The Woman from Altair - Leigh Brackett, ebook, Temp
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The Woman from AltairLeigh BrackettStartling StoriesJuly, 1951IAhrianWhat a great day it was for everybody, when David came home from deep space. It was a day that will remain for a long while on the calendar of the McQuarrie family, marked heavily in red.We had driven down to the spaceport to meet him—myself, and Bet, who was David's and my sister, just out of college, and David's fiancée, a Miss Lewisham. The Miss Lewisham had family but no money, and David had both, and that was as far as it went. She was one of these handsome, shallow-eyed babes as perfectly machined as a chunk of bakelite, and just as human. Bet thought she was terrific. She had spent hours getting herself up to be as like her as possible, but it was all in vain. Bet's hair still behaved like hair, and blew.The spaceport was swarming. Interplanetary flight had long ago ceased to be a thing of breathless wonder to the populace, but star-ships were still new and rare, and the men who flew them were still heroic. Word had gone out that the Anson McQuarrie was due in from somewhere beyond the Pleiades, and there were thousands of people backed up behind the barricades. I remember that there were flags, and somebody had prepared a speech."Isn't it wonderful!" said Bet, around a lump in her throat. "And all for David.""There are some other men on that ship, too," I said."Oh, you always have to be so nasty," she snapped. "David's the captain, and the owner, too. And he deserves the reception.""Uh huh," I said, "and what's more, David himself would be the last to disagree with you."Officials were opening a way for us, and I shoved Bet along it with the Miss Lewisham, who headed like a homing duck for the TV cameras. At about that moment a feminine voice hailed us, and Bet whirled around, crying out, "Marthe!"An extremely attractive young woman detached herself from a group of obvious reporters and joined us."I'm going to be quite shameless," she announced, "and presume on an old school friendship."I liked the way she grinned and practically dared me to throw her out of the family circle. I should have done so, but didn't because of that cheeky grin, and that's how Marthe Walters came to be mixed up in this mess. I wished so desperately afterward that I had pushed her face in. But how is one to know?Bet was offering explanations. "Marthe was a senior when I was a freshman, Rafe. Remember? That was when I was going to be a journalist." She rushed through the introductions, and memory clicked."Oh, yes," I said. "You're the Marthe Walters who does those profile sketches for Public.""It's honest work, but it's a living.""You've come to the right place. My brother has the devil and all of a profile."She cocked her head on one side and gave me a peculiarly intelligent look. "Yours isn't so bad. And come to think of it, I've never heard of you.""I'm the forgotten McQuarrie," I said. "The one who didn't go to space."All this time we were being assisted onward to the place that had been reserved for the family. Bet was burbling, the Miss Lewisham was being statuesque and proud, and this bright-eyed intruder, Marthe, was thinking questions and trying to devise a politic way of asking them."You're David's older brother?""Ancient.""And you're a McQuarrie, and you didn't go to space." She shook her head. "That's like being a fish, and refusing to swim.""It's not Rafe's fault," said Bet, with that touch of womanly pity she could get in her voice sometimes. "How soon will he land, Rafe? I just can't wait!"I was trying to figure out what color Marthe's eyes were. I got them pegged for blue, and then there was some change in the light or something, and they were green as sea-water."Surely," she said, "you didn't wash out.""No, it was noisier than that. I crashed. It was a light plane, but it came down heavy.""He was on his way to the spaceport from the Academy," said Bet sadly. "He had his papers and everything, and was going out on his first voyage as a junior officer. The disappointment nearly killed Father, Rafe being the oldest son and everything. But then, he still had David.""I see," said Marthe. She smiled at me, and this time it wasn't cheeky, but the sort of smile a man would like to see more of. "I'm sorry. I thought that walking stick was pure swank.""It is," I told her, and laughed. "I think that's what really disgusts the family—I'm healthy as a horse. I only carry the thing to remind them that I'm supposed to be frail."They were in radio communication with the Anson McQuarrie. The reports of position kept coming in, and an amplifier blatted them out. Men ran around looking harried, a million voices chattered, necks craned, the tension built up. The towers of Manhattan glittered mightily in the distance. Marthe and I talked. I think we talked about her.A great roar went up. Bet screamed in my ear. There was a perfect frenzy of sound for a few moments, and then there was silence, and in it the sky split open like tearing silk. A speck of silver came whistling down the cleft, growing rapidly, becoming a huge graceful creature with tarnished flanks and star-dust on her nose, and pride in every rivet. Oh, she was beautiful, and she settled light as a moonbeam on the landing field that had been cleared of any lesser craft. The Anson McQuarrie was home.I noticed then that Marthe had not been watching the ship at all. She was watching me."You," she said, "are a rather puzzling person.""Does that bother you?""I don't like a book that has the whole story on the first page.""Good," I said. "Then you won't like David. Come along. And oh, yes, any time you want to catch up on your reading—""There he is!" shrieked Bet. "There's David!"The barricades were keeping back the crowds, and officials were forming a second line of defense against the mob of reporters. We, the family, were allowed to be first with our greetings. The under-hatch had opened in that vast keel, the platform was run out, and a tall figure in absolutely impeccable uniform had emerged onto it. Bands played, thousands cheered, the TV cameras rolled, and David lifted his hand and smiled. A handsome beggar, my brother, with all the best points of the McQuarrie stock. I think he was a little annoyed when Bet flung herself up the steps and onto his neck. She mussed his collar badly.I waved. The Miss Lewisham mounted to the platform, showing her splendid legs. She held out her arms graciously, prepared to grant David the dignified kiss due a hero from his future wife. But David gave her a horrified look as though he had forgotten all about her, and his face turned six different shades of red.He recovered magnificently. He caught those outstretched hands and shook them warmly, at the same time getting her off to one side so smoothly that she hardly realized it. Before she could say anything, he had spoken, to the world at large, with boyish pride."I have seen," he said, "many strange and precious things on the worlds of other stars. And I have brought back with me the most wonderful of them all. I want you to welcome her to Earth."Here he turned to someone who had been waiting inside the hatch, and handed her out.I don't think that any of us, least of all the Miss Lewisham, caught on for a moment. We were too busy, like everybody else, staring at the little creature who was clinging to David's hand.She seemed incredibly small and fragile to be a grown woman, and yet that is what she was, and no mistake about it. She wore a very quaint drapery of some gossamer stuff that shimmered in the sunlight, and the lovely shape of her beneath it was something to wonder at. Her skin was perfectly white and beautiful, like fine porcelain, and her little face was pointed and fey-looking, with eyebrows that swept up toward her temples like two delicate feathers. Her hair was the color of amethysts. There was a great deal of it, piled high on her head in an intricate coiffure, and the lights in it were marvelous, as though every conceivable shade of that jewel had been melted and spun together and made alive. Her eyes, slanting under those sweeping brows, were the same color, but deeper, a true purple. They looked out in great bewilderment upon this noisy alien world."She is from Altair," said David. "Her name is Ahrian. She is my wife."The reactions to that last simple statement were violent and more than a little confused. Sometime before the shouting died, and while Bet was still staring like an absolute idiot at her unexpected sister-in-law, the Miss Lewisham departed, with every hair still perfectly in place. Where her temper was, I don't know. The reporters stampeded, and no one and nothing could hold them back. The TV men were in transports when David kissed his little bride from Altair. I looked down at Marthe."I suppose," I said, "it wouldn't be any good asking you to go away now."She said it wouldn't be. She was shivering slightly, like a wolf that has found a fat lamb asleep under its nose. "A woman from Altair," she whispered. "This isn't a story, it's a sensation.""It's certainly a surprise for the family!""Poor little thing, she looks scared to death. Whatever you feel, don't take it out on her." Marthe glanced up at me, as though a sudden thought had occurred to her. "By the way," she asked, "is your brother quite right in the head?""I'm beginning to wonder," I said.Up on the platform, the focus of the excitement, the new Mrs. David McQuarrie trembled against her husband and stared with those purple enigmatic eyes at the alien hosts of a world that was not her own.IIStranger on EarthGrimly we set off o...
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