GEORGE
LOVES
GISTLA
By JAMES McKIMMEY, Jr.
"Why don't you find yourself somenice little American girl," his fatherhad often repeated. But George wason Venus ... and he loved palegreen skin ... and globular headsand most of all, Georgeloved Gistla.
George Kenington was sixteen,and, as he told himself, someonewho was sixteen knew more aboutlove than someone who was, say, forty-two.Like his father, for instance. A whole lotmore probably. When you were forty-two,you got narrow-minded and nervous andangry. You said this is this, and that is that,and there is nothing else. When someonethought and felt and talked that way,George thought bitterly, there was notenough room inside that person to knowwhat it was like, loving a Venusian.
But George knew. He knew very well.
Her name was Gistla. She was not prettyin standards of American colonists. She hadthe pale greenish Venusian skin, and shewas too short and rather thick. Her face, ofcourse, was not an American face. It wasthe face of native Venus. Round andsmooth, with the large lidless eyes. Therewere no visible ears and a lack of hairstrengthened the globular look of her head.
But she was a person. The beauty wasinside of her. Did you have to point to agirl's face and say, "Here is where the noseshould be, here is where the ears shouldbe?" Did you have to measure the width betweeneyes and test the color of the skin?Did you have to check the size of the teethand the existence of hair? Was all of thisnecessary to understand what was insidesomeone?
George snapped a leaf from an overhangingvine and threw it angrily to the ground.He was walking along a thin path that ledfrom the colony to the tangled hills beyond,where hues of red and yellow and purplereflected like bold sweeps of watercolor. Ina moment he would see Gistla, and with thecolor before his eyes and the sweet perfumeof the flowers in his lungs, he felt again thefamiliar rise of excitement.
George had not always lived on Venus.The Colony was very new. By 2022, mostof the Earth countries had sent colonizers toMars. But as yet, in June of that year, Venushad been touched by only the sparsest invasionof American civilization. George hadarrived just three years ago, when his fatherhad been appointed Secretary of the colonizingunit.
And that was the whole trouble, really.Father was the Secretary, Mother was theSecretary's wife, Sister was the daughter ofthe Secretary. Everybody was wrapped upin it. Except George.
George loved Gistla.
"Why don't you find yourself some nicelittle American girl?" his father had said."Say like Henry Farrel's little daughter?"
Henry Farrel's little daughter was a sweetsickening girl with a nasty temper and anasty tongue. Her father was Governor ofthe Colony. She told you about it all thetime.
"Or," his father had told him, "why notlittle what's-her-name, Doug Brentwood'sdaughter?"
Little what's-her-name's father was thePresident of the Council. "My father isPresident of the Council," she said. Overand over, as though in a settlement the sizeof the Colony, there would be anyone whowouldn't know her father was the Presidentof the Council.
It was all a very tight and careful circle,chosen on Earth with a great deal of"common sense."
There were the ordinary settlers, ofcourse. They had daughters. Some of themwere very pretty and long-limbed. AndGeorge had thought about that.
Certainly the