PERFUMED PLANET

Dane Thorson, Cargo-master-apprentice of the Solar Queen, Galactic Free Trader spacer, Terra registry, stood in the middle of the ship’s cramped bather while Rip Shannon, assistant Astrogator and his senior in the Service of Trade by some four years, applied gobs of highly scented paste to the skin between Dane’s rather prominent shoulder blades.  The small cabin was thickly redolent with spicy odors and Rip sniffed appreciatively.

“You’re sure going to be about the best smelling Terran who ever set boot on Sargol’s soil,” his soft slur of speech ended in a rich chuckle.

Dane snorted and tried to estimate progress over one shoulder.

“The things we have to do for Trade!” his comment carried a hint of present embarrassment.  “Get it well in—­this stuff’s supposed to hold for hours.  It’d better.  According to Van those Salariki can talk your ears right off your head and say nothing worth hearing.  And we have to sit and listen until we get a straight answer out of them.  Phew!” He shook his head.  In such close quarters the scent, pleasing as it was, was also overpowering.  “We would have to pick a world such as this—­”

Rip’s dark fingers halted their circular motion.  “Dane,” he warned, “don’t you go talking against this venture.  We got it soft and we’re going to be credit-happy—­if it works out—­”

But, perversely, Dane held to a gloomier view of the immediate future. “If,” he repeated.  “There’s a galaxy of ‘ifs’ in this Sargol proposition.  All very well for you to rest easy on your fins—­you don’t have to run about smelling like a spice works before you can get the time of day from one of the natives!”

Rip put down the jar of cream.  “Different worlds, different customs,” he iterated the old tag of the Service.  “Be glad this one is so easy to conform to.  There are some I can think of—­There,” he ended his massage with a stinging slap.  “You’re all evenly greased.  Good thing you don’t have Van’s bulk to cover.  It takes him a good hour to get his cream on—­even with Frank helping to spread.  Your clothes ought to be steamed up and ready, too, by now—­”

He opened a tight wall cabinet, originally intended to sterilize clothing which might be contaminated by contact with organisms inimical to Terrans.  A cloud of steam fragrant with the same spicy scent poured out.

Dane gingerly tugged loose his Trade uniform, its brown silky fabric damp on his skin as he dressed.  Luckily Sargol was warm.  When he stepped out on its ruby tinted soil this morning no lingering taint of his off-world origin must remain to disgust the sensitive nostrils of the Salariki.  He supposed he would get used to this process.  After all this was the first time he had undergone the ritual.  But he couldn’t lose the secret conviction that it was all very silly.  Only what Rip had pointed out was the truth—­one adjusted to the customs of aliens or one didn’t trade and there were other things he might have had to do on other worlds which would have been far more upsetting to that core of private fastidiousness which few would have suspected existed in his tall, lanky frame.