Mumble, mumble. "Yes, here's the list of those who can eat any human food, and those who can eat some human food, and those who can't eat any."
"The special pfood for the last group will be sent along on the train. Be sure it's delivered to the right houses."
"I'll have a couple of trucks at the station. You be sure each crate is clearly marked. But say, how — how about these Osmanians? I mean, what are they like aside from their looks?"
"Oh, quite jolly and convivial. High-spirited. They eat anything. You won't have any trouble." Jaipal could have told more about the Osmanians but forebore for fear of scaring Reid off. "Now, be sure not to send the Chavantians to anybody with a phobia about snakes. Remember that the Stein-ians eat in seclusion and consider any mention of food obscene. Be sure the Forellians go where there's an empty barn or garage to sleep in ..."
"Louise!" called Milan Reid. "That was R. J. Can you help me with the lists now?"
Reid was a slight man who combined a weakness for aggressively stylish clothes with a shy, preoccupied, nervous, hurried air. He was an engineer for the Hunter Bioresonator Corporation. He was a natural choice to manage the visiting extra-terrestrials, being one who found foreigners easier to deal with than his own countrymen.
His wife entered, a slender woman of much his own type. They got to work on the list of delegates to the Associated Planets who were going to visit Parthia, and the lists of local families who would act as hosts.
This was the third year of giving A. P. personnel an informal week-end in Terran homes. These three visits had all been to American homes because the A. P headquarters was in New Haven.
The success of the project, however, had made other nations demand that they, too, be allowed to show what nice people they were. Hence Athens, Greece, was the tentative choice for next year.
Milan Reid said: "... the Robertsonians have no sense of time, so we'd better give them to the Hobarts. They haven't any either."
"Then none of them will arrive for anything," said Louise Reid.
"So what? How about the Mendezians? Jaipal's note says they can't bear to be touched."
"Rajendra can't either, though he tries to be polite about it. Some Hindu tabu."
"Uh-huh. Let's see, aren't the Goldthorpes fanatics on sanitation?"
"Just the people! They wouldn't want to touch the Mendezians either. Their children have to wash their hands every time they handle money, and Beatrice Goldthorpe puts on rubber gloves to read a book from the public library for fear of germs."
"How about the Oshidans?" he asked.
"What are they like, darling?"
"R. J. says they're the most formal race in the Galaxy, with the most elaborate etiquette. As he puts it here, 'they are what you call puffed shirts, only they don't wear shirts.' "
"I didn't know Rajendra could make that much of a joke," said Louise Reid. "How about Dr. McClintock? He's another puffed shirt."
"Darling, you're wonderful. The Reverend John R. McClintock shall have them."
"How about the Zieglers? Connie Ziegler called to remind us they'd applied well in advance."
Reid scowled. "I'm going to juggle this list to put the Zieglers too far down to get any e.t.'s."
"Please don't do that, sweetheart. I know you don't like them, but living next door we have to get along."
"But R. J. said he didn't want the Zieglers as hosts!"
"Oh, dear! If they ever find out we cheated them out of their guests ..."
"Can't be helped. R. J.'s right, too. They're — they're typical ethnocentrics. I've squirmed in embarrassment while Charlie told bad jokes about wops and kikes and niggers, feeling I ought to stop him but not knowing how. Can't you just see Charlie calling some sensitive extra-terrestial a bug in that loud Chicago bray of his?"
"But they did go out of their way to get on the list ..."
"It's not that they like e.t.'s; they just can't bear to be left out."
"Oh, well, if we must ... Who's next?" she asked.
"That's all, unless R. J. calls up again. Now, what shall we do with Sterga and Thvi?"
"I suppose we can put them in George's room. What do they enjoy?"
"It says here they like parties, sight-seeing, and swimming."
"We can take them to the pool."
"Sure. And since they're arriving early, we could drive 'em home for breakfast and then out to Gettysburg for a picnic."
During the next few days, Parthia was convulsed by preparations for the exotic visitors. Merchants filled their windows with interplanetary exhibits: art work from Robertsonia, a stuffed fhe:gb from Schlemmeria, a photomontage of scenes on Flahertia.
At the Lower Siddim High School, performers at the forthcoming celebration rehearsed on the stage while volunteers readied the basement for the strawberry festival. Mrs. Carmichael, chairman of the Steering Committee, swept about supervising:
"... Where's that wretched man who was going to fix the public-address system? ... No, the color guard mustn't carry rifles. We're trying to show these creatures how peaceful we are ..."
The Quaker rolled into Thirtieth Street. The hosts from Parthia clustered about the three rearmost cars at the north end of the platform. While the trainmen uncoupled these cars, the doors opened and out came a couple of earthmen. After them came the extra-terrestrials.
Milan Reid strode forward to greet the taller earthman. "I'm Reid."
"How d'you do? I'm Grove-Sparrow and this is Ming. We're from the Secretariat. Are your people ready?"
"Here they are."
"Hm." Grove-Sparrow looked at the milling mass of hosts, mostly suburban housewives.
At that instant, the Chavantians slithered off the train. Mrs. Ross gave a thin scream and fainted. Mr. Nagle caught her in time to keep her from cracking her skull on the concrete.
"Pay no attention," said Reid, wishing that Mrs. Ross had fallen on the tracks and been run over. "Which of our guests is which?"
"Those are the Oshidans, the ones with faces like camels."
"Dr. McClintock!" called Reid. "Here's your party."
"You take it, Ming," said Grove-Sparrow.
Ming began a long-winded formal introduction, during which the Oshidans and the Reverend McClintock kept up a series of low bows as if they were worked by strings.
Grove-Sparrow indicated three large things getting off the baggage car. They were something like walruses and something like caterpillars, but two were as big as small elephants. The third was smaller. "The Forellians."
"Mrs. Meyer!" shouted Reid. "Is the truck ready?"
"The Robertsonians." Grove-Sparrow referred to four badger-like creatures with respirators on their long noses.
Reid raised his voice: "Hobart! No, their hosts aren't here yet."
"Let them sit on their kit; they won't mind," said Grove-Sparrow. "Here come the Osmanians."
"They — uh — they're mine," said Reid, his voice rising to a squeak of dismay. A group of gawkers had collected farther south on the platform to stare at the extra-terrestrials. None came close.
The Osmanians (so called because their planet was discovered by a Dr. Mahmud Osman) were built something on the lines of sawhorses. Instead of four legs, they had twelve rubbery tentacles, six in a row on each side, on which they scuttled briskly along. They were much alike fore and aft, but one could tell their front end by the two large froglike eyes on top and the mouth-opening between the foremost pair of tentacles.
"You are our host?" said the leading Osmanian in a blabbery voice. "Ah, such a pleasure, good dear Mr. Reid!"
The Osmanian flung itself upon Reid, rearing up on its six after tentacles to enfold him in its six forward ones. It pressed a damp kiss on his cheek. Before he could free himself from this gruesome embrace, the second Osmanian swarmed up on him and kissed his other cheek. As the creatures weighed over two hundred pounds apiece, Reid staggered and sank to the concrete, enveloped in tentacles.