--flipped upside + down, and hung from it by my toes. Wasn't the Presidential Perch, + by any means, but it wasn't bad at all. "What do I do next?" I + inquired affably._ + + _"My dear fellow," the chap said, whipping out a notebook from the + recesses of his costume, "how long have you had this delusion that + you are a bird--or is it a bat?"_ + + _"Sir," I said as haughtily as my position permitted, "I am neither + a bird nor a bat. I am a Fizbian. Surely you have heard of + Fizbians?"_ + + _"Yes, yes, of course. They come from another country or planet or + something. Frankly, politics is a bit outside my sphere. All I'm + interested in is people--and Fizbians are people, aren't they?"_ + + _"Yes, certainly. If anything, it's you who.... Yes, they are + people."_ + + _"Well, tell me then, Mr. Liznig, when was it you first started + thinking you were a bat or a bird?"_ + + _I tried to control myself. "I am neither a bird nor a bat! I am a + Fizbian! I have wings! See?" I fluttered them._ + + _He peered at me. "I wish I could," he said regretfully. "Without + my glasses, though, I'm as blind as a bat--or a bird."_ + + _Well, the long and the short of it is that the natives are + planning to certify me as insane and incarcerate me, pending the + doctor's decision as to whether my delusion is that I am a bird or + a bat. They are using my privacy waiver as commitment papers._ + + _Save me, Senbot Drosmig, for I feel that if I have to wait for the + doctor's glasses to be delivered, I shall indeed go mad._ + + _Distractedly yours,_ + + _Tgos Liznig_ + +"I'll handle this myself," Stet said crisply. "I'll tell the consul to +advise the Terran State Department that this man should be deported as +an undesirable alien. That'll solve the problem neatly. We can't have +this contaminating the pure stream of Terrestrial literature with--" + +"But aren't you going to explain to them that he's perfectly sane?" Tarb +gasped. + +"No need to bother. He'll be grateful enough to get off the planet. +Besides, how do I know he is perfectly sane?" + +"Stet Zarnon, you're perfectly horrid!" + +"And you, Tarb Morfatch, are disgustingly drunk. Now you go right home +and sleep it off. I know I was too harsh with you--my fault for letting +you go out alone with Griblo in the first place when you've been here +only a few months. Might have known those Terran journalists would lead +you astray. Nice fellows, but irresponsible." He flicked out his tongue. +"There, I've apologized. Now will you go home?" + +"Home!" Tarb shrieked. "Home when there's work to be done and--" + +"--and you're not going to be the one to do it. Tarb," he said, +attempting to seize her foot, which she pulled away, "I was going to +tell you tomorrow, but you might as well know tonight. I've taken you +off the column for good. I have a better job for you." + +She looked at him. "A better job? Are you being sarcastic? What as?" + +"As my wife." He got up and came over to her. She stood still, almost +stunned. "That solves the whole problem tidily. An office is no place +for you, darling--you're really a simple home-girl at heart. Newspaper +work is too strenuous for you; it upsets you and makes you nervous and +irritable. I want you to stay home and take care of our house and hatch +our eggs--unostentatiously, of course." + +"Why, you--" she spluttered. + +He put his foot over her mouth. "Don't give me your answer now. You're +in no condition to think. Tell me tomorrow." + + * * * * * + +It rained all night and continued on into the morning. Tarb's head +ached, but she had to make an appearance at the office. First she vizzed +an acquaintance she had made the day before; then she took her umbrella +and set forth. + +As she kicked open the door to the newsroom, all sound ceased. Voices +stopped abruptly. Typewriters halted in mid-click. Even the roar of the +presses downstairs suddenly seemed to mute. Every head turned to look at +Tarb. + +_Humph_, she thought, removing her plastic oversocks, _so suppose I was +a little oblique yesterday. They needn't stare at me. They never stare +at Drosmig. Just because I'm a woman, I suppose!_ The gate crashed +loudly behind her. + +"Oh, Miss Morfatch," Miss Snow called. "Mr. Zarnon said he wanted to +see you as soon as you came in. It's urgent." And she giggled. + +"Really?" Tarb said. "Well, he'll just have to wait until I've wrung out +my wings." Sooner or later, she would have to face Stet, but she wanted +to put it off as long as possible. + +She opened the door to her office and halted in amazement. For, seated +on a stool behind the desk, haggard but vertical, was Senbot Drosmig, +busily reading letters and blue-penciling comments on them with his +feet. + +"Good morning, my dear," he said, giving her a wan smile. "Surprised to +see me functioning again, eh?" + +"Well--yes." She opened her dripping umbrella mechanically and stood it +in a corner. "How--" + +"I realized last night that all that happened to you was my fault. You +were my responsibility and I failed you." + +"Oh, don't be melodramatic, Senbot. I wasn't your responsibility and you +didn't fail me. Not that I'm not glad to see you up and doing again, +but--" + +"But I did fail you!" the aged journalist insisted. "And, in the same +way, I failed my people. I shouldn't have given in. I should have fought +Zarnon as you, my dear, tried to do. But it isn't too late!" The fire of +the crusader lit up in his watery old eyes. "I can still fight him and +his sacred crows--his Earthlings! If I have to, I can go over his head +to Grupe. Grupe may not understand Stet's moral failings, but he +certainly will comprehend his commercial ones. Grupe owns stock in other +Fizbian enterprises besides the _Times_. Autofax, for example." + +"Oh, Senbot!" Tarb wailed. "The whole thing's such an awful mess!" + +"I don't think it'll be necessary to threaten that far," he comforted +her. "Stet is no fool. He knows which side of his breadnut is peeled." + +"I'm sure you'll do a wonderful job," she exclaimed, impulsively giving +a ritual _entrechat_. "And I wish I could stay and help you, but...." + +"I know, my dear." + +"You do?" She was puzzled. "But how did the news get around so quickly?" + +He shrugged. "The Terrestrial grapevine is almost as efficient as the +Fizbian. Didn't you notice any change in the--ah--atmosphere when you +came in?" + +"Oh, was that the reason?" Tarb laughed merrily. "Somehow it never +occurred to me that they could have heard so soon." + +"But the morning editions have been out for hours." + +The door to the office was flung open. Stet stormed in, bristling with a +most unloverlike rage. + +"Miss Morfatch--" he waved a crumpled copy of the _Terrestrial Tribune_ +at her--"when I give an order, I expect to be obeyed! Didn't Miss Snow +tell you to report directly to my office the instant you came in? +Although that's a question I don't have to ask; I know Miss Snow, at +least, is someone I can trust." + +"I was coming to see you, Stet," Tarb said soothingly. "Right away." + +"Oh, you were, were you? And have you seen this?" Stet fairly threw the +paper at her. Smack in the middle of the front page was a picture of +herself in full flight over the airfield bar. Not a very good picture, +but what could you expect with Terrestrial equipment? When the autofax +came, perhaps she would be done justice. + + FIZBIAN NEWSHEN GIVES EARTH A FLUTTER + + "Though No Mammal, I Pack a Lot of Uplift," Says + Beautiful Fizbian Gal Reporter + + "I feel that you Terrans and we Fizbians can get along much + better," lovely Tarb Morfatch, Fizbus _Times_ feature writer, told + her fellow-reporters yesterday at the Moonfield Restaurant, "if we + learn to understand each other's differences as well as appreciate + our similarities. + + "With commerce between the two planets expanding as rapidly as it + has been," Miss Morfatch went on, "it becomes increasingly + important that we make sure there is no clash of mores between us. + Where adaptation is impossible, we must both adjust. 'When in Rome, + do as the Romans do' is an outmoded concept in the complex + interstellar civilization of today. The Romans must learn to accept + us as we are, and vice versa. + + "Forgive me if I've offended you by my frankness," she said, + sticking out her tongue in the charming gesture of apology that is + acquiring such a vogue on Earth, Belinda Romney and many other + socialites having enthusiastically adopted it, "but you've violated + our privacy so many times, I feel I'm entitled to hurt your + feelings just a teeny-weeny bit...." + +"Those Terran journalists," Tarb said admiringly. "Never miss a trick, +do they? Am I in all the other papers too, Stet? Same cheesecake?" + +"You've made an ovulating circus out of us--that's what you've done!" + +"Nonsense. Good strong human interest stuff; it'll make us lovable as +chicks all over the planet. Gee--" she read on--"did I say all that +while I was caffeinated? I ought to turn out some pretty terrific copy +sober." + +"And to think you, the woman I had asked to make my wife, did this to +me." + +"Oh, that's all right, Stet," Tarb said without looking up from the +paper. "I wasn't going to accept you, anyway." + +"Good for you, Tarb," Drosmig approved. + +"You're going back to Fizbus on the next liner--do you hear me?" Stet +raged. + +She smiled sunnily. "Oh, but I'm not, Stet. I'm going to stay right here +on Earth. I like it. You might say the spiritual aura got me." + +He snorted. "How can you possibly stay? You don't have an independent +income and this is an expensive planet. Besides, I won't let you stay on +Earth. I have considerable influence, you know!" + +"Poor Stet." She smiled at him again. "I'm afraid the Fizbian press--the +Fizbian consul even--are pretty small pullets beside the Solar Press +Syndicate. You see, I came in this morning only to resign." + +He stared at her. + +"Yesterday," she informed him, "I was offered another position--as +feature writer for the SP. I hadn't decided whether or not to accept +when I reported back last evening, but you made up my mind for me, so I +called them this morning and took the job. My work will be to explain +Fizbians to Terrans and Terrans to Fizbians--as I wanted to do for the +_Times_, Stet, only you wouldn't let me." + +"It's no use saying anything to you about loyalty, I suppose?" + +"None whatsoever," she said. "I owe the _Times_ no loyalty and I'm doing +what I do out of loyalty to Fizbus ... plus, of course, a much higher +salary." + +"I'm glad for you, Tarb," Drosmig said sincerely. + +"Be glad for yourself, Senbot, because Stet will have to let you conduct +the column your way from now on. Either it'll supplement my work in the +Terrestrial papers or he'll look like a fool. And you do hate looking +like a fool, don't you, Stet?" + +He didn't answer. + +"Better give up, Stet." She turned to Drosmig. "Well, good-by, +Senbot--or, rather, so long. I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again. +Good-by, Stet. No hard feelings, I hope?" + +He neither moved nor spoke. + +"Well ... good-by, then," she said. + +The door closed. Stet stared after her. The forgotten umbrella dripped +forlornly in the corner. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Helpfully Yours, by Evelyn E. 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Smith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Helpfully Yours + +Author: Evelyn E. Smith + +Illustrator: EMSH + +Release Date: March 14, 2010 [EBook #31644] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELPFULLY YOURS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h1>HELPFULLY YOURS</h1> + +<h2>By EVELYN E. SMITH</h2> + +<h3>Illustrated by EMSH</h3> + +<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction +February 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the +U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/title.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>"Come down to Earth—and stay there!" is a humiliating order +for somebody with wings!</i></div> + +<p>Tarb Morfatch had read all the information on Terrestrial customs that +was available in the <i>Times</i> morgue before she'd left Fizbus. And all +through the journey she'd studied her <i>Brief Introduction to Terrestrial +Manners and Mores</i> avidly. Perhaps it was a bit overinspirational in +spots, but it had facts in it, too.</p> + +<p>So she knew that, since the natives were non-alate, she was not to take +wing on Earth. She had, however, forgotten to correlate the knowledge of +their winglessness with her own vertical habits. As a result, on leaving +the tender that had ferried her down from the Moon, she looked up +instead of right and narrowly escaped death at the jaws of a raging +groundcar that swerved out onto the field.</p> + +<p>She recognized it as a taxi from one of the pictures in the handbook. +It was a pity, she thought sadly as she was knocked off her feet, that +all those lessons she had so carefully learned were to go to waste.</p> + +<p>But it was only the wind of the car's passage that had thrown her down. +As she struggled to get up, hampered by her awkward native skirts, the +door of the taxi flew open. A tall young man—a Fizbian—burst out, the +soft yellowish-green down on his handsome face bristling with fright +until each feather stood out separately.</p> + +<p>"Miss Morfatch! Are you all right?"</p> + +<p>"Just—just a little shaky," she murmured, brushing dirt from her rosy +leg feathers. <i>Too young to be Drosmig; too good-looking to be anyone +important, she thought glumly. Must be the office boy.</i></p> + +<p>To her surprise, he didn't help her up. Probably it would violate some +native taboo if he did, she deduced. The handbook hadn't mentioned +anything that seemed to apply, but, after all, a little book like that +couldn't cover everything.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>She could see the young man was embarrassed—his emerald crest was +waving to and fro.</p> + +<p>"I'm Stet Zarnon," he introduced himself awkwardly.</p> + +<p>The Managing Editor! The handsome young employer of her girlish dreams! +But perhaps he had a wife on Fizbus—no, the Grand Editor made a point +of hiring people without families to use as a pretext for expensive +vacations on the Home Planet.</p> + +<p>As she opened her mouth to say something brilliantly witty, to show she +was no ordinary female but a creature of spirit and fire and +intelligence, a sudden cacophony of shrill cries and explosions arose, +accompanied by bursts of light. Her feathers stood erect and she clung +to her employer with both feathered legs.</p> + +<p>"If these are the friendly diplomatic relations Earth and Fizbus are +supposed to be enjoying," she said, "I'm not enjoying them one bit!"</p> + +<p>"They're only taking pictures of you with native equipment," he +explained, pulling away from her. What was the matter with him? "You're +the first Fizbian woman ever to come to Terra, you know."</p> + +<p>She certainly did know—and, what was more, she had made the semi-finals +for Miss Fizbus only the year before. Perhaps he had some Terrestrial +malady he didn't want her to catch. Or could it be that in the four +years he had spent in voluntary exile on this planet, he had come to +prefer the native females? Now it was her turn to shrink from him.</p> + +<p>He was conversing rapidly in Terran with the chattering natives who +milled about them. Although Tarb had been an honors student in Terran +back at school, she found herself unable to understand more than an +occasional word of what they said. Then she remembered that they were +not at the world capital, Ottawa, but another community, New York. +Undoubtedly they were all speaking some provincial dialect peculiar to +the locality.</p> + +<p>And nobody at all booed in appreciation, although, she told herself +sternly, she really couldn't have expected them to. Standards of beauty +were different in different solar systems. At least they were picking up +as souvenirs some of the feathers she'd shed in her tumble, which showed +they took an interest.</p> + +<p>Stet turned back to her. "These are fellow-members of the press."</p> + +<p>She was able to catch enough of what he said next in Terran to +understand that she was being formally introduced to the aboriginal +journalists. Although you could never call the natives attractive, with +their squat figures and curiously atrophied vestigial wings—<i>arms</i>, she +reminded herself—they were very Fizboid in appearance and, with their +winglessness cloaked, could have creditably passed for singed Fizbians.</p> + +<p>Moreover, they seemed friendly; at any rate, the sounds they uttered +were welcoming. She began to make the three ritual <i>entrechats</i>, but +Stat stopped her. "Just smile at them; that'll be enough."</p> + +<p>It didn't seem like enough, but he was the boss.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Thank the stars we're through with that," he sighed, as they finally +were able to escape their confrères and get into the taxi. "I suppose," +he added, wriggling inside the clumsy Terrestrial jacket which, cut to +fit over his wings, did nothing either to improve his figure or to make +him look like a native, "it was as much of an ordeal for you as for me."</p> + +<p>"Well, I am a little bewildered by it all," Tarb admitted, settling +herself as comfortably as possible on the seat cushions.</p> + +<p>"No, don't do that!" he cried. "Here people don't crouch on seats. They +sit," he explained in a kindlier tone. "Like this."</p> + +<p>"You mean I have to bend myself in that clumsy way?"</p> + +<p>He nodded. "In public, at least."</p> + +<p>"But it's so hard on the wings. I'm losing feathers foot over claw."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but you could...." He stopped. "Well, anyhow, remember we have to +comply with local customs. You see, the Terrestrials have those things +called arms instead of legs. That is, they have legs, but they use them +only for walking."</p> + +<p>She sighed. "I'd read about the arms, but I had no idea the natives +would be so—so primitive as to actually use them."</p> + +<p>"Considering they had no wings, it was very clever of them to make use +of the vestigial appendages," he said hotly. "If you take their physical +limitations into account, they've done a marvelous job with their little +planet. They can't fly; they have very little sense of balance; their +vision is exceedingly poor—yet, in spite of all that, they have +achieved a quite remarkable degree of civilization." He gestured toward +the horizontal building arrangements visible through the window. "Why, +you could almost call those streets. As a matter of fact, the natives +do."</p> + +<p>At the moment, she could take an interest in Terrestrial civilization +only as it affected her personally. "But I'll be able to relax in the +office, won't I?"</p> + +<p>"To a certain extent," he replied cautiously. "You see, we have to use a +good deal of native help because—well, our facilities are limited...."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said.</p> + +<p>Then she remembered that she was on Terra at least partly to demonstrate +the pluck of Fizbian femininity. Back on Fizbus, most of the <i>Times</i> +executives had been dead set against having a woman sent out as +Drosmig's assistant. But Grupe, the Grand Editor, had overruled them. +"Time we broke with tradition," he had said. He'd felt she could do the +job, and, by the stars, she would justify his faith in her!</p> + +<p>"Sounds like rather a lark," she said hollowly.</p> + +<p>Stet brightened. "That's the girl!" His eyes, she noticed, were emerald +shading into turquoise, like his crest. "I certainly hope you'll like it +here. Very wise of Grupe to send a woman instead of a man, after all. +Women," he went on quickly, "are so much better at working up the human +interest angle. And Drosmig is out of commission most of the time, so +it's you who'll actually be in charge of 'Helpfully Yours.'"</p> + +<p>She herself in charge of the column that had achieved interstellar fame +in three short years! Basically, it had been designed to give guidance, +advice and, if necessary, comfort to those Fizbians who found themselves +living on Terra, for the Fizbus <i>Times</i> had stood for public service +from time immemorial. As Grupe had put it, "We don't run this paper for +ourselves, Tarb, but for our readers. And the same applies to our +Terrestrial edition."</p> + +<p>With the growing development of trade and cultural relations between the +two planets, the Fizbians on Earth were an ever-increasing number. But +they were not the only readers of "Helpfully Yours." Reprinted in the +parent paper, it was read with edification and pleasure all over Fizbus. +Everyone wanted to learn more about the ancient and other-worldly Terran +culture.</p> + +<p>The handbook, <i>A Brief Introduction to Terrestrial Manners and Mores</i>, +owed much of its content to "Helpfully Yours." A grateful, almost +fulsome, introductory note had said so. But the column truly deserved +all the praise that had been lavished upon it by the handbook. How well +she had studied the thoughtful letters that filled it and the excellent +and well-reasoned advice—erring, if it erred at all, on the side of +overtolerance—that had been given in return. Of course, on Earth, +spiritual adjustment apparently was more important than the physical; +you could tell that from the questions that were asked. A number of the +letters had been reprinted in an appendix to the manual.</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>New York</i></p> + +<p><i>Dear Senbot Drosmig:</i></p> + +<p><i>When in contact with Terrestrial culture, I find myself constantly +overawed and weighed down by the knowledge of my own inadequacy. I +cannot seem to appreciate the local art forms as disseminated by +the juke box, the comic strip, the tabloid.</i></p> + +<p><i>How can I help myself toward a greater understanding?</i></p> + +<p><i>Hopefully yours,</i></p> + +<p><i>Gnurmis Plitt</i></p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<blockquote><p>Dear Mr. Plitt:</p> + +<p>Remember, Orkv was not excavated in a week. It took the +Terrestrials many centuries to develop their exquisite and esoteric +art forms. How can you expect to comprehend them in a few short +years? Expose yourself to their art. Work, study, meditate.</p> + +<p>Understanding will come, I promise you.</p> + +<p>Helpfully yours,</p> + +<p>Senbot Drosmig</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<blockquote><p><i>Paris</i></p> + +<p><i>Dear Senbot Drosmig:</i></p> + +<p><i>To think that I am enjoying the benefits of Terra while my wife +and little ones are forced to remain on Fizbus makes my heart ache. +Surely it is not fair that I should have so much and they so +little. Imagine the inestimable advantage to the fledgling of even +a short contact with Terrestrial culture!</i></p> + +<p><i>Why cannot my loved ones come to join me so that we can share all +these wonderful spiritual experiences and be enriched by them +together?</i></p> + +<p><i>Poignantly yours,</i></p> + +<p><i>Tpooly N'Ox</i></p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<blockquote><p>Dear Mr. N'Ox:</p> + +<p>After all, it has been only five years since Fizbian spaceships +first came into contact with Terra. In keeping with our usual +colonial policy—so inappropriate and anachronistic when applied to +a well-developed civilization like Terra's—at first only males are +allowed to go to the new world until it is made certain over a +period of years that the planet is safe for mothers and future +mothers of Fizbus.</p> + +<p>But Stet Zarnon himself, the celebrated and capable editor of the +Terran edition of <i>The Fizbus Times</i>, has taken up your cause, and +I promise you that eventually your loved ones will be able to join +you.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, work, study, meditate.</p> + +<p>Helpfully yours,</p> + +<p>Senbot Drosmig</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<blockquote><p><i>Ottawa</i></p> + +<p><i>Dear Senbot Drosmig:</i></p> + +<p><i>Having just completed a two-year tour of duty on Earth as part of +a diplomatic mission, I am regretfully leaving this fair planet. +What books, what objects of art, what, in short, souvenirs shall I +take back to Fizbus which will give our people some small idea of +Earth's rich cultural heritage and, at the same time, serve as +useful and appropriate gifts for my friends and relatives back +Home?</i></p> + +<p><i>Inquiringly yours,</i></p> + +<p><i>Solgus Zagroot</i></p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<blockquote><p>Dear Mr. Zagroot:</p> + +<p>Take back nothing but your memories. They will be your best +souvenirs.</p> + +<p>Out of context, any other mementos might convey little, if +anything, of the true beauty and advanced spirituality of +Terrestrial culture, and you might cheapen them were you to use +them crassly as souvenirs. Furthermore, it is possible that you, in +your ignorance, might unwittingly select some items that give a +distorted and false idea of our extrafizbian friends.</p> + +<p>The Fizbian-Earth Cultural Commission, sponsored by <i>The Fizbian +Times</i>, in conjunction with the consulate, is preparing a vast +program of cultural interchange. Leave it to them to do the great +work, for you can be sure they will do it well.</p> + +<p>And be sure to tell your fellow-laborers in the diplomatic +vineyards that it is wiser not to send unapproved Terran souvenirs +back Home. They might cause a fatal misunderstanding between the +two worlds. Tell them to spend their time on Earth in working, +studying and meditating, rather than shopping.</p> + +<p>Helpfully yours,</p> + +<p>Senbot Drosmig</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>And now she—Tarb Morfatch—herself was going to be the guiding spirit +that brought enlightenment and uplift to countless thousands on Terra +and millions on Fizbus. Her name wouldn't appear on the columns, but the +reward of having helped should be enough. Besides, Drosmig was due to +retire soon. If she proved herself competent, she would take over the +column entirely and get the byline. Grupe had promised faithfully.</p> + +<p>But what, she wondered, had put Drosmig "out of commission"?</p> + +<p>The taxi drew up before a building with a vulgar number of floors +showing above ground.</p> + +<p>"Ah—before we—er—meet the others," Stet suggested, twitching his +crest, "I was wondering whether you would care to—er—have dinner with +me tonight?"</p> + +<p>This roused Tarb from her speculations. "Oh, I'd love to!" <i>A date with +the boss right away!</i></p> + +<p>Stet fumbled in his garments for appropriate tokens with which to pay +the driver. "You—you're not engaged or anything back Home, Miss +Morfatch?"</p> + +<p>"Why, no," she said. "It so happens that I'm not."</p> + +<p>"Splendid!" He made an abortive gesture with his leg, then let her get +out of the taxi by herself. "It makes the natives stare," he explained +abashedly.</p> + +<p>"But why shouldn't they?" she asked, wondering whether to laugh or not. +"How could they help but stare? We are different." <i>He must be joking.</i> +She ventured a smile.</p> + +<p>He smiled back, but made no reply.</p> + +<p>The pavement was hard under her thinly covered soles. Now that walking +looked as if it would present a problem, the ban on wing use loomed more +threateningly. She had, of course, walked before—on wet days when her +wings were waterlogged or in high winds or when she had surface +business. However, the sidewalks on Fizbus were soft and resilient. Now +she understood why the Terrestrials wore such crippling foot armor, but +that didn't make her feel any better about it.</p> + +<p>A box-shaped machine took the two Fizbians up to the twentieth story in +twice the time it would have taken them to fly the same distance. Tarb +supposed that the offices were in an attic instead of a basement because +exchange difficulties forced the <i>Times</i> to such economy. She wondered +ruefully whether her own expense account would also suffer.</p> + +<p>But it was no time to worry about such sordid matters; most important +right now was making a favorable impression on her co-workers. She did +want them to like her.</p> + +<p>Taking out her compact, she carefully polished her eyeballs. The man at +the controls of the machine practically performed a ritual <i>entrechat</i>.</p> + +<p>"Don't do that!" Stet ordered in a harsh whisper.</p> + +<p>"But why not?" she asked, unable to restrain a trace of belligerence +from her voice. He hadn't been very polite himself. "The handbook said +respectable Terran women make up in public. Why shouldn't I?"</p> + +<p>He sighed. "It'll take time for you to catch on, I suppose. There's a +lot the handbook doesn't—can't—cover. You'll find the setup here +rather different from on Fizbus," he went on as he kicked open the door +neatly lettered <i>THE FIZBUS TIMES</i> in both Fizbian and Terran. "We've +found it expedient to follow the local newspaper practice. For +instance—" he indicated a small green-feathered man seated at a desk +just beyond the railing that bisected the room horizontally—"we have a +Copy Editor."</p> + +<p>"What does he do?" she asked, confused.</p> + +<p>"He copies news from the other papers, of course."</p> + +<p>"And what are <i>you</i> doing tonight, Miss Morfatch?" the Copy Editor +asked, springing up from his desk to execute the three ritual entrechats +with somewhat more verve than was absolutely necessary.</p> + +<p>"Having dinner with me," Stet said quickly.</p> + +<p>"Pulling rank, eh, old bird? Well, we'll see whether position or +sterling worth will win out in the end."</p> + +<p>As the rest of the staff crowded around Tarb, leaping and booing as +appreciatively as any girl could want, she managed to snatch a rapid +look around. The place wasn't really so very much different from a +Fizbian newsroom, once she got over the oddity of going across, not up +and down, with the desks—queerly shaped but undeniably desks—arranged +side by side instead of one over the other. There were chairs and +stools, no perches, but that was to be expected in a wingless society. +And it was noisy. Even though the little machines had stopped clattering +when she came in, a distant roaring continued, as if, concealed +somewhere close by, larger, more sinister machines continued their work. +A peculiar smell hung in the air—not unpleasant, exactly, but strange.</p> + +<p>She sniffed inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"Ink," Stet said.</p> + +<p>"What's that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, some stuff the boys in the back shop use. The feature writers," he +went on quickly, before she could ask what the "back shop" was, "have +private offices where they can perch in comfort."</p> + +<p>He led the way down a corridor, opening doors. "Our drama editor." He +indicated a middle-aged man with faded blue feathers, who hung head +downward from his perch. "On the lobster-trick last night writing a +review, so he's catching fifty-one twinkles now."</p> + +<p>"Enchanted, Miss Morfatch," the critic said, opening one bright eye. "By +a curious chance, it so happens that tonight I have two tickets to—"</p> + +<p>"Tonight she's going out with me."</p> + +<p>"Well, I can get tickets to any play, any night. And you haven't laughed +unless you've seen a Terrestrial drama. Just say the word, chick."</p> + +<p>Stet got Tarb out of the office and slammed the door shut. "Over here is +the office of our food editor," he said, breathing hard, "whom you'll be +expected to give a claw to now and then, since your jobs overlap. Can't +introduce you to him right now, though, because he's in the hospital +with ptomaine poisoning. And this is the office you'll share with +Drosmig."</p> + +<p>Stet opened the door.</p> + +<p>Underneath the perch, Senbot Drosmig, dean of Fizbian journalists, lay +on the rug in a sodden stupor, letters to the editor scattered thickly +over his shriveled person. The whole room reeked unmistakably of +caffeine.</p> + +<p>Tarb shrank back and twined both feet around Stet's. This time he did +not repulse her. "But how can a—an educated, cultured man like Senbot +Drosmig sink to such depths?"</p> + +<p>"It's hard for anyone with even the slightest inclination toward the +stuff to resist it here," Stet replied somberly. "I can't deny it; the +sale of caffeine is absolutely unrestricted on Earth. Coffee shops all +over the place. Coffee served freely at even the best homes. And not +only coffee ... caffeine is insiduously present in other of their +popular beverages."</p> + +<p>Her eyes bulged sideways. "But how can a so-called civilized people be +so depraved?"</p> + +<p>"Caffeine doesn't seem to affect them the way it does us. Their nervous +systems are so very uncomplicated, one almost envies them."</p> + +<p>Drosmig stirred restlessly under his blanket of correspondence. "Go +back ... Fizbus," he muttered. "Warn you ... 'fore ... too late ... like +me."</p> + +<p>Tarb's rose-pink feathers stood on end. She looked apprehensively at +Stet.</p> + +<p>"Senbot can't go back because he's in no shape to take the interstel +drive." The young editor was obviously annoyed. "He's old and he's a +physical wreck. But that certainly doesn't apply to you, Miss Morfatch." +He looked long and hard into her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Few years on planet," Drosmig groaned, struggling to his wings, "'ply +to anybody."</p> + +<p>His feathers, Tarb noticed, were an ugly, darkish brown. She had never +seen any one that color before, but she'd heard rumors that too much +caffeine could do that to you. At least she hoped it was only the +caffeine.</p> + +<p>"For your information, he was almost as bad as this when he came!" Stet +snapped. "Frankly, that's why he was sent here—to get rid of his +unfortunate addiction. Grupe had no idea, when he assigned him to Earth, +that there was caffeine on the planet."</p> + +<p>The old man gave a sardonic laugh as he clumsily made his way to the +perch and gripped it with quivering toes.</p> + +<p>"That is, I don't <i>think</i> he knew," Stet said dubiously.</p> + +<p>Tarb reached over and picked a letter off the floor. The Fizbian +characters were clumsy and ill-made, as if someone had formed them with +his feet. Could there be such poverty here that individuals existed who +could not afford a scripto? The letter didn't read like any that had +ever been printed in the column—at least none that had been picked up +in the Fizbus edition:</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<blockquote><p><i>New York</i></p> + +<p><i>Dear Senbot Drosmig:</i></p> + +<p><i>I am a subaltern clerk in the shipping department of the FizbEarth +Trading Company, Inc. Although I have held this post for only three +months, I have already won the respect and esteem of my superiors +through my diligence and good character. My habits are exemplary: I +do not gamble, sing, or take caffeine.</i></p> + +<p><i>Earlier today, while engaged in evening meditation at my modest +apartments, I was aroused by a peremptory knock at the door. I +flung it open. A native stood there with a small case in his hand.</i></p> + +<p><i>"Is the house on fire?" I asked, wondering which of my few humble +possessions I should rescue first.</i></p> + +<p><i>"No," he said. "I would like to interest you in some brushes."</i></p> + +<p><i>"Are the offices of the FizbEarth Trading Company, Inc., on +fire?"</i></p> + +<p><i>"Not to my knowledge," he replied, opening his case. "Now I have +here a very nice hairbrush—"</i></p> + +<p><i>I wanted to give him every chance. "Have you come to tell me of +any disaster relative to the FizbEarth Trading Company, to myself, +or to anyone or anything else with whom or with which I am +connected?"</i></p> + +<p><i>"Why, no," he said. "I have come to sell you brushes. Now here is +a little number I know you'll like. My company developed it with +you folks specially in mind. It's—"</i></p> + +<p><i>"Do you know, sir, that you have wantonly interrupted me in the +midst of my meditations, which constitutes an established act of +privacy violation?"</i></p> + +<p><i>"Is that a fact? Now this little item is particularly designed for +brushing the wings—"</i></p> + +<p><i>At that point, I knocked him down and punched him into +insensibility with my feet. Then I summoned the police. To my +surprise, they arrested me instead of him.</i></p> + +<p><i>I am writing this letter from jail. I do not like to ask my +employers to get me out because, even though I am innocent, you +know how a thing like this can leave a smudge on the record.</i></p> + +<p><i>What shall I do?</i></p> + +<p><i>Anxiously yours,</i></p> + +<p><i>Fruzmus Bloxx</i></p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"What should he do?" Tarb asked, handing Stet the paper. "Or is the +question academic by now? The letter's five days old."</p> + +<p>Stet sighed. "I'll find out whether the consulate has been notified. +Native police usually do that, you know. Very thoughtful fellows. If +this Bloxx hasn't been bailed out already, I'll see that he is."</p> + +<p>"But how will we answer his letter? Advise him to sue for false arrest?"</p> + +<p>Stet smiled. "But he has no grounds for false arrest. He is guilty of +assault. The native was entirely within his rights in trying to sell him +a brush. Now—" he put out a foot—"brace yourself. Privacy violation is +not a crime on Terra. It is perfectly legal. In fact, it does not exist +as such!"</p> + +<p>At that point, everything went maroon.</p> + +<p>When Tarb came to, she found herself lying upon Drosmig's desk. A +skin-faced native woman was offering her water and clucking.</p> + +<p>"Are you all right, Tarb—Miss Morfatch?" Stet demanded anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I—I think so," she murmured, raising herself to a crouch.</p> + +<p>"Better ... have died," Drosmig groaned from his perch. "Fate +worse ... death ... awaits you."</p> + +<p>Tarb tried to smile. "Sorry to have been so much trouble." She stuck out +her tongue at both Stet and the native.</p> + +<p>The woman drew in her breath.</p> + +<p>"Miss Morfatch," Stet reminded Tarb, "sticking out the tongue is not an +apology on Terra; it is an insult. Fortunately, Miss Snow happens to be +perhaps the only Terran who would not be offended. She has become +thoroughly acquainted with us and our odd little customs. She even—" he +beamed at the Terran female—"has learned to speak our language."</p> + +<p>"Hail to thee, O visitor from the stars," Miss Snow said in Fizbian. +"May thy sojourn upon Earth be an incessant delight and may peace and +plenty shower their gifts in abundance upon thee."</p> + +<p>Tarb put her hand to her aching head. "I'm very glad to meet you," she +said, glad she did not have to get up to make the ritual <i>entrechats</i>.</p> + +<p>"Miss Snow is my right foot," Stet said, "but I'm going to be noble and +let her act as your secretary until you can learn to operate a +typewriter."</p> + +<p>"Secretary? Typewriter?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, there are no scriptos or superscriptos on Earth and we +can't import any from Home because the natives—" Miss Snow +smiled—"don't have the right kind of power here to run psychic +installations. All prosifying has to be done directly on prosifying +machines or—" he paused—"by foot."</p> + +<p>"Catch her!" Miss Snow exclaimed in Terran.</p> + +<p>Everything had gone maroon for Tarb again. As she fell, she could hear a +sudden thump. It was, she later discovered, Drosmig falling off his +perch again—the result of insecure grip, she was given to understand, +rather than excessive empathy.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"I didn't mean, of course, to give you the impression that we actually +produce the individual copies of the papers ourselves," Stet explained +over the dinner table that night. "We have native printers who do that. +They've turned out some really remarkable Fizbian type fonts." "Very +clever of them," Tarb said, knowing that was what she was expected to +say. She glanced around the restaurant. In their low-cut evening +garments, the Terrestrial females looked much less Fizboid than they had +during the day. All that naked-looking skin; one would think they'd want +to cover it. Probably they were sick with jealousy of her beautiful +rose-colored down—what they could see of it, anyway.</p> + +<p>"Of course, our real problem is getting proofreaders. The proofing +machines won't operate here either, of course, and so we need human +personnel. But what Fizbian would do such degrading work? We had thought +of convict labor, but—"</p> + +<p>"Why mustn't I take off my wrap?" Tarb interrupted. "No one else is +wearing one."</p> + +<p>Stet coughed. "You'll feel much less self-conscious about your wings if +you keep it on. And try not to use your feet so conspicuously. I'm sure +everyone understands you need them to eat with, but—"</p> + +<p>"But I'm not in the least self-conscious about my wings. On Fizbus, they +were considered rather nice-looking, if I do say so myself."</p> + +<p>"It's better," he said firmly, "not to emphasize the differences between +the natives and ourselves. You didn't object to wearing a Terrestrial +costume, did you?"</p> + +<p>"No, I realize I must make some concessions to native prudery, but—"</p> + +<p>"Matter of fact, I've been thinking it would be a good idea for you to +wear a stole or a cape or something in the daytime when you go to and +from the office. You wouldn't want to make yourself or the <i>Times</i> +conspicuous, I'm sure.... No, waiter, no coffee. We'll take champagne."</p> + +<p>"I want to try coffee," Tarb said mutinously. "Champagne! You'd think I +was a fledgling, giving me that bubbly stuff!"</p> + +<p>He looked at her. "Now don't be silly, Miss Morfatch ... Tarb. I can't +let you indulge in such rash experiments. You realize I am responsible +for you."</p> + +<p>Tarb muttered darkly into her <i>coupe maison</i>.</p> + +<p>Stet raised his eyebrows. "What did you say?"</p> + +<p>"I was only wondering whether you'd remembered to check on whether that +young man—Bloxx—ever did get out of jail."</p> + +<p>Stet snapped his toes. "Glad you reminded me. Completely slipped my +mind. Let's go and see what happened to him, shall we?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>As they rose to leave, a dumpy Earthwoman rushed up to them, +enthusiastically babbling in Terran. Seizing Tarb's foot, she clung to +it before the Fizbian girl could do anything to prevent her. Tarb had to +spread her wings wide to retain her balance. Her cloak flew off and an +adjoining table of diners disappeared beneath it.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus1" id="illus1"></a> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Stet and the headwaiter rushed to the rescue with profuse apologies, +Stet's crest undulating as if it concealed a nest of snakes. But Tarb +was too much frightened to be calmed.</p> + +<p>"Is this a hostile attack?" she shrieked frantically at Stet. "Because +the handbook never said shaking feet was an Earth custom!"</p> + +<p>"No, no, she's a friend!" Stet yelled, leaving the diners still +struggling with the cloak as he sped back to her. "And shaking feet +isn't an Earth custom; she thinks it's a Fizbian one. You see.... Oh, +hell, never mind—I'll explain the whole thing to you later. But she's +just greeting you, trying to put you at your ease. It's Belinda Romney, +a very important Terrestrial. She owns the Solar Press—you must have +heard of it even on Fizbus—biggest news service on the planet. +Absolutely wouldn't do to offend her. Mrs. Romney, may I present Miss +Morfatch?"</p> + +<p>The woman beamed and continued to gush endlessly.</p> + +<p>"Tell her to let go my foot!" Tarb demanded. "It's getting so it feels +carbonated."</p> + +<p>He smiled deprecatingly. "Now, Tarb, we mustn't be rude—"</p> + +<p>For the first time in her life, Tarb spoke Terran to a Terrestrial. She +formed the words slowly and carefully: "Sorry we must leave, but we have +to go to jail."</p> + +<p>She looked to Stet for approval ... and didn't get it. He started to +explain something quickly to the woman. Every time she'd heard him speak +Terran, Tarb thought, he seemed to be introducing, explaining or +apologizing.</p> + +<p>It turned out that, through some oversight, the usually thoughtful +Terran police department had neglected to inform the Fizbian consul that +one of his people had been incarcerated, for the young man had already +been tried, found guilty of assault plus contempt of court, and +sentenced to pay a large fine. However, after Stet had given his version +of the circumstances to a sympathetic judge, the sum was reduced to a +nominal one, which the <i>Times</i> paid.</p> + +<p>"But I don't see why you should have paid anything at all," Bloxx +protested ungratefully. "I didn't do anything wrong. You should have +made an issue of it."</p> + +<p>"According to Earth laws, you did do wrong," Stet said wearily, "and +this is Earth. What's more, if we take the matter up, it will naturally +get into print. You don't want your employers to hear about it, do +you—even if you don't care about making Fizbians look ridiculous to +Terrestrials?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose I wouldn't like FizbEarth to find out," Bloxx conceded. "As +it is, I'll have to do some fast explaining to account for my not having +shown up for nearly a week. I'll say I caught some horrible Earth +disease—that'll scare them so much, they'll probably beg me to take +another week off. Though I do wish you fellows over at the <i>Times</i> would +answer your mail sooner. I'm a regular subscriber, you know."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"But the same kind of thing's going to happen over and over again, isn't +it, Stet?" Tarb asked as a taxi took them back to the hotel in which +most of the <i>Times</i> staff was domiciled. "If privacy doesn't exist on +Earth, it's bound to keep occurring."</p> + +<p>"Eh?" Stet took his attention away from her toes with some difficulty. +"Some Earth people like privacy, too, but they have to fight for it. +Violations aren't legally punishable—that's the only difference."</p> + +<p>"Then surely the Terrestrials would understand about us, wouldn't they?" +she asked eagerly. "If they knew how strongly we felt about privacy, +maybe they wouldn't violate it—not as much, anyway. I'm sure they're +not vicious, just ignorant. And you can't just keep on getting Fizbians +out of jail each time they run up against the problem. It would be too +expensive, for one thing."</p> + +<p>"Don't worry," he said, pressing her toes. "I'll take care of the whole +thing."</p> + +<p>"An article in the paper wouldn't really help much," she persisted +thoughtfully, "and I suppose you must have run at least one already. It +would explain to the Fizbians that Terrestrials don't regard invasion of +privacy as a crime, but it wouldn't tell the Terrestrials that Fizbians +do. We'll have to think of—"</p> + +<p>"You're surely not going to tell me how to run my paper on your first +day here, are you?"</p> + +<p>He tried to take the sting out of his words by twining his toes around +hers, but she felt guilty. She had been presumptuous. Probably there +were lots of things she couldn't understand yet—like why she shouldn't +polish her eyeballs in public. Stet had finally explained to her that, +while Terrestrial women did make up in public, they didn't scour their +irises, ever, and would be startled and horrified to see someone else +doing so.</p> + +<p>"But I was horrified to see them raking their feathers in public!" Tarb +had contended.</p> + +<p>"Combing their hair, my dear. And why not? This is their planet."</p> + +<p>That was always his answer. <i>I wonder</i>, she speculated, <i>whether he +would expect a Terrestrial visitor to Fizbus to fly ... because, after +all, Fizbus is our planet.</i> But she didn't dare broach the question.</p> + +<p>However, if it was presumptuous of her to make helpful suggestions the +first day, it was more than presumptuous of Stet to ask her up to his +rooms to see his collection of rare early twentieth-century Terrestrial +milk bottles and other antiques. So she just told him courteously that +she was tired and wanted to go to roost. And, since the hotel had a +whole section fitted up to suit Fizbian requirements, she spent a more +comfortable night than she had expected.</p> + +<p>She awoke the next day full of enthusiasm and ready to start in on the +great work at once. Although she might have been a little too forward +the previous night, she knew, as she took a reassuring glance in the +mirror, that Stet would forgive her.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>In the office, she was, at first, somewhat self-conscious about Drosmig, +who hung insecurely from his perch muttering to himself, but she soon +forgot him in her preoccupation with duty. The first letter she picked +up—although again oddly unlike the ones she'd read in the paper on +Fizbus—seemed so simple that she felt she would have no difficulty in +answering it all by herself:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Heidelberg</i></p> + +<p><i>Dear Senbot Drosmig:</i></p> + +<p><i>I am a professor of Fizbian History at a local university. Since +my salary is a small one, owing to the small esteem in which the +natives hold culture, I must economize wherever I can in order to +make both ends meet. Accordingly, I do my own cooking and shop at +the self-service supermarket around the corner, where I have found +that prices are lower than in the service groceries and the food no +worse.</i></p> + +<p><i>However, the manager and a number of the customers have objected +to my shopping with my feet. They don't so much mind my taking +packages off the shelves with them, but they have been quite +vociferous on the subject of my pinching the fruit with my toes. +Unripe fruit, however, makes me ill. What shall I do?</i></p> + +<p><i>Sincerely yours,</i></p> + +<p><i>Grez B'Groot</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>Tarb dictated an unhesitating reply:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Dear Professor B'Groot:</p> + +<p>Why don't you explain to the manager of the store that Fizbians +have wings and feet rather than arms and hands?</p> + +<p>I'm sure his attitude and the attitudes of his customers will +change when they learn that your pinching the fruit with your feet +is not mere pedagogical eccentricity, but the regular practice on +our planet. Point out to him that your feet are covered and, +therefore, more sanitary than the bare hands of his other +customers.</p> + +<p>And always put on clean socks before you go shopping.</p> + +<p>Helpfully yours,</p> + +<p>Senbot Drosmig</p></blockquote> + +<p>Miss Snow raised pale eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"Is something wrong?" Tarb asked anxiously. "Should I have put in that +bit about work, study, meditate? It seems inappropriate somehow."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, not that. It's just that your letter—well, violates Mr. +Zarnon's precept that, in Rome, one must do as the Romans do."</p> + +<p>"But this isn't Rome," Tarb replied, bewildered. "It's New York."</p> + +<p>"He didn't make the saying up," Miss Snow replied testily. "It's a +Terrestrial proverb."</p> + +<p>"Oh," Tarb said.</p> + +<p>She resented this creature's trying to tell her how to do her job. On +the other hand, Tarb was wise enough to realize that Miss Snow, +unpleasant though she might be, probably did know Stet well enough to be +able to predict his reactions.</p> + +<p>So Tarb not only was reluctant to show Stet what she had already done, +but hesitated about answering another and even more urgent letter that +had just been brought in by special messenger. She tried to compromise +by submitting the letters to Drosmig—for, technically speaking, it was +he who was her immediate superior—but he merely groaned, "Tell 'em all +to drop dead," from his perch and refused to open his eyes.</p> + +<p>In the end, Tarb had to take the letters to Stet's office. Miss Snow +trailed along behind her, uninvited. And, since this was a place of +business, Tarb could not claim a privacy violation. Even if it weren't a +place of business, she remembered, she couldn't—not here on Earth. +Advanced spirituality, hah!</p> + +<p>Advanced pain in the pinions!</p> + +<p>Stet read the first letter and her answer smilingly. "Excellent, Tarb—" +her hearts leaped—"for a first try, but I'd like to suggest a few +changes, if I may."</p> + +<p>"Well, of course," she said, pretending not to notice the smirk on Miss +Snow's face.</p> + +<p>"Just write this Professor B'Goot that he should do his shopping at a +grocery that offers service and practice his economies elsewhere. A +professor, of all people, is expected to uphold the dignity of his own +race—the idea, sneering at a culture that was thousands of years old +when we were still building nests! Terrestrials couldn't possibly have +any respect for him if they saw him prodding kumquats with his toes."</p> + +<p>"It's no sillier than writing with one's vestigial wings!" Tarb blazed.</p> + +<p>"Well!" Miss Snow exclaimed in Terran. "Well, <i>really</i>!"</p> + +<p>Tarb started to stick out her tongue, then remembered. "I didn't mean to +offend you, Miss Snow. I know it's your custom. But wouldn't you +understand if I typewrote with my feet?"</p> + +<p>Miss Snow tittered.</p> + +<p>"If you want the honest truth, hon, it would make you look like a +feathered monkey."</p> + +<p>"If you want the honest truth about what you look like to me, +dearie—it's a plucked chicken!"</p> + +<p>"Tarb, I think you should apologize to Miss Snow!"</p> + +<p>"All right!" Tarb stuck out her tongue. Miss Snow promptly thrust out +hers in return.</p> + +<p>"Ladies, ladies!" Stet cried. "I think there has been a slight confusion +of folkways!" He quickly changed the subject. "Is that another letter +you have there, Tarb?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I didn't try to answer it. I thought you'd better have a look +at it first, since Miss Snow didn't seem to think much of the job I did +with the other one."</p> + +<p>"Miss Snow always has the <i>Times'</i> welfare at heart," Stet remarked +ambiguously, and read:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Chicago</i></p> + +<p><i>Dear Senbot Drosmig:</i></p> + +<p><i>I am employed as translator by the extraterrestrial division of +Burns and Deerhart, Inc., the well-known interstellar mail-order +house. As the company employs no other Fizbians and our offices are +situated in a small rural community where no others of our race +reside, I find myself rather lonely. Moreover, being a bachelor, +with neither chick nor child on Fizbus, I have nothing to look +forward to upon my return to the Home Planet some day.</i></p> + +<p><i>Accordingly, I decided to adopt a child to cheer my declining +years. I dispatched an interstellargram to a reliable orphanage on +Fizbus, outlining my hopes and requirements in some detail. After +they had satisfied themselves as to my income, strength of +character, etc., they sent me a fatherless and motherless egg in +cold storage, which I was supposed to hatch upon arrival.</i></p> + +<p><i>However, when the egg came to Earth, it was impounded by Customs. +They say it is forbidden to import extrasolar eggs. I have tried to +explain to them that it is not at all a question of importation but +of adoption; however, they cannot or will not understand.</i></p> + +<p><i>Please tell me what to do. I fear that they may not be keeping the +egg at the correct Fizbian freezing point—which, as you know, is a +good deal lower than Earth's. The fledgling may hatch by itself and +receive a traumatic shock that might very well damage its entire +psyche permanently.</i></p> + +<p><i>Frantically yours,</i></p> + +<p><i>Glibmus Gluyt</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>"Oh, for the stars' sake!" Stet exploded. "This is really too much! Viz +our consul, Miss Snow. That egg must go back to Fizbus at once, before +any Terrestrials hear of it! And I must notify the government back on +the Home Planet to keep a close check on all egg shipments. Something +like this must certainly not occur again."</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't the Terrestrials hear of it?" Tarb asked, outraged. "And +I think it's mean of you to send back a poor little orphan egg like that +when it has a chance of getting a good home."</p> + +<p>"An egg!" Miss Snow repeated incredulously. "You mean you really...?" +She gave me one mad little hoot of laughter and then stopped and +strangled slightly. Her face turned purple in her efforts to restrain +mirth. <i>Really</i>, Tarb thought, <i>she looks so much better that color</i>.</p> + +<p>Stet's crest twitched violently. "I hope—" he began. "I do hope you +will keep this ... knowledge to yourself, Miss Snow."</p> + +<p>"But of course," she assured him, calming down. "I'm dreadfully sorry I +was so rude. Naturally I wouldn't dream of telling a soul, Mr. Zarnon. +You can trust me."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I can, Miss Snow."</p> + +<p>Tarb almost choked with indignation. "You mean you've been keeping the +facts of our life from Terrestrials? As if they were fledglings ... no, +even fledglings are told these days."</p> + +<p>"One could hardly blame him for it, Miss Morfatch," Miss Snow said. "You +wouldn't want people to know that Fizbians laid eggs, would you?"</p> + +<p>"And why not?"</p> + +<p>"Tarb," Stet intervened, "you don't know what you're talking about."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't I? You're ashamed of the fact that we bear our children in a +clean, decent, honorable way instead of—" She stopped. "I'm being as +bad as you two are. Probably the Terrestrials' way of reproduction +doesn't seem dirty to them—but, since they do reproduce <i>that</i> way, +they could scarcely find our way objectionable!"</p> + +<p>"Tarb, that's not how a young girl should talk!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, go lay an egg!" she said, knowing that she had overstepped the +limits of propriety, but unable to let him get away with that. "I hope +to be a wife and mother some day," she added, "and I only hope that when +that time comes, I'll be able to lay good eggs."</p> + +<p>"Miss Morfatch," Stet said, keeping control of his temper with a visible +effort, "that will be enough from you. If common decency doesn't +restrain you, please remember that I am your employer and that <i>I</i> set +the policies on <i>my</i> paper. You'll do what you're told and keep a civil +tongue in your head or you'll be sent back to Fizbus. Do I make myself +clear?"</p> + +<p>"You do, indeed," Tarb said. How could she ever have thought he was +charming and handsome? Well, perhaps he still was handsome, but fine +feathers do not make fine deeds. And, if it came to that, it wasn't his +paper.</p> + +<p>"We have the same thing on Terra," Miss Snow murmured sympathetically to +Stet. "These young whippersnappers think they can start in running the +paper the very first day. Why, Belinda Romney herself—she's a distant +cousin of mine, you know—told me—"</p> + +<p>"Miss Snow," Tarb said, "I hope for the sake of Earth that you are not a +typical example of the Terrestrial species."</p> + +<p>"And you, hon," Miss Snow retorted, "don't belong on a paper, but in a +chicken coop."</p> + +<p>"Ladies!" Stet said helplessly. "Women," he muttered, "certainly do not +belong on a newspaper. Matter of fact, they don't belong anywhere; their +place is in the home only because there's nowhere else to put them."</p> + +<p>Both females glared at him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>During the next fortnight, Tarb gained fluency in Terran and also +learned to operate a Terrestrial typewriter equipped with Fizbian +type—mostly so that she could dispense with the services of the +invaluable Miss Snow. She didn't like typing, though—it chipped her +toenails and her temper. Besides, Drosmig kept complaining that the +noise prevented him from sleeping and she preferred him to sleep rather +than hang there making irrelevant and, sometimes, unpleasantly relevant +remarks.</p> + +<p>"Longing for the old scripto, eh?" one of the cameramen smiled as he +lounged in the open doorway of her office. Although she was fond of +fresh air, Tarb realized that she would have to keep the door shut from +now on. Too many of the younger members of the staff kept booing at her +as they passed, and now they had formed the habit of dropping in to +offer her advice, encouragement and invitations to meals. At first, the +attention had pleased her—but now she was much too busy to be bothered; +she was going to turn out acceptable answers to those letters or die +trying.</p> + +<p>"Well, if the power can't be converted, it can't," she said grimly. +"Griblo, I do wish you'd be a dear and flutter off. I—"</p> + +<p>He snorted. "Who says the power can't be converted? Stet, huh?"</p> + +<p>She took her feet off the keys and looked at him. "Why do you say 'Stet' +that way?"</p> + +<p>"Because that's a lot of birdseed he gives you about not being able to +convert Earth power. Could be done all right, but he and the consul have +it all fixed up to keep Fizbian technology off the planet. Consul's +probably being paid off by the International Association of +Manufacturers and Stet's in it for the preservation of indigenous +culture—and maybe a little cash, too. After all, those rare antique +collections of his cost money."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it!" Tarb snapped. "Griblo, please—I have so much work +to get through!"</p> + +<p>"Okay, chick, but I warn you, you're going to have your bright-eyed +illusions shattered. Why don't you wake up to the truth about +Stet? What you should do is maybe eschew the society of all journalists +entirely, and a sordid lot they are, and devote yourself to +photographers—splendid fellows, all."</p> + +<p>"Please shut the door behind you!"</p> + +<p>The door slammed.</p> + +<p>Tarb gazed disconsolately at the letter before her. Would she ever be +able to answer letters to Stet's satisfaction? The purpose of the whole +column was service—but did she and Stet mean the same thing by the same +word? Or, if they did, whom was Stet serving?</p> + +<p>She was paying too much attention to Griblo's idle remarks. Obviously he +was a sorehead—had some kind of grudge against Stet. Perhaps Stet was a +bit too autocratic, perhaps he had even gone native to some extent, but +you couldn't say anything worse about him than that. All in all, he +wasn't a bad bird and she mustn't let herself be influenced by +rumormongers like Griblo.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Tarb got up and took the letter to Stet. He was in his office dictating +to Miss Snow. <i>After all</i>, Tarb could not repress the ugly thought, <i>why +should he care about the scriptos? He'll never have to use a +typewriter.</i></p> + +<p>And he was perfectly nice about being interrupted. The only thing he +didn't like was being contradicted. <i>I'm getting bitter</i>, she told +herself in surprise. <i>And at my age, too. I wonder what I'll be like +when I'm old.</i></p> + +<p>This thought alarmed her and so she smiled very sweetly at Stet as she +murmured, "Would you mind reading this?" and gave him the letter.</p> + +<p>"Run into another little snag, eh?" he said affably, giving her foot a +gentle pat with his. "Well, let's see what we can do about it."</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Montreal</i></p> + +<p><i>Dear Senbot Drosmig:</i></p> + +<p><i>I am a chef at the Cafe Inter-stellaire, which, as everyone knows, +is one of the most chic eating establishments on this not very chic +planet. During my spare moments, I am a great amateur of the local +form of entertainment known as television. I am especially +fascinated by the native actress Ingeborg Swedenborg, who, in spite +of being a Terran, compares most favorably with our own Fizbian +footlight favorites.</i></p> + +<p><i>The other day, while I am in the kitchen engaged in preparing the +ragout celeste à la fizbe for which I am justly celebrated on nine +planets, I hear a stir outside in the dining room. I strain my +ears. I hear the cry, "It is Ingeborg Swedenborg!"</i></p> + +<p><i>I cannot help myself. I rush to the doorway. There, behold, the +incomparable Ingeborg herself! She follows the headwaiter to a +choice table. She is even more ravishing in real life than on the +screen. On her, it does not matter that she has no feathers save on +the head—even skin looks good. Overcome by involuntary ardor, I +boo at her. Whereupon I am violently assailed by a powerfully built +native whom I have not previously noticed to be escorting her.</i></p> + +<p><i>I am rescued before he can do me any permanent damage, though, if +you wish the truth, it will be a long time before I can fly again. +However, I am given notice by the cold-hearted management. Now I am +without a job. And what is more, if on this planet one is not +permitted to express one's instinctive and natural admiration for a +beautiful woman, then all I have to say is that it is a lousy +planet and I wiggle my toes at it. How do I go about getting +deported?</i></p> + +<p><i>Impatiently yours,</i></p> + +<p><i>Rajois Sludd</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>"Oh, I suppose it serves him right," Tarb said quickly, before Stet +could comment, "but don't you think it would be a good idea if the +<i>Times</i> got up a Fizbian-Terrestrial handbook of its own? It's the only +solution that I can see. The regular one, I recognize now, is more than +inadequate, with all that spiritual gup—" Miss Snow drew in her breath +sharply—"and not much else. All these problems are bound to arise again +and again. Frankly speaking, Stet, your solutions only take care of the +individual cases; they don't establish a sound intercultural basis."</p> + +<p>He grunted.</p> + +<p>"What's more," she went on eagerly, "we could not only give copies to +every Fizbian planning to visit Earth, but also print copies in Terran +for Terrestrials who are interested in learning more about Fizbus and +the Fizbians. In fact, all Terrans who come in contact with us should +have the book. It would help both races to understand each other so much +better and—"</p> + +<p>"Unnecessary!" Stet snapped, so violently that she stopped with her +mouth open. "The standard handbook is more than adequate. Whatever +limitations it may have are deliberate. Setting down in cold print all +that ... stuff you want to have included would make a point of things we +prefer not to stress. I wouldn't want to have the Terrestrials humor me +as if I were a fledgling or a foreigner."</p> + +<p>He leaped out of his chair and paced up and down the office. One would +think he had forgotten he ever could fly.</p> + +<p>"But you are a foreigner, Stet," Tarb said gently. "No matter what you +do or say, Terrestrials and Fizbians are—well, worlds apart."</p> + +<p>"Spiritually, I am much closer to the Terrestrials than—but you +wouldn't understand." He and Miss Snow nodded sympathetically at each +other. "And you might be interested to know that I happen to be the +author of all that 'spiritual gup.' I wrote the handbook—as a service +to Fizbus, I might point out. I wasn't paid for it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!" Tarb said. "Oh, <i>dear</i>! I really and truly am sorry, Stet."</p> + +<p>He brushed her apologies aside. "Answer that letter. Ignore the question +about deportation entirely." He ran a foot through his crest. "Just tell +the fellow to see our personnel manager. We could use a chef in the +company dining room. Haven't tasted a decent celestial ragout—at a +price I could afford—since I left Fizbus."</p> + +<p>"Would you want me to print that reply in the column?" she asked. "'If +you lose your job because you're unfamiliar with Terrestrial customs, +come to the <i>Times</i>. We'll give you another job at a much lower +salary.'"</p> + +<p>"Of course not! Send your answer directly to him. You don't think we put +any of those letters you've been answering in the column, do you? Or any +that come in at all, for that matter. I have to write all the letters +that are printed—and answer them myself."</p> + +<p>"I should have recognized the style," Tarb said. "So this is the service +the <i>Times</i> offers to its subscribers. Nothing that would be of help. +Nothing that could prevent other Fizbians from making the same mistake. +Nothing that could be controversial. Nothing that would help +Terrestrials to understand us. Nothing, in short, but a lot of +birdseed!"</p> + +<p>"Impertinence!" Miss Snow remarked. "You shouldn't let her talk to you +like that, Mr. Zarnon."</p> + +<p>"Tarb!" Stet roared, casting an impatient glance at Miss Snow. "How dare +you talk to me in that way? And all this is none of your business, +anyway."</p> + +<p>"I'm a Fizbian," she stated, "and it certainly is my business. I'm not +ashamed of having wings. I'm proud of them and sorry for people who +don't have them. And, by the stars, I'm going to fly. If skirts are +improper to wear for flying, then I can wear slacks. I saw them in a +Terrestrial fashion magazine and they're perfectly respectable."</p> + +<p>"Not for working hours," Miss Snow sniffed.</p> + +<p>"I have no intention of flying during working hours," Tarb snapped back. +"Even you should be able to see that the ceiling's much too low."</p> + +<p>Stet ran a foot through his crest again. "I hate to say this, Tarb, but +I don't feel you're the right person for this job. You mean well, I'm +sure, but you're too—too inflexible."</p> + +<p>"You mean I have principles," she retorted, "and you don't." Which +wasn't entirely true; he had principles—it was just that they were +unprincipled.</p> + +<p>"That will be enough, Tarb," he said sternly. "You'd better go now while +I think this over. I'd hate to send you back to Fizbus, because +I'd—well, I'd miss you. On the other hand...."</p> + +<p>Tarb went back to her office and drafted a long interstel to a cousin on +Fizbus, explaining what she would like for a birthday present. "And +send it special delivery," she concluded, "because I am having an urgent +and early birthday."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Tarb Morfatch!" Stet howled, a few months later. "What on Earth are you +doing?"</p> + +<p>"Dictating into my scripto," Tarb said cheerfully. "Some of the boys +from the print shop helped fix it up for me. They were very nice about +it, too, considering that the superscriptos will probably throw them out +of work. You know, Stet, Terrestrials can be quite decent people."</p> + +<p>"Where did you get that scripto?"</p> + +<p>"Cousin Mylfis sent it to me for my birthday. I must have complained +about wearing out my claws on a typewriter and he didn't understand that +scriptos won't work on Earth. Only they do." She beamed at her employer. +"All it needed was a transformer. I guess you're just not mechanically +minded, Stet."</p> + +<p>He clenched his feet. "Tarb, Terrestrials aren't ready for our +technology. You've done a very unwise thing in having that scripto sent +to you. And I've done a very unwise thing in keeping you here against my +better judgment."</p> + +<p>"Maybe the Terrestrials aren't ready," she said, ignoring his last +remark, "but I'm not going to wear my feet to the bone if I can get a +gadget that'll do the same thing with no expenditure of physical +energy." She placed a foot on his. "I don't see how a thing like this +could possibly corrupt the Terrestrials, Stet. It's made a better, +brighter girl out of me already."</p> + +<p>"Hear, hear!" said Drosmig hoarsely from his perch.</p> + +<p>"Shut up, Senbot. You just don't understand, Tarb. If you'll only—"</p> + +<p>"But I'm afraid I do understand, Stet. And I won't send my scripto +back."</p> + +<p>"May I come in?" Miss Snow tapped lightly on the door frame. "Is what I +hear true?"</p> + +<p>"About the scripto?" Tarb asked. "It certainly is. All you have to do is +talk into it and the words appear on the paper. Guess that makes you +obsolete, doesn't it, Miss Snow?"</p> + +<p>"And high time, too," commented Drosmig. "Never liked the old biddy."</p> + +<p>"Senbot...." Stet began, and stopped. "Oh, what's the use trying to talk +reasonably to either of you! Tarb, come back to my office with me."</p> + +<p>She could not refuse and so she followed. Miss Snow, torn between +curiosity and the scripto, hesitated and then made after them.</p> + +<p>"I've decided to take you off the column—for this morning, anyway—and +send you on an outside assignment," Stet told Tarb. "The consul's wife +is coming to Earth today. Once she heard there was another woman on +Terra, nothing could stop her. Consul seems to think it's my fault, +too," he added moodily. "Won't believe I had nothing to do with hiring +you. I told the Home Office not to send a woman, that she'd disrupt the +office, and you sure as hell have."</p> + +<p>"But I thought you said in your letters that you were doing everything +in your power to bring Fizbian womenfolk to their men on Terra!" Tarb +pointed out malevolently.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he confessed. "We must please our readers. You know that. Anyway, +all that's irrelevant right now. What I want you to do is go meet the +consul's wife. Nice touch, having the only other Fizbian woman here be +the one to interview her. Human interest angle for the Terrestrial +papers. Shouldn't be surprised if Solar Press picked it up—they like +items of that kind for fillers. Take Griblo along with you and make sure +he has film in his camera this time."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," Tarb said. "Anything you say, sir."</p> + +<p>He pretended not to notice her sarcasm. "I have a list of the questions +you should ask her." He fixed her with his eye. "You stick to them, do +you hear me? I don't want anything controversial." He rummaged among the +papers on his desk. "I know I had it half an hour ago. Sit down, will +you, Tarb? Stop hopping around."</p> + +<p>"If I can't have a perch, I want a stool," Tarb said. "This is a private +office and I think it's a gross affectation for you to have those silly, +uncomfortable chairs in it."</p> + +<p>"If you would have your wings clipped like Mr. Zarnon's—" Miss Snow +began before Stet could stop her.</p> + +<p>"Stet, you <i>didn't</i>!"</p> + +<p>His crest thrashed back and forth. "They'll grow back again and it's so +much more convenient this way. After all, I can't use them here and I do +have to associate with Terrestrials and use their equipment. The consul +has had his wings clipped also and so have several of our more prominent +industrialists—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>Stet</i>!" Tarb wailed. "I was beginning to think some pretty hard +things about you, but I wouldn't ever have dreamed you'd do anything as +awful as that!"</p> + +<p>"Why should I have to apologize to you?" he raged. "Who do you think you +are, anyway? You're an incompetent little fool. I should have fired you +that first day. I've let you get away with so much only because you have +a pretty face. You've only been on Earth a couple of months; how can you +presume to think you know what's good and what's bad for the Fizbians +here?"</p> + +<p>"I may not know what's good," she retorted, "but I certainly do know +what's bad. And that's you, Stet—you and everything you stand for. You +not only don't have the courage of your convictions, you don't even have +any convictions. You're ashamed of being a Fizbian, ashamed of anything +that makes Fizbians different from Terrestrials, even if it's something +better, something that most Terrans would like to have. You're a damned +hypocrite, Stet Zarnon, that's what you are—professing to help our +people when actually you're hurting them by trying to force them into +the mold of an alien species."</p> + +<p>She brushed back her crest. "I take it I'm fired," she said more +quietly. "Do you want me to interview the consul's wife first or leave +right away?"</p> + +<p>It took Stet a moment to bring his voice under control. "Interview her +first. We'll talk this over when you get back."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was pleasant to be away from the office, she thought as the taxi +pulled toward the airfield, and doing wingwork again, even if it proved +to be the first and last time on this planet. Griblo sat hunched in a +corner of the seat, too preoccupied with the camera, which, even after +two years, he hadn't fully mastered, to pay attention to her.</p> + +<p>Outside, it was raining, the kind of thin drizzle that, on Fizbus or +Earth, could go on for days. Tarb had brought along the native umbrella +she had purchased in the hotel gift shop—a delightful contraption that +was supposed to keep off the rain and didn't, and was supposed to +collapse and did, but at the wrong moments. She planned to take it back +with her when she returned to Fizbus. Approved souvenir or not, it was +the same beautiful purple as her eyes. And, besides, who had made the +ruling about approved souvenirs? Stet, of course.</p> + +<p>"No reason why we couldn't have autofax brought from Home," Griblo +suddenly grumbled.</p> + +<p>Tarb pulled herself back from her thoughts. "I suppose Stet wouldn't let +you," she said. "But now that one scripto's here," she went on somewhat +complacently, "he'll have to—"</p> + +<p>"Keep this planet charming and unspoiled, he says," Griblo interrupted +ungratefully. "Its spiritual values will be corrupted by too much +contact with a crass advanced technology. And, of course, he's got the +local camera manufacturers solidly behind him. I wonder whether they +advertise in the <i>Times</i> because he helps keep autofax off Terra or +whether he keeps the autofax off Terra because they advertise in the +<i>Times</i>."</p> + +<p>"But what does he care about advertising? He may talk as if he owned the +<i>Times</i>, but he doesn't."</p> + +<p>Griblo gave a nasty laugh. "No, he doesn't, but if the Terran edition +didn't show a profit, it'd fold quicker than you can flip your wings and +he'd have to go back to nasty old up-to-date Fizbus as a lowly +sub-editor. And he wouldn't like that one bit. Our Stet, as you may have +noticed, is fond of running things to suit himself."</p> + +<p>"But Mr. Grupe told me that the <i>Times</i> isn't interested in money. It's +running this edition of the paper only as a service to—oh, I suppose +all that was a lot of birdseed, too!"</p> + +<p>"Grupe!" Griblo snorted. "The sanctimonious old buzzard! He's a big +stockholder on the paper. Bet you didn't know that, did you? All they're +out for is money. Fizbian money, Terrestrial money—so long as it's +cash."</p> + +<p>"Tell me, Griblo," Tarb asked, "what does 'When in Rome, do as the +Romans do' mean?"</p> + +<p>Griblo grinned sourly. "Stet's favorite motto." He moved along the seat +closer to her. "I'll tell you what it means, chicken. When on Earth, +don't be a Fizbian."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The consul's wife, an old mauve creature, did not seem overpleased to +see Tarb, since the younger, prettier Fizbian definitely took the +spotlight away from her. The press had, of course, seen Tarb before, but +at that time they hadn't been able to communicate directly with her and +they didn't, she now found out, think nearly as much of Stet as he did +of them.</p> + +<p>Tarb couldn't attempt to deviate much from Stet's questions, for the +consul's wife was not very cooperative and the consul himself watched +both women narrowly. He was a good friend of Stet's, Tarb knew, and +apparently Stet had taken the other man into his confidence.</p> + +<p>When the interviews were over and the consular party had left, Tarb +remained to chat with the Terrestrial journalists. Despite Griblo's +worried objections, she joined them in the Moonfield Restaurant, where +she daringly partook of a cup of coffee and then another and another.</p> + +<p>After that, things weren't very clear. She dimly remembered the other +reporters assuring her that she shouldn't disfigure her lovely wings +with a stole ... and then pirouetting in the air over the bar to +prolonged applause ... and then she was in the taxi again with Griblo +shaking her.</p> + +<p>"Wake up, Tarb—we're almost at the office! Stet'll have me plucked for +this!"</p> + +<p>Tarb sat up and pushed her crest out of her eyes. The sky was growing +dark. They must have been gone a long time.</p> + +<p>"I'll never hear the end of this," Griblo moaned. "Why, if only he could +get someone to fill my place, Stet would fire me like a shot! Not that I +wouldn't quit if I could get another job."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it'll be mostly me he'll be mad at." Tarb pulled out her compact. +Stet had warned her not to polish her eyeballs in public, but the ground +with him! Her head hurt. And her feathers, she saw in the mirror, had +turned almost beige. She looked horrible. She felt horrible. And Stet +would probably think she was horrible.</p> + +<p>"When Stet's mad," Griblo prophesied darkly, "he's mad at <i>everybody</i>!"</p> + +<p>And Stet <i>was</i> mad. He was waiting in the newsroom, his emerald-blue +eyes blazing as if he had not only polished but lacquered them.</p> + +<p>"What's the idea of taking six hours to cover a simple story!" he +shouted as soon as the door began to open. "Aside from the trivial +matter of a deadline to be met—Griblo, <i>where's Tarb</i>? Nothing's +happened to her, has it?"</p> + +<p>"Naaah," Griblo said, unslinging his camera. "She took a short cut, +only she got held up by a terrace. Snagged her umbrella on it, I +believe. I heard her yelling when I was waiting for the elevator; +I didn't know nice girls knew language like that. She should be up +any minute now.... There she is."</p> + +<p>He pointed to a window, through which the lissome form of the young +feature writer could be seen, tapping on the glass in order to attract +attention.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus2" id="illus2"></a> +<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"Somebody better open it for her," the cameraman suggested. "Probably +not meant to open from the outside. Not many people come in that way, I +guess."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Open-mouthed, the whole newsroom stared at the window. Finally the Copy +Editor got up and let a dripping Tarb in.</p> + +<p>"Nearly thought I wouldn't make it," she observed, shaking herself in a +flurry of wet pink feathers. The rest of the staff ducked, most of them +too late. "Umbrella didn't do much good," she continued, closing it. It +left a little puddle on the rug. "My wings got soaked right away." She +tossed her wet crest out of her eyes. "Golly, but it's good to fly +again. Haven't done it for months, but it seems like years." Her eye +caught Miss Snow's. "You don't know what you're missing!"</p> + +<p>"Tarb," Stet thundered, "you've been drinking coffee! <i>Griblo!</i>" But the +cameraman had nimbly sought sanctuary in the dark-room.</p> + +<p>"You'd better go home, Tarb." When Stet's eye tufts met across his nose, +he was downright ugly, she realized. "Griblo can give me the dope and +I'll write up the story myself. I can fill it out with canned copy. And +you and I will discuss this situation in the morning."</p> + +<p>"Won't go home when there's work to be done. Duty calls me." Giving a +brief and quite recognizable imitation of a Terrestrial trumpet, Tarb +stalked down the corridor to her office.</p> + +<p>Drosmig looked up from his perch, to which he was still miraculously +clinging at that hour. "So it got you, too?... Sorry ... nice girl."</p> + +<p>"It hasn't got me," Tarb replied, picking up a letter marked <i>Urgent</i>. +"I've got it." She scanned the letter, then made hastily for Stet's +office.</p> + +<p>He sat drumming on his desk with the antique stainless steel spatula he +used as a paperknife.</p> + +<p>"Read this!" she demanded, thrusting the letter into his face. "Read +this, you traitor—sacrificing our whole civilization to what's most +expedient for you! Hypocrite! Cad!"</p> + +<p>"Tarb, listen to me! I'm—"</p> + +<p>"Read it!" She slapped the letter down in front of him. "Read it and see +what you've done to us! Sure, we Fizbians keep to ourselves and so the +only people who know anything about us are the ones who want to sell us +brushes, while the people who want to help us don't know a damn thing +about us and—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, all right! I'll read it if you'll only keep quiet!" He turned the +letter right-side up.</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Johannesburg</i></p> + +<p><i>Dear Senbot Drosmig:</i></p> + +<p><i>I represent the Dzoglian Publishing Company, Inc., of which I know +you have heard, since your paper has seen fit to give our books +some of the most unjust reviews on record. However, be that as it +may, I have opened an office on Earth with the laudable purpose of +effecting an interchange of respective literatures, to see which +Terrestrial books might most profitably be translated into Fizbian, +and which of the authors on our own list might have potential +appeal for the Earth reader.</i></p> + +<p><i>Dealing with authors is, of course, a nerve-racking business and I +soon found myself in dire need of mental treatment. What was my +horror to find that this primitive, although charming, planet had +no neurotones, no psychoscopes, not even any cerebrophones—in +fact, no psychiatric machines at all! The very knowledge of this +brought me several degrees closer to a breakdown.</i></p> + +<p><i>Perhaps I should have consulted you at this juncture, but I admit +I was a bit of a snob. "What sort of advice can a mere journalist +give me," I thought, "that I could not give myself?" So, more for +amusement than anything else, I determined to consult a native +practitioner. "After all," I said to myself, "a good laugh is a +step forward on the road to recovery."</i></p> + +<p><i>Accordingly, I went to see this native fellow. They work entirely +without machines, I understand, using something like witchcraft. At +the same time, I thought I might pick up some material for a jolly +little book on primitive customs which I could get some unknown +writer to throw together inexpensively. Strong human interest items +like that always have great reader-appeal.</i></p> + +<p><i>The native chap—doctor, he calls himself—was most cordial, +which he should have been at the price I was paying him. One thing +I must say about these natives—backward they may be, but they have +a very shrewd commercial sense. You can't even imagine the trouble +I had getting those authors to sign even remotely reasonable +contracts ... which in part accounts for my mental disturbance, +I suppose.</i></p> + +<p><i>Well, anyway, I handed the native a privacy waiver carefully +filled out in Terran. He took it, smiled and said, "We'll discuss +this afterward. My contact lenses have disappeared; I suppose one +of my patients has stolen them again. Can't see a thing without +them."</i></p> + +<p><i>So we sat down and had a bit of a chat. He seemed remarkably +intelligent for a native; never interrupted me once.</i></p> + +<p><i>"You are definitely in great trouble," he told me when I'd +finished. "You need to be psycho-analyzed."</i></p> + +<p><i>"Good, good," I said. "I see I've come to the right shop."</i></p> + +<p><i>"Now just lie down and make yourself comfortable."</i></p> + +<p><i>"Lie down?" I repeated, puzzled. I have an excellent command of +Terran, but every now and then an idiom will throw me. "I tell the +truth, sir, and when I am required by force of circumstances to +lie, I lie up."</i></p> + +<p><i>"No," he said, "not that kind of lying. You know, the kind you do +at night when you go to sleep."</i></p> + +<p><i>"Oh, I get you," I said idiomatically. Without further ado, I +flung off my ulster and flew up to a thingummy hanging from the +ceiling—chandelier, I believe, is the native term—flipped upside +down, and hung from it by my toes. Wasn't the Presidential Perch, +by any means, but it wasn't bad at all. "What do I do next?" I +inquired affably.</i></p> + +<p><i>"My dear fellow," the chap said, whipping out a notebook from the +recesses of his costume, "how long have you had this delusion that +you are a bird—or is it a bat?"</i></p> + +<p><i>"Sir," I said as haughtily as my position permitted, "I am neither +a bird nor a bat. I am a Fizbian. Surely you have heard of +Fizbians?"</i></p> + +<p><i>"Yes, yes, of course. They come from another country or planet or +something. Frankly, politics is a bit outside my sphere. All I'm +interested in is people—and Fizbians are people, aren't they?"</i></p> + +<p><i>"Yes, certainly. If anything, it's you who.... Yes, they are +people."</i></p> + +<p><i>"Well, tell me then, Mr. Liznig, when was it you first started +thinking you were a bat or a bird?"</i></p> + +<p><i>I tried to control myself. "I am neither a bird nor a bat! I am a +Fizbian! I have wings! See?" I fluttered them.</i></p> + +<p><i>He peered at me. "I wish I could," he said regretfully. "Without +my glasses, though, I'm as blind as a bat—or a bird."</i></p> + +<p><i>Well, the long and the short of it is that the natives are +planning to certify me as insane and incarcerate me, pending the +doctor's decision as to whether my delusion is that I am a bird or +a bat. They are using my privacy waiver as commitment papers.</i></p> + +<p><i>Save me, Senbot Drosmig, for I feel that if I have to wait for the +doctor's glasses to be delivered, I shall indeed go mad.</i></p> + +<p><i>Distractedly yours,</i></p> + +<p><i>Tgos Liznig</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>"I'll handle this myself," Stet said crisply. "I'll tell the consul to +advise the Terran State Department that this man should be deported as +an undesirable alien. That'll solve the problem neatly. We can't have +this contaminating the pure stream of Terrestrial literature with—"</p> + +<p>"But aren't you going to explain to them that he's perfectly sane?" Tarb +gasped.</p> + +<p>"No need to bother. He'll be grateful enough to get off the planet. +Besides, how do I know he is perfectly sane?"</p> + +<p>"Stet Zarnon, you're perfectly horrid!"</p> + +<p>"And you, Tarb Morfatch, are disgustingly drunk. Now you go right home +and sleep it off. I know I was too harsh with you—my fault for letting +you go out alone with Griblo in the first place when you've been here +only a few months. Might have known those Terran journalists would lead +you astray. Nice fellows, but irresponsible." He flicked out his tongue. +"There, I've apologized. Now will you go home?"</p> + +<p>"Home!" Tarb shrieked. "Home when there's work to be done and—"</p> + +<p>"—and you're not going to be the one to do it. Tarb," he said, +attempting to seize her foot, which she pulled away, "I was going to +tell you tomorrow, but you might as well know tonight. I've taken you +off the column for good. I have a better job for you."</p> + +<p>She looked at him. "A better job? Are you being sarcastic? What as?"</p> + +<p>"As my wife." He got up and came over to her. She stood still, almost +stunned. "That solves the whole problem tidily. An office is no place +for you, darling—you're really a simple home-girl at heart. Newspaper +work is too strenuous for you; it upsets you and makes you nervous and +irritable. I want you to stay home and take care of our house and hatch +our eggs—unostentatiously, of course."</p> + +<p>"Why, you—" she spluttered.</p> + +<p>He put his foot over her mouth. "Don't give me your answer now. You're +in no condition to think. Tell me tomorrow."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It rained all night and continued on into the morning. Tarb's head +ached, but she had to make an appearance at the office. First she vizzed +an acquaintance she had made the day before; then she took her umbrella +and set forth.</p> + +<p>As she kicked open the door to the newsroom, all sound ceased. Voices +stopped abruptly. Typewriters halted in mid-click. Even the roar of the +presses downstairs suddenly seemed to mute. Every head turned to look at +Tarb.</p> + +<p><i>Humph</i>, she thought, removing her plastic oversocks, <i>so suppose I was +a little oblique yesterday. They needn't stare at me. They never stare +at Drosmig. Just because I'm a woman, I suppose!</i> The gate crashed +loudly behind her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Miss Morfatch," Miss Snow called. "Mr. Zarnon said he wanted to +see you as soon as you came in. It's urgent." And she giggled.</p> + +<p>"Really?" Tarb said. "Well, he'll just have to wait until I've wrung out +my wings." Sooner or later, she would have to face Stet, but she wanted +to put it off as long as possible.</p> + +<p>She opened the door to her office and halted in amazement. For, seated +on a stool behind the desk, haggard but vertical, was Senbot Drosmig, +busily reading letters and blue-penciling comments on them with his +feet.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, my dear," he said, giving her a wan smile. "Surprised to +see me functioning again, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Well—yes." She opened her dripping umbrella mechanically and stood it +in a corner. "How—"</p> + +<p>"I realized last night that all that happened to you was my fault. You +were my responsibility and I failed you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't be melodramatic, Senbot. I wasn't your responsibility and you +didn't fail me. Not that I'm not glad to see you up and doing again, +but—"</p> + +<p>"But I did fail you!" the aged journalist insisted. "And, in the same +way, I failed my people. I shouldn't have given in. I should have fought +Zarnon as you, my dear, tried to do. But it isn't too late!" The fire of +the crusader lit up in his watery old eyes. "I can still fight him and +his sacred crows—his Earthlings! If I have to, I can go over his head +to Grupe. Grupe may not understand Stet's moral failings, but he +certainly will comprehend his commercial ones. Grupe owns stock in other +Fizbian enterprises besides the <i>Times</i>. Autofax, for example."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Senbot!" Tarb wailed. "The whole thing's such an awful mess!"</p> + +<p>"I don't think it'll be necessary to threaten that far," he comforted +her. "Stet is no fool. He knows which side of his breadnut is peeled."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure you'll do a wonderful job," she exclaimed, impulsively giving +a ritual <i>entrechat</i>. "And I wish I could stay and help you, but...."</p> + +<p>"I know, my dear."</p> + +<p>"You do?" She was puzzled. "But how did the news get around so quickly?"</p> + +<p>He shrugged. "The Terrestrial grapevine is almost as efficient as the +Fizbian. Didn't you notice any change in the—ah—atmosphere when you +came in?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, was that the reason?" Tarb laughed merrily. "Somehow it never +occurred to me that they could have heard so soon."</p> + +<p>"But the morning editions have been out for hours."</p> + +<p>The door to the office was flung open. Stet stormed in, bristling with a +most unloverlike rage.</p> + +<p>"Miss Morfatch—" he waved a crumpled copy of the <i>Terrestrial Tribune</i> +at her—"when I give an order, I expect to be obeyed! Didn't Miss Snow +tell you to report directly to my office the instant you came in? +Although that's a question I don't have to ask; I know Miss Snow, at +least, is someone I can trust."</p> + +<p>"I was coming to see you, Stet," Tarb said soothingly. "Right away."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you were, were you? And have you seen this?" Stet fairly threw the +paper at her. Smack in the middle of the front page was a picture of +herself in full flight over the airfield bar. Not a very good picture, +but what could you expect with Terrestrial equipment? When the autofax +came, perhaps she would be done justice.</p> + +<h4>FIZBIAN NEWSHEN GIVES EARTH A FLUTTER</h4> + +<h4>"Though No Mammal, I Pack a Lot of Uplift," Says Beautiful Fizbian +Gal Reporter</h4> + +<blockquote><p>"I feel that you Terrans and we Fizbians can get along much +better," lovely Tarb Morfatch, Fizbus <i>Times</i> feature writer, told +her fellow-reporters yesterday at the Moonfield Restaurant, "if we +learn to understand each other's differences as well as appreciate +our similarities.</p> + +<p>"With commerce between the two planets expanding as rapidly as it +has been," Miss Morfatch went on, "it becomes increasingly +important that we make sure there is no clash of mores between us. +Where adaptation is impossible, we must both adjust. 'When in Rome, +do as the Romans do' is an outmoded concept in the complex +interstellar civilization of today. The Romans must learn to accept +us as we are, and vice versa.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me if I've offended you by my frankness," she said, +sticking out her tongue in the charming gesture of apology that is +acquiring such a vogue on Earth, Belinda Romney and many other +socialites having enthusiastically adopted it, "but you've violated +our privacy so many times, I feel I'm entitled to hurt your +feelings just a teeny-weeny bit...."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Those Terran journalists," Tarb said admiringly. "Never miss a trick, +do they? Am I in all the other papers too, Stet? Same cheesecake?"</p> + +<p>"You've made an ovulating circus out of us—that's what you've done!"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense. Good strong human interest stuff; it'll make us lovable as +chicks all over the planet. Gee—" she read on—"did I say all that +while I was caffeinated? I ought to turn out some pretty terrific copy +sober."</p> + +<p>"And to think you, the woman I had asked to make my wife, did this to +me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right, Stet," Tarb said without looking up from the +paper. "I wasn't going to accept you, anyway."</p> + +<p>"Good for you, Tarb," Drosmig approved.</p> + +<p>"You're going back to Fizbus on the next liner—do you hear me?" Stet +raged.</p> + +<p>She smiled sunnily. "Oh, but I'm not, Stet. I'm going to stay right here +on Earth. I like it. You might say the spiritual aura got me."</p> + +<p>He snorted. "How can you possibly stay? You don't have an independent +income and this is an expensive planet. Besides, I won't let you stay on +Earth. I have considerable influence, you know!"</p> + +<p>"Poor Stet." She smiled at him again. "I'm afraid the Fizbian press—the +Fizbian consul even—are pretty small pullets beside the Solar Press +Syndicate. You see, I came in this morning only to resign."</p> + +<p>He stared at her.</p> + +<p>"Yesterday," she informed him, "I was offered another position—as +feature writer for the SP. I hadn't decided whether or not to accept +when I reported back last evening, but you made up my mind for me, so I +called them this morning and took the job. My work will be to explain +Fizbians to Terrans and Terrans to Fizbians—as I wanted to do for the +<i>Times</i>, Stet, only you wouldn't let me."</p> + +<p>"It's no use saying anything to you about loyalty, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"None whatsoever," she said. "I owe the <i>Times</i> no loyalty and I'm doing +what I do out of loyalty to Fizbus ... plus, of course, a much higher +salary."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad for you, Tarb," Drosmig said sincerely.</p> + +<p>"Be glad for yourself, Senbot, because Stet will have to let you conduct +the column your way from now on. Either it'll supplement my work in the +Terrestrial papers or he'll look like a fool. And you do hate looking +like a fool, don't you, Stet?"</p> + +<p>He didn't answer.</p> + +<p>"Better give up, Stet." She turned to Drosmig. "Well, good-by, +Senbot—or, rather, so long. I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again. +Good-by, Stet. No hard feelings, I hope?"</p> + +<p>He neither moved nor spoke.</p> + +<p>"Well ... good-by, then," she said.</p> + +<p>The door closed. Stet stared after her. The forgotten umbrella dripped +forlornly in the corner.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Helpfully Yours, by Evelyn E. 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Smith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Helpfully Yours + +Author: Evelyn E. Smith + +Illustrator: EMSH + +Release Date: March 14, 2010 [EBook #31644] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELPFULLY YOURS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + HELPFULLY YOURS + + By EVELYN E. SMITH + + Illustrated by EMSH + +[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction +February 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the +U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + + + +[Illustration] + +[Sidenote: _"Come down to Earth--and stay there!" is a humiliating order +for somebody with wings!_] + +Tarb Morfatch had read all the information on Terrestrial customs that +was available in the _Times_ morgue before she'd left Fizbus. And all +through the journey she'd studied her _Brief Introduction to Terrestrial +Manners and Mores_ avidly. Perhaps it was a bit overinspirational in +spots, but it had facts in it, too. + +So she knew that, since the natives were non-alate, she was not to take +wing on Earth. She had, however, forgotten to correlate the knowledge of +their winglessness with her own vertical habits. As a result, on leaving +the tender that had ferried her down from the Moon, she looked up +instead of right and narrowly escaped death at the jaws of a raging +groundcar that swerved out onto the field. + +She recognized it as a taxi from one of the pictures in the handbook. +It was a pity, she thought sadly as she was knocked off her feet, that +all those lessons she had so carefully learned were to go to waste. + +But it was only the wind of the car's passage that had thrown her down. +As she struggled to get up, hampered by her awkward native skirts, the +door of the taxi flew open. A tall young man--a Fizbian--burst out, the +soft yellowish-green down on his handsome face bristling with fright +until each feather stood out separately. + +"Miss Morfatch! Are you all right?" + +"Just--just a little shaky," she murmured, brushing dirt from her rosy +leg feathers. _Too young to be Drosmig; too good-looking to be anyone +important, she thought glumly. Must be the office boy._ + +To her surprise, he didn't help her up. Probably it would violate some +native taboo if he did, she deduced. The handbook hadn't mentioned +anything that seemed to apply, but, after all, a little book like that +couldn't cover everything. + + * * * * * + +She could see the young man was embarrassed--his emerald crest was +waving to and fro. + +"I'm Stet Zarnon," he introduced himself awkwardly. + +The Managing Editor! The handsome young employer of her girlish dreams! +But perhaps he had a wife on Fizbus--no, the Grand Editor made a point +of hiring people without families to use as a pretext for expensive +vacations on the Home Planet. + +As she opened her mouth to say something brilliantly witty, to show she +was no ordinary female but a creature of spirit and fire and +intelligence, a sudden cacophony of shrill cries and explosions arose, +accompanied by bursts of light. Her feathers stood erect and she clung +to her employer with both feathered legs. + +"If these are the friendly diplomatic relations Earth and Fizbus are +supposed to be enjoying," she said, "I'm not enjoying them one bit!" + +"They're only taking pictures of you with native equipment," he +explained, pulling away from her. What was the matter with him? "You're +the first Fizbian woman ever to come to Terra, you know." + +She certainly did know--and, what was more, she had made the semi-finals +for Miss Fizbus only the year before. Perhaps he had some Terrestrial +malady he didn't want her to catch. Or could it be that in the four +years he had spent in voluntary exile on this planet, he had come to +prefer the native females? Now it was her turn to shrink from him. + +He was conversing rapidly in Terran with the chattering natives who +milled about them. Although Tarb had been an honors student in Terran +back at school, she found herself unable to understand more than an +occasional word of what they said. Then she remembered that they were +not at the world capital, Ottawa, but another community, New York. +Undoubtedly they were all speaking some provincial dialect peculiar to +the locality. + +And nobody at all booed in appreciation, although, she told herself +sternly, she really couldn't have expected them to. Standards of beauty +were different in different solar systems. At least they were picking up +as souvenirs some of the feathers she'd shed in her tumble, which showed +they took an interest. + +Stet turned back to her. "These are fellow-members of the press." + +She was able to catch enough of what he said next in Terran to +understand that she was being formally introduced to the aboriginal +journalists. Although you could never call the natives attractive, with +their squat figures and curiously atrophied vestigial wings--_arms_, she +reminded herself--they were very Fizboid in appearance and, with their +winglessness cloaked, could have creditably passed for singed Fizbians. + +Moreover, they seemed friendly; at any rate, the sounds they uttered +were welcoming. She began to make the three ritual _entrechats_, but +Stat stopped her. "Just smile at them; that'll be enough." + +It didn't seem like enough, but he was the boss. + + * * * * * + +"Thank the stars we're through with that," he sighed, as they finally +were able to escape their confreres and get into the taxi. "I suppose," +he added, wriggling inside the clumsy Terrestrial jacket which, cut to +fit over his wings, did nothing either to improve his figure or to make +him look like a native, "it was as much of an ordeal for you as for me." + +"Well, I am a little bewildered by it all," Tarb admitted, settling +herself as comfortably as possible on the seat cushions. + +"No, don't do that!" he cried. "Here people don't crouch on seats. They +sit," he explained in a kindlier tone. "Like this." + +"You mean I have to bend myself in that clumsy way?" + +He nodded. "In public, at least." + +"But it's so hard on the wings. I'm losing feathers foot over claw." + +"Yes, but you could...." He stopped. "Well, anyhow, remember we have to +comply with local customs. You see, the Terrestrials have those things +called arms instead of legs. That is, they have legs, but they use them +only for walking." + +She sighed. "I'd read about the arms, but I had no idea the natives +would be so--so primitive as to actually use them." + +"Considering they had no wings, it was very clever of them to make use +of the vestigial appendages," he said hotly. "If you take their physical +limitations into account, they've done a marvelous job with their little +planet. They can't fly; they have very little sense of balance; their +vision is exceedingly poor--yet, in spite of all that, they have +achieved a quite remarkable degree of civilization." He gestured toward +the horizontal building arrangements visible through the window. "Why, +you could almost call those streets. As a matter of fact, the natives +do." + +At the moment, she could take an interest in Terrestrial civilization +only as it affected her personally. "But I'll be able to relax in the +office, won't I?" + +"To a certain extent," he replied cautiously. "You see, we have to use a +good deal of native help because--well, our facilities are limited...." + +"Oh," she said. + +Then she remembered that she was on Terra at least partly to demonstrate +the pluck of Fizbian femininity. Back on Fizbus, most of the _Times_ +executives had been dead set against having a woman sent out as +Drosmig's assistant. But Grupe, the Grand Editor, had overruled them. +"Time we broke with tradition," he had said. He'd felt she could do the +job, and, by the stars, she would justify his faith in her! + +"Sounds like rather a lark," she said hollowly. + +Stet brightened. "That's the girl!" His eyes, she noticed, were emerald +shading into turquoise, like his crest. "I certainly hope you'll like it +here. Very wise of Grupe to send a woman instead of a man, after all. +Women," he went on quickly, "are so much better at working up the human +interest angle. And Drosmig is out of commission most of the time, so +it's you who'll actually be in charge of 'Helpfully Yours.'" + +She herself in charge of the column that had achieved interstellar fame +in three short years! Basically, it had been designed to give guidance, +advice and, if necessary, comfort to those Fizbians who found themselves +living on Terra, for the Fizbus _Times_ had stood for public service +from time immemorial. As Grupe had put it, "We don't run this paper for +ourselves, Tarb, but for our readers. And the same applies to our +Terrestrial edition." + +With the growing development of trade and cultural relations between the +two planets, the Fizbians on Earth were an ever-increasing number. But +they were not the only readers of "Helpfully Yours." Reprinted in the +parent paper, it was read with edification and pleasure all over Fizbus. +Everyone wanted to learn more about the ancient and other-worldly Terran +culture. + +The handbook, _A Brief Introduction to Terrestrial Manners and Mores_, +owed much of its content to "Helpfully Yours." A grateful, almost +fulsome, introductory note had said so. But the column truly deserved +all the praise that had been lavished upon it by the handbook. How well +she had studied the thoughtful letters that filled it and the excellent +and well-reasoned advice--erring, if it erred at all, on the side of +overtolerance--that had been given in return. Of course, on Earth, +spiritual adjustment apparently was more important than the physical; +you could tell that from the questions that were asked. A number of the +letters had been reprinted in an appendix to the manual. + + _New York_ + + _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_ + + _When in contact with Terrestrial culture, I find myself constantly + overawed and weighed down by the knowledge of my own inadequacy. I + cannot seem to appreciate the local art forms as disseminated by + the juke box, the comic strip, the tabloid._ + + _How can I help myself toward a greater understanding?_ + + _Hopefully yours,_ + + _Gnurmis Plitt_ + + * * * * * + + Dear Mr. Plitt: + + Remember, Orkv was not excavated in a week. It took the + Terrestrials many centuries to develop their exquisite and esoteric + art forms. How can you expect to comprehend them in a few short + years? Expose yourself to their art. Work, study, meditate. + + Understanding will come, I promise you. + + Helpfully yours, + + Senbot Drosmig + + * * * * * + + _Paris_ + + Dear Senbot Drosmig: + + _To think that I am enjoying the benefits of Terra while my wife + and little ones are forced to remain on Fizbus makes my heart ache. + Surely it is not fair that I should have so much and they so + little. Imagine the inestimable advantage to the fledgling of even + a short contact with Terrestrial culture!_ + + _Why cannot my loved ones come to join me so that we can share all + these wonderful spiritual experiences and be enriched by them + together?_ + + _Poignantly yours,_ + + _Tpooly N'Ox_ + + * * * * * + + Dear Mr. N'Ox: + + After all, it has been only five years since Fizbian spaceships + first came into contact with Terra. In keeping with our usual + colonial policy--so inappropriate and anachronistic when applied to + a well-developed civilization like Terra's--at first only males are + allowed to go to the new world until it is made certain over a + period of years that the planet is safe for mothers and future + mothers of Fizbus. + + But Stet Zarnon himself, the celebrated and capable editor of the + Terran edition of _The Fizbus Times_, has taken up your cause, and + I promise you that eventually your loved ones will be able to join + you. + + Meanwhile, work, study, meditate. + + Helpfully yours, + + Senbot Drosmig + + * * * * * + + _Ottawa_ + + _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_ + + _Having just completed a two-year tour of duty on Earth as part of + a diplomatic mission, I am regretfully leaving this fair planet. + What books, what objects of art, what, in short, souvenirs shall I + take back to Fizbus which will give our people some small idea of + Earth's rich cultural heritage and, at the same time, serve as + useful and appropriate gifts for my friends and relatives back + Home?_ + + _Inquiringly yours,_ + + _Solgus Zagroot_ + + * * * * * + + Dear Mr. Zagroot: + + Take back nothing but your memories. They will be your best + souvenirs. + + Out of context, any other mementos might convey little, if + anything, of the true beauty and advanced spirituality of + Terrestrial culture, and you might cheapen them were you to use + them crassly as souvenirs. Furthermore, it is possible that you, in + your ignorance, might unwittingly select some items that give a + distorted and false idea of our extrafizbian friends. + + The Fizbian-Earth Cultural Commission, sponsored by _The Fizbian + Times_, in conjunction with the consulate, is preparing a vast + program of cultural interchange. Leave it to them to do the great + work, for you can be sure they will do it well. + + And be sure to tell your fellow-laborers in the diplomatic + vineyards that it is wiser not to send unapproved Terran souvenirs + back Home. They might cause a fatal misunderstanding between the + two worlds. Tell them to spend their time on Earth in working, + studying and meditating, rather than shopping. + + Helpfully yours, + + Senbot Drosmig + + * * * * * + +And now she--Tarb Morfatch--herself was going to be the guiding spirit +that brought enlightenment and uplift to countless thousands on Terra +and millions on Fizbus. Her name wouldn't appear on the columns, but the +reward of having helped should be enough. Besides, Drosmig was due to +retire soon. If she proved herself competent, she would take over the +column entirely and get the byline. Grupe had promised faithfully. + +But what, she wondered, had put Drosmig "out of commission"? + +The taxi drew up before a building with a vulgar number of floors +showing above ground. + +"Ah--before we--er--meet the others," Stet suggested, twitching his +crest, "I was wondering whether you would care to--er--have dinner with +me tonight?" + +This roused Tarb from her speculations. "Oh, I'd love to!" _A date with +the boss right away!_ + +Stet fumbled in his garments for appropriate tokens with which to pay +the driver. "You--you're not engaged or anything back Home, Miss +Morfatch?" + +"Why, no," she said. "It so happens that I'm not." + +"Splendid!" He made an abortive gesture with his leg, then let her get +out of the taxi by herself. "It makes the natives stare," he explained +abashedly. + +"But why shouldn't they?" she asked, wondering whether to laugh or not. +"How could they help but stare? We are different." _He must be joking._ +She ventured a smile. + +He smiled back, but made no reply. + +The pavement was hard under her thinly covered soles. Now that walking +looked as if it would present a problem, the ban on wing use loomed more +threateningly. She had, of course, walked before--on wet days when her +wings were waterlogged or in high winds or when she had surface +business. However, the sidewalks on Fizbus were soft and resilient. Now +she understood why the Terrestrials wore such crippling foot armor, but +that didn't make her feel any better about it. + +A box-shaped machine took the two Fizbians up to the twentieth story in +twice the time it would have taken them to fly the same distance. Tarb +supposed that the offices were in an attic instead of a basement because +exchange difficulties forced the _Times_ to such economy. She wondered +ruefully whether her own expense account would also suffer. + +But it was no time to worry about such sordid matters; most important +right now was making a favorable impression on her co-workers. She did +want them to like her. + +Taking out her compact, she carefully polished her eyeballs. The man at +the controls of the machine practically performed a ritual _entrechat_. + +"Don't do that!" Stet ordered in a harsh whisper. + +"But why not?" she asked, unable to restrain a trace of belligerence +from her voice. He hadn't been very polite himself. "The handbook said +respectable Terran women make up in public. Why shouldn't I?" + +He sighed. "It'll take time for you to catch on, I suppose. There's a +lot the handbook doesn't--can't--cover. You'll find the setup here +rather different from on Fizbus," he went on as he kicked open the door +neatly lettered _THE FIZBUS TIMES_ in both Fizbian and Terran. "We've +found it expedient to follow the local newspaper practice. For +instance--" he indicated a small green-feathered man seated at a desk +just beyond the railing that bisected the room horizontally--"we have a +Copy Editor." + +"What does he do?" she asked, confused. + +"He copies news from the other papers, of course." + +"And what are _you_ doing tonight, Miss Morfatch?" the Copy Editor +asked, springing up from his desk to execute the three ritual entrechats +with somewhat more verve than was absolutely necessary. + +"Having dinner with me," Stet said quickly. + +"Pulling rank, eh, old bird? Well, we'll see whether position or +sterling worth will win out in the end." + +As the rest of the staff crowded around Tarb, leaping and booing as +appreciatively as any girl could want, she managed to snatch a rapid +look around. The place wasn't really so very much different from a +Fizbian newsroom, once she got over the oddity of going across, not up +and down, with the desks--queerly shaped but undeniably desks--arranged +side by side instead of one over the other. There were chairs and +stools, no perches, but that was to be expected in a wingless society. +And it was noisy. Even though the little machines had stopped clattering +when she came in, a distant roaring continued, as if, concealed +somewhere close by, larger, more sinister machines continued their work. +A peculiar smell hung in the air--not unpleasant, exactly, but strange. + +She sniffed inquiringly. + +"Ink," Stet said. + +"What's that?" + +"Oh, some stuff the boys in the back shop use. The feature writers," he +went on quickly, before she could ask what the "back shop" was, "have +private offices where they can perch in comfort." + +He led the way down a corridor, opening doors. "Our drama editor." He +indicated a middle-aged man with faded blue feathers, who hung head +downward from his perch. "On the lobster-trick last night writing a +review, so he's catching fifty-one twinkles now." + +"Enchanted, Miss Morfatch," the critic said, opening one bright eye. "By +a curious chance, it so happens that tonight I have two tickets to--" + +"Tonight she's going out with me." + +"Well, I can get tickets to any play, any night. And you haven't laughed +unless you've seen a Terrestrial drama. Just say the word, chick." + +Stet got Tarb out of the office and slammed the door shut. "Over here is +the office of our food editor," he said, breathing hard, "whom you'll be +expected to give a claw to now and then, since your jobs overlap. Can't +introduce you to him right now, though, because he's in the hospital +with ptomaine poisoning. And this is the office you'll share with +Drosmig." + +Stet opened the door. + +Underneath the perch, Senbot Drosmig, dean of Fizbian journalists, lay +on the rug in a sodden stupor, letters to the editor scattered thickly +over his shriveled person. The whole room reeked unmistakably of +caffeine. + +Tarb shrank back and twined both feet around Stet's. This time he did +not repulse her. "But how can a--an educated, cultured man like Senbot +Drosmig sink to such depths?" + +"It's hard for anyone with even the slightest inclination toward the +stuff to resist it here," Stet replied somberly. "I can't deny it; the +sale of caffeine is absolutely unrestricted on Earth. Coffee shops all +over the place. Coffee served freely at even the best homes. And not +only coffee ... caffeine is insiduously present in other of their +popular beverages." + +Her eyes bulged sideways. "But how can a so-called civilized people be +so depraved?" + +"Caffeine doesn't seem to affect them the way it does us. Their nervous +systems are so very uncomplicated, one almost envies them." + +Drosmig stirred restlessly under his blanket of correspondence. "Go +back ... Fizbus," he muttered. "Warn you ... 'fore ... too late ... like +me." + +Tarb's rose-pink feathers stood on end. She looked apprehensively at +Stet. + +"Senbot can't go back because he's in no shape to take the interstel +drive." The young editor was obviously annoyed. "He's old and he's a +physical wreck. But that certainly doesn't apply to you, Miss Morfatch." +He looked long and hard into her eyes. + +"Few years on planet," Drosmig groaned, struggling to his wings, "'ply +to anybody." + +His feathers, Tarb noticed, were an ugly, darkish brown. She had never +seen any one that color before, but she'd heard rumors that too much +caffeine could do that to you. At least she hoped it was only the +caffeine. + +"For your information, he was almost as bad as this when he came!" Stet +snapped. "Frankly, that's why he was sent here--to get rid of his +unfortunate addiction. Grupe had no idea, when he assigned him to Earth, +that there was caffeine on the planet." + +The old man gave a sardonic laugh as he clumsily made his way to the +perch and gripped it with quivering toes. + +"That is, I don't _think_ he knew," Stet said dubiously. + +Tarb reached over and picked a letter off the floor. The Fizbian +characters were clumsy and ill-made, as if someone had formed them with +his feet. Could there be such poverty here that individuals existed who +could not afford a scripto? The letter didn't read like any that had +ever been printed in the column--at least none that had been picked up +in the Fizbus edition: + + * * * * * + + _New York_ + + _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_ + + _I am a subaltern clerk in the shipping department of the FizbEarth + Trading Company, Inc. Although I have held this post for only three + months, I have already won the respect and esteem of my superiors + through my diligence and good character. My habits are exemplary: I + do not gamble, sing, or take caffeine._ + + _Earlier today, while engaged in evening meditation at my modest + apartments, I was aroused by a peremptory knock at the door. I + flung it open. A native stood there with a small case in his hand._ + + _"Is the house on fire?" I asked, wondering which of my few humble + possessions I should rescue first._ + + _"No," he said. "I would like to interest you in some brushes."_ + + _"Are the offices of the FizbEarth Trading Company, Inc., on + fire?"_ + + _"Not to my knowledge," he replied, opening his case. "Now I have + here a very nice hairbrush--"_ + + _I wanted to give him every chance. "Have you come to tell me of + any disaster relative to the FizbEarth Trading Company, to myself, + or to anyone or anything else with whom or with which I am + connected?"_ + + _"Why, no," he said. "I have come to sell you brushes. Now here is + a little number I know you'll like. My company developed it with + you folks specially in mind. It's--"_ + + _"Do you know, sir, that you have wantonly interrupted me in the + midst of my meditations, which constitutes an established act of + privacy violation?"_ + + _"Is that a fact? Now this little item is particularly designed for + brushing the wings--"_ + + _At that point, I knocked him down and punched him into + insensibility with my feet. Then I summoned the police. To my + surprise, they arrested me instead of him._ + + _I am writing this letter from jail. I do not like to ask my + employers to get me out because, even though I am innocent, you + know how a thing like this can leave a smudge on the record._ + + _What shall I do?_ + + _Anxiously yours,_ + + _Fruzmus Bloxx_ + + * * * * * + +"What should he do?" Tarb asked, handing Stet the paper. "Or is the +question academic by now? The letter's five days old." + +Stet sighed. "I'll find out whether the consulate has been notified. +Native police usually do that, you know. Very thoughtful fellows. If +this Bloxx hasn't been bailed out already, I'll see that he is." + +"But how will we answer his letter? Advise him to sue for false arrest?" + +Stet smiled. "But he has no grounds for false arrest. He is guilty of +assault. The native was entirely within his rights in trying to sell him +a brush. Now--" he put out a foot--"brace yourself. Privacy violation is +not a crime on Terra. It is perfectly legal. In fact, it does not exist +as such!" + +At that point, everything went maroon. + +When Tarb came to, she found herself lying upon Drosmig's desk. A +skin-faced native woman was offering her water and clucking. + +"Are you all right, Tarb--Miss Morfatch?" Stet demanded anxiously. + +"Yes. I--I think so," she murmured, raising herself to a crouch. + +"Better ... have died," Drosmig groaned from his perch. "Fate +worse ... death ... awaits you." + +Tarb tried to smile. "Sorry to have been so much trouble." She stuck out +her tongue at both Stet and the native. + +The woman drew in her breath. + +"Miss Morfatch," Stet reminded Tarb, "sticking out the tongue is not an +apology on Terra; it is an insult. Fortunately, Miss Snow happens to be +perhaps the only Terran who would not be offended. She has become +thoroughly acquainted with us and our odd little customs. She even--" he +beamed at the Terran female--"has learned to speak our language." + +"Hail to thee, O visitor from the stars," Miss Snow said in Fizbian. +"May thy sojourn upon Earth be an incessant delight and may peace and +plenty shower their gifts in abundance upon thee." + +Tarb put her hand to her aching head. "I'm very glad to meet you," she +said, glad she did not have to get up to make the ritual _entrechats_. + +"Miss Snow is my right foot," Stet said, "but I'm going to be noble and +let her act as your secretary until you can learn to operate a +typewriter." + +"Secretary? Typewriter?" + +"Well, you see, there are no scriptos or superscriptos on Earth and we +can't import any from Home because the natives--" Miss Snow +smiled--"don't have the right kind of power here to run psychic +installations. All prosifying has to be done directly on prosifying +machines or--" he paused--"by foot." + +"Catch her!" Miss Snow exclaimed in Terran. + +Everything had gone maroon for Tarb again. As she fell, she could hear a +sudden thump. It was, she later discovered, Drosmig falling off his +perch again--the result of insecure grip, she was given to understand, +rather than excessive empathy. + + * * * * * + +"I didn't mean, of course, to give you the impression that we actually +produce the individual copies of the papers ourselves," Stet explained +over the dinner table that night. "We have native printers who do that. +They've turned out some really remarkable Fizbian type fonts." "Very +clever of them," Tarb said, knowing that was what she was expected to +say. She glanced around the restaurant. In their low-cut evening +garments, the Terrestrial females looked much less Fizboid than they had +during the day. All that naked-looking skin; one would think they'd want +to cover it. Probably they were sick with jealousy of her beautiful +rose-colored down--what they could see of it, anyway. + +"Of course, our real problem is getting proofreaders. The proofing +machines won't operate here either, of course, and so we need human +personnel. But what Fizbian would do such degrading work? We had thought +of convict labor, but--" + +"Why mustn't I take off my wrap?" Tarb interrupted. "No one else is +wearing one." + +Stet coughed. "You'll feel much less self-conscious about your wings if +you keep it on. And try not to use your feet so conspicuously. I'm sure +everyone understands you need them to eat with, but--" + +"But I'm not in the least self-conscious about my wings. On Fizbus, they +were considered rather nice-looking, if I do say so myself." + +"It's better," he said firmly, "not to emphasize the differences between +the natives and ourselves. You didn't object to wearing a Terrestrial +costume, did you?" + +"No, I realize I must make some concessions to native prudery, but--" + +"Matter of fact, I've been thinking it would be a good idea for you to +wear a stole or a cape or something in the daytime when you go to and +from the office. You wouldn't want to make yourself or the _Times_ +conspicuous, I'm sure.... No, waiter, no coffee. We'll take champagne." + +"I want to try coffee," Tarb said mutinously. "Champagne! You'd think I +was a fledgling, giving me that bubbly stuff!" + +He looked at her. "Now don't be silly, Miss Morfatch ... Tarb. I can't +let you indulge in such rash experiments. You realize I am responsible +for you." + +Tarb muttered darkly into her _coupe maison_. + +Stet raised his eyebrows. "What did you say?" + +"I was only wondering whether you'd remembered to check on whether that +young man--Bloxx--ever did get out of jail." + +Stet snapped his toes. "Glad you reminded me. Completely slipped my +mind. Let's go and see what happened to him, shall we?" + + * * * * * + +As they rose to leave, a dumpy Earthwoman rushed up to them, +enthusiastically babbling in Terran. Seizing Tarb's foot, she clung to +it before the Fizbian girl could do anything to prevent her. Tarb had to +spread her wings wide to retain her balance. Her cloak flew off and an +adjoining table of diners disappeared beneath it. + +[Illustration] + +Stet and the headwaiter rushed to the rescue with profuse apologies, +Stet's crest undulating as if it concealed a nest of snakes. But Tarb +was too much frightened to be calmed. + +"Is this a hostile attack?" she shrieked frantically at Stet. "Because +the handbook never said shaking feet was an Earth custom!" + +"No, no, she's a friend!" Stet yelled, leaving the diners still +struggling with the cloak as he sped back to her. "And shaking feet +isn't an Earth custom; she thinks it's a Fizbian one. You see.... Oh, +hell, never mind--I'll explain the whole thing to you later. But she's +just greeting you, trying to put you at your ease. It's Belinda Romney, +a very important Terrestrial. She owns the Solar Press--you must have +heard of it even on Fizbus--biggest news service on the planet. +Absolutely wouldn't do to offend her. Mrs. Romney, may I present Miss +Morfatch?" + +The woman beamed and continued to gush endlessly. + +"Tell her to let go my foot!" Tarb demanded. "It's getting so it feels +carbonated." + +He smiled deprecatingly. "Now, Tarb, we mustn't be rude--" + +For the first time in her life, Tarb spoke Terran to a Terrestrial. She +formed the words slowly and carefully: "Sorry we must leave, but we have +to go to jail." + +She looked to Stet for approval ... and didn't get it. He started to +explain something quickly to the woman. Every time she'd heard him speak +Terran, Tarb thought, he seemed to be introducing, explaining or +apologizing. + +It turned out that, through some oversight, the usually thoughtful +Terran police department had neglected to inform the Fizbian consul that +one of his people had been incarcerated, for the young man had already +been tried, found guilty of assault plus contempt of court, and +sentenced to pay a large fine. However, after Stet had given his version +of the circumstances to a sympathetic judge, the sum was reduced to a +nominal one, which the _Times_ paid. + +"But I don't see why you should have paid anything at all," Bloxx +protested ungratefully. "I didn't do anything wrong. You should have +made an issue of it." + +"According to Earth laws, you did do wrong," Stet said wearily, "and +this is Earth. What's more, if we take the matter up, it will naturally +get into print. You don't want your employers to hear about it, do +you--even if you don't care about making Fizbians look ridiculous to +Terrestrials?" + +"I suppose I wouldn't like FizbEarth to find out," Bloxx conceded. "As +it is, I'll have to do some fast explaining to account for my not having +shown up for nearly a week. I'll say I caught some horrible Earth +disease--that'll scare them so much, they'll probably beg me to take +another week off. Though I do wish you fellows over at the _Times_ would +answer your mail sooner. I'm a regular subscriber, you know." + + * * * * * + +"But the same kind of thing's going to happen over and over again, isn't +it, Stet?" Tarb asked as a taxi took them back to the hotel in which +most of the _Times_ staff was domiciled. "If privacy doesn't exist on +Earth, it's bound to keep occurring." + +"Eh?" Stet took his attention away from her toes with some difficulty. +"Some Earth people like privacy, too, but they have to fight for it. +Violations aren't legally punishable--that's the only difference." + +"Then surely the Terrestrials would understand about us, wouldn't they?" +she asked eagerly. "If they knew how strongly we felt about privacy, +maybe they wouldn't violate it--not as much, anyway. I'm sure they're +not vicious, just ignorant. And you can't just keep on getting Fizbians +out of jail each time they run up against the problem. It would be too +expensive, for one thing." + +"Don't worry," he said, pressing her toes. "I'll take care of the whole +thing." + +"An article in the paper wouldn't really help much," she persisted +thoughtfully, "and I suppose you must have run at least one already. It +would explain to the Fizbians that Terrestrials don't regard invasion of +privacy as a crime, but it wouldn't tell the Terrestrials that Fizbians +do. We'll have to think of--" + +"You're surely not going to tell me how to run my paper on your first +day here, are you?" + +He tried to take the sting out of his words by twining his toes around +hers, but she felt guilty. She had been presumptuous. Probably there +were lots of things she couldn't understand yet--like why she shouldn't +polish her eyeballs in public. Stet had finally explained to her that, +while Terrestrial women did make up in public, they didn't scour their +irises, ever, and would be startled and horrified to see someone else +doing so. + +"But I was horrified to see them raking their feathers in public!" Tarb +had contended. + +"Combing their hair, my dear. And why not? This is their planet." + +That was always his answer. _I wonder_, she speculated, _whether he +would expect a Terrestrial visitor to Fizbus to fly ... because, after +all, Fizbus is our planet._ But she didn't dare broach the question. + +However, if it was presumptuous of her to make helpful suggestions the +first day, it was more than presumptuous of Stet to ask her up to his +rooms to see his collection of rare early twentieth-century Terrestrial +milk bottles and other antiques. So she just told him courteously that +she was tired and wanted to go to roost. And, since the hotel had a +whole section fitted up to suit Fizbian requirements, she spent a more +comfortable night than she had expected. + +She awoke the next day full of enthusiasm and ready to start in on the +great work at once. Although she might have been a little too forward +the previous night, she knew, as she took a reassuring glance in the +mirror, that Stet would forgive her. + + * * * * * + +In the office, she was, at first, somewhat self-conscious about Drosmig, +who hung insecurely from his perch muttering to himself, but she soon +forgot him in her preoccupation with duty. The first letter she picked +up--although again oddly unlike the ones she'd read in the paper on +Fizbus--seemed so simple that she felt she would have no difficulty in +answering it all by herself: + + _Heidelberg_ + + _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_ + + _I am a professor of Fizbian History at a local university. Since + my salary is a small one, owing to the small esteem in which the + natives hold culture, I must economize wherever I can in order to + make both ends meet. Accordingly, I do my own cooking and shop at + the self-service supermarket around the corner, where I have found + that prices are lower than in the service groceries and the food no + worse._ + + _However, the manager and a number of the customers have objected + to my shopping with my feet. They don't so much mind my taking + packages off the shelves with them, but they have been quite + vociferous on the subject of my pinching the fruit with my toes. + Unripe fruit, however, makes me ill. What shall I do?_ + + _Sincerely yours,_ + + _Grez B'Groot_ + +Tarb dictated an unhesitating reply: + + Dear Professor B'Groot: + + Why don't you explain to the manager of the store that Fizbians + have wings and feet rather than arms and hands? + + I'm sure his attitude and the attitudes of his customers will + change when they learn that your pinching the fruit with your feet + is not mere pedagogical eccentricity, but the regular practice on + our planet. Point out to him that your feet are covered and, + therefore, more sanitary than the bare hands of his other + customers. + + And always put on clean socks before you go shopping. + + Helpfully yours, + + Senbot Drosmig + +Miss Snow raised pale eyebrows. + +"Is something wrong?" Tarb asked anxiously. "Should I have put in that +bit about work, study, meditate? It seems inappropriate somehow." + +"Oh, no, not that. It's just that your letter--well, violates Mr. +Zarnon's precept that, in Rome, one must do as the Romans do." + +"But this isn't Rome," Tarb replied, bewildered. "It's New York." + +"He didn't make the saying up," Miss Snow replied testily. "It's a +Terrestrial proverb." + +"Oh," Tarb said. + +She resented this creature's trying to tell her how to do her job. On +the other hand, Tarb was wise enough to realize that Miss Snow, +unpleasant though she might be, probably did know Stet well enough to be +able to predict his reactions. + +So Tarb not only was reluctant to show Stet what she had already done, +but hesitated about answering another and even more urgent letter that +had just been brought in by special messenger. She tried to compromise +by submitting the letters to Drosmig--for, technically speaking, it was +he who was her immediate superior--but he merely groaned, "Tell 'em all +to drop dead," from his perch and refused to open his eyes. + +In the end, Tarb had to take the letters to Stet's office. Miss Snow +trailed along behind her, uninvited. And, since this was a place of +business, Tarb could not claim a privacy violation. Even if it weren't a +place of business, she remembered, she couldn't--not here on Earth. +Advanced spirituality, hah! + +Advanced pain in the pinions! + +Stet read the first letter and her answer smilingly. "Excellent, Tarb--" +her hearts leaped--"for a first try, but I'd like to suggest a few +changes, if I may." + +"Well, of course," she said, pretending not to notice the smirk on Miss +Snow's face. + +"Just write this Professor B'Goot that he should do his shopping at a +grocery that offers service and practice his economies elsewhere. A +professor, of all people, is expected to uphold the dignity of his own +race--the idea, sneering at a culture that was thousands of years old +when we were still building nests! Terrestrials couldn't possibly have +any respect for him if they saw him prodding kumquats with his toes." + +"It's no sillier than writing with one's vestigial wings!" Tarb blazed. + +"Well!" Miss Snow exclaimed in Terran. "Well, _really_!" + +Tarb started to stick out her tongue, then remembered. "I didn't mean to +offend you, Miss Snow. I know it's your custom. But wouldn't you +understand if I typewrote with my feet?" + +Miss Snow tittered. + +"If you want the honest truth, hon, it would make you look like a +feathered monkey." + +"If you want the honest truth about what you look like to me, +dearie--it's a plucked chicken!" + +"Tarb, I think you should apologize to Miss Snow!" + +"All right!" Tarb stuck out her tongue. Miss Snow promptly thrust out +hers in return. + +"Ladies, ladies!" Stet cried. "I think there has been a slight confusion +of folkways!" He quickly changed the subject. "Is that another letter +you have there, Tarb?" + +"Yes, but I didn't try to answer it. I thought you'd better have a look +at it first, since Miss Snow didn't seem to think much of the job I did +with the other one." + +"Miss Snow always has the _Times'_ welfare at heart," Stet remarked +ambiguously, and read: + + _Chicago_ + + _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_ + + _I am employed as translator by the extraterrestrial division of + Burns and Deerhart, Inc., the well-known interstellar mail-order + house. As the company employs no other Fizbians and our offices are + situated in a small rural community where no others of our race + reside, I find myself rather lonely. Moreover, being a bachelor, + with neither chick nor child on Fizbus, I have nothing to look + forward to upon my return to the Home Planet some day._ + + _Accordingly, I decided to adopt a child to cheer my declining + years. I dispatched an interstellargram to a reliable orphanage on + Fizbus, outlining my hopes and requirements in some detail. After + they had satisfied themselves as to my income, strength of + character, etc., they sent me a fatherless and motherless egg in + cold storage, which I was supposed to hatch upon arrival._ + + _However, when the egg came to Earth, it was impounded by Customs. + They say it is forbidden to import extrasolar eggs. I have tried to + explain to them that it is not at all a question of importation but + of adoption; however, they cannot or will not understand._ + + _Please tell me what to do. I fear that they may not be keeping the + egg at the correct Fizbian freezing point--which, as you know, is a + good deal lower than Earth's. The fledgling may hatch by itself and + receive a traumatic shock that might very well damage its entire + psyche permanently._ + + _Frantically yours,_ + + _Glibmus Gluyt_ + +"Oh, for the stars' sake!" Stet exploded. "This is really too much! Viz +our consul, Miss Snow. That egg must go back to Fizbus at once, before +any Terrestrials hear of it! And I must notify the government back on +the Home Planet to keep a close check on all egg shipments. Something +like this must certainly not occur again." + +"Why shouldn't the Terrestrials hear of it?" Tarb asked, outraged. "And +I think it's mean of you to send back a poor little orphan egg like that +when it has a chance of getting a good home." + +"An egg!" Miss Snow repeated incredulously. "You mean you really...?" +She gave me one mad little hoot of laughter and then stopped and +strangled slightly. Her face turned purple in her efforts to restrain +mirth. _Really_, Tarb thought, _she looks so much better that color_. + +Stet's crest twitched violently. "I hope--" he began. "I do hope you +will keep this ... knowledge to yourself, Miss Snow." + +"But of course," she assured him, calming down. "I'm dreadfully sorry I +was so rude. Naturally I wouldn't dream of telling a soul, Mr. Zarnon. +You can trust me." + +"I'm sure I can, Miss Snow." + +Tarb almost choked with indignation. "You mean you've been keeping the +facts of our life from Terrestrials? As if they were fledglings ... no, +even fledglings are told these days." + +"One could hardly blame him for it, Miss Morfatch," Miss Snow said. "You +wouldn't want people to know that Fizbians laid eggs, would you?" + +"And why not?" + +"Tarb," Stet intervened, "you don't know what you're talking about." + +"Oh, don't I? You're ashamed of the fact that we bear our children in a +clean, decent, honorable way instead of--" She stopped. "I'm being as +bad as you two are. Probably the Terrestrials' way of reproduction +doesn't seem dirty to them--but, since they do reproduce _that_ way, +they could scarcely find our way objectionable!" + +"Tarb, that's not how a young girl should talk!" + +"Oh, go lay an egg!" she said, knowing that she had overstepped the +limits of propriety, but unable to let him get away with that. "I hope +to be a wife and mother some day," she added, "and I only hope that when +that time comes, I'll be able to lay good eggs." + +"Miss Morfatch," Stet said, keeping control of his temper with a visible +effort, "that will be enough from you. If common decency doesn't +restrain you, please remember that I am your employer and that _I_ set +the policies on _my_ paper. You'll do what you're told and keep a civil +tongue in your head or you'll be sent back to Fizbus. Do I make myself +clear?" + +"You do, indeed," Tarb said. How could she ever have thought he was +charming and handsome? Well, perhaps he still was handsome, but fine +feathers do not make fine deeds. And, if it came to that, it wasn't his +paper. + +"We have the same thing on Terra," Miss Snow murmured sympathetically to +Stet. "These young whippersnappers think they can start in running the +paper the very first day. Why, Belinda Romney herself--she's a distant +cousin of mine, you know--told me--" + +"Miss Snow," Tarb said, "I hope for the sake of Earth that you are not a +typical example of the Terrestrial species." + +"And you, hon," Miss Snow retorted, "don't belong on a paper, but in a +chicken coop." + +"Ladies!" Stet said helplessly. "Women," he muttered, "certainly do not +belong on a newspaper. Matter of fact, they don't belong anywhere; their +place is in the home only because there's nowhere else to put them." + +Both females glared at him. + + * * * * * + +During the next fortnight, Tarb gained fluency in Terran and also +learned to operate a Terrestrial typewriter equipped with Fizbian +type--mostly so that she could dispense with the services of the +invaluable Miss Snow. She didn't like typing, though--it chipped her +toenails and her temper. Besides, Drosmig kept complaining that the +noise prevented him from sleeping and she preferred him to sleep rather +than hang there making irrelevant and, sometimes, unpleasantly relevant +remarks. + +"Longing for the old scripto, eh?" one of the cameramen smiled as he +lounged in the open doorway of her office. Although she was fond of +fresh air, Tarb realized that she would have to keep the door shut from +now on. Too many of the younger members of the staff kept booing at her +as they passed, and now they had formed the habit of dropping in to +offer her advice, encouragement and invitations to meals. At first, the +attention had pleased her--but now she was much too busy to be bothered; +she was going to turn out acceptable answers to those letters or die +trying. + +"Well, if the power can't be converted, it can't," she said grimly. +"Griblo, I do wish you'd be a dear and flutter off. I--" + +He snorted. "Who says the power can't be converted? Stet, huh?" + +She took her feet off the keys and looked at him. "Why do you say 'Stet' +that way?" + +"Because that's a lot of birdseed he gives you about not being able to +convert Earth power. Could be done all right, but he and the consul have +it all fixed up to keep Fizbian technology off the planet. Consul's +probably being paid off by the International Association of +Manufacturers and Stet's in it for the preservation of indigenous +culture--and maybe a little cash, too. After all, those rare antique +collections of his cost money." + +"I don't believe it!" Tarb snapped. "Griblo, please--I have so much work +to get through!" + +"Okay, chick, but I warn you, you're going to have your bright-eyed +illusions shattered. Why don't you wake up to the truth about +Stet? What you should do is maybe eschew the society of all journalists +entirely, and a sordid lot they are, and devote yourself to +photographers--splendid fellows, all." + +"Please shut the door behind you!" + +The door slammed. + +Tarb gazed disconsolately at the letter before her. Would she ever be +able to answer letters to Stet's satisfaction? The purpose of the whole +column was service--but did she and Stet mean the same thing by the same +word? Or, if they did, whom was Stet serving? + +She was paying too much attention to Griblo's idle remarks. Obviously he +was a sorehead--had some kind of grudge against Stet. Perhaps Stet was a +bit too autocratic, perhaps he had even gone native to some extent, but +you couldn't say anything worse about him than that. All in all, he +wasn't a bad bird and she mustn't let herself be influenced by +rumormongers like Griblo. + + * * * * * + +Tarb got up and took the letter to Stet. He was in his office dictating +to Miss Snow. _After all_, Tarb could not repress the ugly thought, _why +should he care about the scriptos? He'll never have to use a +typewriter._ + +And he was perfectly nice about being interrupted. The only thing he +didn't like was being contradicted. _I'm getting bitter_, she told +herself in surprise. _And at my age, too. I wonder what I'll be like +when I'm old._ + +This thought alarmed her and so she smiled very sweetly at Stet as she +murmured, "Would you mind reading this?" and gave him the letter. + +"Run into another little snag, eh?" he said affably, giving her foot a +gentle pat with his. "Well, let's see what we can do about it." + + _Montreal_ + + _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_ + + _I am a chef at the Cafe Inter-stellaire, which, as everyone knows, + is one of the most chic eating establishments on this not very chic + planet. During my spare moments, I am a great amateur of the local + form of entertainment known as television. I am especially + fascinated by the native actress Ingeborg Swedenborg, who, in spite + of being a Terran, compares most favorably with our own Fizbian + footlight favorites._ + + _The other day, while I am in the kitchen engaged in preparing the + ragout celeste a la fizbe for which I am justly celebrated on nine + planets, I hear a stir outside in the dining room. I strain my + ears. I hear the cry, "It is Ingeborg Swedenborg!"_ + + _I cannot help myself. I rush to the doorway. There, behold, the + incomparable Ingeborg herself! She follows the headwaiter to a + choice table. She is even more ravishing in real life than on the + screen. On her, it does not matter that she has no feathers save on + the head--even skin looks good. Overcome by involuntary ardor, I + boo at her. Whereupon I am violently assailed by a powerfully built + native whom I have not previously noticed to be escorting her._ + + _I am rescued before he can do me any permanent damage, though, if + you wish the truth, it will be a long time before I can fly again. + However, I am given notice by the cold-hearted management. Now I am + without a job. And what is more, if on this planet one is not + permitted to express one's instinctive and natural admiration for a + beautiful woman, then all I have to say is that it is a lousy + planet and I wiggle my toes at it. How do I go about getting + deported?_ + + _Impatiently yours,_ + + _Rajois Sludd_ + +"Oh, I suppose it serves him right," Tarb said quickly, before Stet +could comment, "but don't you think it would be a good idea if the +_Times_ got up a Fizbian-Terrestrial handbook of its own? It's the only +solution that I can see. The regular one, I recognize now, is more than +inadequate, with all that spiritual gup--" Miss Snow drew in her breath +sharply--"and not much else. All these problems are bound to arise again +and again. Frankly speaking, Stet, your solutions only take care of the +individual cases; they don't establish a sound intercultural basis." + +He grunted. + +"What's more," she went on eagerly, "we could not only give copies to +every Fizbian planning to visit Earth, but also print copies in Terran +for Terrestrials who are interested in learning more about Fizbus and +the Fizbians. In fact, all Terrans who come in contact with us should +have the book. It would help both races to understand each other so much +better and--" + +"Unnecessary!" Stet snapped, so violently that she stopped with her +mouth open. "The standard handbook is more than adequate. Whatever +limitations it may have are deliberate. Setting down in cold print all +that ... stuff you want to have included would make a point of things we +prefer not to stress. I wouldn't want to have the Terrestrials humor me +as if I were a fledgling or a foreigner." + +He leaped out of his chair and paced up and down the office. One would +think he had forgotten he ever could fly. + +"But you are a foreigner, Stet," Tarb said gently. "No matter what you +do or say, Terrestrials and Fizbians are--well, worlds apart." + +"Spiritually, I am much closer to the Terrestrials than--but you +wouldn't understand." He and Miss Snow nodded sympathetically at each +other. "And you might be interested to know that I happen to be the +author of all that 'spiritual gup.' I wrote the handbook--as a service +to Fizbus, I might point out. I wasn't paid for it." + +"Oh, dear!" Tarb said. "Oh, _dear_! I really and truly am sorry, Stet." + +He brushed her apologies aside. "Answer that letter. Ignore the question +about deportation entirely." He ran a foot through his crest. "Just tell +the fellow to see our personnel manager. We could use a chef in the +company dining room. Haven't tasted a decent celestial ragout--at a +price I could afford--since I left Fizbus." + +"Would you want me to print that reply in the column?" she asked. "'If +you lose your job because you're unfamiliar with Terrestrial customs, +come to the _Times_. We'll give you another job at a much lower +salary.'" + +"Of course not! Send your answer directly to him. You don't think we put +any of those letters you've been answering in the column, do you? Or any +that come in at all, for that matter. I have to write all the letters +that are printed--and answer them myself." + +"I should have recognized the style," Tarb said. "So this is the service +the _Times_ offers to its subscribers. Nothing that would be of help. +Nothing that could prevent other Fizbians from making the same mistake. +Nothing that could be controversial. Nothing that would help +Terrestrials to understand us. Nothing, in short, but a lot of +birdseed!" + +"Impertinence!" Miss Snow remarked. "You shouldn't let her talk to you +like that, Mr. Zarnon." + +"Tarb!" Stet roared, casting an impatient glance at Miss Snow. "How dare +you talk to me in that way? And all this is none of your business, +anyway." + +"I'm a Fizbian," she stated, "and it certainly is my business. I'm not +ashamed of having wings. I'm proud of them and sorry for people who +don't have them. And, by the stars, I'm going to fly. If skirts are +improper to wear for flying, then I can wear slacks. I saw them in a +Terrestrial fashion magazine and they're perfectly respectable." + +"Not for working hours," Miss Snow sniffed. + +"I have no intention of flying during working hours," Tarb snapped back. +"Even you should be able to see that the ceiling's much too low." + +Stet ran a foot through his crest again. "I hate to say this, Tarb, but +I don't feel you're the right person for this job. You mean well, I'm +sure, but you're too--too inflexible." + +"You mean I have principles," she retorted, "and you don't." Which +wasn't entirely true; he had principles--it was just that they were +unprincipled. + +"That will be enough, Tarb," he said sternly. "You'd better go now while +I think this over. I'd hate to send you back to Fizbus, because +I'd--well, I'd miss you. On the other hand...." + +Tarb went back to her office and drafted a long interstel to a cousin on +Fizbus, explaining what she would like for a birthday present. "And +send it special delivery," she concluded, "because I am having an urgent +and early birthday." + + * * * * * + +"Tarb Morfatch!" Stet howled, a few months later. "What on Earth are you +doing?" + +"Dictating into my scripto," Tarb said cheerfully. "Some of the boys +from the print shop helped fix it up for me. They were very nice about +it, too, considering that the superscriptos will probably throw them out +of work. You know, Stet, Terrestrials can be quite decent people." + +"Where did you get that scripto?" + +"Cousin Mylfis sent it to me for my birthday. I must have complained +about wearing out my claws on a typewriter and he didn't understand that +scriptos won't work on Earth. Only they do." She beamed at her employer. +"All it needed was a transformer. I guess you're just not mechanically +minded, Stet." + +He clenched his feet. "Tarb, Terrestrials aren't ready for our +technology. You've done a very unwise thing in having that scripto sent +to you. And I've done a very unwise thing in keeping you here against my +better judgment." + +"Maybe the Terrestrials aren't ready," she said, ignoring his last +remark, "but I'm not going to wear my feet to the bone if I can get a +gadget that'll do the same thing with no expenditure of physical +energy." She placed a foot on his. "I don't see how a thing like this +could possibly corrupt the Terrestrials, Stet. It's made a better, +brighter girl out of me already." + +"Hear, hear!" said Drosmig hoarsely from his perch. + +"Shut up, Senbot. You just don't understand, Tarb. If you'll only--" + +"But I'm afraid I do understand, Stet. And I won't send my scripto +back." + +"May I come in?" Miss Snow tapped lightly on the door frame. "Is what I +hear true?" + +"About the scripto?" Tarb asked. "It certainly is. All you have to do is +talk into it and the words appear on the paper. Guess that makes you +obsolete, doesn't it, Miss Snow?" + +"And high time, too," commented Drosmig. "Never liked the old biddy." + +"Senbot...." Stet began, and stopped. "Oh, what's the use trying to talk +reasonably to either of you! Tarb, come back to my office with me." + +She could not refuse and so she followed. Miss Snow, torn between +curiosity and the scripto, hesitated and then made after them. + +"I've decided to take you off the column--for this morning, anyway--and +send you on an outside assignment," Stet told Tarb. "The consul's wife +is coming to Earth today. Once she heard there was another woman on +Terra, nothing could stop her. Consul seems to think it's my fault, +too," he added moodily. "Won't believe I had nothing to do with hiring +you. I told the Home Office not to send a woman, that she'd disrupt the +office, and you sure as hell have." + +"But I thought you said in your letters that you were doing everything +in your power to bring Fizbian womenfolk to their men on Terra!" Tarb +pointed out malevolently. + +"Yes," he confessed. "We must please our readers. You know that. Anyway, +all that's irrelevant right now. What I want you to do is go meet the +consul's wife. Nice touch, having the only other Fizbian woman here be +the one to interview her. Human interest angle for the Terrestrial +papers. Shouldn't be surprised if Solar Press picked it up--they like +items of that kind for fillers. Take Griblo along with you and make sure +he has film in his camera this time." + +"Yes, sir," Tarb said. "Anything you say, sir." + +He pretended not to notice her sarcasm. "I have a list of the questions +you should ask her." He fixed her with his eye. "You stick to them, do +you hear me? I don't want anything controversial." He rummaged among the +papers on his desk. "I know I had it half an hour ago. Sit down, will +you, Tarb? Stop hopping around." + +"If I can't have a perch, I want a stool," Tarb said. "This is a private +office and I think it's a gross affectation for you to have those silly, +uncomfortable chairs in it." + +"If you would have your wings clipped like Mr. Zarnon's--" Miss Snow +began before Stet could stop her. + +"Stet, you _didn't_!" + +His crest thrashed back and forth. "They'll grow back again and it's so +much more convenient this way. After all, I can't use them here and I do +have to associate with Terrestrials and use their equipment. The consul +has had his wings clipped also and so have several of our more prominent +industrialists--" + +"Oh, _Stet_!" Tarb wailed. "I was beginning to think some pretty hard +things about you, but I wouldn't ever have dreamed you'd do anything as +awful as that!" + +"Why should I have to apologize to you?" he raged. "Who do you think you +are, anyway? You're an incompetent little fool. I should have fired you +that first day. I've let you get away with so much only because you have +a pretty face. You've only been on Earth a couple of months; how can you +presume to think you know what's good and what's bad for the Fizbians +here?" + +"I may not know what's good," she retorted, "but I certainly do know +what's bad. And that's you, Stet--you and everything you stand for. You +not only don't have the courage of your convictions, you don't even have +any convictions. You're ashamed of being a Fizbian, ashamed of anything +that makes Fizbians different from Terrestrials, even if it's something +better, something that most Terrans would like to have. You're a damned +hypocrite, Stet Zarnon, that's what you are--professing to help our +people when actually you're hurting them by trying to force them into +the mold of an alien species." + +She brushed back her crest. "I take it I'm fired," she said more +quietly. "Do you want me to interview the consul's wife first or leave +right away?" + +It took Stet a moment to bring his voice under control. "Interview her +first. We'll talk this over when you get back." + + * * * * * + +It was pleasant to be away from the office, she thought as the taxi +pulled toward the airfield, and doing wingwork again, even if it proved +to be the first and last time on this planet. Griblo sat hunched in a +corner of the seat, too preoccupied with the camera, which, even after +two years, he hadn't fully mastered, to pay attention to her. + +Outside, it was raining, the kind of thin drizzle that, on Fizbus or +Earth, could go on for days. Tarb had brought along the native umbrella +she had purchased in the hotel gift shop--a delightful contraption that +was supposed to keep off the rain and didn't, and was supposed to +collapse and did, but at the wrong moments. She planned to take it back +with her when she returned to Fizbus. Approved souvenir or not, it was +the same beautiful purple as her eyes. And, besides, who had made the +ruling about approved souvenirs? Stet, of course. + +"No reason why we couldn't have autofax brought from Home," Griblo +suddenly grumbled. + +Tarb pulled herself back from her thoughts. "I suppose Stet wouldn't let +you," she said. "But now that one scripto's here," she went on somewhat +complacently, "he'll have to--" + +"Keep this planet charming and unspoiled, he says," Griblo interrupted +ungratefully. "Its spiritual values will be corrupted by too much +contact with a crass advanced technology. And, of course, he's got the +local camera manufacturers solidly behind him. I wonder whether they +advertise in the _Times_ because he helps keep autofax off Terra or +whether he keeps the autofax off Terra because they advertise in the +_Times_." + +"But what does he care about advertising? He may talk as if he owned the +_Times_, but he doesn't." + +Griblo gave a nasty laugh. "No, he doesn't, but if the Terran edition +didn't show a profit, it'd fold quicker than you can flip your wings and +he'd have to go back to nasty old up-to-date Fizbus as a lowly +sub-editor. And he wouldn't like that one bit. Our Stet, as you may have +noticed, is fond of running things to suit himself." + +"But Mr. Grupe told me that the _Times_ isn't interested in money. It's +running this edition of the paper only as a service to--oh, I suppose +all that was a lot of birdseed, too!" + +"Grupe!" Griblo snorted. "The sanctimonious old buzzard! He's a big +stockholder on the paper. Bet you didn't know that, did you? All they're +out for is money. Fizbian money, Terrestrial money--so long as it's +cash." + +"Tell me, Griblo," Tarb asked, "what does 'When in Rome, do as the +Romans do' mean?" + +Griblo grinned sourly. "Stet's favorite motto." He moved along the seat +closer to her. "I'll tell you what it means, chicken. When on Earth, +don't be a Fizbian." + + * * * * * + +The consul's wife, an old mauve creature, did not seem overpleased to +see Tarb, since the younger, prettier Fizbian definitely took the +spotlight away from her. The press had, of course, seen Tarb before, but +at that time they hadn't been able to communicate directly with her and +they didn't, she now found out, think nearly as much of Stet as he did +of them. + +Tarb couldn't attempt to deviate much from Stet's questions, for the +consul's wife was not very cooperative and the consul himself watched +both women narrowly. He was a good friend of Stet's, Tarb knew, and +apparently Stet had taken the other man into his confidence. + +When the interviews were over and the consular party had left, Tarb +remained to chat with the Terrestrial journalists. Despite Griblo's +worried objections, she joined them in the Moonfield Restaurant, where +she daringly partook of a cup of coffee and then another and another. + +After that, things weren't very clear. She dimly remembered the other +reporters assuring her that she shouldn't disfigure her lovely wings +with a stole ... and then pirouetting in the air over the bar to +prolonged applause ... and then she was in the taxi again with Griblo +shaking her. + +"Wake up, Tarb--we're almost at the office! Stet'll have me plucked for +this!" + +Tarb sat up and pushed her crest out of her eyes. The sky was growing +dark. They must have been gone a long time. + +"I'll never hear the end of this," Griblo moaned. "Why, if only he could +get someone to fill my place, Stet would fire me like a shot! Not that I +wouldn't quit if I could get another job." + +"Oh, it'll be mostly me he'll be mad at." Tarb pulled out her compact. +Stet had warned her not to polish her eyeballs in public, but the ground +with him! Her head hurt. And her feathers, she saw in the mirror, had +turned almost beige. She looked horrible. She felt horrible. And Stet +would probably think she was horrible. + +"When Stet's mad," Griblo prophesied darkly, "he's mad at _everybody_!" + +And Stet _was_ mad. He was waiting in the newsroom, his emerald-blue +eyes blazing as if he had not only polished but lacquered them. + +"What's the idea of taking six hours to cover a simple story!" he +shouted as soon as the door began to open. "Aside from the trivial +matter of a deadline to be met--Griblo, _where's Tarb_? Nothing's +happened to her, has it?" + +"Naaah," Griblo said, unslinging his camera. "She took a short cut, +only she got held up by a terrace. Snagged her umbrella on it, I +believe. I heard her yelling when I was waiting for the elevator; +I didn't know nice girls knew language like that. She should be up +any minute now.... There she is." + +He pointed to a window, through which the lissome form of the young +feature writer could be seen, tapping on the glass in order to attract +attention. + +[Illustration] + +"Somebody better open it for her," the cameraman suggested. "Probably +not meant to open from the outside. Not many people come in that way, I +guess." + + * * * * * + +Open-mouthed, the whole newsroom stared at the window. Finally the Copy +Editor got up and let a dripping Tarb in. + +"Nearly thought I wouldn't make it," she observed, shaking herself in a +flurry of wet pink feathers. The rest of the staff ducked, most of them +too late. "Umbrella didn't do much good," she continued, closing it. It +left a little puddle on the rug. "My wings got soaked right away." She +tossed her wet crest out of her eyes. "Golly, but it's good to fly +again. Haven't done it for months, but it seems like years." Her eye +caught Miss Snow's. "You don't know what you're missing!" + +"Tarb," Stet thundered, "you've been drinking coffee! _Griblo!_" But the +cameraman had nimbly sought sanctuary in the dark-room. + +"You'd better go home, Tarb." When Stet's eye tufts met across his nose, +he was downright ugly, she realized. "Griblo can give me the dope and +I'll write up the story myself. I can fill it out with canned copy. And +you and I will discuss this situation in the morning." + +"Won't go home when there's work to be done. Duty calls me." Giving a +brief and quite recognizable imitation of a Terrestrial trumpet, Tarb +stalked down the corridor to her office. + +Drosmig looked up from his perch, to which he was still miraculously +clinging at that hour. "So it got you, too?... Sorry ... nice girl." + +"It hasn't got me," Tarb replied, picking up a letter marked _Urgent_. +"I've got it." She scanned the letter, then made hastily for Stet's +office. + +He sat drumming on his desk with the antique stainless steel spatula he +used as a paperknife. + +"Read this!" she demanded, thrusting the letter into his face. "Read +this, you traitor--sacrificing our whole civilization to what's most +expedient for you! Hypocrite! Cad!" + +"Tarb, listen to me! I'm--" + +"Read it!" She slapped the letter down in front of him. "Read it and see +what you've done to us! Sure, we Fizbians keep to ourselves and so the +only people who know anything about us are the ones who want to sell us +brushes, while the people who want to help us don't know a damn thing +about us and--" + +"Oh, all right! I'll read it if you'll only keep quiet!" He turned the +letter right-side up. + + _Johannesburg_ + + _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_ + + _I represent the Dzoglian Publishing Company, Inc., of which I know + you have heard, since your paper has seen fit to give our books + some of the most unjust reviews on record. However, be that as it + may, I have opened an office on Earth with the laudable purpose of + effecting an interchange of respective literatures, to see which + Terrestrial books might most profitably be translated into Fizbian, + and which of the authors on our own list might have potential + appeal for the Earth reader._ + + _Dealing with authors is, of course, a nerve-racking business and I + soon found myself in dire need of mental treatment. What was my + horror to find that this primitive, although charming, planet had + no neurotones, no psychoscopes, not even any cerebrophones--in + fact, no psychiatric machines at all! The very knowledge of this + brought me several degrees closer to a breakdown._ + + _Perhaps I should have consulted you at this juncture, but I admit + I was a bit of a snob. "What sort of advice can a mere journalist + give me," I thought, "that I could not give myself?" So, more for + amusement than anything else, I determined to consult a native + practitioner. "After all," I said to myself, "a good laugh is a + step forward on the road to recovery."_ + + _Accordingly, I went to see this native fellow. They work entirely + without machines, I understand, using something like witchcraft. At + the same time, I thought I might pick up some material for a jolly + little book on primitive customs which I could get some unknown + writer to throw together inexpensively. Strong human interest items + like that always have great reader-appeal._ + + _The native chap--doctor, he calls himself--was most cordial, + which he should have been at the price I was paying him. One thing + I must say about these natives--backward they may be, but they have + a very shrewd commercial sense. You can't even imagine the trouble + I had getting those authors to sign even remotely reasonable + contracts ... which in part accounts for my mental disturbance, + I suppose._ + + _Well, anyway, I handed the native a privacy waiver carefully + filled out in Terran. He took it, smiled and said, "We'll discuss + this afterward. My contact lenses have disappeared; I suppose one + of my patients has stolen them again. Can't see a thing without + them."_ + + _So we sat down and had a bit of a chat. He seemed remarkably + intelligent for a native; never interrupted me once._ + + _"You are definitely in great trouble," he told me when I'd + finished. "You need to be psycho-analyzed."_ + + _"Good, good," I said. "I see I've come to the right shop."_ + + _"Now just lie down and make yourself comfortable."_ + + _"Lie down?" I repeated, puzzled. I have an excellent command of + Terran, but every now and then an idiom will throw me. "I tell the + truth, sir, and when I am required by force of circumstances to + lie, I lie up."_ + + _"No," he said, "not that kind of lying. You know, the kind you do + at night when you go to sleep."_ + + _"Oh, I get you," I said idiomatically. Without further ado, I + flung off my ulster and flew up to a thingummy hanging from the + ceiling--chandelier, I believe, is the native term--flipped upside + down, and hung from it by my toes. Wasn't the Presidential Perch, + by any means, but it wasn't bad at all. "What do I do next?" I + inquired affably._ + + _"My dear fellow," the chap said, whipping out a notebook from the + recesses of his costume, "how long have you had this delusion that + you are a bird--or is it a bat?"_ + + _"Sir," I said as haughtily as my position permitted, "I am neither + a bird nor a bat. I am a Fizbian. Surely you have heard of + Fizbians?"_ + + _"Yes, yes, of course. They come from another country or planet or + something. Frankly, politics is a bit outside my sphere. All I'm + interested in is people--and Fizbians are people, aren't they?"_ + + _"Yes, certainly. If anything, it's you who.... Yes, they are + people."_ + + _"Well, tell me then, Mr. Liznig, when was it you first started + thinking you were a bat or a bird?"_ + + _I tried to control myself. "I am neither a bird nor a bat! I am a + Fizbian! I have wings! See?" I fluttered them._ + + _He peered at me. "I wish I could," he said regretfully. "Without + my glasses, though, I'm as blind as a bat--or a bird."_ + + _Well, the long and the short of it is that the natives are + planning to certify me as insane and incarcerate me, pending the + doctor's decision as to whether my delusion is that I am a bird or + a bat. They are using my privacy waiver as commitment papers._ + + _Save me, Senbot Drosmig, for I feel that if I have to wait for the + doctor's glasses to be delivered, I shall indeed go mad._ + + _Distractedly yours,_ + + _Tgos Liznig_ + +"I'll handle this myself," Stet said crisply. "I'll tell the consul to +advise the Terran State Department that this man should be deported as +an undesirable alien. That'll solve the problem neatly. We can't have +this contaminating the pure stream of Terrestrial literature with--" + +"But aren't you going to explain to them that he's perfectly sane?" Tarb +gasped. + +"No need to bother. He'll be grateful enough to get off the planet. +Besides, how do I know he is perfectly sane?" + +"Stet Zarnon, you're perfectly horrid!" + +"And you, Tarb Morfatch, are disgustingly drunk. Now you go right home +and sleep it off. I know I was too harsh with you--my fault for letting +you go out alone with Griblo in the first place when you've been here +only a few months. Might have known those Terran journalists would lead +you astray. Nice fellows, but irresponsible." He flicked out his tongue. +"There, I've apologized. Now will you go home?" + +"Home!" Tarb shrieked. "Home when there's work to be done and--" + +"--and you're not going to be the one to do it. Tarb," he said, +attempting to seize her foot, which she pulled away, "I was going to +tell you tomorrow, but you might as well know tonight. I've taken you +off the column for good. I have a better job for you." + +She looked at him. "A better job? Are you being sarcastic? What as?" + +"As my wife." He got up and came over to her. She stood still, almost +stunned. "That solves the whole problem tidily. An office is no place +for you, darling--you're really a simple home-girl at heart. Newspaper +work is too strenuous for you; it upsets you and makes you nervous and +irritable. I want you to stay home and take care of our house and hatch +our eggs--unostentatiously, of course." + +"Why, you--" she spluttered. + +He put his foot over her mouth. "Don't give me your answer now. You're +in no condition to think. Tell me tomorrow." + + * * * * * + +It rained all night and continued on into the morning. Tarb's head +ached, but she had to make an appearance at the office. First she vizzed +an acquaintance she had made the day before; then she took her umbrella +and set forth. + +As she kicked open the door to the newsroom, all sound ceased. Voices +stopped abruptly. Typewriters halted in mid-click. Even the roar of the +presses downstairs suddenly seemed to mute. Every head turned to look at +Tarb. + +_Humph_, she thought, removing her plastic oversocks, _so suppose I was +a little oblique yesterday. They needn't stare at me. They never stare +at Drosmig. Just because I'm a woman, I suppose!_ The gate crashed +loudly behind her. + +"Oh, Miss Morfatch," Miss Snow called. "Mr. Zarnon said he wanted to +see you as soon as you came in. It's urgent." And she giggled. + +"Really?" Tarb said. "Well, he'll just have to wait until I've wrung out +my wings." Sooner or later, she would have to face Stet, but she wanted +to put it off as long as possible. + +She opened the door to her office and halted in amazement. For, seated +on a stool behind the desk, haggard but vertical, was Senbot Drosmig, +busily reading letters and blue-penciling comments on them with his +feet. + +"Good morning, my dear," he said, giving her a wan smile. "Surprised to +see me functioning again, eh?" + +"Well--yes." She opened her dripping umbrella mechanically and stood it +in a corner. "How--" + +"I realized last night that all that happened to you was my fault. You +were my responsibility and I failed you." + +"Oh, don't be melodramatic, Senbot. I wasn't your responsibility and you +didn't fail me. Not that I'm not glad to see you up and doing again, +but--" + +"But I did fail you!" the aged journalist insisted. "And, in the same +way, I failed my people. I shouldn't have given in. I should have fought +Zarnon as you, my dear, tried to do. But it isn't too late!" The fire of +the crusader lit up in his watery old eyes. "I can still fight him and +his sacred crows--his Earthlings! If I have to, I can go over his head +to Grupe. Grupe may not understand Stet's moral failings, but he +certainly will comprehend his commercial ones. Grupe owns stock in other +Fizbian enterprises besides the _Times_. Autofax, for example." + +"Oh, Senbot!" Tarb wailed. "The whole thing's such an awful mess!" + +"I don't think it'll be necessary to threaten that far," he comforted +her. "Stet is no fool. He knows which side of his breadnut is peeled." + +"I'm sure you'll do a wonderful job," she exclaimed, impulsively giving +a ritual _entrechat_. "And I wish I could stay and help you, but...." + +"I know, my dear." + +"You do?" She was puzzled. "But how did the news get around so quickly?" + +He shrugged. "The Terrestrial grapevine is almost as efficient as the +Fizbian. Didn't you notice any change in the--ah--atmosphere when you +came in?" + +"Oh, was that the reason?" Tarb laughed merrily. "Somehow it never +occurred to me that they could have heard so soon." + +"But the morning editions have been out for hours." + +The door to the office was flung open. Stet stormed in, bristling with a +most unloverlike rage. + +"Miss Morfatch--" he waved a crumpled copy of the _Terrestrial Tribune_ +at her--"when I give an order, I expect to be obeyed! Didn't Miss Snow +tell you to report directly to my office the instant you came in? +Although that's a question I don't have to ask; I know Miss Snow, at +least, is someone I can trust." + +"I was coming to see you, Stet," Tarb said soothingly. "Right away." + +"Oh, you were, were you? And have you seen this?" Stet fairly threw the +paper at her. Smack in the middle of the front page was a picture of +herself in full flight over the airfield bar. Not a very good picture, +but what could you expect with Terrestrial equipment? When the autofax +came, perhaps she would be done justice. + + FIZBIAN NEWSHEN GIVES EARTH A FLUTTER + + "Though No Mammal, I Pack a Lot of Uplift," Says + Beautiful Fizbian Gal Reporter + + "I feel that you Terrans and we Fizbians can get along much + better," lovely Tarb Morfatch, Fizbus _Times_ feature writer, told + her fellow-reporters yesterday at the Moonfield Restaurant, "if we + learn to understand each other's differences as well as appreciate + our similarities. + + "With commerce between the two planets expanding as rapidly as it + has been," Miss Morfatch went on, "it becomes increasingly + important that we make sure there is no clash of mores between us. + Where adaptation is impossible, we must both adjust. 'When in Rome, + do as the Romans do' is an outmoded concept in the complex + interstellar civilization of today. The Romans must learn to accept + us as we are, and vice versa. + + "Forgive me if I've offended you by my frankness," she said, + sticking out her tongue in the charming gesture of apology that is + acquiring such a vogue on Earth, Belinda Romney and many other + socialites having enthusiastically adopted it, "but you've violated + our privacy so many times, I feel I'm entitled to hurt your + feelings just a teeny-weeny bit...." + +"Those Terran journalists," Tarb said admiringly. "Never miss a trick, +do they? Am I in all the other papers too, Stet? Same cheesecake?" + +"You've made an ovulating circus out of us--that's what you've done!" + +"Nonsense. Good strong human interest stuff; it'll make us lovable as +chicks all over the planet. Gee--" she read on--"did I say all that +while I was caffeinated? I ought to turn out some pretty terrific copy +sober." + +"And to think you, the woman I had asked to make my wife, did this to +me." + +"Oh, that's all right, Stet," Tarb said without looking up from the +paper. "I wasn't going to accept you, anyway." + +"Good for you, Tarb," Drosmig approved. + +"You're going back to Fizbus on the next liner--do you hear me?" Stet +raged. + +She smiled sunnily. "Oh, but I'm not, Stet. I'm going to stay right here +on Earth. I like it. You might say the spiritual aura got me." + +He snorted. "How can you possibly stay? You don't have an independent +income and this is an expensive planet. Besides, I won't let you stay on +Earth. I have considerable influence, you know!" + +"Poor Stet." She smiled at him again. "I'm afraid the Fizbian press--the +Fizbian consul even--are pretty small pullets beside the Solar Press +Syndicate. You see, I came in this morning only to resign." + +He stared at her. + +"Yesterday," she informed him, "I was offered another position--as +feature writer for the SP. I hadn't decided whether or not to accept +when I reported back last evening, but you made up my mind for me, so I +called them this morning and took the job. My work will be to explain +Fizbians to Terrans and Terrans to Fizbians--as I wanted to do for the +_Times_, Stet, only you wouldn't let me." + +"It's no use saying anything to you about loyalty, I suppose?" + +"None whatsoever," she said. "I owe the _Times_ no loyalty and I'm doing +what I do out of loyalty to Fizbus ... plus, of course, a much higher +salary." + +"I'm glad for you, Tarb," Drosmig said sincerely. + +"Be glad for yourself, Senbot, because Stet will have to let you conduct +the column your way from now on. Either it'll supplement my work in the +Terrestrial papers or he'll look like a fool. And you do hate looking +like a fool, don't you, Stet?" + +He didn't answer. + +"Better give up, Stet." She turned to Drosmig. "Well, good-by, +Senbot--or, rather, so long. I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again. +Good-by, Stet. No hard feelings, I hope?" + +He neither moved nor spoke. + +"Well ... good-by, then," she said. + +The door closed. Stet stared after her. The forgotten umbrella dripped +forlornly in the corner. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Helpfully Yours, by Evelyn E. 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