The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens Read Online Free PDF Page A

shall balance one of those funny hats with the tassel on my crest I do not yet know. But that was another reason I agreet to your terms. You see, we are a sentimental race. What is the matter with Mr. Wu? He looks sick.”
    Chagas said: “He has been watching his lifelong philosophy crumble to bits, that is all. Come, we will see you to your aircraft.”
    As Wu pulled himself together and rose with the rest, Evans grinned wryly at him, saying: “After we’ve dropped the ambassador, I think I’ll make it a champagne cocktail!”

A.D. 104-2128
    Summer Wear

    Cato Chapman and Celia Zorn, the model, were waiting for the Moon ship to take off from Mohave Spaceport. Chapman, a brisk young man who sometimes reminded people of a chipmunk, said to his young cousin, Mahoney: “If you can take enough time off from your precious paint, Ed, keep an eye on Miss Nettie. Don’t want to come back in twenty-two years and find she’s forgotten us.”
    “Sure,” said Mahoney. “I like the old dame. She buys our paint. Tough customer, though, isn’t she?”
    Celia Zorn said: “I think ‘formidable’ is the word. But see to it she doesn’t get some perfectly bizarre idea and go broke.”
    “Like selling summer clothes to critters that don’t wear none and don’t need ’em?” said Mahoney. “If she gets any crazier ones than that . . .”
    Chapman punched his cousin’s arm with friendly violence. “Not so nuts, Ed. Osirians go in for fads and fashions, and they’re the only civilized extra-terrestrials with a real capitalistic system; less socialized even than that of the U.S.”
    Mahoney said: “What do I do if she does go loco?”
    “I don’t know,” said Chapman, “but I’d hate to come back and find there wasn’t any Greenfarb’s of Hollywood . . .”
    “All passengers! Todos passageiros!” bellowed the loudspeaker.
    Chapman and Miss Zorn shook hands with Mahoney and walked up the ramp. Mahoney yelled after them: “Behave yourselves! Or if you can’t . . .”
    Chapman thought that if he had misbehavior in mind, he wouldn’t pick a girl two inches taller than he. He forebore to say so, though, since he wanted to keep on friendly terms with Celia even if she did not appeal to the romantic side of his nature.
    Seven hours later they alighted at Tycho station for the usual wrestle with red tape before boarding the Camões for Osiris, otherwise Procyon XIV. The passenger fiscal said: “You have a berth reserved for your trunk, senhor?”
    “That’s right,” said Chapman.
    “I do not understand. Contains this trunk a live creature?”
    “Not at all. It is my sample trunk.”
    “Samples of what?”
    “Clothes. I am the sales agent for Greenfarb’s of Hollywood, summer wear, and Miss Greenfarb insists I sleep with that damned trunk until I’ve done my business.”
    The fiscal shrugged. “It is no business of mine, if your employer wishes to pay a couple of thousand dollars extra. There is another passenger on the Camões with a sample trunk like yours; he is in clothing too. Excuse me please . . .”
    Seeing that the next man in line was fidgeting, Chapman walked away, checking his tickets and passport.
    “Yours okay?” he asked Celia.
    “Yes. Wasn’t that ticket agent simply divine, Cato? I love these tall dark Latin types.”
    “Keep your mind on business,” growled Chapman. As he was small and sandy, her remarks stung his amour-propre. Moreover he knew enough of her weaknesses to become apprehensive when she began to talk in that vein. He added: “Seems we’ve got a rival aboard.”
    “What? How perfectly horrid! Who is he?”
    “Dunno yet, but the fiscal said some guy has another sample trunk full of clothes.”
    “Oh.” Celia’s face took on that lugubrious expression. “One of the big Parisian cout—”
    “Sh! We’ll know soon enough. It’s not him, anyhow.” Chapman jerked his head towards an Osirian who stalked past on birdlike legs, carrying a suitcase. The Osirian (or