THROUGH A LASS DARKLY
Maltbie Trot was used to girls materializing in his rotten little office. As a rule they were looking for somebody else, especially after they saw Maltbie. So when the girl materialized by his dead air-conditioner, Maltbie just lifted his pinkies from the keyboard and waited.
"F-f-f-f," said the girl.
"You're looking for Candy, I suppose."
"Godno, I'm looking for the birdypoo," she snapped.
"Well, it's down the hall." Maltbie's gesture hit his knuckles on the wall; it was a rotten office.
"Oh, I can't go now, doddy."
Maltbie sucked his knuckles. "Why not?"
"Because obviously I'm in a tempsink," she told him crossly. "I've got to wait."
Maltbie took off his glasses. She seemed to be quite a tender-looking little biscuit, with luminiferous hair.
"You could push a chair over."
Maltbie scrambled out of his only chair and started dragging it over; Candy was low office on the furniture totem.
As he pushed it under her knees, all her clothes vanished. Maltbie blinked and reared back. Her clothes reappeared. He leaned forward; they vanished again. He began to rock.
73
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"You better nose back or you'll get caught when it clinkers." She sounded friendlier.
Maltbie nosed back, considering. He had time to read a lot.
"What exactly did you say you were from?"
"Twennytoo sittynine, course. Doesn't always go in threesies?"
"Uh, Aye Dee?"
"Who? This is the third one on this level, and it's always on the bird side. We got protest, you can say!"
"So we weren't wiped out," said Maltbie slowly.
"You were." She giggled. She was putting something up her nose from a pink bulb.
"Par me," she sniffed. "I didn't mean sound pig." She looked around. "What you do here, anyway?"
"I'm Candy," Maltbie told her. "I mean, I write the Dear Candy column for this newspaper syndicate. You do, uh, have newspapers?"
"Godno. I know what they were, though. Strips. What's dearcandy? But I shouldn' eat, it'll stay behind when I clinker. Blop"
"It's like I give advice. People with unnerving personal problems. Marriage. Look, I should ask you something significant."
"Mean like sycounser?"
"Uh, how are things in twenty-two sixty-nine anyway?"
"Oh, clobby, I guess. A fug. Lot better'n you, course." She looked him over complacently. "I mean, we're jree. All your hang-ups, I guess you can't 'magine. Listen, are you a sycounser?"
"Do you have, uh, nuclear war?"
"What kind?" Her eyes widened. "Tell me there's Indians and tekkers aroun' here?" She jumped up.
"I don't think so." Maltbie leaned forward soothingly. He leaned back. "What about race hatred?"
"Pretty good, I guess. You sure 'bout those tekkers? This would happen in front our poo. Listen, Mr. Candy, can I ask you some advice?"
"Trot."
Through a Lass Darkly 75
"What?"
"My name. Maltbie Trot. What seems to be yovr problem, Miss Uh?"
"What to do, what to do. I'm from small town, see. Shago. Maybe you know. I was in this gangbang and Iran away."
"Well, I don't blame you there."
"You can say. Feek, deadly. Nobody knows they're alive. I made up my mind, come here and get a job. In the city And I did. I mean, there's more to life than your college gangbang, isn't there?"
"Indubitably."
"So I found this real involving job with Interbed. But the super's wife! Started invite me home for dinner. You know, meet the tribe."
"Sounds good."
"Good? Shitman, all she wanted was marry me."
"Is that so?"
"Too right. One of the other birds warned me, they tried it on her. She's baby-crazy and they're trying get a new girl in and use her cert."
"Well!"
"You can say. Lose my baby cert! If my mother knew 'bout that! Anyway, then there was this real great man. But you know, turned out he was beta?"
"No!"
"Terrible." She shook her head, making her hair light up. "There he was with his black eye, V we got change our plans 'n' have dinner with his family. Well, I thought, it's 'bout time. I mean, just as two making, you know, out. But when I got there I saw the alpha. Oh, he acted sweet, but I knew he was alpha, we have them in Shago!"
"Uh, look. What do you call an alpha?"
"Call an alpha? Doddy! What you call it when you see all the men crawling 'round 'cept this one big mother 'n' all the wives pawing on him?"
Maltbie pondered. "A harem?"
"Vavoom!" She squealed, making her clothes vanish
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with an exuberant body split that seemed to connote approval.
"You prims." She dimpled in a shy way as her clothes came back. Maltbie could see she was a nice girl.
"Well, anyway," she went on soberly. "I tried 'round, you know, I even went with some idents for a while? Their sycounser told them broaden out, see. They thought I fit. But sheesh, I couldn' see it. I mean, the only nonident? They go on with each other so."
"Not right for you, I'm sure," said Maltbie.
"I'm glad you 'gree. And I tried a couple work tribes. But sheesh, they're like dead, worse than back home. Well, one maybe, I could've married them personally, I mean. But they're in," she looked down. "Well, oil. I mean, I'm not tight nowhere, but that's not for a bird, you think?"
"I guess not," said Maltbie. He noticed his head was swaying a little, and pulled himself straight. "Not for a nice girl like you."
"Shitman, you can say," she agreed primly. "But you know? I'm getting old."
"How old are you?"
She looked around nervously.
"Seventeen. Almost eighteen, see?" she whispered.
"H'm. And you've been to college?"
"Are you skibbing? But listen what I ask. The chance I have now, see, it's this great queen group. I don't take that, I just have t'go back. To Shago. What you think?"
"A queen group ... Could you tell me a little more?"
"Well, they have this big place. And two leostats, it couldn' be sweeter. 'Course, they're a little old."
"Uh, how many are there?"
"What?" She wiggled. "Sheesh, wish this thing would hurry up 'n' clinker so I can go to poo. Oh, the queens, just the usual. Them 'n' the four boys 'n' two hetros 'n' five birds, or they couldn' ask me, could they? Only bad thing with queens, you only get two live husbands.
Through a Lass Darkly 77
But they're so good with babies, you know it. What you think?"
"Well, I'm not sure that my experience really—"
"Who you married to?" she demanded.
"Uh, actually, I'm a bachelor—hey, what's the matter?"
She was on her feet, making a gagging noise.
"Should you jump around like that? I mean, what if it—"
"You pervert. How you can stand there and say it."
"Bachelor? That just means I'm not married, it's quite respectable here. In fact, some girls prefer—"
"Stop it!"
She sank back in the chair.
"The things you run into. Oh, I'll kill them."
"Don't talk to me." She turned her back.
Maltbie opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. Finally he said, "Bother you if I just finish typing my piece here? I'm late."
Her jaw tightened.
Maltbie put his glasses back on and began to peck out his copy, standing scrunched over. When 4ie reached for a new letter from his pile he saw she was peeking at the script. The office was that small.
"People ask you for advice," she said from outer space.
" 'Dear Candy, my husband told me two weeks ago that—'"
"Don't." She licked her lips. "Of course, they don't know who you are."
"No," he agreed. He stopped typing.
She lifted her chin.
"All this," she said to the ceiling. "Getting feeked up with you. I mean, it shows what big city is like. I see now. That queen group wouldn' never work out. Even with the leostats."
He took his glasses off again.
"Well, I'm glad the total experience has been some help to you, anyway."
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"You can say." Her voice was back to normal. "I must lost my value orientation, you know? Two hetros and six birds. That's all right in city, maybe. Not for me. Fm going back t' Shago. Mother told me last week, my old gangbang hasn' taken anybody else yet."
"Fm glad to hear that. The old gangbang is undoubtedly more reality-relevant in the long run."
"They're live kids," she told him. "I mean, there's more to life than leostats, sheesh."
"You can say. Look, since we're talking again, could I ask you—"
There was a puff of nothing. His room was empty.
"Did I hear voices?" The Boathooks man stuck his foxy head in the door. "Where'd she go?"
"Tothebirdypoo."
The head disappeared.
"Hey!" Maltbie called plaintively. "Can I borrow a chair?"