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."