Would they meet it or wouldn’t they?
The Polar President offered to resign in his favor, with certain temporary emergency powers that the Polar Congress would vote him if he thought them necessary. Barlow demanded the title of World Dictator, complete control of world finances, salary to be decided by himself, and the publicity campaign and historical writeup to begin at once.
“As for the emergency powers,” he added, “they are neither to be temporary nor limited.”
Somebody wanted the floor to discuss the matter, with the declared hope that perhaps Barlow would modify his demands.
“You’ve got the proposition,” Barlow said. “I’m not knocking off even ten percent.”
“But what if the Congress refuses, sir?” the President asked.
“Then you can stay up here at the Pole and try to work it out yourselves. I’ll get what I want from the morons. A shrewd operator like me doesn’t have to compromise; I haven’t got a single competitor in this whole cockeyed moronic era.”
Congress waived debate and voted by show of hands. Barlow won unanimously.
“You don’t know how close you came to losing me,” he said in his first official address to the joint Houses. “I’m not the boy to haggle; either I get what I ask, or I go elsewhere. The first thing I want is to see designs for a new palace for me—nothing un-ostentatious, either—and your best painters and sculptors to start working on my portraits and statues. Meanwhile, I’ll get my staff together.”
He dismissed the Polar President and the Polar Congress, telling them that he’d let them know when the next meeting would be.
A week later, the program started, with North America the first target.
Mrs. Garvy was resting after dinner before the ordeal of turning on the dishwasher. The TV, of course, was on and it said, “Oooh!”—long, shuddery and ecstatic, the cue for the Parfum Assault Criminale spot commercial. “Girls,” said the announcer hoarsely, “do you want your man? It’s easy to get him—easy as a trip to Venus.”
“Huh?” said Mrs. Garvy.
“Wassamatter?” snorted her husband, starting out of a doze.
“Ja hear that?”
“Wha’?”
“He said ‘easy like a trip to Venus.’ ”
“So?”
“Well, I thought ya couldn’t get to Venus. I thought they just had that one rocket thing that crashed on the Moon.”
“Aah, women don’t keep up with the news,” said Garvy righteously, subsiding again.
“Oh,” said his wife uncertainly.
And the next day, on Henry’s Other Mistress, there was a new character who had just breezed in: Buzz Rentshaw, Master Rocket Pilot of the Venus run. On Henry’s Other Mistress, “the broadcast drama about you and your neighbors, folksy people, ordinary people, real people!” Mrs. Garvy listened with amazement over a cooling cup of coffee as Buzz made hay of her hazy convictions.
MONA: Darling, it’s so good to see you again!
BUZZ: You don’t know how I’ve missed you on that dreary Venus run.
SOUND: Venetian blind run down, key turned in lock.
MONA: Was it very dull, dearest?
BUZZ: Let’s not talk about my humdrum job, darling. Let’s talk about us.
SOUND: Creaking bed.
Well, the program was back to normal at last. That evening Mis. Garvy tried to ask again whether her husband was sure about those rockets, but he was dozing right through Take It and Stick It, so she watched the screen and forgot the puzzle.
She was still rocking with laughter at the gag line, “Would you buy it for a quarter?” when the commercial went on for the detergent powder she always faithfully loaded her dishwasher with on the first of every month.
The announcer displayed mountains of suds from a tiny piece of the stuff and coyly added, “Of course, Cleano don’t lay around for you to pick up like the soap root on Venus, but it’s pretty cheap and it’s almost pretty near just as good. So for us plain folks who ain’t lucky enough to live up there on Venus, Cleano is the real cleaning stuff!”
Then the chorus went into their “Cleano-is-the-stuff” jingle, but Mrs. Garvy didn’t hear it. She was a stubborn woman, but it occurred to her that she was very sick indeed. She didn’t want to worry her husband. The next day she quietly made an appointment with her family freud.
In the waiting room she picked up a fresh new copy of Readers Pablum and put it down with a faint palpitation. The lead article, according to the table of contents on the cover, was titled “The Most Memorable Venusian I Ever Met.”
“The freud will see you now,” said the nurse, and Mrs. Garvy tottered into his office.
His traditional glasses and whiskers were reassuring. She choked out the ritual. “Freud, forgive me, for I have neuroses.”
He chanted the antiphonal, “Tut, my dear girl, what seems to be the trouble?”
“I got like a hole in the head,” she quavered. “I seem to forget all kinds of things. Things like everybody seems to know and I don’t.”
“Well, that happens to everybody occasionally, my dear. I suggest a vacation on Venus.”
The freud stared, openmouthed, at the empty chair. His nurse came in and demanded, “Hey, you see how she scrammed? What was the matter with her?”
He took off his glasses and whiskers meditatively. “You can search me. I told her she should maybe try a vacation on Venus.” A momentary bafflement came into his face and he dug through his desk drawers until he found a copy of the four-color, profusely illustrated journal of his profession. It had come that morning and he had lip-read it, though looking mostly at the pictures. He leafed to the article “Advantages of the Planet Venus in Rest Cures.”
