"But what'll happen to this one?"
Devore shrugged. "He'll be digested, I suppose. Serves him right. It should stimulate the tree no end."
"You're insane," said Vanderhoff, and pushed his way through the crowd to the tree.
The four stalwarts had finally inserted Bing into the amphora, despite his struggles and the tightness of the fit. Muffled cries came from inside. Bing's fingers could be seen curled over the edge of the pitcher as he tried to force his way out, but the plant now held down the lid by its own mechanisms. The amphora remained closed, though it bulged this way and that as Bing kicked and butted.
"Get away!" said Vanderhoff, shoving the Converses' guests aside and grasping the edge of the lid.
"Hey, you can't do that!" said Dietz, seizing Vanderhoff's arm. "Leave our plant alone or we'll feed you to it too!"
Vanderhoff instantly hit Dietz over the head with his bat. As Dietz staggered back holding his head, several other guests rushed at Vanderhoff. The latter waded in with the bat, cracking arms, heads, and knuckles with such verve that in an instant the attackers fell back, leaving the football-playing Moseley unconscious on the lawn.
Vanderhoff then returned to the tree-of-Eden, keeping an eye cocked for another rush. When heaving on the lid had no effect, he struck the amphora with his bat. This induced a yell of anguish from inside, but did not loosen the plant's hold.
Vanderhoff got out his pocketknife and attacked the hinge of the stein lid. He drew it across the grain again and again in the same cut. After he had sawed half an inch into the structure he found he had weakened the hinge enough so that he could raise the lid.
Bing climbed out. His glasses were gone and his scanty hair was awry. His skin was covered with red spots and his clothes were stained by the tree's digestive juices. He peered nearsightedly at Vanderhoff and said: "Did you get me out? Thanks. As for the rest of you ..."
Mary Converse shook her head and said: "I don't know what could have got into us, Mr. Bing. I'd never do such a dreadful thing."
"Gratisone got into you, that's what," said Bing. "Now you see why we can't let just anybody plant extra-terrestrial plants."
The others, too, seemed to be coming out of their madness. Mr. Hort said: "You must let us pay to have your suit cleaned."
Dietz said: "We'd better buy him a new suit. The plant's digestive juices will eat that one full of holes."
"And his glasses —"said somebody else.
It was finally agreed that Mr. O'Ryan should act as banker for the neighborhood and assess them whatever was needed to repay the damages sustained by Bing. Just as this agreement was reached, one of the township's patrol cars drew up. Out got Deputy Marshal Jacobson and the two local policemen, the latter with pistols drawn. Jacobson growled:
"You're all under arrest for forcibly intimidating a United States officer!"
"They couldn't help it, Jake," said Bing. "It was the fruit. I'm not going to press any complaints."
"Why not?" said Jacobson.
"Well, Mr. Devore said he liked my article. I didn't know anybody had even read it."
Carl Vanderhoff returned home late that evening, after he and Devore had departed in Jacobson's official car and Converse, released from the bush, in an ambulance. He told his wife:
"They let me sign my own bond. It seems I'm something of a hero for rescuing that little botanist, so I shall be let off easily. And BUI never said a word about me, but let them think it was the bushes that beat him into a pulp. He'd better! And now what have you to say?"
"I — I don't know how to explain — I must have gone out of my head — I never loved anybody but you —"
"That's all right," said Vanderhoff, and told her about gratisone. "Now that's over, send those kids in here. Dan is going to be penalized for leaving his bat on the floor, and the whole outfit will be run on orderly lines from now on. No back-talk from anybody, either."
"Yes, dear," said Penelope.
"And, if I feel like growing a beard tomorrow, I'll grow one!"
Vanderhoff's picture of himself as an ancient Semitic patriarch, sitting in his tent and ordering his wives, children, and goats around, might not last. The family would probably wear him back down to his normal mild self. But he meant to enjoy his authority while he possessed it.
A Thing of Custom
Rajendra Jaipal, liaison officer of the Terran Delegation to the Associated Planets, said fluently but with a strong Hindustani accent: "Parson to parson, please ... I wish to speak to Milan Reid, at 726-0711, Parthia, Pennsylvania ... That is right."
While he waited, Jaipal looked at the telephone as if it were a noxious vine that had invaded his garden. An unreconstructed antimechanist, he regarded most features of the Western world with a dour, gloomy, and suspicious air.
"Here's your party," said the telephone.
Jaipal said: "Hello, Milan? This is R. J. How are you? ... Oh, no warse than usual. Millions of calls to make and letters to write and hands to shake. Ugh! Now, listen. The railroad has given us two special sleepers and a baggage car through from New Haven to Philadelphia. We shall put the delegates aboard Priday evening, and a train will pick these cars up and drop them off at Thirtieth Street at seven-thirty Saturday morning. Have you got that? Seven-thirty a.m., daylight saving. Write it down, please. You will have your people there to pick them up. The baggage car will contain the Forellians, as they are too large for a sleeper. You will have a truck at the station for them. How are things doing at your end?"
A plaintive voice said: "Mrs. Kress got sick, so as vice-chairman of the Hospitality Committee I have to — to do all the work, rush around and check up and pump hands. I wish I'd known what I was getting into."
"If you think you have something to complain about, you should have my job. Have you got that letter with the list of delegates?"
"Yes ... Um ... Right here."
"Well, cross off the Moorians and the Koslovians, but add one more Oshidan."
"What's his name?"
"Zla-bzam Ksan-rdup."
"How do you spell it?" Jaipal spelled. "Got it?"
"Uh-huh. You — you'll stay with us, of course?"
"Sorree, but I can't come."
"Oh, dear! Louise and I were counting on it."
The voice was pained. Jaipal had met the Reids a year before when a similar week-end visit had been arranged with families of Ardmore. Jaipal and Reid were drawn together at once by a common dislike of the rest of the world.
"So was I," said Jaipal, "but a ship from Sirius is due Saturday. Now, there is one couple I want you to assign to yourself."
"Who?"
"The Osmanians."
There was a rustle of paper as Reid consulted his list. "Mr. and Mrs. Sterga?"
"Yes, or Sterga and Thvi. No children."
"What are they like?"
"Something like octopi, or perhaps centipedes."
"Hm. They don't sound pretty. Do they talk?"
"Better than we do. They have a — what do you call it? — a knickknack for languages."
"Why do you want me to take them?"
"Because," explained Jaipal, "their planet has natural transuranic elements in quantity, and we are negotiating a mining lease. It's veree delicate, and it wouldn't do for the Stergas to pfall into the wrong hands. Like — who was that uncouth buffoon I met at the Kresses'?" »
"Charlie Ziegler?"
"That's the one." Jaipal snorted at the memory of Ziegler's tying a napkin around his head and putting on a burlesque swami act. As Jaipal had no sense of humor, the other guests' roars at Ziegler's antics rubbed salt in the wound. He continued:
"Those people would not do for hosts at all. I know you are tactful, not one of these stupid ethnocentrics who would act horrified or superior. Now, have you got the diet lists?"