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EN ROUTE TO EARTH

This is another early story—I wrote it In March of 1957—but a whole world of professional experience separates “The Silent Colony” from “En Route to Earth.” The first story was the work of an eager, hopeful amateur, just setting out on a risky writing career, who had sold only one previous story, to the Scottish magazine Nebula. But by the time I had written “En Route to Earth”, less than four years later, I was an established writer with some two hundred published stories behind me and editors asking me for new stories almost every day.

One of those editors was Robert. W. Lowndes, who had given me my first sale to an American s-f magazine in 1954 when he bought “The Silent Colony.” By 1957 Lowndes and I had become good friends, with shared interests not only in science fiction but in classical music and much else. He frequently used my work in his three s-f titles (Future, Science Fiction Stories, and Science Fiction Quarterly), as well as in his detective-story magazine and even, occasionally, in one of his sports-fiction pulps or his western-story magazine.

Lowndes edited so many magazines that he had their covers printed in batches, four titles at a time, and usually asked some writer to do a story based on a cover illustration that had already been painted, rather than doing it, as was more common, the other way around. In those years I was one of the writers he frequently called upon for such tasks. One day in March of 1957 he showed me a new painting by the prolific Ed Emshwiller that was going to be the cover for the August 1957 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly. It showed the stewardess of a space-liner being beckoned by one of the passengers—but the stewardess had blue skin, the passenger had three heads, and various other alien beings could be seen in the background.

“Easy,” I said. “This is going to be fun.” And I went home and wrote “En Route to Earth,” which Lowndes published a few months later.

BEFORE THE FLIGHT, THE CHIEF stewardess stopped off in the women’s lounge to have a few words with Milissa, who was making her first extrasolar hop as stewardess of the warpliner King Magnus.

Milissa was in uniform when the chief stewardess appeared. The low cut, clinging plastic trimmed her figure nicely. Gazing in the mirror, she studied her clear blue skin for blemishes. There were none.

“All set?” the chief stewardess asked.

Milissa nodded, a little too eagerly. “Ready, I guess. Blastoff time’s in half an hour, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Not nervous, are you?”

“Nervous? Who, me?” Somewhat anxiously she added, “Have you seen the passenger list?”

“Yes.”

“How’s the breakdown? Are there—many strange aliens?” Milissa said. “I mean—”

“A few,” the chief stewardess said cheerfully. “You’d better report to the ship now, dear.”

The King Magnus was standing on its tail, glimmering proudly in the hot Vegan sun, as Milissa appeared on the arching approach-ramp. Two blueskinned Vegan spacemen lounged against the wall of the Administration Center, chatting with a pilot from Earth. All three whistled as she went by. Milissa ignored them, and proceeded to the ship.

She took the lift-plate up to the nose of the ship, smiled politely at the jetman who waited at the entrance, and went in. “I’m the new stewardess,” she said.

“Captain Brilon’s waiting for you in the fore cabin,” the jetman said.

Milissa checked in as per instructions, adjusted her cap at just the proper angle (with Captain Brilon’s too-eager assistance) and picked up the passenger list. As she had feared, there were creatures of all sorts aboard. Vega served as a funnel for travelers from all over the galaxy who were heading to Earth.

She looked down the list.

Grigori—James, Josef, Mike. Returning to Earth after extended stay on Alpheraz IV. Seats 21–22.

Brothers vacationing together, she thought. How nice. But three of them in two seats? Peculiar!

Xfooz, Nartoosh. Home world, Sirius VII. First visit to Earth. Seat 23.

Dellamon, Thogral. Home world, Procyon V. Business trip to Earth. Seat 25.

And on down the list. At the bottom, the chief stewardess had penciled a little note:

Be courteous, cheerful, and polite. Don’t let the aliens frighten you—and above all, don’t look at them as if they’re worms or toads, even if some of them are worms or toads. Worms or not, they’re still customers.

Watch out for any Terrans aboard. They don’t have any color-prejudices against pretty Vegans with blue skin. Relax and have a good time. The return trip ought to be a snap.

I hope so, Milissa thought fervently. She took a seat in the corner of the cabin and started counting seconds till blastoff.

The stasis-generators lifted the King Magnus off Vega II as lightly as a feather blown by the wind, and Captain Brilon indicated that Milissa should introduce herself to the passengers. She stepped through the bulkhead doors that led to the passenger section, paused a moment to readjust her cap and tug at her uniform, and pushed open the irising sphincter that segregated crew from passengers.

The passenger hold stretched out for perhaps a hundred feet before her. It was lined with huge view windows on both sides, and the passengers—fifty of them, according to the list—turned as one to look at her when she entered.

She suppressed a little gasp. All shapes, all forms—and what was that halfway down the row—?

“Hello,” she said, forcing it to come out cheery and bright. “My name is Milissa Kleirn, and I’ll be your stewardess for this trip. This is the King Magnus, fourth ship of the Vegan Line, and we’ll be making the trip from Vega II to Sol III in three days, seven hours, and some minutes, under the command of Captain Alib Brilon. The drive-generators have already hurled us from the surface of Vega, and we’ve entered warp and are well on our way to Earth. I’ll be on hand to answer any of your questions—except the very technical ones; you’ll have to refer those through me to the captain. And if you want magazines or anything, please press the button at the side of your seat. Thank you very much.”

There, she thought. That wasn’t so bad.

And then the indicator-panel started to flash. She picked a button out at random and pressed it. A voice said, “This is Mike Grigori, Seat 22. How about coming down here to talk to me a minute?”

She debated. The chief stewardess had warned her about rambunctious Earthmen—but yet, this was her first request as stewardess, and besides there was something agreeably pleasant about Mike Grigori’s voice. She started down the aisle and reached Seat 22, still smiling.

Mike Grigori was sitting with his two brothers. As she approached, he extended an arm and beckoned to her wolfishly with a crooked forefinger. He winked.

“You’re Mr. Grigori?”

“I’m Mike. Like you to meet my brothers, James and Josef. Fellows, this is Miss Kleirn. The stewardess.”

“How do you do,” Milissa said. The smile started to fade. With an effort, she restored it.

There was a certain family resemblance about the Grigori brothers. And she saw now why they only needed two seats.

They had only one body between them.

“This is Jim, over here,” Mike was saying, indicating the head at farthest left. “He’s something of a scholar. Aren’t you, Jim?”

The head named Jim turned gravely to examine Milissa, doing so with the aid of a magnifying glass it held to its eye monocle-wise. Jim affected an uptilted mustache; Mike, looking much younger and more ebullient, was cleanshaven and wore his hair close-cropped.

“And this is Josef,” Mike said, nodding toward the center head. “Make sure you spell that J-O-S-E-F, like so. He’s very fussy about that. Used to be plain Joe, but now nothing’s fancy enough for him.”

Josef was an aristocratic-looking type whose hair was slicked back flat and whose nose inclined slightly upward; he maintained a fixed pose, staring forward as if in intent meditation, and confined his greetings to a muttered hmph.

“He’s the intellectual sort,” Mike confided. “Keeps us up half the night when he wants to read. But we manage. We have to put up with him because he’s got the central nervous system, and half the arms.”

Milissa noticed that the brothers had four arms—one at each shoulder, presumably for the use of Mike and Jim, and two more below them, whose scornful foldedness indicated they were controlled entirely by the haughty Josef.

“You’re—from Earth?” Milissa asked, a little stunned.

“Mutants,” said Jim.

“Genetic manipulation,” explained Mike.

“Abnormalities. Excrescences on my shoulders,” muttered Josef.

“He thinks he got here first,” Mike said. “That Jim and I were tacked on to his body later.”

It looked about to degenerate into a family feud. Milissa wondered what a fight among the brothers would look like. But one of her duties was to keep peace in the passenger lounge. “Is there anything specific you’d like to ask me, Mr. Grigori?” she said to Mike. “If not, I’m afraid the other passengers—”

“Specific? Sure. I’d like to make a date with you when we hit Earth. Never dated a Vegan girl—but that blue skin is really lovely.”

“Vetoed,” Josef said without turning his head.

Mike whirled. “Vetoed! Now look here, brother—you don’t have absolute and final say on every—”

“The girl will only refuse,” Josef said. “Don’t waste our time on dalliance. I’m trying to think, and your chatter disturbs me.”

Again tension grew. Quickly Milissa said, “Your brother’s right, Mr. Grigori. Vegan Line personnel are not allowed to date passengers. It’s an absolute rule.”

Dismay registered on two of the three heads. Josef merely looked more smug. Another crisis seemed brewing among the mutant brothers when suddenly a creature several seats behind them tossed a magazine it had been reading into the aisle with a great outcry of rage.

“Excuse me,” Milissa said. “I’ll have to see what’s upsetting him.”

Grateful for the interruption, she moved up the aisle. The alien who had thrown the magazine was a small pinkish being, whose eyes, dangling on six-inch eyestalks, now quivered in what she supposed was rage.

Milissa stooped, one hand keeping her neckline from dipping (there was no telling what sexual habits these aliens had) and picked up the magazine. Science Fiction Stories, she saw, and there was a painting of an alien much like the one before her printed on the glossy cover.

“I think you dropped this, Mr.—Mr.—”

“Dellamon,” the alien replied, in a cold, testy, snappish voice. “Thogral Dellamon, of Procyon V. And I didn’t drop the magazine. I threw it down violently, as you very well saw.”

She smiled apologetically. “Of course, Mr. Dellamon. Did you see something you disagreed with in the magazine?”

“Disagreed with? I saw something that was a positive insult!” He snatched the magazine from her, riffled through it, found a page, and handed it back.

The magazine was open to page 113. The title of the story was “Slaves of the Pink Beings,” bylined J. Eckman Forester. She skimmed the first few lines; it was typical science fiction, full of monsters and bloodshed, and just as dull as every other science fiction story she had tried to read.

“I hope I won’t make you angry when I say I don’t see anything worth getting angry over in this, Mr. Dellamon.”

“That story,” he said, “tells of the conquests and sadistic pleasures of a race of evil pink beings—and of their destruction by Earthmen. Look at that cover painting! It’s an exact image of—well, you see? This is vicious propaganda aimed at my people! And none of it’s true! None!”

The cover indeed bore a resemblance to the indignant little alien. But the date under the heading caught Milissa’s eye. June 2114. Three hundred years old. “Where did you get this magazine?” she asked.

“Bought it. Wanted to read an Earth magazine, as long as I have to go there, so I had a man on my planet get one for me.”

“Oh. That explains it, then. Look at the date, Mr. Dellamon! That story’s a complete fantasy! It was written more than a hundred years before Earth and Procyon came into contact!”

“But—fantasy—I don’t understand—”

The sputtering little alien threatened to become apoplectic. Milissa wished prodigiously that she had never transferred out of local service. These aliens could be so touchy, at times!

“Excuse me, please,” said a furry purple creature seated across the aisle. “That magazine you have there—mind if I look at it?”

“Here,” the angry alien said. He tossed it over.

The purple being examined it, smiled delightedly, said, “Why, it’s an issue I need! Will you take five hundred credits for it?”

“Five hundred—” The eyestalks stopped quivering, and drooped in an expression of probable delight. “Make it five-fifty and the book is yours!”

***

CRISIS AFTER CRISIS, MILISSA THOUGHT gloomily. They were two days out from Vega, with better than a day yet to go before Earth hove into sight. And if the voyage lasted much longer, she’d go out of her mind.

The three Grigori brothers had finally erupted into violence late the first day; they sprang from their seat and went rolling up the aisle, cursing fluently at each other in a dozen languages. Josef had the upper hand for a while, rearing back and pounding his brothers’ heads together, but he was outnumbered and was in dire straits by the time Milissa found two crewmen to put a stop to the brawl.

Then there was the worm-like being from Albireo III who suddenly discovered she was going to sporulate, and did—casting a swarm of her encapsulated progeny all over the lounge. She was very apologetic, and assisted Milissa in finding the spores, but it caused quite a mess.

The Greklan brothers from Deneb Kaitos I caused the next crisis. Greklans, Milissa discovered, had peculiar sexual practices: they spent most of their existence as neuters, but at regular periods about a decade apart suddenly developed sex, at which time the procedure was to mate, and fast. One of the brothers abruptly became a male, the other female, to their great surprise, consternation, and delight. The squeals of a puritanical being from Fomalhaut V attracted Milissa’s attention; she managed to hustle the Greklans off to a washroom just in time. They returned, an hour later, to announce they had reverted to neuter status and would name their offspring Milissa, but that scarcely helped her nerves.

Never again, Milissa told herself, surveying the array of life-forms in the lounge. Back to local service for me. As soon as the return trip is over—

Eleven hours to Earth. She hoped she could stay sane that long.

Frozen asparagus turned up on the menu the final night. It was a grave tactical mistake; three vegetable-creatures of Mirach IX accused the Vegan Line of fomenting cannibalism, and stalked out of the dining room. Milissa followed them and found them seriously ill of nausea and threatening to sue. She hadn’t noticed until then how very much like asparagus stalks the Mirachians looked; no one in the galley had either, apparently.

A family of reptiloids from Algenib became embroiled with a lizardlike inhabitant of Altair II. It took what was left of Milissa’s tattered diplomacy to separate the squabblers and persuade them all to retake their seats.

She counted hours. She counted minutes. And, finally, she counted seconds.

“Earth ahead!” came the announcement from Control Cabin.

She went before the passengers to make the traditional final speech. Calmly, almost numbly, she thanked them for their cooperation, hoped they had enjoyed the flight, wished them the best of everything on Earth.

Mike-Jim-Josef Grigori paused to say good-bye on their way out. They looked slightly bruised and battered. For the seventh time, Milissa explained to Mike how regulations prohibited her from dating, and finally they said good-bye. They walked down the ramp snarling and cursing at each other.

She watched them all go—the Greklans, the angry little man from Procyon, the asparaguslike Mirachians. She felt a perverse fondness for them all.

“That’s the last,” she said, turning to Captain Brilon. “And thank goodness.”

“Tired, huh?”

“All you had to do was watch the instruments,” she said. “I was playing nursemaid to umpteen different life-forms. But the return trip will be a rest. Just Earthmen and Vegans, I hope. No strange nonhumanoid forms. I can’t wait!”

***

SHE RETURNED TO THE SHIP after the brief leave allotted her, and found herself almost cheerful at the prospect of the return trip. The passengers filed aboard—pleasant, normal Vegans and Earthmen, who whistled at her predictably but who showed no strange and unforeseeable mating habits or other manifestations.

It was going to be a quiet trip, she told herself. A snap.

But then three dark furry shapes entered the lounge and huddled self-consciously in the back. Milissa bit her lip and glanced down at the passenger list.

Three spider-men from Arcturus VII. These creatures do not have names.

They are extremely sensitive and will require close personal attention.

Milissa shuddered. Even without a mirror handy, she knew her face was paling to a weak ultramarine. She could get used to Greklans and sporulating worms from Albireo, she thought. She could calm petulant Procyonites and fend off wolfish three-headed Earthmen. But there was nothing in her contract about travelers from Arcturus.

She stared at the hairy, eight-legged creatures. Twenty-four arachnid eyes glinted beadily back at her.

It was asking too much. No woman should be expected to take solicitous care of spiders.

Sighing, she realized it was going to be a long, long voyage home.