stopped her. “You mean it, Sol?”
“Of course.”
“It’s not just because of this diver?”
“Why, honey, how could you think such a thing? If I’d never brought it in for you, I’d still want to marry you.”
“You never said so before,” she said. “But okay. If you do it now. Right now, Sol Jones.”
So the merchandise stopped coming in while we plugged into the video and participated in a moving and legal ceremony. The marriage service was expensive, but after all we could teleport in a few thousand credit blanks from the Solar Treasury. Immediately after we had switched off, we did so.
“Are you sure you married me for myself, Sol?”
“I swear it, honey. No other thought entered my head. Just you.”
I made a few notes while Florence planned the house we would have, furnished with rare materials from anywhere. I thought one of the medium asteroids would do for a base for Sol Jones Intragalactic Transport. I could see it all, vast warehouses and immediate delivery of anything from anywhere. I wondered if there was a limit to the diver’s capacity, so Florence desired an encyclopedia and in it came, floating through the doorway.
“It says,” she read, “not much is known about Antimony IX divers because none have ever been known to leave their planet.”
“They probably need the stimulus of an educated mind,” I said. “Anyway, this one can get diamonds from Jupiter and so on, and that’s what matters.”
*
I kissed the wife of the President of Sol Jones Intragalactic and was interrupted by discreet tapping on the door. The manager of the Asteroid-Central beamed at us.
“Excuse,” he said. “But we understand you have just been married, Mr. and Mrs. Jones.”
“Irrevocably,” I said.
“Felicitations. The Asteroid-Central will be sending up complimentary euphorics. There is just a small point, Mr. Jones. We notice you have a large selection of valuable gifts for the bride.”
He looked round the room and smiled at the piles of stuff Florence had thought of.
“Of course,” he went on, “we trust your stay will be pleasant and perhaps you will let us know if you will be wanting anything else.”
“I expect we will, but we’ll let you know,” I said.
“Thank you, Mr. Jones. It is merely that we noticed you had emptied every showcase on the ground floor and, a few moments ago, teleported the credit contents of the bar up here. Not of importance, really; it is all charged on your bill.”
“You saw it and didn’t stop it?” I yelled.
“Oh, no, Mr. Jones. We always make an exception for Antimony IX divers. Limited creatures, really, but good for our business. We get about one a month—smuggled in, you know. But the upkeep proves too expensive. Some women do shop without more than a passing thought, don’t they?”
I saw what he meant, but Mrs. Sol Jones took it very philosophically.
“Never mind, Sol—you have me.”
“Or vice versa, honey,” I said.
The Ignoble Savages
By Evelyn E. Smith
Snaddra had but one choice in its fight to afford to live belowground— underhandedly pretend theirs was an aboveboard society!
*
“Go Away from me, Skkiru,” Larhgan said, pushing his hand off her arm. “A beggar does not associate with the high priestess of Snaddra.”
“But the Earthmen aren’t due for another fifteen minutes,” Skkiru protested.
“Of what importance are fifteen minutes compared to eternity!” she exclaimed. Her lovely eyes fuzzed softly with emotion. “You don’t seem to realize, Skkiru, that this isn’t just a matter of minutes or hours. It’s forever.”
“Forever!” He looked at her incredulously. “You mean we’re going to keep this up as a permanent thing? You’re joking!”
Bbulas groaned, but Skkiru didn’t care about that. The sad, sweet way Larhgan shook her beautiful head disturbed him much more, and when she said, “No, Skkiru, I am not joking,” a tiny pang of doubt and apprehension began to quiver in his second smallest left toe.
“This is, in effect, good-by,” she continued. “We shall see each other again, of course, but only from a distance. On feast days, perhaps you may be permitted to kiss the hem of my robe ... but that will be all.”
Skkiru turned to the third person present in the council chamber. “Bbulas, this is your fault! It was all your idea!”
There was regret on the Dilettante’s thin face—an obviously insincere regret, the younger man knew, since he was well aware how Bbulas had always felt about the girl.
“I am sorry, Skkiru,” Bbulas intoned. “I had fancied you understood. This is not a game we are playing, but a new way of life we are adopting. A necessary way of life, if we of Snaddra are to keep on living at all.”
“It’s not that I don’t love you, Skkiru,” Larhgan put in gently, “but the welfare of our planet comes first.”
*
She had been seeing too many of the Terrestrial fictapes from the library, Skkiru thought resentfully. There was too damn much Terran influence on this planet. And this new project was the last straw.
No longer able to control his rage and grief, he turned a triple somersault in the air with rage. “Then why was I made a beggar and she the high priestess? You arranged that purposely, Bbulas. You—”
“Now, Skkiru,” Bbulas said wearily, for they had been through all this before, “you know that all the ranks and positions were distributed by impartial lot, except for mine, and, of course, such jobs as could carry over from the civilized into the primitive.”
Bbulas breathed on the spectacles he was wearing, as contact lenses were not considered backward enough for the kind of planet Snaddra was now supposed to be, and attempted to wipe them dry on his robe. However, the thick, jewel-studded embroidery got in his way and so he was forced to lift the robe and wipe all three of the lenses on the smooth, soft, spun metal of his top underskirt.
“After all,” he went on speaking as he wiped, “I have to be high priest, since I organized this culture and am the only one here qualified to administer it. And, as the president himself concurred in these arrangements, I hardly think you—a mere private citizen—have the right to question them.”
“Just because you went to school in another solar system,” Skkiru said, whirling with anger, “you think you’re so smart!”
“I
