Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales (38 page)

‘Perhaps I wasn’t getting anywhere?’

‘You had me on the run.’

‘You turned and faced me.’

He smiled then, for the first time.

‘I like you, Clay. You’re much the same as me, in personality, thinking.’

‘But not physically,’ I said, contradicting the truth. We were alike superficially, but he was a Greek god and I was fashioned more on the lines of a galley slave.

‘No, not such a...’

‘Magnificent specimen?’ I finished for him, using an old cliché.

He laughed openly at that and said something in his own tongue.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Nothing. It doesn’t translate perfectly. It loses.’

I nodded. ‘Anyway, now that we’re friends,’ I said frivolously, ‘how about my application?’

A frown appeared on his face, and he pulled the cloak firmly around his body before settling on a nearby cushion.

‘Let me tell you something about this place you wish to live in. Alca-s.’ His tongue seemed to savour the word.
‘My own world, incidentally.
It’s one of the three inhabited Spican planets.
The temperate one.
A pleasant overall climate, discounting the equator and the poles.
The other two worlds, Alcans and Alca-cs, have extreme climates, even in the so-called temperate zones. One too hot, the other too cold.’ I nodded. I knew it all anyway.

‘Alca-s. The women are beautiful and the men are...’

‘Beautiful,’ I finished again. I couldn’t resist it.

‘Yes. True. They are, but more to the point, they are xenophobic. You would hate it there because they would hate you. None of us have ever emigrated because we...we can’t live among strangers.’

‘Not true,’ I said.
‘Official policy, maybe.
But your ordinary people...I can’t believe they hate those they have never met.’

‘What do you know about my people?’ he suddenly rapped into my face. ‘I know my people.’

I replied simply, ‘So do I.’

He jerked upright from his crouched position. ‘What do you mean?’ There was a thick atmosphere between us, and I could see by his taut expression that he was having difficulty in controlling his anger. I let him have the earthquake. The one I’d been saving for the right moment.

‘I mean,’ I said, ‘I’m married to one.’

All the tension went out of his facial muscles, and the clenched fingers uncurled. I could smell the sweet oil on his palms.

‘That’s impossible,’ he said at last. He spoke the words as if he were trying to convince himself rather than me.

‘No,’ I answered.

‘You mean...you mean you’re actually married to one of my race? We don’t marry—not in the same way.’ It was a desperate argument.

‘You’re clutching at straws,’ I said. ‘I married her—our way. A Terran wedding.’

‘Ah! You wouldn’t last on our world. It wouldn’t work.’

‘I’ll last. Besides, if your people are such racial purists, how come you let others in? How come it’s just us you block?’

‘Well, ah, I should have thought that was obvious. Bad blood.’

‘Yes? Well, I’m going to tell you a story, friend—a love story.’ He lifted his hand as if to protest, but I waved it down. ‘You’ll need to know, in your official capacity, so I’ll tell you anyway. Listen. Once upon a time—we always start stories that way—once upon a time there was a starship carrying a group of Spican politicians home from a conference. The destination of the ship was Alca-s.

‘Suddenly, a long way between worlds, something goes wrong with the main drive. The ship halts—well, not exactly, but worse still, it keeps going, with no way of stopping. Runaway. The engineer onboard this small executive craft gets to work right away, but wouldn’t you guess it, he gets a jolt from a naked power line and zang!
he’s
busted, too. Bad deal! The ship keeps flashing through space. Pretty soon it’ll hit something—a planet, a sun—and whammo, full stop . . . Say, is my frivolous delivery bothering you?’ His eyes told me the truth, even though his expression remained blank. I was enjoying myself.

I continued, ‘Anyway, out goes the distress call, and who should be the only listeners within striking distance but the bad-blooded old Terrans. Quick decision. Do you allow yourselves to be contaminated by the presence of untouchable Terrans? Or do you risk certain death? To hell with dying, you say, even though it means fumigating the ship afterward.

‘Among the Terran engineers that intercept the runaway is a tall, handsome gentleman who has a way with the ladies—and who should be among the cabin staff, but this adorable creature from Alca-s, no names, no pack drill...’

‘What?’ he interrupted in a faraway voice. I ignored him. ‘So these two wonderful creations of God brush past each other in a narrow gangway, quite by accident, of course, not by design of the gentleman, who is indeed an honourable and upright citizen of Earth, and zang, something busts inside the male.

‘I will admit,’ I said, ‘the female winces. One of those disgusting Terrans has actually touched her sacred person. But! But, my friend, she has felt the zang, too, and mingled with her loathing is a certain something she’s not sure of. And somehow she finds herself bringing drinks to the drive room and passing the time of day with the handsome Terran brute. Oh, you may roll your eyes, Spican, but women love taming the brute in a man, especially when it’s not really evident—the product of propaganda. Here is an animal who is really quite a charming, elegant person—what’s he like in bed? It took thirty prolonged units to repair that starship, and at the last moment the female Spican impetuously consented to secretly marry the male Terran...’

He spoke. ‘Cabin staff? A low-intellect clan...’ He curled his lower lip in scorn.

‘I’ll remind you that you’re talking about my wife,’ I said very quietly.

‘I’m sorry.’ He pulled himself together, the hands clasping again behind his back. He walked around the room while I envied the muscles in his magnificent legs. You note envied, not admired.

‘How were you married?’ he asked at last.

‘By the captain of the repair ship.
It’s legal—and binding.’

‘And how do I know you’re not...making this up? How do I know you’re not lying?’

‘I have a document—one of those boring sidelines a bureaucracy creates,’ I said maliciously. ‘It’s recorded at the Affiliated World Record Centre. You can call it forward now.’ I pointed to a computer terminal at the far end of the chamber.
‘The alphanumber’s, uh, 504-72083LSGN.
Document number 710328.’

He made no move toward the terminal. ‘I’ve told you before we don’t recognise marriage. Not in its Terran form. We mate people according to their genes.’

‘Classic,’ I said scathingly. ‘However, I’ll remind you of Affiliation law. As a partner to a female from another world, I am entitled—automatically—to citizenship of that world. She is equally entitled to the benefits of my world. I’m here to give you formal notice that I’m on my way to join my wife. What’s more, the Affiliation authorities know it, so please, let’s not have any roughhousing.’ He stared at me as if I were the most despicable creature that God had caused to be born.

‘We have always carried out our obligations according to the law,’ he said with dignity in his voice.

‘Bully for you, Jack. Then you know that a
negative state, by the Affiliation rules, is overridden by a positive one
. To wit: Terrans are entitled by their own law to be with their relatives. I take it you have no laws positively forbidding marriage?’

His voice was so low I
could hardly
hear the No.

‘Great, then I’m on my way.’ I stood up and turned toward the exit.

‘Clay!’ he said sharply.

I swung round. ‘What? Make it quick.’

His eyes had the look of a panic-stricken beast in them. I was about to destroy his
race
as he knew it.

‘It couldn’t last forever,’ I said. ‘One of us had to beat the system sometime. You’re not so foolish to believe you could keep us out forever?’

His shoulders collapsed and he moaned softly. ‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘I suppose you are that foolish. You are children.’

His eyes flashed again. ‘Don’t speak of children...you. You Terran humans! You spawn indiscriminately. No thought for the mind or the body that is the product of the union, oh, no. Sate the lust...’

‘Hey, hey,’ I shouted, ‘it’s not quite like that, friend. We have affection, a fondness for our partners. Sometimes it’s a pretty strong one.’

‘Love?’ He snorted. ‘Tell me about this thing love that creates gross interbreeding between unmatched pairs and results in freaks, small people, tall ones, I.Q. variations, idiots and morons, people of all shades, humpbacked, fat, thin, ugly...’

‘That’s it, isn’t it? That’s the whole bit? You can’t stand to see abnormality. Well, our idea of normal isn’t so narrow, that’s all. In fact, it’s pretty broad. It covers all but the insane. But you...you have to be perfect. I know what your infant mortality rate is. What do you do? Bash their heads against a rock if they come out with a strawberry birthmark on their buttocks? We know why you keep us out—we’re the only race that can mate with Spicans and produce offspring, and you’re afraid…afraid that mixed marriages will result in less-than-perfect Spicans. Not imperfect—just not perfect. We had a name for your type once...’

‘We let one of you in,’ he said in despair, ‘and we let you all in.
All of you.
You don’t mate by the clan system—you mate with anyone. This long Terran ancestry.’

I nodded. ‘Well, that’s why you’ve kept us out. You know it; we know it. Funnily enough,’ I said seriously, ‘we did try the clan system once—it produced inbred idiots. Funny how one thing suits once race and not the
other.
Anyway, looking on the bright side, you may benefit from a cultural exchange, who knows?’ I turned again and walked toward the exit. He was right behind me.

‘It was the Terran government, wasn’t it? They planned this—the girl was hypnotised—drugged. She couldn’t—she wouldn’t sell our perfection for...’

‘For love?’ I said, pausing. ‘I very much doubt it. Maybe
it’s
just good old-fashioned contrariness. Lila’s got a bit of the rebel in her...’

‘Lila—so that’s her name. Clay?’

‘What?’

‘Don’t let them in, Clay. Stay out. It’s the thin end—your children will mate with pure bred Spicans—don’t you see?’

I walked away from those hot, grey eyes. I hate to see men, any kind of men, begging for something they can’t have. He followed me into the outer waiting room.

I passed the salesman, and he stood up.

‘Did you get in?’ he said eagerly.

I smiled. ‘You bet.’

As I was about to enter the connecting tunnel to the ships, a guard stepped in front of me. ‘Exit visa, please.’

‘Ah, yes.
One moment,’ I replied.

I went to the fourteenth window and showed the mandatory five documents necessary for an exit visa.

‘I do not see your Certificate of Flight Worthiness, sir.’

‘My what?’

‘Your CFW—for the ship.’

‘But I’ve never had to show that before.’

‘It’s a recent regulation, sir.’

A pricking sensation began at the back of my neck. They were trying to hustle me.