The Perfect Host by Theodore Sturgeon Read Free Book Online

front of the cans she stopped and looked at me with her eyes very wide.
    The cat watched curiously and then went on eating. We went on eating and listening to the music.

Unite and Conquer
    T HEY WERE DIGGING this drainage canal, and the timekeeper drove out to the end, where the big crane-dragline was working, and called the operator down to ask a lot of questions about a half-hour of overtime. Next thing you know, they were going round and round on the fill. The young superintendent saw that fight and yelled for them to cut it out. They ignored him. Not wanting to dirty his new breeches, the super swung up into the machine, loaded three yards of sand into bucket, hoisted it high, swung, and dumped it on the scrambling pair. The operator and the timekeeper floundered out from under, palmed sand out of their eyes and mouths, and with a concerted roar converged on the cab of the machine. They had the super out on the ground and were happily taking turns punching his head when a labor foreman happened by, and he and his men stopped the fuss.
    The red-headed youngster put down the book. “It’s true here, too,” he told his brother. “I mean, what I was saying about almost all of Wells’ best science fiction. In each case there’s a miracle—a Martian invasion in ‘War of the Worlds,’ a biochemical in ‘Food of the Gods,’ and a new gaseous isotope in ‘In the Days of the Comet.’ And it ultimately makes all of mankind work together.”
    The brother was in college—had been for seven months—and was very wise. “That’s right. He knew it would take a miracle. I think he forgot that when he began to write sociological stuff. As Dr. Pierce remarked, he sold his birthright for a pot of message.”
    “Excuse me,” said the dark man called Rod. He rose and went to the back of the café and the line of phone booths, while the girl with the tilted nose and the red sandals stared fondly after him. The Blonde arrived.
    “Ah,” she mewed, “alone, I see. But of course.” She sat down.
    “I’m with Rod,” said the girl with the sandals, adding primly, “He’s phoning.”
    “Needed to talk to someone, no doubt,” said the Blonde.
    “Probably,” said the other, smiling at her long fingers, “he needed to come back to earth.”
    The Blonde barely winced. “Oh well. I suppose he must amuse himself between his serious moments. He’ll have one tomorrow night, you know. At the dance. Pity I won’t see you there. Unless, of course, you come with someone else—”
    “He’s working tomorrow night!” blurted the girl with the sandals, off guard.
    “You could call it that,” said the Blonde placidly.
    “Look, sunshine,” said the other girl evenly, “why don’t you stop kidding yourself? Rod isn’t interested in you and your purely local color. He isn’t even what you want. If you’re looking for a soulmate, go find yourself a wolfhound.”
    “Darling,” said the Blonde appreciatively, and with murder in her mascara. “You know, you might get him, at that.
If
you brush up on your cooking, and if he can keep his appetite by going blind—” She leaned forward suddenly. “Look there. Who
is
that floozy?”
    They turned to the back of the café. The dark young man was holding both hands of a slender but curvesome girl with deep auburn hair. She was laughing coyly up at him.
    “Fancy Pants,” breathed the girl with the red sandals. She turned to the Blonde. “I know whereof I speak. Her clothesline is right under my window, and—”
    “The little stinker,” said the Blonde. She watched another pretty convulsion of merriment. “Clothesline, hm-m-m? Listen—I had a friend once who had a feud on with a biddy in the neighborhood. There something about a squirt gun and some ink—”
    “Well, well,” said the girl in the sandals. She thought a moment, watching Rod and the redhead. “Where could I get a squirt gun?”
    “My kid brother has a water pistol. I got it for him for his birthday. Can