_By Milton Lesser_
Colonists on Talbor had little time for
anything but work, which was bad for morale. So
Earth sent a special ship--with a unique cargo.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
October 1953
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Marsden had filled a basin with well water and began to lather his
hands and face with soap when Marie entered their cabin. He looked
up and clucked his tongue in disapproval. "Lord," he said. "Look at
yourself."
Marie scowled at him as she removed her bandanna and shook loose her
short-cropped hair. "How do you expect me to look?" Her plain but
pretty face was sweat-streaked. She wore a simple tunic which fell
halfway down her thighs and almost matched her sturdy, sun-darkened
legs in color, although sweat darkened the back of the garment and left
rings of white under the armpits where it had evaporated.
"I know how I'd like you to look."
"Harry Marsden, just what do you mean by that?"
He had felt it for some time now, this smouldering resentment which
had wedged its way between them after only two years of marriage. He
couldn't talk to her without arguing, not after they had finished
working for the day under the broiling sun and returned, bone-weary
and stiff-muscled, to their cabin. The routine sickened him: he would
come in first, splash cold water on his face, maybe scrub up some.
Marie would follow after feeding their chickens (chickens here on
Talbor, three dozen long light years from Earth!), strip off her tunic
and try to scrub the grime from her body while he looked at her. And
if it were warm she'd prepare their simple dinner half-naked, with no
thought for modesty, until he knew every plane, every curve of her body
and realized it was a body strong for work and not soft for play, a
body good for bearing children, a body which could work all day in the
fields like a machine but which would never lose the grit from its
pores.
"I didn't mean anything by it. Forget what I said, Marie." Marsden went
to the clothing rack and took down his one good suit. He looked again
at Marie, then closed his eyes and let a growing eagerness engulf him.
The ship from Earth was coming. Not the ship with more farm machinery,
not the battered freighter which reached Talbor twice every year, but
a tourist ship--the first one in Marsden's memory. There would be
real Earth people on it, men and women. He thought deliciously of the
women, wasp-waisted, high-breasted, lithe-legged and delicate. Marie
would seem so plain against them, so tragically unfeminine--unless the
pictures lied. Born on Talbor, Marsden had never seen a real woman of
Earth.
* * * * *
Maybe Marsden would feel more inclined to watch the patterned years
drag by on Talbor if he just once saw the women of Earth. He never told
this to Marie, for she wouldn't understand.
"We'd better hurry," she said, "or we won't get to town till after the
ship comes in."