No doubt of it, the carpet made a fairly suitable green, Escher
thought. He placed the ball firmly on the nap, stepped back a pace,
and tapped it smartly with the golf club. It rolled in a beautifully
straight path into the upturned water glass.
"Very nice shot, Claude."
Escher looked up and leaned the club against the side of the desk.
"I thought so, too," he agreed. "What brings you here, Mac?"
MacDonald sat down and poured himself a glass of water from the beaker
on Escher's desk.
"Just wanted to pass on the compliments of the Board for the recent
large upswing in woman emigrants to the colony planets."
Escher casually waved it aside.
"It wasn't much. We just had to rid ourselves of some old-fashioned
notions, that's all. I was afraid, though, that the Board might
disapprove of our methods."
MacDonald thought for a moment.
"No, I guess they didn't. I can't recall any members of the Board
complaining about it, at least. Apparently they felt that something
drastic was needed. Or, more probably, they've kept themselves
carefully ignorant of just how we did it. Oh, they know we violated
privacy in a lot of cases, but they're willing to overlook it."
"Very white of them, I'm sure," Escher grunted. He took up the club
and set the ball back on its carpet tee. "How about a game tomorrow
afternoon?"
MacDonald shook his head. "It didn't bother the Board much, Claude,
but I followed your advertising and I was down to the port to see a
contingent of our new colonists take off. It bothers _me_, Claude.
The ads you sent to the different planets, the whispering campaign we
arranged for, the subtle propaganda we sent out--and then the women.
Don't you think there will be some sort of howl? We've definitely led
them to believe one thing and here we're sending them--well, the new
colonists leave a lot to be desired."
Escher looked at him coldly. "Look, Mac, let's be cynical about this.
That's why it was referred to us in the first place. Of course the
girls we sent aren't the most beautiful or the most glamorous. Those
girls are already married and you couldn't get them to leave, no matter
what you did. The girls we sent are the ones who weren't wanted here
on Earth. We even killed two birds with one stone and solved the crime
problem."
He held up his hand when MacDonald started to object.
"Don't say it, Mac. Stop and think for a moment. What danger can
a shoplifter do on a colony planet? There's nothing to steal. And
without large cities, most other types of crime will have equally
tough sledding. Besides, we eliminated those who had natural criminal
tendencies. Most of the others had drifted into it as an outlet for
their sense of insecurity, the feeling of not being wanted."
MacDonald looked worried.
"All right, what happens when the colonists find out, Claude? What
happens when they find out we shipped them the castoffs, the leftovers?"
"The point is, Mac, they'll never find out. They're Second System
colonists. You know how the Colonization Board works. Planet A
colonizes planet B. Planet B colonizes planet C. Given a suitable
number of generations, the people on planet C will never have seen
people from planet A. Earth is planet A. The colony planets to which
the women were sent are all planet Cs.
"You see, the catch is that the colonists will have no basis on which
to make comparisons. They've never seen women from Earth!"
"I still don't like it. They _have_ seen women from other planets.
After taking a look at the last shipload of females that left Earth,
I'm still worried."
Escher laughed. "That's because you _haven't_ seen some of the colony
women, Mac. Tell me, what is the most cultured and socially up-to-date
planet? Earth, of course. Now on what planet has husband-hunting and
pleasing been developed into an all-out struggle with fine scientific
techniques? Earth, again. The colonists don't have a chance.
"When it comes to catching and pleasing the male, the girls from Earth
have really had an education. They can take care of themselves. Don't
worry about that. Who's to tell the colonists the girls aren't the
cream of the crop, anyway? Not the girls themselves, certainly. And not
us. I tell you they'll never find out, Mac."
"You're positive that the colonists will be pleased with the women?"
Escher hesitated. "Well, reasonably." He sounded a little wistful. He
practiced his swing a few more times, barely missing the lamp on his
desk.
"I thought the advertising was rather clever, too. They'll feel a
great obligation to us for sending them 'Earth's Fairest Daughters.' Be
good for strengthening the ties to the mother planet."
MacDonald looked somewhat happier.
"What about the women themselves, though? We sold them a bill of goods,
too, you know. They're expecting modern cities and handsome, rugged
heroes for husbands. I know damn well that a lot of the colonies aren't
much more than sinkholes and I suspect the sanitary, rugged, thoughtful
male is strictly off the artist's drawing board. What happens when the
women find that out?"
Escher took the ball out of the glass and went back a few paces for
another try.
"Don't forget, Mac, the girls are the ones who weren't wanted here,
the ones who were heading up for lives as old maids. They're going
to planets where they're strictly a scarce item, where they'll be
appreciated. The colonists will think they're getting something special
and they'll treat the girls that way. They'll take good care of them.
There might be a few difficulties at first, but it'll come out all
right."
"In other words, the whole thing hinges on how the colonists receive
the girls. Isn't that it?"
The ball thunked solidly into the glass again and rolled out.
"That's right. We've hedged our bets the best we can. Now we'll have to
wait and see. But I don't think we have anything to worry about."
"Uh-huh," MacDonald grumbled. "It works out nice in theory, but I
wonder how it'll be in practice."