Collected Short Fiction, page 489
All during the spring and summer of 2379, we worked on May Loreen, and the results were superb. I began engineering a little groundswell of publicity that would grow to floodtide in twelve months’ time. By the end of ’79 everybody who mattered knew that there was a girl named May Loreen around, who was being groomed by Nick Seferiades for lofty heights. And such was the magic of my name, in those days, that May’s stock began to boom.
I entered her for Miss New York State in January of 2380, and she took it with such ease it was ridiculous. All she had to do was promenade up and down in that skin-tight white bathing suit of hers, smile and wiggle her fanny, and the judges flopped over like Venusians out of water. It was a cinch to grab off Miss United States next. One of the contestants tried to combine seduction with coercion on one of the judges, but it didn’t work. The gal would have probably won on her own in any other year—we managed to hush her indiscretion up.
There was a flock of tridim offers, but I turned them all down.
AS MISS United States, May was eligible for that year’s Miss Earth contest, and won that also—although for a while I was worried about a belle from China who had the judges wowed with her fragile-porcelain kind of beauty. The month May Loreen captured the Miss Earth title, her photo was on the cover of two dozen magazines. It was blinding to stand at a newstand and look up.
After Miss Earth comes the Miss Universe contest. Now, as everyone knows, the “Miss Universe” label is a misnomer. The contest is limited to female members of the species H. sapiens only, since there aren’t any very convenient standards for judging one planet’s kind of beauty against another’s. Once upon a time, there was a contest for beauty queens of different planets, cooked up by a smartypants promoter who lived to rue the day. The gimmick was that the winner would be the entrant who most closely approximated the standard perfection of her own world.
So a creature looking like a warthog crossed with a dugong showed up as the entry from Alpheraz V. Turned out that the people of Alpheraz V are all but extinct, and that Miss Alpheraz was the only living adult female of her species—so she had to be the most beautiful of her kind. She demanded and got the award, and the promoter was never heard from again.
EVER SINCE that classic fiasco, Miss Universe has been open to humans only—and I don’t mean humanoids, but human-type humans. Naturally, there were more humans on Earth than anyplace else in the galaxy. Of the fifty candidates for Miss Universe, thirty were from Earth—and most of them were girls that May had already beaten in one contest or another. The rest of the girls came from the colony worlds. Miss Mars looked like a coalminer, Miss Venus like a longshoreman, Miss Ganymede like a snow-shovel. It couldn’t be helped. Beauty queens don’t emigrate to the colony worlds. They stay in orbit between New York and Paris, keeping far away from any planet where they would be required to soil their hands with work.
On Mars, if a girl doesn’t fill her work quota and doesn’t have an awfully good excuse, she gets shot. There’s no room for slackers up there. But such a place isn’t conducive to developing such useless things as beauty queens.
In short, the other candidates for Miss Universe didn’t matter. May Loreen was a shoo-in. She was such a shoo-in that when I tried to place bets on her I couldn’t find a bookie in the Western Hemisphere who would touch my money. They don’t make book on walkovers.
I DON’T HAVE to tell you who won, do I? It was a breeze, a romp, a runaway. May Loreen captivated the judges from the start. You could see from the faces of the other girls that they didn’t think they stood a chance, either. Some of them didn’t even bother to keep their shoulders back and their lungs inflated as they crossed the stage.
I phoned Ted de Vera that night, after the result was announced. The contest was held in the Lunar Bubble, and de Vera was in Chicago, so the call set me back a shiny fat figure. But I didn’t care about a mere hundred-buck phone bill. Not then.
I chortled, “We did it, Ted! May won!”
“Are you surprised?”
“Of course not. But think of it, Ted—your discovery, hailed as the most perfect woman of all time!”
“I always had a good eye,” de Vera said modestly. “I’ll be looking forward to my check.”
IT WAS ALL going to be straight up after that night. We threw a big party, and got wonderfully high; you’d be amazed how fast—and on how little—you can get sozzled in the Lunar Bubble, with that low grav, especially if some wise guy monkeys a little with the atmosphere that’s being fed into your section of the dome. We were half lit on oxygen drinks before the festivities got started, and were gloriously pickled not much later.
I remember May kissing me, full square on the lips, as an expression of glee. The sensation was so uncanny that it nearly sobered me on the spot. May was a Good Girl, but if she went around kissing people gaily all night, some of her virtue might evaporate pretty fast. So I laid off the sauce the rest of that night and kept an eye on her, just in case she forgot her training and decided to intertwine with one of the judges under a table.
My chaperoning worked out pretty well. May got back to Earth at the end of that week with her honor intact; I was determined that this was one beauty queen who would remain unsullied until the strategic moment came.
The money flowed in marvelously. If I had accepted all the modeling offers, May would have been posing thirty-six hours a day for the next three centuries. I hired a staff of ten to winnow the mail. Video network men fell all over themselves trying to arrange guest spots for May Loreen at five grand per minute. Tridim scouts pleaded for her signature on seven-year contracts. I bided my time, milking it for all it was worth. May Loreen was going to be a lifetime annuity for me, and I wasn’t going to let her go cheap.
AND RIGHT at this point, I made my big mistake. If I had been a better Greek, maybe I would have known. But not dumb Nick Seferiades.
The Greeks had a word for it: hybris. Overweening pride. I know all about it, now. King Agamemnon insisted on having a red carpet rolled out for him, and the gods conspired to knock him off by way of showing a lesson in humility. Well, the same with me. I had this girl, May Loreen. The best that ever was. You looked at her, and it did something to you. She was perfection itself.
So I got a bright idea. I figured out a way to emblazon May Loreen’s perfection across the Milky Way. The Greeks of old would have said I was reaching too high, riding for a fall. Committing hybris, in other words. Well, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but maybe I would have gone ahead and done it anyway, even if Cassandra came up to me and told me what was going to happen.
There was this Interstellar Fair, you see. The Grand Show of the universe, held once every three hundred years. It was scheduled to take place on the planet of Validus, a couple of hundred thousand light-years from Earth in one of the star-clusters.
This place was so far out, that no Earthman had ever been there. Of course, there are plenty of planets where no Earthmen have ever been; they tell me that there’s an infinite number of planets in the universe, and only a finite number of Earthmen, many of whom never get much further from home than an occasional gay fling at the Lunar Bubble.
THREE HUNDRED years ago, when the last Interstellar Fair was held on Validus, Earthmen were still putting around the Solar System in iondrive ships. The nullwarp was still a couple of decades in the future, and regular commerce with other stars was undreamed-of. So there was no Earth exhibit at the Validusian Fair that was held in 2081.
But this time, Earth had been invited to participate. There were no diplomatic relations at the moment between Earth and Validus, but the Validusians had made known their invitation through a couple of intermediary planets, and in the name of Earth the invitation had been accepted by World President Onomodze.
And I got my big idea.
There was all this fuss about setting up the Terran exhibit at the fair. We were sending our best symphony orchestra, and an exhibit of Terran paintings, and samples of Terran handicrafts, and just about everything else that represented a notable Terran achievement.
Except one thing. We weren’t sending anybody to represent the matchless beauty of Terran femininity.
I PULLED strings. I spoke to a friend who spoke to a friend. And suddenly I had myself an invitation to visit President Onomodze at the Capitol Building in Accra.
Half an hour later, I was on a transatlantic jet bound for the world capital. Not very much later that day, I was in Accra, being whisked from the airport to the Capitol by special limousine. And by dinnertime that night, I was sipping excellent brandy in the Presidential suite while President Onomodze himself riffled through my tridims of May Loreen and nodded in keen appreciation.
At length he looked up at me and flashed his famous grin. “She is beautiful. She is a marvel!”
“You’ll send her?”
“Of course!”
And so I returned home with the good news: we were being sent to the Fair! The publicity, of course, was tremendous. May Loreen had been chosen above all women to represent Terran pulchritude on Validus, and you can imagine what kind of honor that was. May was elated. We’d be rolling in megabucks by the time the grand tour was over.
THE TRIP to Validus took six weeks, even by nullwarp, which ought to give some idea of how far away it is. The World Government, of course, paid for our passage both ways, and threw in enough to pay for May’s hairdressers, wardrobe attendants, and other miscellaneous camp followers. Three or four reporters went along in the ship too, sending back daily dispatches about Miss Universe and her retinue.
As it worked out, we were practically the first Fair guests to arrive on Validus. The Terran exhibit hall was being built by local labor, since it was impossible to transport Terran workmen all the way there and back. The hall was almost finished, and the Terran personnel who had arrived ahead of us were installed in a hotel nearby, all together. The Validusians gave us a big welcome but they didn’t seem too happy about having much contact with us. Nor, in truth, did we go out of our way to pal around with the locals, because they were repulsive-looking little creatures.
THE VALIDUSIANS were humanoid in general set-up. Maybe that only accentuated their frightfulness. I can get used to an extraterrestrial who looks like a slimy one-legged blue egg, but the ones with humanoid forms always give me the willies. And these were definitely unpretty.
They were three or four feet high, with the right number of arms and legs and heads. Their skins were the color of boiled lobsters, a dismal reddish hue, and there was a thick, wrinkled, leathery look about their hides that made them even uglier. In place of hair they had a lot of purple spikes packed close together and standing three inches high or so on top of their big heads. Thick antennae sprouted from each temple, ending in a little buttony sort of thing the size of a pea. Their noses were grisly little slits and their eyes looked like bulging peeled potatoes with a raisin stuck in the middle. You can see why we kept to ourselves and didn’t mingle much with the locals during the time the Fair was getting organized. We kept busy, though, sending back elaborate stories of what Miss Universe was up to on Validus, how members of other races had remarked in awe on her beauty, and such. I remember one snatch of press-agentry particularly well, for reasons you’ll learn later:
“. . . Sktialimin Krenin, a ranking musician in the Rigelian thonkin orchestra, declared after viewing Miss Universe, ‘Her perfection is immediately evident.’ Here on Valdus all races join in tribute to the loveliness of May Loreen, proving that there is an absolute standard of beauty at whose summit stands the glorious Miss Universe, May Loreen . . .”
Yes, I’m going to remember that little puff for the rest of my weary days. It haunts me. Oh, my departed Athenian ancestors!
I’LL SKIP over the days before the Fair opened. They were days we spent consuming exotic beverages and doing a remarkable amount of time-wasting.
The affair currently termed the Miss Universe Scandal of 2381 took place the night before the official grand opening of the Validusian Fair. I wasn’t there. Maybe things would have gone differently if I had been; I don’t know, but I like to think they would have.
Celebrities from all over the universe would be on hand for the grand opening. It was my idea to open the Terran exhibit by having May come out, wearing a sexy swimsuit and her Miss Universe badge, and welcome everyone to Earth’s first participating effort in a Validusian fair. The way I figured it, she would be a knockout.
Well, there was a rehearsal the night before. Sam Carmody, who was Coordinator of the Terran Exhibit, wanted everyone to run through his part in advance. It was a logical request.
ONLY . . . I HAD been on a bit of a bender two nights before the Grand Opening, and I hadn’t quite recovered yet. A Denebian had showed up with a bottle of milk white Denebian booze, than which there is no more boozier, and somehow the Denebian and I downed that entire quart bottle—no paltry fifth—within a few hours.
I understand that the Denebian’s shell softened as a result. Me, I got off without any physical damage. But I woke in a fog, with the granduncle of all hangovers, and there wasn’t any question of my attending the dress rehearsal. I was going to have to stay in bed and consume miscellaneous wonder drugs to clear the impurities, congeners, and extraterrestrial fusel-oils out of my overhung head.
Dimly I remember May Loreen standing over my bed and murmuring, “Poor Nick! How do you feel?”
I didn’t answer, I just groaned.
She said, “Aren’t you going to come with me to the rehearsal?”
I groaned again. This time I opened my eyes and found them staring into a notable and highly famed bosom. I raised my glance, smiled feebly at May, and croaked, “Good luck.” Then I shut my eyes again; the light from the bulb overhead was pounding my seemingly-exposed optic nerve mercilessly.
Mentally I pictured that lovely body in its skimpy swimsuit perched at the edge of my bed while I lay crumpled up with self-inflicted ills, and I groaned again. Slitting one eye open, I caught a glimpse of May hip-wiggling her way out of my room. The door closed.
And, though I didn’t know it then, all sort of trouble was beginning.
I SPENT that night in total delirium. But I’ve managed to piece together everything that happened. And it went something like this:
May, after coming to pay her sympathy call to me, started down the hall, a veritable Aphrodite, on her way to the dress—or, in her case, undress—rehearsal. She rounded a corridor suddenly and was scared half out of her wits by two piercing shrieks of pure horror.
For a moment or two, she was too startled to think. Then she saw the source of the shrieks, two utterly terrified little Validusians, scrambling away from her in a panicky retreat, frightened practically to jelly by her sudden appearance.
I’ll give her credit for keeping her presence of mind. She saw they were wearing translator belts, so she smiled at them—that mega buck smile of hers—and said in English, “Don’t be afraid of me. I won’t hurt you.”
THE TWO Validusians turned and looked at her suspiciously. May told me she was pretty revolted by their repulsiveness, but she remembered that she was here as an official representative of Earth, and she acted accordingly. She posed for them. And, slowly, the Validusians recovered their mental equilibrium.
“Forgive us for this display of terror,” they begged her. “The sudden sight of you, unexpected, without proper preparation . . .”
“I’m sorry I frightened you,” May said gently. She was a couple of feet taller than they were, and no doubt the experience of turning a corner and nearly colliding with a gigantic alien being, even one as lovely as May Loreen, had nearly finished them.
“We are the ones who must apologize,” said the Validusians. “You are the Earthwoman?”
“Yes, I am.”
“You are exactly as they said you were!” they exclaimed. “Even beyond the descriptions we received!”
“Why, thank you,” May said, flattered. “How sweet of you.”
She noticed that the aliens still weren’t coming very close to her. They looked like a couple of timid hobgoblins, huddling together near the wall.
But one of them said, “We were on our way to visit you when we—ah—met so abruptly.”
“To visit me?”
YES, TO VISIT her. It turned out that the pair of Validusians had a proposition for her.
They were Validusian movie producers, of all things—specialists in tridims. Ordinarily they dealt through underlings, but this was so important that they had come personally to attend to it. What they wanted, as they explained out there in the hall, was to cast May in a movie they were making.
May said, “Well, I’ll have to discuss it with Mr. Seferiades—he’s my agent . . .”
“Will it take long?”
“It all depends,” she said.
They were very anxious to get her services. So anxious, in fact, that they named a sum beyond rational comprehension as her fee. It sounded to May like the Terran global budget for an entire fiscal year. Even as I think about it now, I have to admit it was a devil of a lot of money: the biggest single offer we had ever received, as a matter of fact.
May was awed by the offer from the two Validusians. She was so awed that she excused herself, went dashing back to my bedroom, woke me up, and poured the whole story in my ears.
“And they’re offering fantastic money, Nick, fantastic! But they say they have to film me right away, and they want to know if it’s okay. What do you say, Nick? Isn’t it tremendous? All that money!”
They tell me that I opened my mouth and made a couple of incoherent sounds, and immediately dropped back into my alcoholic stupor. I wish I knew what those sounds were.
WHATEVER THEY WERE, May Loreen took them as an affirmative. She didn’t bother consulting a lawyer. She didn’t bother consulting anyone. She signed the contract, the first time she had ever signed a contract without my consultation, and then she went downstairs for the dress rehearsal.
