Sprague de Camp's New Anthology

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?"

"Unless Congress decides the State people are all Wolfians in disguise and cuts off our salaries."

Then Mary Greer pulled Alice off to meet a couple more people, and there was a general scrimmage for a while. The other guests, once they had gotten over their initial nervousness towards Stanko, crowded round and plied him with questions:

"How d'you like this lousy Philadelphia climate?" "Have you been to a football game yet?" "Do they have insurance on this planet of yours?" "What do you think of American women?" "Aw, don't embarrass the poor guy, George; he thinks they're inhuman monsters."

"Well, sometimes I think they are, too ..."

The extra-terrestrial responded in his slow way, taking his time for solemnly exact answers. The milling of the party—and some volition on her part—brought Alice back into proximity with Byron Matthews, though she let it seem accidental. This time their discourse got to where he was saying, with more hesitation and evident trepidation than one would expect of a rising young diplomat:

"Uh, I thought maybe while I'm here, uh, maybe we could get together some time. Uh. You know, have dinner out or something."

Alice smiled her best. "That's sweet of you, Byron! Or maybe I could feed you some night? You must get awfully tired of restaurant food."

"I do at that. Do you mean you can cook as well as teach?"

"I should be able to! My folks are Pennsylvania Dutch ..."

The flat mechanical voice of the Wolfian cut in: "Mr. Matthews, I have not yet seen one of your schools in operation. As Miss Wernecke is a teacher, could I perhaps watch her teach?"

"How about it, Alice?" said Matthews.

"Oh, goodness," said Alice. "If Mr. Stanko comes in to one of our classes the kids will be so distracted nothing will be taught, and he won't see what he came for. Suppose I send him up to the High School? He'd find Mr. Lorbeer's science class interesting."

That, she thought, will fix that old goat's wagon. She had good reasons for disliking Mr. Lorbeer. The previous year, when she had been doing her practice teaching at the Lowland Avenue School, in Darbydale, to qualify for her Pennsylvania State teaching licence, Mr. Lorbeer had been her supervisor sent by the University to check up on her along with the other would-be teachers who were finishing the University's education course. And he had driven poor Alice nearly crazy by slinking around hinting that she would be sure of a good grade if she would only tender him the ultimate in female hospitality. Otherwise—out and she had seen enough of his arbitrary firings of student teachers to know that he meant it. (One unlucky youth whom everybody else considered promising material had been tossed out at the end of his first day for what Mr. Lorbeer had reported as "intangibles"). The facts that he had a wife somewhere and that such conduct was not socially approved in a conservative Philadelphia suburb did not deter him.

Alice, however, had every intention of keeping her virtue, at least for another six years until she was thirty. Then, if she had not landed a man, she would see. Therefore she had adroitly held Mr. Lorbeer off, treading the tightrope between submission and defiance until she got her licence, and the principal of the Lowland Avenue School had also seen her practice work and had an opening for a third-grade teacher.

But the fact that he was no longer in a position to apply improper pressure had not discouraged Lorbeer. He still pursued her with 'phone calls, small gifts, and offers of dales. And though he was no longer her practice-teaching supervisor, he was important enough in the school system so that she did not dare insult him openly.

"Certainly it will be interesting," said Stanko, but persisted in his implacable monotone: "I should still like to see this elementary school where Miss Wernecke teaches. Could I be shown around?"

Uncertain what to do with this request, Alice floundered. "I'm not sure—I suppose—oh, I know! The fourth-graders are putting on Hansel and Gretel tomorrow afternoon. Why don't you bring him around then? I'll speak to our principal."

It was a dirty trick to play on Inez Rogell, who taught one of the two fourth-grade sections, but at that moment it was the best that Alice could think of.

After Byron Matthews had walked Alice home, she sprang the news of the impending visitation on Inez. The room-mate proved a brick. After a quiet case of hysterics she said sure, she would make all the arrangements. Inez was a stocky girl, a decade older than Alice, with an unbeautiful face, thick eyeglasses, and all the sex-appeal of a lawn-mower. She had, Alice knew, given up hope of landing a man years before. Nevertheless, her virtue was still intact for want of takers. Alice sometimes reflected that if only Mr. Lorbeer would come slavering after Inez instead of her, everybody would be happy. Or at least happier.

Because of Inez's age and ugliness, Alice did not have to worry about competition from Inez for her own men. On the other hand, it put Alice in the position where she felt obligated to try to get dates for Inez from time to time, and these never turned out well.

Inez concluded: "But if that Warren boy has another fit, don't say I didn't warn you."

Alice was waiting when Matthews showed up ten minutes late the following afternoon, in the. little black State Department sedan with Stanko beside him. Matthews explained:

"Sorry, couldn't find the place. Where do we go now?"

Alice led them to the auditorium, noticing that when in more of a hurry than his short legs could manage, Stanko put his knuckles to the ground and used his arms as crutches.

The auditorium was merely a big room with a stage at one side and several rows of folding chairs set along the floor. The first of these rows was now occupied by pupils of the fourth and adjacent grades, while the two and a half rows behind these were filled by the mothers of the fourth-graders. On the stage Father, in the person of a coloured sixth-grader with a false . blond beard affixed to his chin, was singing his complaint about hunger's being the poor man's curse, while to the right of the stage Inez bravely banged out Herr Humperdinck's mediocre music on the school's battered piano.

Alice led her guests in, Stanko swinging along on his knuckles like an orangutang. Though they entered and sat down quietly in back, heads turned and there were gasps and whispers from the fourth-grade mothers. As the auditorium was only imperfectly darkened, those on the stage could see the new arrivals, too. The song about the poor man's curse died away in a squeak as Father stood goggling, ignoring the backstage prompting of Miss Pasquale, who taught the other fourth-grade section. Then Father sidled towards the wings, where he engaged in a colloquy with the unseen Miss Pasquale. His stage-whisper wafted out into the auditorium:

"I scared. Can't sing with him lookin' at me."

Alice breathed an "Oh, dear!" Mr. Matthews looked serious. As Father tried to push his way offstage, Miss Pasquale's arm came out and grabbed him, and Miss Pasquale was heard to make some threat about beating his head in that would certainly not be found in any of the official manuals on child guidance. Meanwhile, the girl playing Mother caught his coat from behind in an effort to pull him back to the centre of the stage.

Stanko sat taking all this in with his great jewel-like eyes. As the efforts of Father to leave the stage, and of Miss Pasquale to stop him, became more gymnastic, Stanko asked in a low voice:

"Is something wrong?"

"You—ah—seem to have startled him a bit," said Alice.

Stanko rose to his stubby legs and his voice carried flatly: "Do not be alarmed; I am merely studying your tribal rites. Please go on."

The sound of the unhuman voice seemed to have more effect on Father than either Miss Pasquale's threats or her efforts at physical coercion. Father let himself be pulled and pushed back to the centre of the stage, where he concluded his song in a tremulous voice. After that the opera limped along for another three-quarters of an hour without major mishap, save when the Witch became so conscious of Stanko's scrutiny that she missed her footing and fell off the stage.

At the end the shades were pulled up to let in the light. The mothers took a good look at Stanko and hurried off without stopping to exchange greetings and gossip. Miss Pasquale and Inez Rogell and Miss Halloran, the principal, came forward to meet the visitor, though each of the three ladies seemed anxious to let the others experience this honour first.

When they finally got away, Alice caught up her coat to show Stanko and Matthews out. When they got outside, Mr. Matthews wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, though it was a cool October day, and suggested that they stop at the nearest drug store for a, cup of coffee. At the drug store he said, even more hesitantly than when he had suggested a date the night before:

"Alice, Kstaho has another—uh—proposal to make."

"Yes?" said Alice with a sinking feeling.

"Yes," said Stanko. "I have been inquiring into your social customs, particularly that custom of dating which your young people practice. When I pressed Mr. Matthews for an example he admitted that he intended to undertake this rite with you, Miss Wernecke."

Alice glanced at Matthews, whose face bore much too unhappy, embarrassed, and self-conscious a look for even a fledgling diplomat.

Stanko continued: "So it seemed to me that the most instructive thing that you could do would be to embark upon one of those dates with me along as an observer. You would do all the things and go to all the places that you would if I were not there; just pretend that I do not exist."

"Why I never—" Alice began with heat, but Matthews gently grasped her wrist.

"Please, Alice," he said. "It's important."

"Oh, all right," she said. After all, a date with Byron Matthews, even with this bizarre chaperonage, would probably prove more fun than one with John or Edward.

"How about a movie?" said Matthews; and so it was arranged.

When Alice got home the telephone rang, and there was Byron Matthews on the line. He said:

"I'm awfully sorry about this, Alice—"

"Sorry about what?"

"Why, tonight. I mean, uh, not that I don't want to take you out—"

"I wondered for a minute," she said.

"Well, uh, you see, under normal circumstances—but we have to play along with Stinky or it'll be bad not only for me but for the country, and maybe the world as well. These Wolfians are really very proud and sensitive and emotional—"

"Those shell-less turtles high-strung?" cried Alice.

"Yes, believe it or not. They even commit suicide, when they consider themselves insulted."

"Oh, my goodness! That doesn't sound like the sort of people to send exploring the universe, when they may run up against any kind of treatment ..."

"That's true. Stanko told me they've lost three members of their group by suicide already. Before they landed on earth, that is. So you see ... But we'll have a real date as soon as we can get out from under Stanko's eagle eye. See you tonight."

During the evening Alice co-operated as well as she could with Byron Matthews in the pretence that their chaperone was not there.

After the movie they stopped in at the same drug store, where Stanko ate a banana split, Matthews had a root-beer soda, and Alice, mindful on the one hand of her shape and on the other of the necessity of getting a full night's sleep to be in condition for her monkey-cage the next day, confined herself to a small coke. In answer to her questions, Matthews told her something of the inner workings of the Department of State. She commented:

"When you explain it, it doesn't seem so mysterious or glamorous at all, but just one more government bureau all snarled up in its own red tape, like the Darby-dale public school system. I always imagined State Department people as dashing about in striped pants and dodging spies, with brief-cases full of priceless papers under their arms."

He answered: "That's what many people think. But the striped pants are merely our working-clothes, like an elevator man's uniform. And for the last five years I've been chained to a desk in Washington filling out forms in sextuplicate and buying airplane tickets for V.I.P.s, most of whom turn out to be just ordinary human beings with the usual percentage of stinkers." He took a final pull on his straw, so that it emitted a snoring sound as the last of the soda was sucked up. "But I expect more variety in the future. I've put in for transfer to the Foreign Service. Would you like something else? You might as well shoot the works. Uncle's paying for it."

"I think I'll have mercy on the taxpayers," said Alice, mentally adding, and on my waist-line.

When Matthews bid her good-night they shook hands. Stanko, watching, said:

"From what I have read and seen in your motion pictures, I understand that young people on dates in this country usually kiss before parting."

"Uh?" said Matthews.

"Well, do they not?"

"Sometimes," said Alice.

"And sometimes they do other things as well," said Matthews. "But as this custom you refer to is an—uh—somewhat sentimental rite, I don't think this would be an appropriate time ..."

In the darkness Alice could not see if Matthews were blushing, but he certainly sounded as if he were. Stanko said:

"Nevertheless, I wish that you would kindly do so. My observations will not be complete otherwise. Pretend that I am not here."

Matthews swore under his breath, then held out his arms. "Might as well do it up brown."

Alice suppressed a giggle and went into the clinch. She had been kissed often enough to know that unless the other party had bad breath, a hare lip, or a full beard, the difference between one kiss and another is not astronomical. Nevertheless, she was pleased to find that Byron Matthews did a smooth job, as a man of his age and presumable experience certainly should. Before they broke he whispered:

"As soon as I can get rid of Stinker, I'll be around for more!"

Alice went into her apartment thoughtfully. The last word had been somewhat ambiguous. Perhaps Stanko's chaperonage had not been an altogether bad idea. If Byron Matthews's notions of "more" were like those of Mr. Lorbeer, the extra-terrestrial's presence had at least saved the date from degenerating into a wrestling-match, as sometimes happened on dates with young men whose hands seemed to possess an uncontrollable exploratory urge of their own.

In the case of Matthews she was not even sure of how strong her defences were against one whom she found so attractive. She fortified her resolution by remembering her mother's last warning:

"Ach, Alice, remember yet, any time you think you don't vant a good girl to be, you never gatch a man by giving him free vot he vill marry you to get!"

Alice Wernecke was correcting papers in her apartment the following afternoon when the telephone rang. Her heart leaped at Byron Matthews's voice, then sank as she took in his graveyard tones. • "Alice," he said, "you know what?"

"What?"

"Stinko—pardon me, Cultural Representative Kstaho—wants a date with you!"

"You mean like last night?"

"No! He wants it all by himself. I'm not even to come along as chaperone."

"Oh-oh!" said Alice.

"Exactly, oh-oh."

"What's the big idea?"

"He has a line of double-talk about how to understand our cultural pattern he has to engage in our activities as much as a difference of species permits."

"I hope the difference doesn't permit too much. What sort of date has he in mind?"

"He's hell-bent to take you to a football game; heard the men at the Greers' party talking about it. I suppose I can use my State Department connections to get you a pair of-tickets to the Penn-Army game ..."

"I've got a better idea. Darbydale High plays Lansdowne High tomorrow. It won't be a very hot game, but he won't know the difference, and it'll be easy to get seats at, and I'd rather be stared at by a couple of hundred people than fifty thousand. Or maybe you could persuade him to stay at the Greers' and watch a good game on their TV?"

"No; I've tried that. He'll call for you at two-thirty tomorrow, then. Uh?"

"Yes?"

"Damn it, I was all set to ask you out tonight myself, but I've got to get in a report. The Under-Secretary's been putting the heat on me."

"Oh," said Alice. "I'm sorry. But then, I have papers to correct, too."

Stanko showed up in a taxi the following afternoon. After a trip to Lansdowne High School, marred only by a tendency of the driver to crane his head around to stare at Stanko when he should have been watching the road, they got out and trailed in with the crowd. The high-school bands were cutting up on the field, and they were hunting for seats when a familiar voice said:

"Hello, Alice!"

It was Mr. Lorbeer, with a blanket over his arm and a pipe in his mouth, looking not at all like the leading lecher of the Delaware County public schools.

"Oh-ah," said Alice nervously, then pulled herself together: "Mr. Lorbeer, this is Mr. Stanko, of Wolf three hundred and something. Mr. Stanko, meet Mr. Lorbeer, who teaches science at Darbydale High."

"I've heard a lot of the Wolfians," said Mr. Lorbeer. "Have you become a football fan?"

"As I have not yet seen a game," said Stanko judiciously, "I cannot tell whether I shall acquire a fanatical devotion to the sport or not. Perhaps you would be so kind as to explain the rules?"

"Sure, sure," said Mr. Lorbeer, and drifted with Alice and Stanko to a vacant spot in the stands.

For the next two hours Stanko and Lorbeer almost completely ignored Alice. They seemed to get on famously. Considering the identity of her swains Alice was just as glad, and tried to act as if she were sitting with them purely by accident.

Lorbeer not only explained the nuances of football, but even draped his blanket around Stanko's shoulders when the latter got cold. Lorbeer knew a lot of things that Alice did not, and that interested Stanko.

"I," said Stanko, "tried that curious custom of breathing smoke once, and nearly choked to death. Tell me, how did the custom originate and what is its cultural or ritualistic significance?"

Lorbeer launched into an account of the peace-pipes of the North American Indians, the cigars of the Caribs, and the cigarettes of the Aztecs. Wolfians, thought Alice, were poor judges of human character.

When Lansdowne had beaten Darbydale 55-36, Mr. Lorbeer got up, reclaimed his blanket, and said: "This has been a most pleasant afternoon. I'll be seeing you, Alice."

He made the last statement with that emphasis that made Alice think that he rather than Stanko ought to be called a Wolfian.

Stanko crutched his way out of the curb where the same taxi had stood all through the game. The bill, thought Alice, must be fantastic, but then the government was probably paying it too. As Stanko stood back for Alice to get in, he said:

"I trust that I am not too precipitate in asking you for another date, Miss Wernecke, but I request that you accompany me to dinner at the Bellevue-Stratford this evening. Is that agreeable to you?"

Now to dine and dance at the Bellevue-Stratford had been an ambition of Alice ever since she settled in the Philadelphia neighbourhood. Unfortunately neither John nor Edward nor any of the occasional could afford it, and while Mr. Lorbeer would have taken her she did not wish to date him under any circumstances. On the other hand she would have preferred never going near the hotel to going with Stanko. But in view of what Byron Matthews had said, she did not quite dare turn him down flat ...

"I can't tell you right now," she temporised. "I have a half-way date this evening already."

"Oh?"

"Y-yes! Let me go home and check up—I'd have to get dressed anyway—and then call me."

As soon as she got into her apartment she bolted for the telephone, causing Inez to say: "Here, what goes on?"

Ignoring her room-mate, Alice dialled the Swarthmore Inn and got Byron Matthews. She wailed:

"Byron, that mud-turtle of yours wants to take me out again tonight!"

"Hell!" roared Matthews. "I worked most of last night to get that report done so I could ask you out tonight myself—though I thought you'd probably be dated up in advance anyway."

"Then couldn't we just pretend—"

"No! Honey, you've got no idea how important this is. If Stinky wants anything short of physical indignities, go along with him as far as you decently can."

"Oh. Is that really true? About the importance, I mean. Or are you trying to get out of—"

"True!" came the blast of sound out of the receiver. "You're damned right it's true. Listen. These Wolfians act friendly and honest enough, and maybe they're all right. But nobody has yet been to their damned planet to check up, see? And they're at least as smart as we are. So it's absolutely vital to keep on the good side of them until we can find out what they are up to."

"You mean I'm a sort of key figure in interplanetary relations?"

"For the time being, yes. So put on a long dress and toddle off with Stinko. If he wants to be a big turtle-about-town, you help him be one."

"But.am I safe? If you don't really know much about these creatures—"

"You'll be as safe as the Department can make you. You didn't notice you were followed by a couple of F.B.I. men all afternoon, did you?"

"N-no."

"All right then. If the Cultural Representative acts up, just yell."

She hung up with a sigh. Byron was evidently one of those exasperating males, incomprehensible to any normal woman, who would sacrifice even their women to some abstract ideal. Like that nonsense about "I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more."

Alice took a bath and made up. Inez, caught her admiring her assets in the mirror and remarked sourly: "Yeah, you make a good appearance, especially without your clothes. But it's all wasted on your friend from the Galapagos."

Alice made a face at her room-mate, repaired the damages thus done to her makeup, and slid into her second-best evening dress. (She was saving the best one for a hoped-for formal date with Byron Matthews). At the appointed time Stanko showed up in the same taxi.

At the Bellevue, Alice moodily drank her cocktail and fiddled with her dinner. Being stared at was bad enough, but in addition she found Stanko, even with allowance for the difference of race, to be egregiously dull company. Despite his near-perfect English the extra-terrestrial seemed to have no sense of humour, no sparkle whatever; no visible motivation save an insatiable appetite for facts and statistics about the earth. When she tried to get him to talk about his home planet he answered her questions with curt one-word answers and returned to the attack. His slow monotone was maddening in its deliberation.

The only time she brightened was when he said: "I trust, Miss Wernecke, that you will not be affronted if I do not ask you to dance. I am not familiar with the sport, and it is moreover one to which my form is not well suited."

"That's all right," she said heartily.

At ten Stanko looked at his wrist-watch and said: "I understand that at this time the more conservative citizens among you are accustomed to return home to sleep. Is that correct?"

"Yes. Wait, Mr. Stanko, you have to pay your bill."

"So I do. Oh, gar con! I mean waiter! By the way, Miss Wernecke, I have heard of your custom of tipping. How much do you think I should give?"

Alice made a rough guess and walked out with Stanko. In the taxi home the inquisition continued:

"Now, please explain the social significance of this custom of chewing the gum of the' sapodilla tree. Though I have seen many performing the act, I note that neither you nor Mr. Matthews does it. Is it regulated by law, or what?"

Alice answered with half her mind, the other half silently urging the driver to get them home as soon as possible to rid her of this galactic bore.' At the doorstep, however, Stanko said:

"Wait, Miss Wernecke. I have several things to say. To begin, I think we had better forgo your custom of kissing, which strikes me as most unsanitary. You do not mind?"

"Not in the least!"

"Well then, we now come to the question of our next date. I wondered what we could do tomorrow. Another dinner and dance, perhaps? One of those places of revelry called night-clubs?"

"No, Mr. Stanko, you can't. In Philadelphia all the places of revelry are closed on Sunday."

"Then how about the theatre? It impresses me as a highly developed art-form—"

"They're closed, too."

"Another motion-picture?"

"I've seen all the good ones."

"Then how about doing something in the afternoon? For instance, we might pay a visit to the zoological gardens. I have already been there, but I should not mind repeating my visit."

Alice shook her head grimly. "The animals bother my allergies, and I see enough monkeys every day in my class."

"That is unfortunate. Perhaps we could have a swimming party. We"(here he used a word from his own language, full of nasal vowels and guttural consonants) "are good swimmers,"

"In October? That's much too cold for us mere humans, Mr. Stanko. All the pools will be drained."

Alice suspected that some heated indoor pools might be open in the Philadelphia area, but had no intention of giving him this opening by suggesting it. Interplanetary crisis or not, she was not going out with the Cultural Representative again as long as she could think of excuses.

"I see," he said, his alien form drooping a little as if with sadness, though his flat voice betrayed no emotion. "We seem to be at an impasse. Tell me, would you consider the term 'a few' as including the number 'two'?"

"What an odd question! I suppose you could, though 'few' doesn't have any definite limits."

"Well then, it could be said that I have had a few dates with you. We can count Thursday night's episode as half a date, I think. I had intended to have one more before putting my proposal to you—"

"What proposal?" said Alice, alarm running up her spine.

"—my proposal to you, but since that seems impractical I will stretch a point and proceed. Mr. and Mrs. Greer were kind enough to tell me much about your custom of marriage. They explained that it was common for a male of your nationality, after he has had a few dates with a female, if he likes her well enough to wish to live with her, to ask her to marry him. As I have now qualified, I ask you to marry me."

Alice stood staring, her throat refusing to make a sound for several seconds while the enormity of the proposal sank in. At last she squeaked:

"Did you say m-marry?"

"Yes. I assure you that I am not always so devoted to my work as during my present investigation, when I must make every minute count. Back on Wolf 359-1 you will find me an agreeable and not an exacting companion, and you shall enjoy such comforts and luxuries as you are accustomed to on your own world."

"But—b-but—Stanko, that's im-possible!"

"What is impossible about it? Marriage, as I understand it, is a matter of the couple's agreeing before a magistrate to live together in mutual affection and support for the rest of their lives. What prevents us from doing that?"

"It wouldn't be legal, you not being a human being ..."

"If your magistrates raise legal objections, the captain of our ship can devise the necessary contractual ceremony."

"Oh, no Oh, no. Stanko, you don't understand."

"And what do I fail to comprehend?"

"There's much more to marriage than that."

"Really? Please explain."

Alice found herself tongue-tied.

"Well? I await your reply, Miss Wernecke."

Alice, never having reared children of her own or taught adolescents, had not developed a technique for answering such questions. All that she could say was:

"Didn't the Greers ever say anything about the facts of life?"

"They have explained a great deal, but I do not know if that includes the facts that you have in mind."

"You know, about the bees and the flowers."

Stanko gave the Wolfian equivalent of a sigh. "Miss Wernecke, I am striving to follow you, but am admittedly finding it difficult. Why should the Greers lecture me on insects or plants? Neither is an entomologist or a botanist."

Alice, feeling her face flaming in the dark, had no choice but to explain in plain words what she meant. When she finished there was a little silence. Then Stanko said:

"I see. Miss Wernecke, I have committed a grave social error, and hope that you will accept my assurances that it was through ignorance and not through intent. By pure chance nobody had explained to me the connection between marriage and the reproductive process to which you allude. On Wolf 359-1 things are managed differently. A male there fertilizes a female only once in his life. After that he is assigned to another female to serve her in his time off from work. Our females are much larger than the males—about the size of one of your elephants—and of quite a different exterior form, so that they find it difficult to move about. They are also less numerous, so that each female has sixteen to twenty males assigned to her. And I had erroneously equated this latter relationship to your marriage."

"But what made you think—" began Alice in a small voice, close to tears.

"That you would find the relationship agreeable? I fear that I was judging by the reactions of my own kind. This contretemps goes back to when my fellow-explorers were discussing the matter, shortly after we had alighted, and I in a jesting way spoke of bringing an earthly female back home with me. Considering that you are hardly larger than I, the prospect looked inviting. You could hardly mistreat me as my ex-wife, from whom I was divorced so that I could come on this expedition, treated all her husbands."

Alice could hardly imagine Stanko's joking about anything, but let that pass. He continued:

"The others kidded me (I believe you say) about this rash boast until I swore that I would in fact carry it out. Now that I see that I have failed and have been humiliated in your eyes, my own, and those of my companions, there is nothing for me to do but die. I shall sit down right here and will myself to death."

"Oh!" cried Alice. "Don't do that!"

"I am sorry, but there is no alternative. Rest assured that the process will take only an hour or two, and then the garbage-collectors will remove my corpse in the morning."

"But—" Alice stared helplessly into the darkness, then remembered Byron Matthews's promise of surveillance. She called: "Help! F.B.I.! Help!"

"Coming." said a voice. Footsteps pounded.

Three men approached. One was the taxi-driver, one a man whom she had vaguely noticed sitting near her at the Bellevue-Stratford, and the third was Byron Matthews.

In strangled sentences Alice explained what had happened, pointing to Stanko, who had sat down with his back to the wall in a kind of yogic posture and seemed no longer conscious. Then, sobbing, she melted into Matthews's arms.

"Hell and damnation," he said, "does that guy have to get ahead of me in everything? I was going to propose to you, too, after a few more dates to get decently acquainted."

"You were?"

"Yes. But now there's only one thing to do."

"What?"

"You must marry him, as he says."

Alice, hardly believing her ears, squirmed out of Matthews's arms.

"Byron Matthews, are you crazy?"

"Wish I were. But we can't have this guy willing himself to death while we're responsible for him. It might cause God knows what kind of interplanetary crisis."

"Do you know what you're saying? To go to the other end of the universe with this—this—" She almost said "mud-turtle", but decided that such an epithet would only aggravate matters.

"I know," he said grimly. "I'd as lief marry him—myself. But—"

"If you were going to propose to me—"

"Rub it in!" he said furiously. "I love you. Sure. I do. But I've also got my duty to my country and my world. Corny, isn't it?"

"You mean you'd actually want me to—"

"Who said 'want'? I'd rather will myself to death like him first. But I know what I've got to do when I've got to do it. Go on, tell him you will."

"Byron Matthews, I'll never see you again. I'll never speak to you again, for urging such a thing."

"Okay, you probably won't have the chance. I know how you feel. But go ahead. You've got to."

"Here," said the voice of Inez, "what's all this? Is everything all right, Alice? I heard you call."

"Everything's not all right," said Alice, "but I don't know what you can do about it. Inez, this is Mr. Matthews of the State Department and a couple of gentlemen from the F.B.I. Miss Rogell. You know Mr. Stanko."

"F.B.I.?" said Inez, the light on the front porch of the little apartment-house gleaming upon her glasses. "What on earth is this? And what's wrong with Mr. Stanko? Has he a stomach-ache?"

Alice explained.

"Oh," said Inez. "Let me think. Mr. Stanko!"

"Yes?" said the Wolfian.

"As far as you're concerned, would you say Miss Wernecke and I were about equally attractive?"

"I should say you were. Perhaps you have a slight advantage, since you look a little more like a female Wolfian!"

"Then it doesn't matter which human female you take back with you, does it?"

"No, though naturally some would prove more congenial companions than others. That, however, is something that could only be determined by trial. What have you in mind?"

"Why not take me instead of Alice?"

Alice gasped. "Now you're crazy, Inez. I can't let you sacrifice yourself for me."

"I'm not. I'm just a typical old-maid schoolteacher, and I know it as well as you do. Whereas if I go with Stanko I'll be the first woman on Wolf 359-1 and have all sorts of interesting experiences. Maybe I'll revolutionise their educational system. Well, how about it, Stanky?"

"I accept your offer with pleasure," said Stanko.

"But Inez—" began Alice.

"But nothing. I'm doing this because I want to, and I'm a free agent. Drop around tomorrow and we'll make the arrangements, Stank."

"Thank you, I will." Stanko got up and began to hobble towards the taxi.

"Alice—" said Matthews, reaching.

"Go away!" she said, trying to keep down another spate of tears. "I still never want to see you again, after you tried to get me to—to—"

"But I still love you—"

"And I still hate you!"

Matthews's footsteps receded on the walk as he followed Stanko and the F.B.I, men.

"Seems to me," said Inez, "that when you get a chance at a good man like Byron you're a fool not to grab him. If I were in your place—"

"Oh, shut up!" said Alice. The tears were coming freely now.

"By the way, old Lascivious Lorbeer called. He's got a pair of tickets for a concert next Friday night—"

"Oh!" said Alice.

The vision of life without Byron Matthews suddenly filled her mind—bossing her roomful of brats, holding off Lorbeer, tolerating the insipid John and the feckless Edward, grabbing at invitations to parties like the Greers' in hopes of meeting something worth playing up to ...

"Byron!" she called.

He came back on the run. Inez tactfully went back inside. When the clinch and the reconciliation had been executed and the vows had been exchanged, he said:

"I haven't had a chance to tell you, but my transfer to the Foreign Service just came through this morning, with a promotion."

"How splendid! I don't care where they send you; I'll go with you to the ends of the world."

"Swell! That's the kind of wife a State man needs."

"Only I hope never to see Stanko or any other Wolfians again."

"I'm not so sure. We're setting up a new Extraterrestrial Division in the Foreign Service, and I'm scheduled to be First Secretary of our new embassy on Wolf 359-1 as soon as it's ... Hey!"

He made as if to catch Alice's arms.

"No, I'm not going to faint," said Alice. "It was just the shock. But I'll manage. After all, Byron darling, you do have one advantage over Stanko, don't you?''