Rhysha shook her head. “No, this is the color it should be. This is right.” She clasped the locket a round her neck and looked down at it with pleasure. “And now, what is the news you have for me?”
“A friend of mine is a clerk in the city records. He tells me a new planet, near gamma Cassiopeiae, is being opened for colonization.
“I’ve filed the papers, and everything is in order. The hearing will be held on Friday. I’m going to appear on behalf of the Ngayir, your people, and ask that they be allotted space on the new world.”
Rhysha turned white. He started toward her, but she waved him away. One hand was still clasping her locket, that was nearly the color of her plumage.
The hearing was held in a small auditorium in the basement of the Colonization building. Representatives of a dozen groups spoke before Kerr’s turn came.
“Appearing on behalf of the Ngayir,” the arbitrator read from a form in his hand, “S 3687 Kerr. And who are the Ngayir, S-Kerr? Some Indian group?”
“No, sir,” Kerr said. “They are commonly known as the bird people.”
“Oh, a conservationist!” The arbitrator looked at Kerr not unkindly. “I’m sorry, but your petition is quite out of order. It should never have been filed. Immigration is restricted by executive order to terrestials…”
Kerr dreaded telling Rhysha of his failure, but she took it with perfect calm.
“After you left I realised it was impossible,” she said.
“Rhysha, I want you to promise me something. I can’t tell you how sure I am that humanity is going to need your people sometime. It’s true, Rhysha. I’m going to keep trying. I’m not going to give up.
“Promise me this, Rhysha: promise me that neither you nor the members of your group will take part in the battles until you hear from me again.”
Rhysha smiled. “All right, Kerr.”
Preserving the bodies of people who have died from a variety of diseases is not without its dangers. Kerr did not go to work that night or the next or for many nights. His dormitory chief, after listening to him shout in delirium for some hours, called a doctor, who filled out a hospital requisition slip.
He was gravely ill, and his recovery was slow. It was nearly five weeks before he was released.
He wanted above all things to find Rhysha. He went to the place where she had been living and found that she had gone, no one knew where. In the end, he went to the identification bureau and begged for his old job there. Rhysha would, he was sure, think of coming to the bureau to get in touch with him.
He was still shaky and weak when he reported for work the next night. He went into the tepidarium about nine o’clock, during a routine inspection. And there Rhysha was.
He did not know her for an instant. The lovely turquoise of her plumage had faded to a dirty drab. But the little locket he had given her was still around her neck.
He got the big jointed tongs they used for moving bodies out of the pool, and put them in position. He lifted her out very gently and put her down on the edge of the pool. He opened the locket. There was a note inside.
“Dear Kerr,” he read in Rhysha’s clear, handsome script, “you must forgive me for breaking my promise to you. They would not let me see you when you were sick, and we were all so hungry. Besides, you were wrong to think your people would ever need us. There is no place for us in your world.
“I wish I could have heard you sing again. I liked to hear you sing. Rhysha.”
Kerr looked from the note to Rhysha’s face, and back at the note. It hurt too much. He did not want to realize that she was dead.
Outside, one of the vast voices that boomed portentously down from the sky half the night long began to speak: “Don’t miss the newest, fastest battle sport. View the Durga battles, the bloodiest combats ever televised. Funnier than the bird people’s battles, more thrilling than an Anda war, you’ll…”
Kerr gave a cry. He ran to the window and closed it. He could still hear the voice. But it was all that he could do.
THE MAN WHO SOLD ROPE TO THE GNOLES
The Gnoles had a bad reputation, and Mortensen was quite aware of this. But he reasoned, correctly enough, that cordage must be something for which the gnoles had a long unsatisfied want, and he saw no reason why he should not be the one to sell it to them. What a triumph such a sale would be! The district sales manager might single out Mortensen for special mention at the annual sales-force dinner. It would help his sales quota enormously. And, after all, it was none of his business what the gnoles used cordage for.
Mortensen decided to call on the gnoles on Thursday morning. On Wednesday night he went through his Manual of Modern Salesmanship, underscoring things.
“The mental states through which the mind passes in making a purchase,” he read, “have be encatalogued as 1) arousal of interest 2) increase of knowledge 3) adjustment to needs…” There were seven mental states listed, and Mortensen underscored all of them. Then he went back and double-scored No. 1, arousal of interest, No. 4, appreciation of suitability, and No. 7, decision to purchase. He turned the page.
“Two qualities are of exceptional importance to a salesman,” he read. “They are adaptability and knowledge of merchandise.” Mortensen underlined the qualities. “Other highly desirable at tributes are physical fitness, and high ethical standard, charm of manner, a dogged persistence, and unfailing courtesy.” Mortensen underlined these too. But he read on to the end of the paragraph without underscoring anything more, and it may be that his failure to put “tact and keen power of observation” on a footing with the other attributes of a salesman was responsible for what happened to him.
The gnoles live on the very edge of Terra Cognita, on the far side of a wood which all authorities unite in describing as dubious. Their house is narrow and high, in architecture a blend of Victorian Gothic and Swiss chalet. Though the house needs paint, it is kept in good repair. Thither on Thursday morning, sample case in hand, Mortensen took his way.
No path leads to the house of the gnoles, and it is always dark in that dubious wood. But Mortensen, remembering what he had learned at his mother’s knee concerning the odor of gnoles, found the house quite easily. For a moment he stood hesitating before it. His lips moved as he repeated, “Good morning, I have come to supply your cordage requirements,” to himself. The words were the beginning of his sales talk. Then he went up and rapped on the door.
The gnoles were watching him through holes they had bored in the trunks of trees; it is an artful custom of theirs to which the prime authority on gnoles attests. Mortensen’s knock almost threw them into confusion, it was so long since anyone had knocked at their door. Then the senior gnole, the one who never leaves the house, went flitting up from the cellars and opened it.
The senior gnole is a little like a Jerusalem artichoke made of India rubber, and he has small red eyes which are faceted in the same way that gemstones are. Mortensen had been expecting something unusual, and when the gnole opened the door he bowed politely, took off his hat, and smiled. He had got past the sentence about cordage requirements and into an enumeration of the different types of cordage his firm manufactured when the gnole, by turning his head to the side, showed him that he had no ears. Nor was there anything on his head which could take their place in the conduction of sound. Then the gnole opened his little fanged mouth and let Mortensen look at his narrow, ribbony tongue. As a tongue it was no more fit for human speech than was a serpent’s. Judging from his appearance, the gnole could not safely be assigned to any of the four physio-characterological types mentioned in the Manual; and for the first time Mortensen felt a definite qualm.