For that elusive green-white glamour, go to Venus,
the ads urged vain women. But that was only half
the story—just ask olive-skinned Sukey Jones.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Summer 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Her name was Sukey Kireina Jones, and the blood of South Asia was inher veins. Mix that with the Celtic, brother, and you've got somethingspecial. Her eyes were dark, and mostly a little sad; her hair wasblack as the Rim, and she stood barely five feet in heels, unless youcount the curves, which, if Nature had been fool enough to straightenthem out, would have added quite a lot—and taken away a lot too.
We called her Sukey, and kidded her some, and what made her sobeautiful was, she didn't know it.
I had found her hanging around the Surface Transit offices, broke andalone, and got her the job as counter girl in the Company hash houseon the edge of the space-port. That was where she met my friend, HarryThurbley.
Harry, was a licensed senior space pilot, but he would never let anyof us call him Captain Thurbley. He said the title sounded pompous,and who the hell was he, anyway. The squarest guy I ever met, but youwould have thought that he was ashamed of that blue uniform. Me, ChuckMorris, I am only an engineer—a space going mechanic—and I wouldhave given my share in the cosmic hereafter to wear it. I would havestrutted some.
But uniform or no uniform, I wouldn't have stood a chance with SukeyJones. From the moment those two set eyes on one another, she had beenHarry's girl. I used to wonder how it would have been with her and meif I had never introduced them. Just wondering.
In those days there had got to be a heavy Venus passenger traffic. Ithad become fashionable for Earth women to bleach their skin to matchtheir hair, and the coveted greenish-white paleness they wanted couldonly be accomplished, it seemed, by spending several months under thesunless Venusian overcast, with its odd radiations.
Caterers to this fad left in scores for Venus. Tourist lodgings andrecreational facilities sprang up on the frontier planet. Beauty got tobe big business overnight.
This was only available to women with considerable money, of course.A round trip ticket cost just under twelve thousand dollars, and highliving, on Venus, came high indeed.
Their poor sisters had recourse only to special lamps and lotions tosimulate the pallor of the movie stars and the debutantes. It was notthe same. Not in their own minds. It was the dream of every woman tomake the pilgrimage, and not a few spent their life savings, embezzled,stowed away, or even sold themselves to Venusian white slavers for thechance of that elusive glamour.
Sukey's skin was of a wonderful, delicate olive shade, and she hatedit. Whenever one of the female travelers would come in to eat, lookingghostly pale and opulent in their Martian lizard-skin coats, SukeyJones would sigh. I could tell that in her small body there was aman-sized inferiority complex building up, but I didn't mention it toHarry. He would only have worried about her.
He was thoughtful of Sukey, and many a time when we got in, and hehad business with Customs or the Port Authority, he would say to me,"Chuck, go and see Sukey for me, and tell her I'll be along."
And as for Sukey Jones, she may not have been overly bright, but thatkind of treatment had been a rare thing in her twenty-three years ofhard knocks. She worshipped Harry Thurbley.
That night in March we had set the Altair down on the field justafter dusk. Harry had business at the Office, and I