It was a good thing Uncle John didn't come bustling back after
something he'd forgotten that afternoon.
I didn't get around to quitting my job that afternoon. Later on that
evening, I took her home. She wanted me to come in and meet her
parents, yet! But I begged off that--and then she came up with a
snapper. "But we will be married, Johnny darling. Won't we? Real soon!"
"Uh," I said, making a quick mental plane reservation for Rio, "sure,
Doll. Sure we will." I broke away right quick after that. There was a
problem I wanted to get a little advice on.
What I did get, actually, was a nasty shock.
Back in my apartment--my big, new, plush apartment--I sat down to go
over the thing with the Department of the Interior. The enthusiastic
response I got surprised me. "Magnificent," was the word. "Superb.
Great!"
Well, I thought myself that I had turned in a pretty outstanding
performance, but I hadn't expected such applause. "It is a first step,
a splendid beginning! A fully equipped, well-armed expedition will have
the place settled, under cultivation and reasonably civilized inside of
a day or two, your time. It will be simple for them. So much more so
than in your case--since we now know precisely what to expect."
I was truly shocked. I felt guilty. "No!" I said. "Oh, no! What a thing
to do. You _can't_!"
"Now, now. Gently," they said. "What, after all, oh Fatherland, might
be the perfectly natural consequences of your own act?"
"What? You mean under other--that is----"
"Exactly. You could very well have implanted a new life in her, which
is all that we have done. Why should our doing so disturb you?"
Well, it did disturb me. But then, as they pointed out, they could have
developed less pleasant methods of spreading colonies. They had merely
decided that this approach would be the surest and simplest.
"Well, maybe," I told them, "but it still seems kind of sneaky to me.
Besides, if you'd left it to me, I'd certainly never have picked a
great big ox like Helga. And now she says she's going to marry me,
too!"
"You do not wish this? We understand. Do not be concerned. We
will--ah--send instructions to our people the next time. She will
change her feelings about this."
She dropped the marriage bit completely.
We had what you might call an idyllic association, in spite of her
being such a big, husky model--a fact which never bothered me when I
was with her. "She is happy," I was assured, "very happy." She seemed
pleased and contented enough, even if she developed, I thought, a sort
of an inward look about her. She and I never discussed our--uh--people.
We had a fast whirl for a couple of weeks. And then I'd quit my job
with Uncle John, and we sort of drifted apart.
Next thing I heard of her, she married Uncle John.
Well. I have my doubts about how faithful a wife she was to him, but
certainly she seemed to make him happy. And my government assured me
Uncle John was not colonized. "Too late," they said. "He is too old to
be worth the risk of settling." But they respected my scruples about my
uncle's wife and direct communication with Helgaland was broken off.
But there were others.