O Pioneer! Read Free Page A

"You, Mr. Giyt," he declared, "are exactly the sort of person we want to send to Tupelo. Good health, no genetic negatives. And your socialization scores are, well, just admirable ."
    Giyt nodded modestly. He had been quite creative with his personal stats. The man was going on: "We seldom get an application for somebody with degrees in both agronomy and business management, not to mention your building skills."
    "That was a long time ago," Giyt protested. "Just summer jobs on construction projects while I was at school, but I did seem to have a knack for it."
    "I'm sure you did. About the only other thing I could wish for is a medical background—"
    Hell, Giyt thought to himself. He could have set that up too while he was inventing the other credentials, if only he'd thought of it.
    "—but, good lord, what can we expect from a single colonist? No, Mr. Giyt, you're perfect. I can inform you now: you're definitely accepted for the program. More coffee?" Then, almost as an afterthought, "Of course, we'll have to know something about your wife, too."
    "Wife?" Giyt repeated cautiously.
    "You do have one, don't you? You see, Ex-Earth doesn't just want tourists to come to Tupelo. What we want is families. I don't mean you can't come right back to Earth if you decide you don't want to stay on Tupelo," he added hastily, "but we don't think you will. We think you'll want to live your whole life on Tupelo, and your children and your children's children after you. Now, when can you bring her in?"
    So when Giyt left the hotel he didn't go back to Bal Harbor.
    He walked around Wichita's decaying business district, thinking. Street people thrust scanners at him for a handout, dope dealers whispered in his ear. He didn't hear.
    Then he made up his mind. He crossed the street to a Kinko-WalGreenMart superstore and rented a terminal. He had an hour before Rina got out of her class, and that was plenty of time to do what he had to do. When he was finished the clerk goggled at Giyt as he pushed the ID-sniffer away and offered actual money in payment. But Giyt had a stock explanation ready for using cash: "Don't want my wife to see the bill," he said, smiling.
    When Rina emerged from the school building, loaded down with palmtop and disks, looking like a very pretty schoolgirl, she was astonished to find Evesham Giyt waiting there for her. "Hey, Shammy," she said good-naturedly, "this is an unexpected pleasure. What's the occasion?"
    "There's something I want to talk to you about."
    "Really? What?" Then her expression changed. "Oh, Shammy," she said unhappily, "you're not suddenly jealous , are you? Sure, I have lunch with one of the guys now and then, but that's as far as it goes, and that's no reason for you to come down here to spy on me."
    "No, no, it isn't anything like that. I just wanted to ask you something. How would you like to get married?"
    She almost dropped the palmtop. "Married?"
    "That's right. Married. You and me." To prove the point he displayed the printout of the backdated license he'd got from the county clerk's program, absolutely indistinguishable from the real thing, even in the unlikely event that anybody would ever take the trouble to check back into the database.
    She studied it for a long minute, standing on the street corner with the breeze whipping her hair. Then she looked up at him. "My God, Shammy, I never thought—I don't know if we're really ready for . . . It's a big . . . Tell me the truth. Shammy, no shit, do you really mean it?"
    "You bet I mean it. And listen, I have a really great idea for the honeymoon."
     
    Rina said she wouldn't be nervous about being shot from one star to another in this newfangled Sommermen transportation thing, but Giyt thought she really was. He was. He got in and closed his eyes—and then, wonderfully, it was over as soon as it had begun. You stepped in the chamber on one world and stepped out of it on another, and that was all there was to it.
    And Tupelo was just as