Cultural Exchange
By J. F. BONE
How could any race look so
ferocious and yet be peaceful—and
devise so nasty a weapon?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I
I couldn't help listening to the big spaceman sitting alone at thecorner table. He wasn't speaking to me—that was certain—nor was hisflat, curiously uninflected voice directed at anyone else. With somesurprise I realized that he was talking to himself. People don't dothat nowadays. They're adjusted.
He noted my raised eye-brows and grinned, his square teeth whiteagainst the dark planes of his face. "I'm not psycho," he said. "It'sjust a bad habit I picked up on Lyrane."
"Lyrane?" I asked.
"It hasn't been entered on the charts yet. Just discovered." His voicewas inflected now. And then it changed abruptly. "If you must know,this is ethanol—C2H5OH—and I drink it." He looked at me withan embarrassed expression in his blue eyes. "It's just that I'm notused to it yet," he explained without explaining. "It's easier when Ivocalize."
"You sure you're all right?" I asked. "Want me to call apsychologician?"
"No. I've just been certified by Decontamination. I have a paper toprove it."
"But—"
"Draw up a chair," he invited. "I hate to drink alone. And I'd like totalk to somebody."
I smiled. My talent was working as usual. I can't walk into a barwithout someone telling me his life history. Nice old ladies buttonholeme at parties and tell me all about their childhoods. Boys tell meabout girls. Girls tell me about boys. Politicians spill party secretsand pass me tips.
Something about me makes folks want to talk. It's a talent and in mybusiness it's an asset. You see, I'm a freelance writer. Nothing fancyor significant, just news, popular stuff, adventure stories, problemyarns, romances, and mysteries. I'll never go down in history as aliterary great, but it's a living—and besides I meet the damnedestcharacters.
So I sat down.
"I guess you're not contagious if you've been through Decontamination,"I said.
He looked at me across the rim of an oversized brandy sniffer—aNapoleon, I think it's called—and waggled a long forefinger at mynose. "The trouble with you groundhogs is that you're always thinkingwe spacers are walking hotbeds of contagion all primed to wreck Earth.You should know better. Anything dangerous has about as much chance ofgetting through Decontamination as an ice cube has of getting through anuclear furnace."
"There was Martian Fever," I reminded him.
"Three centuries ago and you still remember it," he said. "But hasthere been anything else since Decontamination was set up?"
"No," I admitted, "but that was enough, wasn't it? We still haven'treached the pre-Mars population level."
"Who wants to?" He sipped at the brownish fluid in the glass and ashudder rippled the heavy muscles of his chest and shoulders. Hegrinned nastily and took a bigger drink. "There, that ought to holdyou," he muttered. He looked at me, that odd embarrassed look glintingin his eyes. "I think that did it. No tolerance for alcohol."
I gave him my puzzled and expectant look.
He countered with a gesture at the nearly empty brandy glass. I gotthe idea. I signaled autoservice—a conditioned reflex developed overyears of pumping mater