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His enjoyment of her, and hers of him, was hastened and strengthened by her linguistic fluency. She seemed to have switched from her French to American almost overnight. Within a week she was speaking, within her limited but quickly increasing vocabulary, faster and more expressively than he.
However, his delight in her company made him neglect his duties. His progress in learning to read Siddo slowed down.
One day, Fobo asked him how he was doing with the books he'd loaned him. Hal confessed that they were too difficult for him – so far. Fobo then gave him a book on evolution which was used in the wog elementary schools.
'Try these. They're two volumes, but they're rather slim in text. The many pictures will enable you to grasp the text more quickly. It's an abridgement for the youngsters by a famous educator, We'enai.'
Jea
One evening, she started out energetically enough. But she was sipping beetlejuice between paragraphs, and after a while she began to lose interest in the translating.
She went through the first chapter, which described the formation of the planet and the begi
She quoted,' "But man, like us, had its mimical parasites. One was a different species of the so-called tavern beetle. It, instead of resembling a wog, looked like a man. Like its counterpart, it could fool no intelligent person, but its gift of alcohol made it very acceptable to man. It, too, accompanied its host from primitive times, became an integral part of his civilization, and, finally, according to one theory, a large cause of man's downfall.
' "Humanity's disappearance from the face of Ozagen is due not only to the tavern beetle, if it was at all. That creature can be controlled. Like most things, it can be abused or its purpose distorted so that it becomes a menace.
' "This is what man did with it.
' "He had, it must be noted, an ally to help him in the misuse of the insect. This was another parasite, one of a somewhat different kind; one that was, indeed, our cousin, in a ma
' "One thing, however, distinguishes it from us, and from man, and from any other animal on this planet with the exception of some very low species. That is, that from the very first fossil evidence we have of it, it was wholly– " '
Jea
'No. Forget it. Read me one of those comics that you and the Gabriel's sailors like so much.'
She smiled, a beautiful sight, and she began reading Volume 1037, Book 56, The Adventures of Leif Magnus, Beloved Disciple of the Foreru
He listened to her efforts to translate the American into the vernacular wog until he grew tired of the banalities of the comic and pulled her down to him.
Always, there was the light left on above them.
Yet, they had their misunderstandings, their disagreements, their conflicts.
Jea
Not too long after he had hidden Jea
Jea
'No, don't do that,' he said.
'Why not?' she said as she walked toward the unmentionable. 'I love to do things for you. And I especially love to make you look nice.'
She returned with the can of depilatory in her hand.
'Now, you sit down, and I will do all your work for you. You can think of how much I love you while I'm removing those so-scratchy wires on your face.'
'You don't understand, Jea
She stopped walking toward him and said, 'You must? You mean that it is the law, that you will be a criminal if you don't?'
'No, not exactly,' he said. 'The Foreru
'What would happen if a non-lamedhian grew one?'
'I don't know,' he said, a
'But a beard is so ugly,' she said. 'And it scratches my face. I would as soon kiss a pile of bedsprings.'
'Then,' he said angrily, 'you'll either have to learn to kiss bedsprings or learn to get along without kisses. Because I have to have a beard!'
'Listen to me,' she said, going up close to him. 'You don't have to! What is the use of being a lamedhian if you don't have any more freedom than before, if you must do what is expected of you? Why can't you just ignore the custom?'
Hal began to feel both fury and panic. Panic because he might alienate her so far she would leave and because he knew that if he gave in to her he would be regarded suspiciously by the other lamedhians on the Gabriel.
As a result, he accused her of being a stupid fool. She replied with equal heat and harshness. They quarreled; the night was half over before she made the first movement toward a reconciliation. Then, it was dawn before they were through proving they loved each other.
In the morning, he shaved. Nothing happened at the Gabriel for three days, nobody made any remarks, and he put down to guilt and imagination the strange looks he saw – or thought he saw. Finally, he began to think that either nobody had noticed or else they were so busy with their duties that they did not think it worthwhile to comment. He even began wondering if there were other a
Then, the morning of the fourth day, he was called to the office of Macneff.
He found the Sandalphon sitting behind his desk and fingering his own beard. Macneff stared with his pale blue eyes at Hal for some time before replying to Hal's greeting.
'Perhaps, Yarrow,' he said, 'you have been too concerned with your researches among the wogs to think about other things. It is true we live in an abnormal environment here, and we are all concentrating on the day we start the project.'
He rose and began pacing back and forth before Hal.
'You surely must know that as a lamedhian, you not only have privileges, you have responsibilities?'
'Shib, abba. '
Macneff suddenly wheeled on Hal and pointed a long bony finger at him.
'Then, why aren't you growing a beard?' he said loudly. And he glared.
Hal felt himself grow cold, as he had so often when he was a child and his gapt, Pornsen, had made this same maneuver toward him. And he felt the same mental confusion.
'Why, I-I-'
'We must strive not only to attain the lamedh, we must strive to continue to be worthy of it. Purity and purity alone will make us succeed, unending effort to be pure!'
'Your pardon abba,' said Hal, his voice quivering. 'But I am making a never-ending effort to be pure.'
He dared to look the Sandalphon in the eyes when he said that, though where he got the courage he did not know. To lie so outrageously, he who was living in unreality, to lie in the presence of the great and pure Sandalphon!
'However,' Hal continued, 'I did not know that shaving would have anything to do with my purity. There is nothing in The Western Talmud or any of the Foreru
'Are you telling me what is in the scriptures?' shouted Macneff.
'No, of course not. But, what I said is true, isn't it?'
Macneff resumed his pacing, and he said, 'We must be pure, must be pure. And even the slightest hint of pseudofuture, the smallest departure from reality, may dirty us. Yes, Sigmen never said anything about this. But it has long been recognized that only the pure are worthy to emulate the Foreru
'I agree with you wholeheartedly,' said Hal.
He was begi
'Under ordinary circumstances, I would let my whiskers grow,' he said. 'But I am living among the wogs now so I may do more effective espionage, besides conducting my researches. And I have found out that the wogs regard a beard as an abomination; they have no beards themselves, you know. They do not understand why we let ours grow if we have means to remove them. And they feel uneasy and disgusted when in the presence of a bearded man. I can't gain their confidence if I have one.
'However, I plan to grow one the moment the project is begun.'
'Hmm!' sid Macneff, fingering the hairs on his face. 'You may have something there. After all, these are unusual circumstances. But why didn't you tell me?'
'You are so busy, from morning to bedtime, that I did not want to bother you,' said Hal. He was wondering if Macneff would take the time and trouble to investigate the truth of his statement. For the wogs had never said one word to Hal about beards. He had been inspired to make his excuse when he remembered having read about the initial reactions of the American Indians to the facial growth of white men.
Macneff, after a few more words on the importance of keeping pure, dismissed Hal.
And Hal, shaking from the reaction of the lecture, went home. There, he had a few drinks to calm himself, then a few more to uninhibit himself for the supper with Jea