George Loves Gistla

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  GEORGE LOVES GISTLA

  By JAMES McKIMMEY, Jr.

  _"Why don't you find yourself some nice little American girl," his father had often repeated. But George was on Venus ... and he loved pale green skin ... and globular heads and most of all, George loved Gistla._

  George Kenington was sixteen, and, as he told himself, someone who wassixteen knew more about love than someone who was, say, forty-two. Likehis father, for instance. A whole lot more probably. When you wereforty-two, you got narrow-minded and nervous and angry. You said this isthis, and that is that, and there is nothing else. When someone thoughtand felt and talked that way, George thought bitterly, there was notenough room inside that person to know what it was like, loving aVenusian.

  But George knew. He knew very well.

  Her name was Gistla. She was not pretty in standards of Americancolonists. She had the pale greenish Venusian skin, and she was tooshort and rather thick. Her face, of course, was not an American face.It was the face of native Venus. Round and smooth, with the largelidless eyes. There were no visible ears and a lack of hair strengthenedthe globular look of her head.

  But she was a person. The beauty was inside of her. Did you have topoint to a girl's face and say, "Here is where the nose should be, hereis where the ears should be?" Did you have to measure the width betweeneyes and test the color of the skin? Did you have to check the size ofthe teeth and the existence of hair? Was all of this necessary tounderstand what was _inside_ someone?

  George snapped a leaf from an overhanging vine and threw it angrily tothe ground. He was walking along a thin path that led from the colony tothe tangled hills beyond, where hues of red and yellow and purplereflected like bold sweeps of watercolor. In a moment he would seeGistla, and with the color before his eyes and the sweet perfume of theflowers in his lungs, he felt again the familiar rise of excitement.

  George had not always lived on Venus. The Colony was very new. By 2022,most of the Earth countries had sent colonizers to Mars. But as yet, inJune of that year, Venus had been touched by only the sparsest invasionof American civilization. George had arrived just three years ago, whenhis father had been appointed Secretary of the colonizing unit.

  And that was the whole trouble, really. Father was the Secretary, Motherwas the Secretary's wife, Sister was the daughter of the Secretary.Everybody was wrapped up in it. Except George.

  George loved Gistla.

  "Why don't you find yourself some nice little American girl?" his fatherhad said. "Say like Henry Farrel's little daughter?"

  Henry Farrel's little daughter was a sweet sickening girl with a nastytemper and a nasty tongue. Her father was Governor of the Colony. Shetold you about it all the time.

  "Or," his father had told him, "why not little what's-her-name, DougBrentwood's daughter?"

  Little what's-her-name's father was the President of the Council. "Myfather is President of the Council," she said. Over and over, as thoughin a settlement the size of the Colony, there would be anyone whowouldn't know her father was the President of the Council.

  It was all a very tight and careful circle, chosen on Earth with a greatdeal of "common sense."

  There were the ordinary settlers, of course. They had daughters. Some ofthem were very pretty and long-limbed. And George had thought aboutthat.

  Certainly there wasn't a decent-looking girl in the whole Governingcircle, and the sight of a girl with flashing eyes and a nice red mouth,who was shaped a little like something besides a tree stump, was indeedan exciting sight.

  But there were limitations to the settler girls.

  They had no background to speak of, and though that didn't make anydifference, George assured himself, they knew nothing about art, music,poetry, or anything really worth while. And, too, while George's fatherhad said, "Now, George, we're all one here. Each of us is as good asanother. Joe Finch, who cares for the flowers outside, is every bit asgood a man as I am"--still George knew, if he told his parents he wasgoing to marry Joe Finch's daughter someday, there would be hell to pay.

  So as long as the restrictions had been bound around him, there was noreason to go just half-way. George was not an ordinary boy. He didthings in extreme. He was now in love with a Venusian girl, and hisfamily was already starting to make him pay.

  * * * * *

  George turned off the path, just beyond an arch of thick purple-greenvines that always reminded him of a gate to a garden. There was a quietsimplicity to this small clearing where he and Gistla met. There was analoneness to it, and only the sound of the flat shiny leaves slidingtogether and the high, trilling sound of the small Venusian birds brokethe peaceful silence. They had always met here, nowhere else.

  Now, as George found himself in the clearing, he began to wonder whatGistla would say or do when he told her he was taking her home to meethis family. It had been a sudden decision, brought out of anger andindignation.

  George sat down upon the flat hollow of a large vine. The sky was murkyas usual, but the soft warm feel and smell of the growth around him,with its color and brightness, made up for a sunless sky.

  As he waited, he remembered what his mother had said:

  "Oh, George, you're really not serious about bringing a _Venusian_ intoour home!"

  And his sister, Mari, had said, "My God!" Mari, who was eighteen, saidthis to most anything.

  But his father, eyes bright and alert, had said, "No, now if Georgewants to bring one of these, ah, Venusians home with him, that's hisprivilege. I think it would be very interesting."

  George knew what his father meant by interesting.

  Exposing Gistla to his family would result in deliberate sarcasm andeye-squinting and barely hidden smiles. There would be pointed remarksand direct insults. And when it was over, George knew, he would beexpected to see the error of his ways. He would then be expected toforget about this odd creature and find himself a nice ignorant littleColony girl, whose father was a member of the Governing circle.

  "And to hell with that, too," George said.

  "What?" George heard Gistla say. He turned quickly. She was standing atthe edge of the clearing, her round green eyes looking soft and serious.She wore the usual gray cape that reached her ankles. Her voice was adeep round sound, and there was hardly any accent in the words she hadlearned so quickly since the Colony had begun.

  "Talking to myself," George grinned. The old excitement was inside ofhim. There was a kind of exotic quality in meeting Gistla that neverdisappeared.

  She crossed the clearing, not too gracefully, and touched her fingersagainst his hand. This had been the extent of their physical expressionof love.

  "It is nice to see you, George."

  He noticed his feeling of pleasure when he heard her speak his name.There was something about his own name being spoken by Gistla that hadalways seemed even more strange than anything else.

  She sat down beside him, and they looked at each other while the leaveswhispered around them and the birds fluttered and chirped. He discoveredagain the feeling of rightness, sitting beside Gistla. There was asolidity about her, a quiet maturity that he seemed able to feel inhimself only when he was with her. And that too was strange, because inAmerican terms of age, she was much younger than he.

  Sitting, as they were doing, silent, watching each other, had been mostof their activity. You did not need to entertain Gistla with foolishsmall-talk or exaggerated praising.

  But right now he wanted to tell her quickly, to make sure that she wouldfeel the enthusiasm he had felt.

  "Listen, Gistla," he said, while she watched him with her soft-lookinground eye
s. "I want you to come with me today to meet my family."

  His words seemed to have an odd ring to them, and George waited tenselyuntil he was sure that she was not shocked or angry about what he hadjust said.

  She sat silently for a moment and then she said, "Do you think that isright for me to do, George?"

  "Sure it is! Why not? They know about you and me. They know we're inlove."

  "Love--" She spoke the word as though it were an indefinite, elusivething that you could not offer as reason for doing anything.

  Gistla was very wise, George realized, but this was a time forenthusiasm, a time to strengthen their own relationship in this world.

  "Say you will!" George said.

  "Do you want me to?"

  "Well, sure I do. What did you think?"

  She held her hands in her lap quietly. They were not unlike his