The Robert Silverberg Science Fiction MEGAPACK® Read Online Free PDF Page B

official Terran listing) or Ghryne (if you called it by what its people were accustomed to calling it). I thought of it privately as MacTavish IV and referred to it publicly as Ghryne. I believe in keeping the locals happy wherever I go.
    Through the front window of the office, I could see our big gay tridim sign plastered to a facing wall: WANTED—EXTRATERRESTRIALS! We had saturated MacTavish IV with our promotional poop for a month preceding arrival. Stuff like this:
    Want to visit Earth—see the Galaxy’s most glittering and exclusive world? Want to draw good pay, work short hours, experience the thrills of show business on romantic Terra? If you are a non-terrestrial, there may be a place for you in the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science. No freaks wanted—normal beings only. J. F. Corrigan will hold interviews in person on Ghryne from Thirdday to Fifthday of Tenmonth. His last visit to the Caledonia Cluster until 2937, so don’t miss your chance! Hurry! A life of wonder and riches can be yours!
    Broadsides like that, distributed wholesale in half a thousand languages, always bring them running. And the Corrigan Institute really packs in the crowds back on Earth. Why not? It’s the best of its kind, the only really decent place where Earthmen can get a gander at the other species of the universe.
    The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, “The first applicant is ready to see you, sir.”
    “Send him, her, or it in.”
    The door opened and a timid-looking life form advanced toward me on nervous little legs. He was a globular creature about the size of a big basketball, yellowish green, with two spindly double-kneed legs and five double-elbowed arms, the latter spaced regularly around his body. There was a lidless eye at the top of his head and five lidded ones, one above each arm. Plus a big, gaping, toothless mouth.
    His voice was a surprisingly resounding basso. “You are Mr. Corrigan?”
    “That’s right.” I reached for a data blank. “Before we begin, I’ll need certain information about—”
    “I am a being of Regulus II,” came the grave, booming reply, even before I had picked up the blank. “I need no special care and I am not a fugitive from the law of any world.”
    “Your name?”
    “Lawrence R. Fitzgerald.”
    I throttled my exclamation of surprise, concealing it behind a quick cough. “Let me have that again, please?”
    “Certainly. My name is Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. The R stands for Raymond.”
    “Of course, that’s not the name you were born with.”
    The being closed his eyes and toddled around in a 360-degree rotation, remaining in place. On his world, that gesture is the equivalent of an apologetic smile. “My Regulan name no longer matters. I am now and shall evermore be Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. I am a Terraphile, you see.”
    The little Regulan was as good as hired. Only the formalities remained. “You understand our terms, Mr. Fitzgerald?”
    “I’ll be placed on exhibition at your institute on Earth. You’ll pay for my services, transportation, and expenses. I’ll be required to remain on exhibit no more than one-third of each Terran sidereal day.”
    “And the pay will be—ah—fifty dollars Galactic a week, plus expenses and transportation.”
    The spherical creature clapped his hands in joy, three hands clapping on one side, two on the other. “Wonderful! I will see Earth at last! I accept the terms!”
    I buzzed for Ludlow and gave him the fast signal that meant we were signing this alien up at half the usual pay, and Ludlow took him into the other office to sign him up.
    I grinned, pleased with myself. We needed a green Regulan in our show; the last one had quit four years ago. But just because we needed him didn’t mean we had to be extravagant in hiring him. A Terraphile alien who goes to the extent of rechristening himself with a Terran moniker would work for nothing, or even pay us, just so long as we let him get to Earth. My conscience