Helpfully Yours Read online

expected.

  She awoke the next day full of enthusiasm and ready to start in on thegreat work at once. Although she might have been a little too forwardthe previous night, she knew, as she took a reassuring glance in themirror, that Stet would forgive her.

  * * * * *

  In the office, she was, at first, somewhat self-conscious about Drosmig,who hung insecurely from his perch muttering to himself, but she soonforgot him in her preoccupation with duty. The first letter she pickedup--although again oddly unlike the ones she'd read in the paper onFizbus--seemed so simple that she felt she would have no difficulty inanswering it all by herself:

  _Heidelberg_

  _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_

  _I am a professor of Fizbian History at a local university. Since my salary is a small one, owing to the small esteem in which the natives hold culture, I must economize wherever I can in order to make both ends meet. Accordingly, I do my own cooking and shop at the self-service supermarket around the corner, where I have found that prices are lower than in the service groceries and the food no worse._

  _However, the manager and a number of the customers have objected to my shopping with my feet. They don't so much mind my taking packages off the shelves with them, but they have been quite vociferous on the subject of my pinching the fruit with my toes. Unripe fruit, however, makes me ill. What shall I do?_

  _Sincerely yours,_

  _Grez B'Groot_

  Tarb dictated an unhesitating reply:

  Dear Professor B'Groot:

  Why don't you explain to the manager of the store that Fizbians have wings and feet rather than arms and hands?

  I'm sure his attitude and the attitudes of his customers will change when they learn that your pinching the fruit with your feet is not mere pedagogical eccentricity, but the regular practice on our planet. Point out to him that your feet are covered and, therefore, more sanitary than the bare hands of his other customers.

  And always put on clean socks before you go shopping.

  Helpfully yours,

  Senbot Drosmig

  Miss Snow raised pale eyebrows.

  "Is something wrong?" Tarb asked anxiously. "Should I have put in thatbit about work, study, meditate? It seems inappropriate somehow."

  "Oh, no, not that. It's just that your letter--well, violates Mr.Zarnon's precept that, in Rome, one must do as the Romans do."

  "But this isn't Rome," Tarb replied, bewildered. "It's New York."

  "He didn't make the saying up," Miss Snow replied testily. "It's aTerrestrial proverb."

  "Oh," Tarb said.

  She resented this creature's trying to tell her how to do her job. Onthe other hand, Tarb was wise enough to realize that Miss Snow,unpleasant though she might be, probably did know Stet well enough to beable to predict his reactions.

  So Tarb not only was reluctant to show Stet what she had already done,but hesitated about answering another and even more urgent letter thathad just been brought in by special messenger. She tried to compromiseby submitting the letters to Drosmig--for, technically speaking, it washe who was her immediate superior--but he merely groaned, "Tell 'em allto drop dead," from his perch and refused to open his eyes.

  In the end, Tarb had to take the letters to Stet's office. Miss Snowtrailed along behind her, uninvited. And, since this was a place ofbusiness, Tarb could not claim a privacy violation. Even if it weren't aplace of business, she remembered, she couldn't--not here on Earth.Advanced spirituality, hah!

  Advanced pain in the pinions!

  Stet read the first letter and her answer smilingly. "Excellent, Tarb--"her hearts leaped--"for a first try, but I'd like to suggest a fewchanges, if I may."

  "Well, of course," she said, pretending not to notice the smirk on MissSnow's face.

  "Just write this Professor B'Goot that he should do his shopping at agrocery that offers service and practice his economies elsewhere. Aprofessor, of all people, is expected to uphold the dignity of his ownrace--the idea, sneering at a culture that was thousands of years oldwhen we were still building nests! Terrestrials couldn't possibly haveany respect for him if they saw him prodding kumquats with his toes."

  "It's no sillier than writing with one's vestigial wings!" Tarb blazed.

  "Well!" Miss Snow exclaimed in Terran. "Well, _really_!"

  Tarb started to stick out her tongue, then remembered. "I didn't mean tooffend you, Miss Snow. I know it's your custom. But wouldn't youunderstand if I typewrote with my feet?"

  Miss Snow tittered.

  "If you want the honest truth, hon, it would make you look like afeathered monkey."

  "If you want the honest truth about what you look like to me,dearie--it's a plucked chicken!"

  "Tarb, I think you should apologize to Miss Snow!"

  "All right!" Tarb stuck out her tongue. Miss Snow promptly thrust outhers in return.

  "Ladies, ladies!" Stet cried. "I think there has been a slight confusionof folkways!" He quickly changed the subject. "Is that another letteryou have there, Tarb?"

  "Yes, but I didn't try to answer it. I thought you'd better have a lookat it first, since Miss Snow didn't seem to think much of the job I didwith the other one."

  "Miss Snow always has the _Times'_ welfare at heart," Stet remarkedambiguously, and read:

  _Chicago_

  _Dear Senbot Drosmig:_

  _I am employed as translator by the extraterrestrial division of Burns and Deerhart, Inc., the well-known interstellar mail-order house. As the company employs no other Fizbians and our offices are situated in a small rural community where no others of our race reside, I find myself rather lonely. Moreover, being a bachelor, with neither chick nor child on Fizbus, I have nothing to look forward to upon my return to the Home Planet some day._

  _Accordingly, I decided to adopt a child to cheer my declining years. I dispatched an interstellargram to a reliable orphanage on Fizbus, outlining my hopes and requirements in some detail. After they had satisfied themselves as to my income, strength of character, etc., they sent me a fatherless and motherless egg in cold storage, which I was supposed to hatch upon arrival._

  _However, when the egg came to Earth, it was impounded by Customs. They say it is forbidden to import extrasolar eggs. I have tried to explain to them that it is not at all a question of importation but of adoption; however, they cannot or will not understand._

  _Please tell me what to do. I fear that they may not be keeping the egg at the correct Fizbian freezing point--which, as you know, is a good deal lower than Earth's. The fledgling may hatch by itself and receive a traumatic shock that might very well damage its entire psyche permanently._

  _Frantically yours,_

  _Glibmus Gluyt_

  "Oh, for the stars' sake!" Stet exploded. "This is really too much! Vizour consul, Miss Snow. That egg must go back to Fizbus at once, beforeany Terrestrials hear of it! And I must notify the government back onthe Home Planet to keep a close check on all egg shipments. Somethinglike this must certainly not occur again."

  "Why shouldn't the Terrestrials hear of it?" Tarb asked, outraged. "AndI think it's mean of you to send back a poor little orphan egg like thatwhen it has a chance of getting a good home."

  "An egg!" Miss Snow repeated incredulously. "You mean you really...?"She gave me one mad little hoot of laughter and then stopped andstrangled slightly. Her face turned purple in her efforts to restrainmirth. _Really_, Tarb thought, _she looks so much better that color_.

  Stet's crest twitched violently. "I hope--" he began. "I do hope youwill keep this ... knowledge to yourself, Miss Snow."

  "But of course," she assured him, calming down. "I'm dreadfully sorry Iwas so rude. Naturally I wouldn't dream of telling a soul, Mr. Zarnon.You can trust me."

  "I'm sure I can, Miss Sn
ow."

  Tarb almost choked with indignation. "You mean you've been keeping thefacts of our life from Terrestrials? As if they were fledglings ... no,even fledglings are told these days."

  "One could hardly blame him for it, Miss Morfatch," Miss Snow said. "Youwouldn't want people to know that Fizbians laid eggs, would you?"

  "And why not?"

  "Tarb," Stet intervened, "you don't know what you're talking about."

  "Oh, don't I? You're ashamed of the fact that we bear our children in aclean, decent, honorable way instead of--" She stopped. "I'm being asbad as you two are. Probably the