The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens by L. Sprague de Camp Read Free Book Online Page B

inspection rooms and into the waiting room, Chapman stopped short. His pipe bounced from the floor unheeded.
    Except for those who had come in on the ship, the people swarming in the waiting room were all quite naked except for sandals. Moreover, their hides were decorated with the fantastically interwoven designs in iridescent colors that the Osirians used for personal adornment.
    As the four stood gawking, a man came up. “Cato Chapman?”
    “Y-yes. Who are you?”
    “Don’t you know me?”
    “By all the gods, you’re my cousin Ed Mahoney! This is my wife Anya, and these are Mr. and Mrs. Bergerat. Remember Celia? She always wanted a tall dark type. The captain hitched us on the way back from Osiris.”
    Mahoney nodded. “I thought something like that might happen.”
    “But—but—where the hell are your clothes? And why is everybody going around looking like the tattooed woman in the circus?”
    “Oh, that. That’s the new Osirian style; it came in a couple of years ago. We don’t wear clothes in hot weather anymore.”
    “Yuk,” said Chapman. “How come?”
    “It seems some smart Osirians who came here on that so-called cultural mission started a syndicate to exploit the Osirian body-paint designs on Earth. That reminds me, you haven’t got a job anymore.”
    “What?”
    “That’s right. Nettie Greenfarb and all the other summer wear specialty shops went broke. Last I heard of Nettie she had some government job. But maybe you’d like to try the paint business. It’s doing swell, as you can imagine, and maybe I can find openings for you and your friend. Like me to fly you in to L.A.?”
    Dumbly, they followed him.

A.D. 2114-2140
    Finished

    “It won’t work forever,” said Abreu gloomily. “Keep up a technological blockade, and at the same time allow communication between Krishnans and beings from other planets? Bah! Why doesn’t the damned Interplanetary Council ask us something easy, like lighting the Sadabao Sea with a match?”
    Comandante Silva, who had come over from his planet for the conference, looked amused. “We have no trouble on Vishnu, and moreover we run the station without red tape. Your forms, Senhor Cristôvão, are getting notorious—”
    Abreu turned pink and began to bounce in his chair. “Easy for you to criticize, Senhor Augusto. You know Bembom’s a little station compared to Novorecife, and that your Vishnuvans are simple-minded children compared to Krishnans.”
    “I only said your red tape was getting notorious, which—”
    “But I tell you—”
    “Which it is—”
    “Queira, senhores,” interrupted Kennedy. As the Comandante of Novorecife was the S.O.P., the others subsided. “Let’s not get personal. We all do the best we can with what we have.”
    “Well, it still won’t work,” grumped Abreu. “Someday, they’ll get something big through, and then we’ll learn whether the I.C. is right in fearing that the backward Krishnans might start an interplanetary war once they have their scientific revolution.”
    Silva said: “I sympathize with you, at that. The I.C. is just a board, and a board may be defined as a long, narrow, and wooden thing. I’ve been writing them for a Vishnuvan year now to get—”
    “Yes?” said Abreu. Gorchakov, the head customs inspector, had come in.
    “You’d better be in on this, chefe” said Gorchakov. “You know that Earthman we cleared for travel a few ten-nights back—Akelawi? Ahmad Akelawi?”
    “The tall Algerian engineer? Sim. What about him?”
    “He’s trying to take a mummy through customs.”
    “Excuse me, senhores” said Abreu. “I certainly do want to be in on this.” The head security officer of Novorecife heaved his bulk out of his chair and waddled after Gorchakov.
    “What sort of mummy?” he asked.
    “Some native king. He claims it’s perfectly legal, and has a bill of sale to show for it.”
    Abreu prepared to bristle at the sight of Akelawi. Being short and fat, he suspected all tall