Works of Charles Louis Fontenay. Charles Louis Fontenay
some areas," she said....
A small haw-apple tree near them suddenly began to grow at an amazing rate of speed. It doubled its size in three minutes, put forth fruit and dropped it to the ground.
"These are only a few of the things I'll give to your planet," she said.
At her words, they were back in the bedroom. This time she had been thoughtful. Montcalm was still clad in wet pajamas.
"I don't know what sort of hypnosis this is," he began aggressively, "but you can't fool me, young lady, into believing ..."
* * * * *
Millie came into the room. She had donned a robe over her nightgown.
"Richard, where have you been with this woman?" she demanded.
"Why, my dear ..."
"You've been roaming around the house somewhere with her. I came in here a moment ago and you were gone. Now, Richard, I want you to do something about her and stop fooling around. I can't keep the children in their room all day."
It hadn't been hypnosis then! Liz was for real. A vision rose before Montcalm of mankind given wonders, powers, benefits representing advances of thousands of years. The world could become a paradise with the things she offered to teach.
"Millie, this woman _is_ from another planet!" he exclaimed excitedly, and turned to Liz. "Why did you choose me to contact on Earth?"
"Why, I happened to land near your house," she answered. "I know how your primitive social organization is set up, but isn't one human being just as good as another to lead me to the proper authorities?"
"Yes," he said joyfully, visualizing black headlines and his picture in the papers.
Millie stood to one side, puzzled and grim at once. Montcalm picked up the house dress he had taken from the closet earlier.
"Now, Miss," he said, "if you'll just put this on, I'll take you to the mayor and he can get in touch with Washington at once."
"I told you," said Liz, "I don't want to adopt your custom of wearing clothing."
"But you can't go out in public like that!" said the dismayed Montcalm. "If you're going to move among Earth people, you must dress as we do."
"My people wouldn't demand that Earth people disrobe to associate with us," she countered reasonably.
Millie had had enough. She went into action.
"You can argue with this hussy all you like, Richard, but I'm going to call the police," she said, and left the room with determination in her eye.
The next fifteen minutes were agonizing for Montcalm as he tried futilely to get Liz to dress like a decent person. He was torn between realization of what the things she offered would mean to the world and his own sense of the fitness of things. His children, the children of Traskmore, the children of the world ... what would be the effect on their tender morals to realize that a sane adult was willing to walk around in brazen nakedness?
There was a pounding on the front door, and the voice of Millie inviting the law into the house.
"Now I'm afraid you're due to go to jail," said Montcalm mournfully. "But when they get some clothes on you, I'll try to explain it and get you an audience with the mayor."
Two blue-clad policemen entered the room.
One policeman took the house dress from Montcalm's lax fingers and tossed it over Liz' head without further ado.
Liz did not struggle. She looked at Montcalm with a quizzical expression.
"I'm sorry," she said. "My people made a mistake. If you Earth people aren't tolerant enough to accept a difference in customs of dress, I'm afraid you're too immature."
With that, she was gone like a puff of air. The astonished policemen held an empty dress.
Montcalm didn't see the flying saucer that whizzed over Traskmore that morning and disappeared into the sky, but he didn't doubt the reports. He debated with himself for a long time whether he had taken the right attitude, but decided he had.
After all, there were the children to consider.
THE END
The Jupiter Weapon
By CHARLES L. FONTENAY
He was a living weapon of destruction--immeasurably powerful, utterly invulnerable. There was only one question: Was he human?
Trella feared she was in for trouble even before Motwick's head dropped forward on his arms in a drunken stupor. The two evil-looking men at the table nearby had been watching her surreptitiously, and now they shifted restlessly in their chairs.
Trella had not wanted to come to the Golden Satellite. It was a squalid saloon in the rougher section of Jupiter's View, the terrestrial dome-colony on Ganymede. Motwick, already drunk, had insisted.
A woman could not possibly make her way through these streets alone to the better section of town, especially one clad in a silvery evening dress. Her only hope was that this place had a telephone. Perhaps she could call one of Motwick's friends; she had no one on Ganymede she could call a real friend herself.
Tentatively, she pushed her chair back from the table and arose. She had to brush close by the other table to get to the bar. As she did, the dark, slick-haired man reached out and grabbed her around the waist with a steely arm.
Trella swung with her whole body, and slapped him so hard he nearly fell from his chair. As she walked swiftly toward the bar, he leaped up to follow her.
There were only two other people in the Golden Satellite: the fat, mustached bartender and a short, square-built man at the bar. The latter swung around at the pistol-like report of her slap, and she saw that, though no more than four and a half feet tall, he was as heavily muscled as a lion.
His face was clean and open, with close-cropped blond hair and honest blue eyes. She ran to him.
"Help me!" she cried. "Please help me!"
He began to back away from her.
"I can't," he muttered in a deep voice. "I can't help you. I can't do anything."
* * * * *
The dark man was at her heels. In desperation, she dodged around the short man and took refuge behind him. Her protector was obviously unwilling, but the dark man, faced with his massiveness, took no chances. He stopped and shouted:
"Kregg!"
The other man at the table arose, ponderously, and lumbered toward them. He was immense, at least six and a half feet tall, with a brutal, vacant face.
Evading her attempts to stay behind him, the squat man began to move down the bar away from the approaching Kregg. The dark man moved in on Trella again as Kregg overtook his quarry and swung a huge fist like a sledgehammer.
Exactly what happened, Trella wasn't sure. She had the impression that Kregg's fist connected squarely with the short man's chin _before_ he dodged to one side in a movement so fast it was a blur. But that couldn't have been, because the short man wasn't moved by that blow that would have felled a steer, and Kregg roared in pain, grabbing his injured fist.
"The bar!" yelled Kregg. "I hit the damn bar!"
At this juncture, the bartender took a hand. Leaning far over the bar, he swung a full bottle in a complete arc. It smashed on Kregg's head, splashing the floor with liquor, and Kregg sank stunned to his knees. The dark man, who had grabbed Trella's arm, released her and ran for the door.
Moving