Sprague de Camp's New Anthology
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Год: 1953
- Язык: английский
- Год: Panther
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Sprague de Camp's New Anthology». Краткое содержание книги:
Gaston said: "I'll take mine on Earth. I'm applying for transfer."
The other three protested with one voice: "No, Vic!"
"You can't do that to us!"
"What'll we do for a fourth bridge-player?"
He smiled his nervous, twitchy little smile. "Thanks, but my mind's made up. Darwin was right; the Moon's no place for a man with nerves. Anyway, I don't get on with my superior."
Tseven asked: "Where's your beautiful young lady?"
Priest answered: "She's been barricaded in our bedroom for twelve hours and won't come out. The balls have all been killed, but she's staying for a while to make sure."
A beautiful smile spread over Victor Gaston's undistinguished features. "That gives me an idea for the most horrible revenge the mind can conceive." He dialled the telephone. "Mr. Hartwig? Gaston ... Sure, Bill's coming along fine. Say, we have a surprise for you. Know Miss Eleanor McGlomb, the McGlomb's daughter? She was in the control room with us when the trouble started ... Yes, she's here now. If you'll be in your office half an hour from now, I'll bring her up to meet you. Don't mention it; glad to. 'Bye." He turned, grinning to his friends. To Tseven he said: "If she nearly drove us nuts, Hank, what do you suppose she'll do to old Super-Efficiency Hartwig?"
Proposal
WHEN ALICE Wernecke walked up the path to the Greers' house she was mildly interested in the fact that the thing from that planet, which was staying with the Greers, would be there. Meeting it would be an interesting experience and all that.
But that was not the main consideration. She had read enough about these extra-terrestrials in the newspapers and magazines, and seen them enough on television, so that meeting one would cause no great shock. And they were certainly nothing pretty to look at; not at all human (barring the fact that they had two arms, two legs, and a head), but not much like anything else on earth either. '
These Wolfians had certainly made the human race look silly, after all those important people had gone to so much trouble and appropriated so much money for a World Space Authority under the United Nations, and made so many dull speeches about the dawn of a new era, and then when they got their moon-ship half built the ship from the planet of the star Wolf number something had landed in Africa. The sixteen extra-terrestrials aboard had solemnly announced that they were paying a visit and would the earthmen be so kind as to explain everything about this planet to them?
The fact uppermost in Alice's mind, however, was not the presence of the alien, but that of his guide and mentor, that Mr. Matthews from the State Department.
Mr. Matthews was a kind of cousin of the Greers, unmarried, and for months the Greers had been promising to introduce him to Alice. The trouble was that Mr. Matthews worked (dreadfully hard, said the Greers) in Washington, and seldom got to the Philadelphia suburbs. Now, however ...
Alice also felt a little guilty about the fact that her room-mate Inez Rogell was not coming to this party—though there was no reason why she should. The Greers had asked Alice, not Inez, who was no great asset to a party, anyway.
Harry Greer let her in and introduced her round. The being from Wolf whatsit stood at the far end of the room holding his cocktail in one hand and resting the knuckles of the other on the ground. The remarkable shortness of his legs and length of his arms made this possible. The creature was covered with a wrinkled grey leathery hairless skin that gave the impression of being very thick, like that of an elephant. His head reminded Alice a little of that of a turtle, though the skull bulged enough to accommodate a decent share of brains. Aside from a wrist-watch and a thing like a muse tie-bag slung from one shoulder, the being wore no clothes or ornaments, and aside from his large opalescent eyes and his beak-mouth there was nothing about him that could be definitely identified with a corresponding organ on an earthly organism. He was not quite so tall as Alice's five-four.
Harry Greer said: "Alice, this is—" and here he uttered a name that sounded something like "Stanko."
"Stanko, this is Miss Wernecke, who teaches our youngest."
Stanko opened the musette-bag. Alice had a glimpse inside and saw that it was full of a fountain-pen, an address-book, and other things such as an earthly man might carry in his pockets. He brought out and extended a calling-card, which read:
Kstaho 'Agu Lozlek Haag
Cultural Representative,
Wolf 359-1.
At the same time Stanko (as Alice continued to think of him, despite the hieroglyphics on the card) said slowly: "I am glad to meet Miss Wernecke. Does she teach that one child only, or others as well?"
The accent was not bad—at least most of the sounds were recognisable—but the voice had a curiously inhuman flat quality, as when a man speaks with an artificial larynx.
While Harry Greer answered Stanko's question, Mary Greer presented Alice to the tall man with dark hair thinning on top, who stood next to the extra-terrestrial. Now Alice's interest really soared, for Mary announced that this was "Byron Matthews, who I've been telling you about."
"And she's told me about you, too," said Byron Matthews.
Alice wished that Mary had not poured it on quite so thickly. Nothing nips a beautiful friendship in the bud like the suspicion of the people concerned that they are being thrown together for matchmaking purposes. Still, this did look like a possibility. If not exactly handsome, Byron Matthews had a distinguished air and a pleasant manner. Certainly he was an improvement over anything in Alice's present stable: that twerp John, who taught English at Darbydale High, or Edward, who clerked at the Darbydale National Bank, or the two or three occasionals ...
When she had shaken hands, Alice straightened up and drew back her shoulders to make the-most of her assets. She was acutely conscious of Matthews's glance as it took in her freshly-set golden hair, her best blue afternoon frock matching her eyes, and her lush figure which careful dieting kept on the safe side of plumpness. She said:
"My goodness, Mr. Matthews, you don't look like one of those terrible State Department people one reads about."
Matthews gave a theatrical wince. "Young lady, if the State Department were as. bad as its critics for the last two centuries have been saying, the Republic would have ceased to exist. But then, it's an axiom of American politics that the better the Department is the worse it gets criticised."
"How awful! Why is that?"
"Because we have to take a long view and consider the whole world, which puts us on the unpopular side of many questions. Most folks, especially Congressmen, would rather take a short view and forget the rest of the world. Now that we have to start considering other planets as well it'll be even worse."
"You poor things! Are you staying up here to keep an eye on Mr. Stanko?"
"That's right. The Wolfians decided that the most profitable use to make of their time was to scatter and sample various earthly environments. So one is living with a family of Chinese peasants, another with a family of decayed European aristocrats in Denmark, another in a Catholic monastery in Quebec, and another with the Camayura Indians of Brazil. Kstaho was assigned to sample life in a typical suburban-bourgeois home in the United States."
"I think he got the best deal of the lot," said Alice, absent-mindedly accepting the Martini that Harry Greer handed her. "How long will he be here?"
"About five months. Then they all fly back to Africa to take off for home."
"What do you do meanwhile?"
"I stay at the Swarthmore Inn, and during the day I take our guest sightseeing."
"You'll be here all that time?"