He grunted and glanced at the messages, scanned them quickly, tossed them into the disposal vent beside his desk. Myra looked moderately disapproving. “What about that possible ship from Mars?” she asked. “Shouldn’t you look into it?”
He grunted again, looked up at her, said, “If I’d looked into every ‘ship from Mars’ astronomy has come up with in the nine years I’ve held this office, I’d never have had time for anything else. You can lay odds it’s a wild asteroid or something like that.”
“They sound pretty sure this time,” Myra said doubtfully.
“Don’t they always?” he countered. “Come on, Myra, wrap it up. Time to go home.”
“Roger, boss,” she said, blinking all three eyes at him.
Bliss turned on the autopi and napped while the gyrojet carried him to his villa outside Dakar. Safely down on the roof of the comfortable, automatic white house, he took the lift down to his second-floor suite, where he showered and changed into evening sandals and clout. He redonned his gloves, then rode down another two flights to the terrace, where Elise was waiting for him in a gossamer-thin iridescent eggshell sari. They kissed and she patted the place on the love-seat beside her. She had a book—an old-fashioned book of colored reproductions of long-since-destroyed old masters on her lap. The artist was a man named Peter Paul Rubens.
Eyeing the opulent nudes, she giggled and said, “Don’t they look awfully—plain? I mean, women with only two breasts!”
“Well—yes,” he said. “If you want to take that angle.”
“Idiot!” she said. “Honestly, darling, you’re the strangest sort of man to be a World Chancellor.”
“These are strange times,” he told her, smiling without mirth, though with genuine affection.
“Suppose—just suppose,” she said, turning the pages slowly, “biology should be successful in stabilizing the species again. Would they have to set it back that far? I mean, either we or they would feel awfully out of style.”
“What would you suggest?” he asked her solemnly.
“Don’t be nasty,” she said loftily. Then she giggled again and ruffled his hair. “I wish you’d have it dyed one color,” she told him. “Either black or gray—or why not a bright puce?”
“What’s for dinner?” he asked, adding, “If I can still eat after that.”
*
The regional vice-chancellors were awaiting him in the next-to-the-innermost office when Bliss arrived at World Capital the next morning. Australia, Antarctica, Patagonia, Gobi, Sahara-Arabia—they followed him inside like so many penguins in the black-and-white official robes. All were deathly serious as they stated their problems.
Gobi wanted annual rainfall cut from 60 to 45 centimeters.
Sahara-Arabia was not receiving satisfactory food synthetics—there had been Moslem riots because of pork flavor in the meat.
Patagonia was suffering through a species of sport-worm that was threatening to turn it into a desert if biology didn’t come up with a remedy fast.
Antarctica wanted temperature lowered from a nighttime norm of 62° Fahrenheit to 57.6°. It seemed that the ice in the skating rinks, which were the chief source of exercise and entertainment for the populace, got mushy after ten p.m.
Australia wanted the heavy uranium deposits under the Great Central Desert neutralized against its causing further mutations.
For a moment, Bliss was tempted to remind his viceroys that it was not going to make one bit of difference whether they made their spoiled citizens happy or not. The last man on Earth would be dead within fifty years or so, anyway. But that would have been an unpardonable breach of taste. Everyone knew, of course, but it was never mentioned. To state the truth was to deny hope. And without hope, there was no life.
Bliss promised to see that these matters were tended to at once, taking each in turn. This done, they discussed his making another whirlwind trip through the remaining major dominions of the planet to bolster morale. He was relieved when at last, the amenities concluded, the penguins filed solemnly out. He didn’t know which he found more unattractive—Gobi’s atrophied third leg, strapped tightly to the inside of his left thigh and calf, or Australia’s jackass ears. Then, sternly, he reminded himself that it was not their fault they weren’t as lucky as himself.
Myra came in, her three eyes aglow, and said, “Boss, you were wrong for once in your life.”
“What is it this time?” he asked.
“About that Martian ship,” she repeated. “It just landed on the old spaceport. You can see it from the window.”
“For God’s sake!” Bliss was on his feet, moving swiftly to the window. It was there—needle-nosed, slim as one of the mermaids in his private washroom, graceful as a vidar dancer. The entire length of it gleamed like silver in the sunlight.
Bliss felt the premature old age that had been crowding upon him of late fall away like the wool of a sheep at shearing. Here, at last, was hope—real hope. After almost two and a half centuries of non-communication, the men of the infant planet had returned to the aid of the aging planet. For, once they saw the condition of Earth, and understood it, there could be no question of anything else.
Mars, during the years of space-flight from Earth, had been the outlet for the mother planet’s ablest, toughest, brightest, most aggressive young men and women. They had gone out to lick a hostile environment, they had been hand-picked for the job—and they had done it. The ship, out there in the poisonous Sahara, was living proof of their success.
He turned from the window and went back to his desk. He said, “Myra, have their leader brought here to see me as soon as possible.”
“Roger!” she said, leaving him swiftly, gracefully. Again he thought it was too bad about her third eye. It had made it awfully hard for her to find a husband. He supposed he should be grateful, since it had made him an incomparably efficient secretary.
The young man was space-burned and silver-blond of hair. He was broad and fair of feature and his body was tall and lean and perfect in his black, skin-tight uniform with the silver rocket-burst on the left breast. He stood at attention, lifted a gauntleted hand in salute and said, “Your excellency, Chancellor Bliss—Space-Captain Hon Yaelstrom of Syrtis City, Mars, bearing official rank of Inter-planetary legate plenipotentiary. My papers, sir.”
He stood stiff as a ramrod and laid a set of imposing-looking documents on the vast desk before Bliss. His accent was stiff as his spinal column. Bliss glanced casually at the papers, nodded and handed them back. So this, he thought, was how a “normal,” a pre-atomic, a non-mutated human, looked. Impressive.
Catching himself wandering, he pushed a box of costly smokes toward the ambassador.
“Nein—no thank you, sir,” was the reply.
“Suppose you sit down and tell me what we can do for you,” said Bliss, motioning toward a chair.
“Thank you, sir, I prefer to stand,” was the reply. And, when Bliss motioned that it was all right, “My mission is not a happy one, excellency. Due to overpopulation on Mars, I have been sent to inform the government of Earth that room must be made to take care of our overpopulation.”
“I see,” Bliss leaned back in his chair, trying to read the situation correctly. “That may take a little doing. You see, we aren’t exactly awash with real estate here.”
The reply was rigid and harsh. Captain Yaelstrom said, “I regret to remind your excellency that I have circled this planet before landing. It is incredibly rich in plant growth, incredibly underpopulated. And I assure your excellency that my superiors have not sent me here with any idle request. Mars must have room to emigrate.”
“And if we find