Sure. I’d like to make a date with you when we hit Earth. Never dated a Vegan girl—but that blue skin is really lovely.”
“Vetoed,” Josef said without turning his head.
Mike whirled. “Vetoed! Now look here, brother—you don’t have absolute and final say on every—”
“The girl will only refuse,” Josef said. “Don’t waste our time on dalliance. I’m trying to think, and your chatter disturbs me.”
Again tension grew. Quickly Milissa said, “Your brother’s right, Mr. Grigori. Vegan Line personnel are not allowed to date passengers. It’s an absolute rule.”
Dismay registered on two of the three heads. Josef merely looked more smug. Another crisis seemed brewing among the mutant brothers when suddenly a creature several seats behind them tossed a magazine it had been reading into the aisle with a great outcry of rage.
“Excuse me,” Milissa said. “I’ll have to see what’s upsetting him.”
Grateful for the interruption, she moved up the aisle. The alien who had thrown the magazine was a small pinkish being, whose eyes, dangling on six-inch eyestalks, now quivered in what she supposed was rage.
Milissa stooped, one hand keeping her neckline from dipping (there was no telling what sexual habits these aliens had) and picked up the magazine. Science Fiction Stories, she saw, and there was a painting of an alien much like the one before her printed on the glossy cover.
“I think you dropped this, Mr.—Mr.—”
“Dellamon,” the alien replied, in a cold, testy, snappish voice. “Thogral Dellamon, of Procyon V. And I didn’t drop the magazine. I threw it down violently, as you very well saw.”
She smiled apologetically. “Of course, Mr. Dellamon. Did you see something you disagreed with in the magazine?”
“Disagreed with? I saw something that was a positive insult!” He snatched the magazine from her, riffled through it, found a page, and handed it back.
The magazine was open to page 113. The title of the story was “Slaves of the Pink Beings,” bylined J. Eckman Forester. She skimmed the first few lines; it was typical science fiction, full of monsters and bloodshed, and just as dull as every other science fiction story she had tried to read.
“I hope I won’t make you angry when I say I don’t see anything worth getting angry over in this, Mr. Dellamon.”
“That story,” he said, “tells of the conquests and sadistic pleasures of a race of evil pink beings—and of their destruction by Earthmen. Look at that cover painting! It’s an exact image of—well, you see? This is vicious propaganda aimed at my people! And none of it’s true! None!”
The cover indeed bore a resemblance to the indignant little alien. But the date under the heading caught Milissa’s eye. June 2114. Three hundred years old. “Where did you get this magazine?” she asked.
“Bought it. Wanted to read an Earth magazine, as long as I have to go there, so I had a man on my planet get one for me.”
“Oh. That explains it, then. Look at the date, Mr. Dellamon! That story’s a complete fantasy! It was written more than a hundred years before Earth and Procyon came into contact!”
“But—fantasy—I don’t understand—”
The sputtering little alien threatened to become apoplectic. Milissa wished prodigiously that she had never transferred out of local service. These aliens could be so touchy, at times!
“Excuse me, please,” said a furry purple creature seated across the aisle. “That magazine you have there—mind if I look at it?”
“Here,” the angry alien said. He tossed it over.
The purple being examined it, smiled delightedly, said, “Why, it’s an issue I need! Will you take five hundred credits for it?”
“Five hundred—” The eyestalks stopped quivering, and drooped in an expression of probable delight. “Make it five-fifty and the book is yours!”
***
CRISIS AFTER CRISIS, MILISSA THOUGHT gloomily. They were two days out from Vega, with better than a day yet to go before Earth hove into sight. And if the voyage lasted much longer, she’d go out of her mind.
The three Grigori brothers had finally erupted into violence late the first day; they sprang from their seat and went rolling up the aisle, cursing fluently at each other in a dozen languages. Josef had the upper hand for a while, rearing back and pounding his brothers’ heads together, but he was outnumbered and was in dire straits by the time Milissa found two crewmen to put a stop to the brawl.
Then there was the worm-like being from Albireo III who suddenly discovered she was going to sporulate, and did—casting a swarm of her encapsulated progeny all over the lounge. She was very apologetic, and assisted Milissa in finding the spores, but it caused quite a mess.
The Greklan brothers from Deneb Kaitos I caused the next crisis. Greklans, Milissa discovered, had peculiar sexual practices: they spent most of their existence as neuters, but at regular periods about a decade apart suddenly developed sex, at which time the procedure was to mate, and fast. One of the brothers abruptly became a male, the other female, to their great surprise, consternation, and delight. The squeals of a puritanical being from Fomalhaut V attracted Milissa’s attention; she managed to hustle the Greklans off to a washroom just in time. They returned, an hour later, to announce they had reverted to neuter status and would name their offspring Milissa, but that scarcely helped her nerves.
Never again, Milissa told herself, surveying the array of life-forms in the lounge. Back to local service for me. As soon as the return trip is over—
Eleven hours to Earth. She hoped she could stay sane that long.
Frozen asparagus turned up on the menu the final night. It was a grave tactical mistake; three vegetable-creatures of Mirach IX accused the Vegan Line of fomenting cannibalism, and stalked out of the dining room. Milissa followed them and found them seriously ill of nausea and threatening to sue. She hadn’t noticed until then how very much like asparagus stalks the Mirachians looked; no one in the galley had either, apparently.
A family of reptiloids from Algenib became embroiled with a lizardlike inhabitant of Altair II. It took what was left of Milissa’s tattered diplomacy to separate the squabblers and persuade them all to retake their seats.
She counted hours. She counted minutes. And, finally, she counted seconds.
“Earth ahead!” came the announcement from Control Cabin.
She went before the passengers to make the traditional final speech. Calmly, almost numbly, she thanked them for their cooperation, hoped they had enjoyed the flight, wished them the best of everything on Earth.
Mike-Jim-Josef Grigori paused to say good-bye on their way out. They looked slightly bruised and battered. For the seventh time, Milissa explained to Mike how regulations prohibited her from dating, and finally they said good-bye. They walked down the ramp snarling and cursing at each other.
She watched them all
