The 20th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK ™: Evelyn E. Smith Page 14
"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.
"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—"
"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."
She looked at him. "A better job? Are you being sarcastic? What as?"
"As my wife." He got up and came over to her. She stood still, almost stunned. "That solves the whole problem tidily. An office is no place for you, darling—you're really a simple home-girl at heart. Newspaper work is too strenuous for you; it upsets you and makes you nervous and irritable. I want you to stay home and take care of our house and hatch our eggs—unostentatiously, of course."
"Why, you—" she spluttered.
He put his foot over her mouth. "Don't give me your answer now. You're in no condition to think. Tell me tomorrow."
* * * *
It rained all night and continued on into the morning. Tarb's head ached, but she had to make an appearance at the office. First she vizzed an acquaintance she had made the day before; then she took her umbrella and set forth.
As she kicked open the door to the newsroom, all sound ceased. Voices stopped abruptly. Typewriters halted in mid-click. Even the roar of the presses downstairs suddenly seemed to mute. Every head turned to look at Tarb.
Humph, she thought, removing her plastic oversocks, so suppose I was a little oblique yesterday. They needn't stare at me. They never stare at Drosmig. Just because I'm a woman, I suppose! The gate crashed loudly behind her.
"Oh, Miss Morfatch," Miss Snow called. "Mr. Zarnon said he wanted to see you as soon as you came in. It's urgent." And she giggled.
"Really?" Tarb said. "Well, he'll just have to wait until I've wrung out my wings." Sooner or later, she would have to face Stet, but she wanted to put it off as long as possible.
She opened the door to her office and halted in amazement. For, seated on a stool behind the desk, haggard but vertical, was Senbot Drosmig, busily reading letters and blue-penciling comments on them with his feet.
"Good morning, my dear," he said, giving her a wan smile
. "Surprised to see me functioning again, eh?"
"Well—yes." She opened her dripping umbrella mechanically and stood it in a corner. "How—"
"I realized last night that all that happened to you was my fault. You were my responsibility and I failed you."
"Oh, don't be melodramatic, Senbot. I wasn't your responsibility and you didn't fail me. Not that I'm not glad to see you up and doing again, but—"
"But I did fail you!" the aged journalist insisted. "And, in the same way, I failed my people. I shouldn't have given in. I should have fought Zarnon as you, my dear, tried to do. But it isn't too late!" The fire of the crusader lit up in his watery old eyes. "I can still fight him and his sacred crows—his Earthlings! If I have to, I can go over his head to Grupe. Grupe may not understand Stet's moral failings, but he certainly will comprehend his commercial ones. Grupe owns stock in other Fizbian enterprises besides the Times. Autofax, for example."
"Oh, Senbot!" Tarb wailed. "The whole thing's such an awful mess!"
"I don't think it'll be necessary to threaten that far," he comforted her. "Stet is no fool. He knows which side of his breadnut is peeled."
"I'm sure you'll do a wonderful job," she exclaimed, impulsively giving a ritual entrechat. "And I wish I could stay and help you, but...."
"I know, my dear."
"You do?" She was puzzled. "But how did the news get around so quickly?"
He shrugged. "The Terrestrial grapevine is almost as efficient as the Fizbian. Didn't you notice any change in the—ah—atmosphere when you came in?"
"Oh, was that the reason?" Tarb laughed merrily. "Somehow it never occurred to me that they could have heard so soon."
"But the morning editions have been out for hours."
The door to the office was flung open. Stet stormed in, bristling with a most unloverlike rage.