Blunt smiled smugly. He began his recital. He was walking along the
street and he met this gorgeous creature. A full description followed
(broken by the arrival of the Colonel and two paragraphs of the DECLINE
AND FALL) making it clear that this was the dish of dishes, the most
beautiful of the beautiful, the most charming, and the most intelligent.
She allowed herself to be addressed in Blunt's few words of Engrahamic
and, smiling ever patiently, sat with him for several hours. Their talk
took place in a secluded bower, in one of the many parks. She was
agreeable and charmed and promised to see him again. He even managed,
through terrific feats of pantomime, to impress on her the need of
secrecy in future meetings.
"That was all?" someone said, when he finished.
"For the first meeting, I think I did wonders," said Blunt. "After all,
sex hasn't been known here since a time corresponding to our Stone Age."
Later, when the nightly poker game was beginning, Willy Lanham said,
"Why didn't you just make a grab for her?"
"That's the hill-billy approach," Blunt said disdainfully. "These girls
are civilized--very, very civilized. It's important not to shock them."
----
Blunt's next gambit was to set about learning the language. For this he
went not to Flandeau, who best knew it, but to Ankers, who was a pure
scientist in every sense of the word, and not so likely to suspect his
motives. The girl proved very cultured. She took him to art galleries,
to symphonies, and mountain climbing, for scrambling up and down the
glassy hills was a favorite Engrahamic sport. As he advanced in the
language, he learned that her name was Catataphinaria, which meant "she
will attain relative wisdom". He found that she worked for the Eleven
who, while not rulers, offered general suggestions which the populace
more or less followed.
Although his slow progress inevitably bored the crew, still, it offered
that one precious ray of hope, and they became so tractable that even
the Doctors noticed it. They laid it to the secret ingredient that Dr.
Frank had introduced into the drinking water.
The summer wore on, becoming hotter each day. By the end of the second
month of his courtship, Blunt began to speak to her of love.
She laughed. She said that she had little curiosity on the subject,
although it was now and then mentioned by the students of antiquity.
Assured that it was pleasurable, she said that she heard that barbarians
also enjoyed murdering people and making them butts of jokes.
Willy Lanham said, "Don't listen to what a girl _says_. Just make a grab
for her."
This suggestion was laughed to scorn.
Weeks passed, the summer began to wane. Tempers again began to shorten.
Flandeau said to Frank, "The men are worse again."
"Yes, perhaps we should increase the dosage."
The fruits for the Joy-Juicer grew thin on the silvery bushes, and men
ranged far and wide, putting in supplies for the winter.
----
One night, when Blunt had won at poker, all the men lay in their bunks,
too dispirited to drink, to shoot craps, almost too miserable even for
speech. Blunt again began talking of Catataphinaria. Drowsily Lanham
said, "I think you're going at it the wrong way, Dick. Try some real
rough stuff. You know--kiss her. She might like it."
Before Blunt could defend his strategy, Kosalowsky sat up in his bunk.
"Yes, for cripes sake," he said, "Move in for the kill. Or shut up about
it. You're driving us all nuts."
"Would you like to try?" Blunt suggested softly.
"Sure I'll try," Kosalowsky said. He turned on the light over his bunk.
"Give me a crack at her. I could have managed it weeks ago. All you've
done is talk to the quail."
"Yah, Dick, maybe you're using the wrong approach on this one,"
O'Connors suggested.
"It's the damn places you take her," Kosalowsky said. "Art galleries.
Anybody ever seduce a girl in an art gallery? Symphonies. Popping around
in her damn Hop-Hop. Can't you ever get her alone?"
"She lives with ten other girls," Blunt said sulkily. "They're all home
all the time."
"Well, bring her here, then," Pane suggested. "We'll all take a powder."
"Where?"
There was no answer. They could not all, by day, desert the ship, and it
was getting too chilly for the crew to hide in adjacent shrubbery. "We
could put up a wall," Pane said suddenly, "between the bunks and the
bar."
"With what?"
"I know," Banks said eagerly, "where there's a whole pile of stuff. It's
nice thin metal, just lying there getting rusty."
"I think you're premature--"
"Premature!" Kosalowsky shouted. "Six months you've been chasing this
tomato. You call that premature?"
"Only four by Engrahamic time," Blunt said, insulted.
"Listen," Kosalowsky said, "that wall goes up tomorrow. And you're
smuggling her in tomorrow night. Or else," he said, glaring at Blunt,
"after that it's every man for himself. Check?"
Blunt, only slightly seen in the light from Kosalowsky's bunk, was white
with rage. "All right, guys," he said stonily. "I've been trying to do
right by this frail. Nothing abrupt or hillbilly. Nothing to hurt her
delicate feelings or her fine mind. But if this is how you want
it--Okay!"
----
The next day the wall went up.
Hardly a word was said as it was hammered in place. Once up, the place
was G. I.'d thoroughly. The ash trays were washed, the floor vacuumed,
and the lights adjusted to achieve the most tellingly seductive effect.
Blunt went out at two, thin-lipped and silent.
"The jerk," Kosalowsky said, "I think he's a lot of hot air. That's what
_I_ think."
The Colonel came in at nightfall and asked about the wall. They told him
that it was to cut off the recreation section from the sleeping
quarters, for the protection of those who wanted more sleep to prepare
for the grueling winter watches.
"Very good idea men," the Colonel said, and went upstairs to write
another chapter in his book.
At nine the men disappeared into their bunks. O'Connors won the
responsible job of peering through the narrow slit in the wall. Behind
him could be heard the labored breathing of twenty-seven distraught men.
One man snored. "Wake up, you stupid ass," Pane told Lanham. "You'll
wreck the show."
At last the door opened and Blunt came in--with the girl.
She was breath-taking. She wore, O'Connors reported, a dress cut to
here--and her hair was piled high on her patrician head. Blunt had not
lied. She was even prettier than the usual run of Engraham girls.
"He's offering her a drink," O'Connors whispered.
"She take it?"
"No--she's sitting at the bar. He's having one, though. He's turning on
the hi-fi."
He did not have to tell them, since all could hear the soft music. They
had selected a program of melodies considered sure-fire.
"He's talking to her--putting his arm around her waist. Oh-oh. She
knocked it off. She's laughing, though."
In the silence they all heard her laugh. Several men moved
uncomfortably. "He's leading her toward the couch--oh-oh--she stopped to
look at the radar screen."
It was the auxiliary radar, not the important one in the control room.
"What's he doing?"
"Telling her--he's edging her to the couch again--now she's asking about
the Bassett Blaster. They're fooling around with the gun. He's showing
her how it works--trying to put his hands--!"
This last was lost, for there was a sudden, resounding blast. Their
bunks, the entire ship, trembled.
The meaning was clear to all. They flattened to their bunks, and waited
tensely. They heard a sound, the sound of a foot kicking a body. A hand
scratched tentatively along the wall.
No one moved. "She killed him." O'Connors voice was no more than a
slight whisper. "Lay low--lay low."'
Then a woman's voice said, in perfect English, "All right, you men. Come
out of there."
The door was found and flung open. Catataphinaria stood in the dim
light--still holding the Blaster. She said again, more sharply, "I said,
Come out of there!"
Clumsily, they came down from their bunks.
"Now," she said, as she had them all against the wall, "call down the
others."
But this was unnecessary, for the Doctors and the Colonel were already
descending the ladder. They turned quite white at the sight of her.
Wordlessly, she indicated that they were to join the others. The Doctors
found it harder to adjust to a purely military sort of emergency. Ankers
asked clearly, "What on earth is this nonsense?"
"No nonsense," the girl said. "Just do as I say. First, surrender all
your papers."
"Our papers?"
"Your research. Your conclusions. Everything."