by Mary Carmen
“But how tall are these creatures?” Doctor Weathers asked.
“Bed Fordbreez tells us on his response to Ralli’s advertisement on your behalf that it is six feet, seven inches in height,” Madame Olatana answered. “I am six feet, eleven inches, so you can subtract four inches and add the girth to picture how Bed might look.”
“Rather roly-poly, then?”
“Indeed,” Madame Olatana agreed. “You will need to order a Lillitzen bedstead. Ralli has the catalogue and will place the order for you.”
“Is this entity compatible? With me, that is?”
“Now we are getting into the area where I can really help,” Madame Olatana said, puffing herself up even taller, to seven feet. “Of all the candidates on your shortlist, I believe this Bed Fordbreez is the most compatible with you.”
“Why is that?” Doctor Weathers asked. “The planet of Nikkion, quite similar to Earth’s Jupiter, is a planet in the same star system as Lillitzen, and that planet was very close to Lillitzen on the day of Bed’s birth, perhaps as close as it has been in almost four thousand years. This closeness has increased the girth of Lillitzians born during those times and, more importantly, it has caused those entities born then to be extremely congenial.”
“With everybody or with just me?”
“With everybody in general and with you in particular,” Madame Olatana answered. “Nikkion rules foreign entities, and nobody is more foreign to a Lillitzian than a female from Earth. Foreign entities are favored for Bed, and, as an additional favorable aspect, Nikkion was exactly trine Angelto on the day of Bed’s birth.”
“What is Angelto?”
“Another planet in the Lillitzen star system, one that rules love and relationships.”
“If this Bed has good luck with love and relationships, why has it never reproduced?” Doctor Weathers asked.
“This is a purer love sign,” Madame Olatana explained. “This planet does not rule sexual energy. Instead, Angelto rules finer feelings with regard to others. Bed Fordbreez is probably known as a sweetheart, the type of entity who is kind to its siblings and its colleagues.”
“So there will not be much sex, for a number of reasons, with Bed Fordbreez?”
“I think sex will be infrequent. It’s just as well, since the entity is enormous,” Madame Olatana concluded.
“So, we have Charles from Pennsylvania who is lazy, and we have Bed from Lillitzen who is perhaps impotent. Are these the best of my suitors?” Doctor Weathers asked.
“I think they are. I think either would keep you excellent company, but neither would be a dynamo in the bedroom,” Madame Olatana agreed.
“How about that pianist from Drintde?” Doctor Weathers asked.
“Yes, we need to look further at him,” Madame Olatana said. “In the first place, this birth data cannot have produced a pianist. The hands and the arms are afflicted.”
“Afflicted?”
“Yes, the planet that rules the hands and the arms on Drintde was both retrograde and squared by the Saturn-like planet on the day of this man’s birth.”
“Is there a way to find out?” “Certainly, and Ralli has made inquiries,” Madame Olatana said. “This man is, indeed, a subject of Drintde’s monarch, but he is not a pianist. He is an employee in a nursery school. He is in charge of teaching very young children on Drintde how to operate various household devices.”
“So he lied on his application?”
“He is also much too old for you,” Madame Olatana told the Earthling. “I like the male to be at least ten years younger than the female because our atmosphere here on Warbut is favorable for females. This so-called pianist is only one year younger than you.”
“But Bed Fordbreez is older than I,” Doctor Weathers countered.
“Yes, but those entities from Lillitzen live for nearly two hundred years,” Madame Olatana explained. “And, although Charles of Pennsylvania is only a year or so younger than you, he is the only Earthling I believe is worth your consideration. As for our pianist, he will be dead in five years, if I know anything about reading a Drintde chart.”
“You can see death on these charts?”
“Any good astrologer can see death,” Madame Olatana said, perhaps stretching the truth a bit.
X
“Did we get the money?” Wood Fordbreez excitedly asked.
“Both the money and the ticket on the spacecraft,” Bed Fordbreez answered. The message had come from Ralli, via the Universal Message Service, that Doctor Prucilla Weathers of Earth and Warbut was interested in a three-month visit from Bed. To facilitate this visit, Doctor Weathers was buying a one-way ticket on a craft scheduled to leave Lillitzen’s largest spaceport. This ticket was for a third-class bedroom suitable for a Lillitzian.
In addition, Doctor Weathers had authorized the deposit of ten thousand dollars in Universal Gold into Bed Fordbreez’s account. This amount was to be half the payment for Bed’s visit; another ten thousand dollars would be deposited when Bed arrived on the planet of Warbut.
“Is everything in order?” Wood asked. “The passports, the travelers’ visas, the inoculations?”
“We have permanent passports, with no expiration dates,” Bed answered. “This Ralli has paid King Edsella for one traveler’s visa, and we will need to get the inoculations. I also will need to apply for your traveler’s visa.”
“How many inoculations do we need?” Wood wondered.
“Warbut is very easy,” Bed answered. “The inoculations for Earthlings going to Warbut are numerous because of Warbut’s all-encompassing and expensive health system, but Lillitzians don’t have any diseases that Warbut can’t cure. We don’t have cancer or heart disease here, and those are the ones the Earthlings have in abundance.”
“A lawyer died of heart disease just a couple of years ago,” Wood reminded its sibling.
“Very rare, indeed. Lillitzians are bred to eliminate heart disease. Anybody with the genetic makeup that includes heart disease is sterilized,” Bed said. “This rule has been in effect for several hundred years, and heart disease is almost unknown here.”
“What is cancer?” Wood asked.
“A disease caused by foreign matters in the atmosphere,” Bed started to explain. “Very common on polluted Earth, but never diagnosed here. Some Warbutians have been afflicted with cancer, but the government of Warbut uses these cases to identify and eradicate the identified pollutant. We will be very healthy on Warbut.”
“How long will it take to get my visitor’s visa?” Wood wanted to know.
“About four hours,” Bed said. “You need to complete a form. I have it right here, and we can pay King Edsella the two thousand dollars for its signature.”
“So that leaves eight thousand dollars in Universal Gold,” Wood said, showing that nothing passes by a senior physicist. “What should we do with that?”
“We should buy your ticket for the craft, for one thing,” Bed said. “That will leave us with two thousand dollars, and I want to put another thousand on Mom’s cemetery lot.”
“Yes, yes,” Wood agreed. “That will stave off foreclosure on that plot for at least another six months.” “Then, when we get to Warbut and are able to collect the next ten thousand, we can send more money to the kirkyard manager.”
“Keep it up for another three months, at least. Until we can use our visitors’ visas to find scientific work, maybe on Octula,” Wood suggested.
“This Earthling woman may want us to stay, you know,” Bed warned its sibling. “She may get used to us.”
“Bosh!” Wood answered. “We will eat her out of house and home. Earthlings cannot imagine the food we can put away if food is plentiful.”
Bed nodded. “We are relatively skinny now, what with our enforced diets over the last year. We need to fill out, to look more decent, and to look more like Lillitzians.”
“Maybe we can get five squares on this spacecraft,” Wood suggested.
“I believe we should be able to ea
t well,” Bed agreed. “The captain surely knows what constitutes a decent day’s intake for a Lillitzian.”
“And this Earthling woman? Do we know anything about her?”
“All Earthlings are alike,” Bed answered. “Short, skinny, always worried about clothing and household furnishings. They don’t have the minds for important matters.”
“But she will be feeding us for three months,” Wood argued. “Surely we will need to treat her with respect, perhaps even with affection.”
“We will just join her in her bed every few days and let her enjoy being sandwiched between us. We will take turns kissing her, and we can enter her vagina and her anus at the same time,” Bed said.
“You mean one of us will smother her?”
“All this will need to be worked out when we see the accommodations,” Bed answered vexingly. “I imagine we will recline on our sides and have her between us.”
“We have no experience with threesomes,” Wood replied. “Like most physicists, we have very little experience with sex of any kind.”
“We may need to catch up quickly,” Bed concluded. “We need to keep Mom in the ground. Mom said if we cremated her, we would never have a restful night of sleep again.”
XI
Marion Sommers was also considering how to spend the windfall.
“So you have five thousand in Universal Gold and this spacecraft reservation?” she asked Charles.
“Yes, the five thousand came this morning. I have a list here of the inoculations I will need, and I’ll need at least five hundred to pay for them,” her son answered, waving an official-looking paper.
“We ain’t never had any of them diseases. What is this T. B.?”
“Tuberculosis is a disease long eradicated on Earth,” Charles replied. “The Warbutians don’t want any strain of that disease coming onto their planet. It’s the same with the AIDS disease; gone but not forgotten.”
“So you will need to git them shots for diseases that are no longer bothering anybody?” Marion asked.
“And many more,” Charles said. “There is a pack of inoculations for Earthings going to Warbut, and that series of shots will cost five hundred.”
“Did this woman send you the money for the shots?”
“She sent five thousand, expecting that to cover all expenses,” Charles replied.
“And another five thousand when you land?” Marion asked.
“Yes. As soon as I see that deposit, I will transfer half to you,” Charles answered. “And for each deposit thereafter.”
“It seems very stingy of her, a woman of enormous wealth,” Marion said.
“Mother, we don’t know the status of her bank balance. The only thing we know is that this Ralli, a Warbutian, has sent us instructions and money. The Universal Clearinghouse has said the money is good, and the spaceport has told me the reservation is paid for and my entrance onto Warbut has been authorized.”
“What if you git out there and there is no more money? How are you going to git home?”
“The return trip, after three months, has been guaranteed by this Ralli. Why would they want to have me travel the length of the Universe, only to abandon me on Warbut? Use your head.”
Marion wiped tears from her eyes. “People is strange, especially them godless heathens on Warbut.”
“Warbut has a very good rating with travel agencies. This Earthling woman is an employee of the University of Pittsburgh, and that should count for something,” Charles assured his mother.
“And she just wants a gigolo, I guess,” Marion went on.
Charles pounded the table. “The advertisement said she wanted a companion, Mother. If she wanted a gigolo, she could find one at the many agencies around the Universe that provide such services. She selected me because of my educational background.”
“She selected you because you was free,” Marion guessed. “All other Earthling males is working. You could have taken any of them offers for sales or artists. Anybody with one of them doctor degrees has plenty of opportunities right here in Pennsylvania.”
“Doctor Weathers may send me back after three months,” Charles said relatively calmly. “I may need to consider other work at that time.”
“And you may knock her up during the three months and have one of them paternity judgments against you,” Marion returned.
“I have not impregnated anybody in all of my thirty-six years in Pennsylvania,” Charles heatedly said. “The government has no birth certificate with my genetic code as the identified sire, not even with a fifty percent probability. I am not going to submit to coitus with this woman!”
XII
On the date the Earthlings on Warbut called June 28, 2230, Ralli was busy organizing the clients’ charts for the day when his employer, Madame Olatana, arrived at the office.
“Morning, Ralli. What’s the status of the Weathers account?”
“Morning, Madame. Let’s see. Exactly four thousand six hundred in Universal Gold,” the assistant answered.
“Call her and see if we can collect anything on that balance,” Madame Olatana ordered.
“This is a credit balance now, boss. Sorry I forgot to say that since Doctor Weathers is always ahead of us,” Ralli replied.
“What’s the status of all that work for Doctor Weathers?”
“Everything is on time,” Ralli said.
“On time? Everything in the Universe is always on time. What do you mean?”
“Those two fellows are headed toward Warbut, that’s the latest,” Ralli told her.
“On the crafts now?”
“Yes. There was a bit of a predicament with the Lillitzian, though. The manager of the ticket office of the spacecraft company that flies into and out of Lillitzen called me to tell us that Bed Fordbreez brought its sibling and attempted to get a ticket for it at the last minute,” Ralli said. “It was turned away?”
“No, the spacecraft captain, a woman from Drintde, allowed the sibling to buy a fourth-class ticket, with the understanding the siblings would share the only third-class stateroom configured for the wide Lillitzians. They are sleeping in shifts, as I understand it, but they are being fed regularly, as those entities insist,” Ralli answered.
“So Doctor Weathers will have two of these enormous creatures to entertain?”
“Yes. Unless she refuses the sibling at the spaceport. Then, it will be sent back to Lillitzen. The siblings have already guaranteed one return passage on a credit card.”
“What is she going to do?”
“She says she will put them both up for the three-month trial. I sold her a second wide bed, and it will be delivered next week.”
“With our standard twenty percent markup?”
“Oh, yes. Those sales people are very happy with our business and have sent you a large basket of fruit. It came after you left yesterday, and I put it on your desk,” Ralli said.
“Is there any way we can draw on Doctor Weathers’s credit balance?”
“Not today,” Ralli answered. “I always move our portion of the charge into your account after each transaction. We are up to date now.”
Madame Olatana sighed. The bills were coming in, and Queen Mastila and her claque were still taking about thirty percent of the office’s time without making any moves to get their accounts current.”
“And that Earthling man? Is he on his craft?”
“Yes. It will be here about two weeks after the craft from Lillitzen. A funny thing happened there, too, but the transport agent was able to avert the problem,” Ralli said.
“A funny thing?”
“Yes, the mother came to the spaceport, all packed to go with Charles. The two, mother and son, had a big argument in the ticket office, with the son insisting the mother return home and not accompany him. Apparently the mother had received some portion of the ten thousand in Universal Gold I sent Charles, and she wanted to use her portion and some money of her own to come along with Charles to Warbut. Argued if it was good enough fo
r the King of England, it was good enough for her,” Ralli told his boss.
“What happened? Is she coming to Warbut?”
“The spaceport manager could not allow her to buy a ticket because she had no authorization to enter the Warbut and she did not have return passage money. However, she threatened she might be coming on a later trip, after she had saved enough money,” Ralli answered.