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    Helpfully Yours
    Helpfully Yours
    Helpfully Yours
    Ebook56 pages50 minutes

    Helpfully Yours

    By Evelyn E. Smith

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    About this ebook

    Tarb Morfatch had read all the information on Terrestrial customs that was available in the Times morgue before she'd left Fizbus. And all through the journey she'd studied her Brief Introduction to Terrestrial Manners and Mores avidly. Perhaps it was a bit overinspirational in spots, but it had facts in it, too.
    So she knew that, since the natives were non-alate, she was not to take wing on Earth. She had, however, forgotten to correlate the knowledge of their winglessness with her own vertical habits. As a result, on leaving the tender that had ferried her down from the Moon, she looked up instead of right and narrowly escaped death at the jaws of a raging groundcar that swerved out onto the field.
    She recognized it as a taxi from one of the pictures in the handbook. It was a pity, she thought sadly as she was knocked off her feet, that all those lessons she had so carefully learned were to go to waste.
    But it was only the wind of the car's passage that had thrown her down. As she struggled to get up, hampered by her awkward native skirts, the door of the taxi flew open. A tall young man—a Fizbian—burst out, the soft yellowish-green down on his handsome face bristling with fright until each feather stood out separately.
    "Miss Morfatch! Are you all right?"
    "Just—just a little shaky," she murmured, brushing dirt from her rosy leg feathers. Too young to be Drosmig; too good-looking to be anyone important, she thought glumly. Must be the office boy.
    To her surprise, he didn't help her up. Probably it would violate some native taboo if he did, she deduced. The handbook hadn't mentioned anything that seemed to apply, but, after all, a little book like that couldn't cover everything...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJovian Press
    Release dateDec 20, 2016
    ISBN9781537813653
    Helpfully Yours
    Author

    Evelyn E. Smith

    Evelyn E. Smith (25 July 1922 – 4 July 2000) was an American writer of science fiction and mysteries, as well as a compiler of crossword puzzles.

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      Book preview

      Helpfully Yours - Evelyn E. Smith

      HELPFULLY YOURS

      Evelyn E. Smith

      JOVIAN PRESS

      Thank you for reading. If you enjoy this book, please leave a review or connect with the author.

      All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

      Copyright © 2016 by Evelyn E. Smith

      Interior design by Pronoun

      Distribution by Pronoun

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      HELPFULLY YOURS

      HELPFULLY YOURS

      TARB MORFATCH HAD READ all the information on Terrestrial customs that was available in the Times morgue before she’d left Fizbus. And all through the journey she’d studied her Brief Introduction to Terrestrial Manners and Mores avidly. Perhaps it was a bit overinspirational in spots, but it had facts in it, too.

      So she knew that, since the natives were non-alate, she was not to take wing on Earth. She had, however, forgotten to correlate the knowledge of their winglessness with her own vertical habits. As a result, on leaving the tender that had ferried her down from the Moon, she looked up instead of right and narrowly escaped death at the jaws of a raging groundcar that swerved out onto the field.

      She recognized it as a taxi from one of the pictures in the handbook. It was a pity, she thought sadly as she was knocked off her feet, that all those lessons she had so carefully learned were to go to waste.

      But it was only the wind of the car’s passage that had thrown her down. As she struggled to get up, hampered by her awkward native skirts, the door of the taxi flew open. A tall young man—a Fizbian—burst out, the soft yellowish-green down on his handsome face bristling with fright until each feather stood out separately.

      Miss Morfatch! Are you all right?

      Just—just a little shaky, she murmured, brushing dirt from her rosy leg feathers. Too young to be Drosmig; too good-looking to be anyone important, she thought glumly. Must be the office boy.

      To her surprise, he didn’t help her up. Probably it would violate some native taboo if he did, she deduced. The handbook hadn’t mentioned anything that seemed to apply, but, after all, a little book like that couldn’t cover everything.

      She could see the young man was embarrassed—his emerald crest was waving to and fro.

      I’m Stet Zarnon, he introduced himself awkwardly.

      The Managing Editor! The handsome young employer of her girlish dreams! But perhaps he had a wife on Fizbus—no, the Grand Editor made a point of hiring people without families to use as a pretext for expensive vacations on the Home Planet.

      As she opened her mouth to say something brilliantly witty, to show she was no ordinary female but a creature of spirit and fire and intelligence, a sudden cacophony of shrill cries and explosions arose, accompanied by bursts of light. Her feathers stood erect and she clung to her employer with both feathered legs.

      If these are the friendly diplomatic relations Earth and Fizbus are supposed to be enjoying, she said, I’m not enjoying them one bit!

      They’re only taking pictures of you with native equipment, he explained, pulling away from her. What was the matter with him? You’re the first Fizbian woman ever to come to Terra, you know.

      She certainly did know—and, what was more, she had made the semi-finals for Miss Fizbus only the year before. Perhaps he had some Terrestrial malady he didn’t want her to catch. Or could it be that in the four years he had spent in voluntary exile on this planet, he had come to prefer the native females? Now it was her turn to shrink from him.

      He was conversing rapidly in Terran with the chattering natives who milled about them. Although Tarb had been an honors student in Terran back at school, she found herself unable to understand more than an occasional word of what they said. Then she remembered that they were not at the world capital, Ottawa, but another community, New

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