Although I had previously been spacesick, airsick, carsick, seasick,
and sledsick, the descent to Planet Maggie was the first time I
believed that Doreen, Laurinda, and Celestine would never again see
me alive. How Ypsilanti, occasionally glancing at the few antiquated
instruments, found Joetropolis, even in the blundering hours he took,
remained mysterious. At last, I saw a clutter of buildings surrounded
by a wall. The buildings expanded with dizzy speed, until the shuttle
hovered less than one hundred meters above the ground. I gulped weakly
at three figures pushing a long metal tube with wheels into a shed
constructed in an angle of the wall.
The shuttle bounced to a tail-first stop. Ypsilanti dropped a door,
unreeled a chain ladder, and climbed out.
"Didn't you forget me?" I gasped. I scrambled to the first deck and
almost pitched from the ship. Coarse grass with red undertones covered
the field except for patches blackened by exhausts. At one border was a
crude shed and a wrecked jetcopter. Cultivated areas, interspersed with
patches of brush, separated the spaceport and the walls of Joetropolis.
Ypsilanti ran wildly down a rutted lane toward the town.
I located a hoist and lowered my four cases. I eased down the chain
ladder to the hot, damp soil of Planet Maggie. Joe's Sun, red and
bloated, cleared a clump of trees and half blinded me. Small purple
birds jeered from the huge leaves of squat weeds along the edge of
the field. Four striped, short-tailed, buck-toothed rodents scurried
beneath a stump. Another sat on a discarded can and squeaked
threateningly.
Even in the .92 Maggiese gravity, my luggage weighed about sixty
kilograms. I yanked the braided leather line from the hoist and was
attempting to lash the two smaller cases into a pack, when a distant
explosion agitated the still air. Two rodents ran out of the grass
and vanished down a hole. As the exploding sounds climbed in pitch, I
realized they were mighty grunts.
I unpacked, assembled, and activated the hisser. A soft voice said,
"No!"
A woman peeped from behind the shuttle's ruddevator. She bore a faint
resemblance to Ypsilanti, but her nose was less prominent. She, too,
had brown hair, blue eyes, and tanned skin. She said, "Ordinance 53:
Aliens shall approach the city unarmed."
"Low," I said. "I'm Ube Kinlock, the hunter GG sent about the Hog. Are
you a port officer?"
"Am a hunter also, slightly. Ordinance 33 forbids introductions of
alien males to Maggiese females, but am Betty Toal."
She stepped from behind the ruddevator. I inhaled sharply. I had
encountered colonies not accepting Galactic standards of decency, but
was still shocked by extreme exposure. Toal wore a loose, white sack
with head and arm holes. Her elbows, knees, and ankles were nude.
Toal stood about one meter from me and said, "Ordinance 31 forbids
alien males to be within ten feet of a female. Ypsilanti should have
helped you, but is afraid of the Hog. Is little danger now. The Hog
avoids the sun."
"That grunting was the Hog?" I deciphered the inscription on the brooch
at her throat as, "Minimum."
Toal said, "Yes. The Hog goes to the swamp. Will help with your
luggage."
"It's too heavy for you."
"Am thin but strong by Maggiese standards," Toal said.
I managed to carry three cases and the hisser. Toal retrieved a mesh
bag, filled with fruit or vegetables, and picked up the fourth case.
She asked, as we walked toward the town, "Is true, in the Explored
Galaxy, people do not care how children look?"
"What? Children? Yes, generally. Some believe little boys' ears
shouldn't stick out too far, and some consider little girls with
golden curls and dimples the most charming, but there isn't much
prejudice."
"Is also true," Toal said, "no one must marry someone he dislikes?"
"Sometimes an exchange of x-tops and coupons is involved, but it's
usually a free choice."
Toal asked no more questions, but followed along pointing out the
ripening crunchies and the blooming goodies. She warned me of toothie
tunnels across the path. The striped rodents, she explained, menaced
stored food, crops, livestock, and buildings. They were checked, to
some extent, by traps, poison, and disease cultures.
* * * * *
A wooden bridge, crushed and splintered in the middle, spanned a ditch.
The bridge was actually made of sawed boards and beams, not liquid wood
castings. The prints of cloven hoofs and dewclaws spotted the soft
ground.
"The Hog!" Toal said. "Passed between me and the wall!"