50 in 50

"Welcome aboard my ship," Hautamaki said and clasped his own hands behind his back. If this fool didn't know about the social customs of Men, he was not going to teach him.

"Sorry. I forgot you don't shake hands or touch strangers." Still smiling, Gulyas moved aside to make room for his wife to enter the ship.

"How do you do, Shipmaster?" Tjond said. Then her eyes widened and she flushed, as she saw for the first time that he was completely nude.

"I'll show you your quarters," Hautamaki said, turning and walking away, knowing they would follow. A woman! He had seen them before on various planets, even talked with them, but never had he believed that there would someday be one on his ship. How ugly they were, with their swollen bodies! It was no wonder that on the other worlds everyone wore clothes, to conceal those blubbery, bobbing things and the excess fat below.

"Why — he wasn't even wearing shoes!" Tjond said indignantly as she closed the door. Gulyas laughed.

"Since when has nudity bothered you? You didn't seem to mind it during our holiday on Hie. And you knew about the Men's customs."

"That was different. Everyone was dressed — or undressed — the same. But this, it's almost indecent!"

"One man's indecency is another's decency."

"I bet you can't say that three times fast."

"Nevertheless it's true. When you come down to it he probably thinks that we're just as socially wrong as you seem to think he is."

"I don't think — I know!" she said, reaching up on tiptoes to nip his ear with her tiny teeth, as white and perfectly shaped as rice grains. "How long have we been married?"

"Six days, nineteen hours standard, and some odd minutes."

"Only odd because you haven't kissed me in such a terribly long time."

He smiled down at her tiny, lovely figure, ran his hand over the warm firmness of her hairless skull and down her straight body, brushing the upturned almost vestigial buds of her breasts.

"You're beautiful.” he said, then kissed her.

II

Once they were across the glacier the going was easier on the hard-packed snow. Within an hour they had reached the base of the rocky spire. It stretched above them against the green-tinted sky, black and fissured. Tjond let her eyes travel up its length and wanted to cry.

"It's too tall! Impossible to climb. With the gravsled we could ride up."

"We have discussed this before," Hautamaki said, looking at Gulyas as he always did when he talked to her. "I will bring no radiation sources near the device up there until we determine what it is. Nothing can be learned from our aerial photograph except that it appears to be an untended machine of some kind. I will climb first. You may follow. It is not difficult on this type of rock."

It was not difficult — it was downright impossible. She scrambled and fell and couldn't get a body's length up the spire. In the end she untied her rope. As soon as the two men had climbed above her she sobbed hopelessly into her hands. Gulyas must have heard her, or he knew how she felt being left out, because he called back down to her.

"I'll drop you a rope as soon as we get to the top, with a loop on the end. Slip your arms through it, and I'll pull you up."

She was sure that he wouldn't be able to do it, but still she had to try. The beacon — it might not be human-made!

The rope cut into her body, and surprisingly enough he could pull her up. She did her best to keep from banging into the cliff and twisting about: then Gulyas was reaching down to help her. Hautamaki was holding the rope. . and she knew that it was the strength of those corded arms, not her husband's, that had brought her so quickly up.

"Hautamaki, thank you for—"

"We will examine the device now," he said, interrupting her and looking at Gulyas while he spoke. "You will both stay here with my pack. Do not approach unless you are ordered to."

He turned on his heel, and with purposeful stride went to the outcropping where the machine stood. No more than a pace away from it he dropped to one knee, his body hiding most of it from sight, staying during long minutes in this cramped position.

"What is he doing?" Tjond whispered, hugging tight to Gulyas' arm. "What is it? What does he see?"

"Come over here!" Hautamaki said, standing. There was a ring of emotion in his voice that they had never heard before. They ran_; skidding on the ice-glazed rock, stopping only at the barrier of his outstretched arm.

"What do you make of it?" Hautamaki asked, never taking his eyes from the squat machine fixed to the rock before them.