Arthur Zagat - The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IX

“Of course, our real problem is getting proofreaders. The proofing machines won’t operate here either, of course, and so we need human personnel. But what Fizbian would do such degrading work? We had thought of convict labor, but—”

“Why mustn’t I take off my wrap?” Tarb interrupted. “No one else is wearing one.”

Stet coughed. “You’ll feel much less self-conscious about your wings if you keep it on. And try not to use your feet so conspicuously. I’m sure everyone understands you need them to eat with, but—”

“But I’m not in the least self-conscious about my wings. On Fizbus, they were considered rather nice-looking, if I do say so myself.”

“It’s better,” he said firmly, “not to emphasize the differences between the natives and ourselves. You didn’t object to wearing a Terrestrial costume, did you?”

“No, I realize I must make some concessions to native prudery, but—”

“Matter of fact, I’ve been thinking it would be a good idea for you to wear a stole or a cape or something in the daytime when you go to and from the office. You wouldn’t want to make yourself or the Times conspicuous, I’m sure…. No, waiter, no coffee. We’ll take champagne.”

“I want to try coffee,” Tarb said mutinously. “Champagne! You’d think I was a fledgling, giving me that bubbly stuff!”

He looked at her. “Now don’t be silly, Miss Morfatch… Tarb. I can’t let you indulge in such rash experiments. You realize I am responsible for you.”

Tarb muttered darkly into her coupe maison.

Stet raised his eyebrows. “What did you say?”

“I was only wondering whether you’d remembered to check on whether that young man—Bloxx—ever did get out of jail.”

Stet snapped his toes. “Glad you reminded me. Completely slipped my mind. Let’s go and see what happened to him, shall we?”

As they rose to leave, a dumpy Earthwoman rushed up to them, enthusiastically babbling in Terran. Seizing Tarb’s foot, she clung to it before the Fizbian girl could do anything to prevent her. Tarb had to spread her wings wide to retain her balance. Her cloak flew off and an adjoining table of diners disappeared beneath it.

Stet and the headwaiter rushed to the rescue with profuse apologies, Stet’s crest undulating as if it concealed a nest of snakes. But Tarb was too much frightened to be calmed.

“Is this a hostile attack?” she shrieked frantically at Stet. “Because the handbook never said shaking feet was an Earth custom!”

“No, no, she’s a friend!” Stet yelled, leaving the diners still struggling with the cloak as he sped back to her. “And shaking feet isn’t an Earth custom; she thinks it’s a Fizbian one. You see…. Oh, hell, never mind—I’ll explain the whole thing to you later. But she’s just greeting you, trying to put you at your ease. It’s Belinda Romney, a very important Terrestrial. She owns the Solar Press—you must have heard of it even on Fizbus—biggest news service on the planet. Absolutely wouldn’t do to offend her. Mrs. Romney, may I present Miss Morfatch?”

The woman beamed and continued to gush endlessly.

“Tell her to let go my foot!” Tarb demanded. “It’s getting so it feels carbonated.”

He smiled deprecatingly. “Now, Tarb, we mustn’t be rude—”

For the first time in her life, Tarb spoke Terran to a Terrestrial. She formed the words slowly and carefully: “Sorry we must leave, but we have to go to jail.”

She looked to Stet for approval… and didn’t get it. He started to explain something quickly to the woman. Every time she’d heard him speak Terran, Tarb thought, he seemed to be introducing, explaining or apologizing.

It turned out that, through some oversight, the usually thoughtful Terran police department had neglected to inform the Fizbian consul that one of his people had been incarcerated, for the young man had already been tried, found guilty of assault plus contempt of court, and sentenced to pay a large fine. However, after Stet had given his version of the circumstances to a sympathetic judge, the sum was reduced to a nominal one, which the Times paid.

“But I don’t see why you should have paid anything at all,” Bloxx protested ungratefully. “I didn’t do anything wrong. You should have made an issue of it.”

“According to Earth laws, you did do wrong,” Stet said wearily, “and this is Earth. What’s more, if we take the matter up, it will naturally get into print. You don’t want your employers to hear about it, do you—even if you don’t care about making Fizbians look ridiculous to Terrestrials?”

“I suppose I wouldn’t like FizbEarth to find out,” Bloxx conceded. “As it is, I’ll have to do some fast explaining to account for my not having shown up for nearly a week. I’ll say I caught some horrible Earth disease—that’ll scare them so much, they’ll probably beg me to take another week off. Though I do wish you fellows over at the Times would answer your mail sooner. I’m a regular subscriber, you know.”

“But the same kind of thing’s going to happen over and over again, isn’t it, Stet?” Tarb asked as a taxi took them back to the hotel in which most of the Times staff was domiciled. “If privacy doesn’t exist on Earth, it’s bound to keep occurring.”

“Eh?” Stet took his attention away from her toes with some difficulty. “Some Earth people like privacy, too, but they have to fight for it. Violations aren’t legally punishable—that’s the only difference.”

“Then surely the Terrestrials would understand about us, wouldn’t they?” she asked eagerly. “If they knew how strongly we felt about privacy, maybe they wouldn’t violate it—not as much, anyway. I’m sure they’re not vicious, just ignorant. And you can’t just keep on getting Fizbians out of jail each time they run up against the problem. It would be too expensive, for one thing.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, pressing her toes. “I’ll take care of the whole thing.”

“An article in the paper wouldn’t really help much,” she persisted thoughtfully, “and I suppose you must have run at least one already. It would explain to the Fizbians that Terrestrials don’t regard invasion of privacy as a crime, but it wouldn’t tell the Terrestrials that Fizbians do. We’ll have to think of—”

“You’re surely not going to tell me how to run my paper on your first day here, are you?”

He tried to take the sting out of his words by twining his toes around hers, but she felt guilty. She had been presumptuous. Probably there were lots of things she couldn’t understand yet—like why she shouldn’t polish her eyeballs in public. Stet had finally explained to her that, while Terrestrial women did make up in public, they didn’t scour their irises, ever, and would be startled and horrified to see someone else doing so.

“But I was horrified to see them raking their feathers in public!” Tarb had contended.

“Combing their hair, my dear. And why not? This is their planet.”

That was always his answer. I wonder, she speculated, whether he would expect a Terrestrial visitor to Fizbus to fly… because, after all, Fizbus is our planet. But she didn’t dare broach the question.

However, if it was presumptuous of her to make helpful suggestions the first day, it was more than presumptuous of Stet to ask her up to his rooms to see his collection of rare early twentieth-century Terrestrial milk bottles and other antiques. So she just told him courteously that she was tired and wanted to go to roost. And, since the hotel had a whole section fitted up to suit Fizbian requirements, she spent a more comfortable night than she had expected.