"Looks like you wash your own back, Vicki," I chuckled.

"What else?" she asked, poking her head out. "I mean what other things can't you do?"

"There are many words I may not utter, postures I may not assume, and certain duties I may not perform. Certain answers to questions may not be given in the presence of an Earthwoman."

Fred whistled. "The Ollies have mastered more than our language ... I thought you said they were noted mainly for their linguistic talents, Cliff."

I was surprised, too. In the space of a few hectic months our alien visitors had probed deeply into our culture, mores and taboos—and then had had the genius to instill their compounded discretions into their Soths.

I said, "Satisfied, Vicki?"

She was still arranging herself. Her lips curled up at the corners impishly. "I'm almost disappointed," she said. "I do an all-out striptease, and no one looks but my husband. Of course," she added thoughtfully, "I suppose that's something...."

Fred stayed with us until Sunday evening. I went down to the pier to smoke a good-night pipe with him, and get his private opinion.

"I'm buying a hundred shares of Worldwide stock tomorrow," he declared. "That critter is worth his weight in diamonds to every well-heeled housewife in the country. In fact, put me down for one of your first models. I wouldn't mind having a laundry sorter and morning coffee-pourer, myself."

"Think he's safe, do you?"

"No more emotions than that stump over there. And it baffles me. He has self-awareness, pain-sensitivity and a fantastic vocabulary, yet I needled him all afternoon with every semantic hypo I could think of without getting a flicker of emotion out of him." He paused. "Incidentally, I made him strip for me in my room. You'll be as confused as I was to learn that he's every inch a man in his format."

"What?" I exclaimed.

"Made me wonder what his duties included back on his home planet ... but as I said, no emotions. With the set of built-in inhibitions he has, he'd beat a eunuch out of his job any day of the week."

A few seconds later, Fred dropped into his little two-seater and skimmed off for home, leaving me with a rather disturbing question in my 

 Prev. P 10/24 next