"Of course," Clara Ford said complacently. "Every one have babies.
Except Robert and Bobby and the ones like them. Jack and Mary and I
have ours before we leave Venus. Have only one each, of course."
"But why am _I_ like this? How can _I_ have a baby this way?" Dora's
voice was shrill with anger and panic.
"How else?" Jack asked calmly.
A little chill of horror raced down Helen's spine. Could these odd
girls really be telling the truth? Were they from Venus, as they
insisted? She could just imagine them coming to Earth--on a Flying
Saucer, maybe--listening to the radio to learn the language. Spying on
us, but not learning as much as they thought they did. She choked off a
giggle, an incipient hysteria, as another thought struck her.
"Will _I_ have one of those--those--?"
"You already have baby," Patricia said. "Can't see how you have baby
before we come with faneweed to make you green."
Helen and Dora stared at her.
"You mean," Helen finally was able to ask, "that that weed caused all
this? That little weed?"
"But that is what we tell you all along, only you always walk away
angry."
* * * * *
All those scientists working so hard, Helen realized bitterly, and all
the time what they were looking for was literally under their feet!
How could anyone have thought that the faneweed was responsible for
anything but the bad smell they had finally become accustomed to?
"Why didn't I listen to these girls, pay more attention to what they
said?" Helen asked herself. She might have been able to prevent a lot
of things that had happened. She got up from her chair and walked
nervously about. Well, she couldn't change the past, but she could stop
further evil from the faneweed.
"I'll bet they don't have men on Venus," she said to Dora, "judging
from the way they act. Then they'd have to have parthenogenetic births."
She turned to Patricia. "Why did you come to Earth? And why just to
Mimosa Beach?"
"We try little place, what you call sample, before we change whole
world," Patricia explained. And then she added sadly, "So many of our
babies die. Not enough people left on Venus. We think maybe you like to
come to Venus with us, so we make you as us."
"That was very, very wicked of you!" Dora said severely.
The four Venusians shrugged resignedly.
"Might as well go home," Mary Maroon said. "They don't like it our way."
"And leave me like this?" Dora demanded shrilly.
"Get rid of faneweed, be as before," Patricia assured her.
"With a baby I'll have trouble accounting for," Dora said bitterly.
"Oh, no, you don't. You stay right here. And, Helen, don't you tell
anybody that it's the faneweed. Then people from other places won't
know about my baby, and it won't matter here as long as things are the
way they are."
"You come with us," Clara suggested wheedlingly. "You'll like Venus.
Venus so pretty! No work, all happiness!"
"No work? No wonder the babies die!" Dora exclaimed.
Helen could see the yeast of reform beginning to work in Dora. The four
Venusians looked puzzled. "They do that all the time," Helen thought
irritably. Aloud, she said, "Dora, of course I have to tell about the
faneweed. There are others involved, you know."
"I don't suppose," Dora interrupted, "that you girls know anything
about diet. Those babies could probably be saved with a little
intelligence and some hard work."
* * * * *
When the four Venusians left shortly thereafter for their home, they
took along Dora Hastings, who had great plans for their planet.
With the faneweed on Earth destroyed, the women and girls of Mimosa
Beach returned to their original color. Even the parthenogenetic baby
girls born as a result of the unfortunate experiment of the Venusians
were white.
"Well, the bad things went in pairs, after all," Helen said to Robert
when everything was normal again. "The faneweed was the fourth evil,
though we didn't know it. And when we got rid of the faneweed, the
greenness left. The Venusians went away and--and I do hope Dora's all
right!"
"She finally got what should be a lifetime job," Robert answered. He
crossed his fingers and, looking out of a western window at Venus,
bright against the darkening sky, added, "At least, Venus is farther
away than New York. That ought to help."