COLOR BLIND

By CHARLES A. STEARNS

For that elusive green-white glamour, go to Venus, the ads urged vain women. But that was only half the story—just ask olive-skinned Sukey Jones.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Her name was Sukey Kireina Jones, and the blood of South Asia was in her veins. Mix that with the Celtic, brother, and you've got something special. Her eyes were dark, and mostly a little sad; her hair was black as the Rim, and she stood barely five feet in heels, unless you count the curves, which, if Nature had been fool enough to straighten them out, would have added quite a lot—and taken away a lot too.

We called her Sukey, and kidded her some, and what made her so beautiful was, she didn't know it.

I had found her hanging around the Surface Transit offices, broke and alone, and got her the job as counter girl in the Company hash house on the edge of the space-port. That was where she met my friend, Harry Thurbley.

Harry, was a licensed senior space pilot, but he would never let any of us call him Captain Thurbley. He said the title sounded pompous, and who the hell was he, anyway. The squarest guy I ever met, but you would have thought that he was ashamed of that blue uniform. Me, Chuck Morris, I am only an engineer—a space going mechanic—and I would have given my share in the cosmic hereafter to wear it. I would have strutted some.

But uniform or no uniform, I wouldn't have stood a chance with Sukey Jones. From the moment those two set eyes on one another, she had been Harry's girl. I used to wonder how it would have been with her and me if I had never introduced them. Just wondering.

In those days there had got to be a heavy Venus passenger traffic. It had become fashionable for Earth women to bleach their skin to match their hair, and the coveted greenish-white paleness they wanted could only be accomplished, it seemed, by spending several months under the sunless Venusian overcast, with its odd radiations.

Caterers to this fad left in scores for Venus. Tourist lodgings and recreational facilities sprang up on the frontier planet. Beauty got to be big business overnight.

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