O Pioneer! by Frederik Pohl Read Free Book Online Page B

or slumped at workstations around the terminal. That made sense. As Wili Tschopp had explained, there was this rule requiring all six races to be present whenever the terminal was operational. But there were at least one or two others present of each race, and what could interest them about a purely Earth matter?
    He got the answer in a moment. There was a blue-and-white warning flare; then a faint hand-clap of air as the stacked merchandise disappeared; a moment later a gentle puff as the export crates were replaced with others. At once the nonhumans descended on them, opening every crate and peering inside. It looked like a customs search to Giyt, and then recognition clicked in his mind. It was a customs search. The nonhumans were looking for contraband, and they were being damned thorough about it. Wili Tschopp was protesting vigorously, but the eetie representatives were insisting on opening every carton.
    Hoak Hagbarth abandoned his post at the controls and, yawning, strolled over to where Giyt stood. Giyt blinked at him. "That doesn't bother you, what they're doing to the shipment from Earth?"
    "Naw. Those guys are always like that. Look, Wili said you wanted to see me about something."
    "Oh, right." Giyt was still staring at the commotion before him; a Kalkaboo had opened a crate of chiplets, the microcontrollers that ran most devices, and Wili was profanely urging him to be careful, while the Slug and a Delt were pawing through containers of personal goods meant for various human residents. "It's this power-rationing thing. The Kalkaboos say—"
    Hagbarth sighed. "I heard all about what the Kalkaboos say. Same old crap; don't sweat it. I'll cook up some kind of an airy-fairy program for you before the next meeting. Nothing that we need to take seriously, of course."
    "But if the Kalkaboos really need the power—"
    Hagbarth chuckled unpleasantly. "Need it? Do you know what they need the power for? They use UV radiation to get high. You see how they go around naked here, with all those little photocells on their skins? Well, they don't do that on their home planet. They'd be buzzed from the radiation all the time, so there they go covered up totally. When they have a party they take off all their clothes and get smashed from the ultraviolet."
    "Oh," Giyt said, abashed. But as he turned to leave, Wili Tschopp came toward him, grinning, an opened carton in his hands. "Might as well take this with you, Giyt," he said. "It's for your wife. I always said you were one lucky guy." Giyt looked after him, puzzled, as the man walked away, chuckling. Then he looked into the carton and understood. It was a selection of chains, handcuffs, and a fancily pink-wrapped packet of what the label called "marital aids." And yes, the whole box was addressed to Mrs. Rina Giyt.

VI
     
     
    We have established that both the so-called Centaurians and the so-called Slugs come from planets that orbit the star Alpha Centauri, and that the so-called Delts come from the system of the star Delta Pavonis. The provenance of the other two extraterrestrial races remains unknown. They decline to respond to any questions on the subject, nor have our searches turned up any data that would resolve it.
    It is a noteworthy fact — it cannot be called a coincidence — that the automatic probes dispatched by the Huntsville Group to both of the above stars have lost contact even before they established circumstellar orbits. Analysis indicates a very high probability that these losses were not due to equipment malfunctions or accident. This leaves only one reasonable explanation.
    — INTERNAL COMMUNICATION , EXTENDED EARTH SOCIETY MARKED : DO NOT DISSEMINATE OUTSIDE OF SOCIETY .
     
    When Giyt gave Rina the package she was a little irritated, a little amused, and a little bit hurt; too. She stood there with her palmtop in one hand and her shoulder bag in the other, just getting ready to go out, looking both startled and disappointed. "But I didn't get those