Meet Miss Universe - Jack Vance

Meet Miss Universe - Jack Vance, ebook, Temp

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Jack Vance . . . Meet Miss Universe -
Fantastic Universe March 1955
The Oxford English Dictionary would scarcely hold all of the words that have been written about
feminine beauty by Shakespeare alone. Lesser bards have swelled the total hugely. Is feminine
beauty only skin-deep? Or can it be more justly compared to a sunset, staining the sky with depths
beyond depths of radiance? Science-fiction maestro Jack Vance has an answer that will give you
pause, in a frame of reference startlingly, excitingly new.
Miss universe was quite the most glamorous creature in all the
universe of stars. How could earthmen be so tragically blind?
Hardeman Clydell turned to-ward his smart young assistant Tony LeGrand.
"Your idea has a certain mad charm," he said. "But—can it add to what we've
already got?"
"That's a good question," Le-Grand said. He looked down across what they
already had: the Calif-nia Tri-Centennial Exposition, a concrete disk two
miles wide, crusted with white towers, rust-red terraces, emerald gardens,
sapphire pools, segmented by four great: boulevards: North, East, South,
West—3.1416 square miles of grandeur and expense in the middle of the Mojave
Desert.
A five-thousand-foot pylon, rear-ing from the Conclave of the Universe,
held a tremendous mag-nesium parasol against the sting of the desert sun.
Half-way up the pylon, a platform supported the administrative offices and an
ob-servation deck where Hardeman Clydell, the Exposition's General Director,
and Tony LeGrand now stood.
"I believe," said LeGrand, frowning at the cigar Clydell had given him,
"that anything can stand improvement, including the Cali-fornia Tri-Centennial
Exposition."
Hardeman Clydell smiled indul-gently. "Assuming all these beau-tiful women
exist—"
"I'm sure they do."
"—how do you propose to lure them here across all that space, all those
light years?"
LeGrand, glib, insouciant, hand-some, considered himself an au-thority on
female psychology. "In the first place, all beautiful' women are vain."
"As well as all the rest of them."
LeGrand nodded. "Exactly. So we offer free passage on a deluxe packet and a
grand prize for the winner. We won't have any trou-ble collecting
contestants."
Clydell puffed on his cigar. He had enjoyed a good lunch; the construction,
furbishing, decoration of the Exposition was proceeding on schedule; he was in
the mood for easy conversation.
"It's a clever thought," said Clydell. "But—" He shrugged. "There are
considerations past and beyond the mere existence of beautiful women."
"Oh, I agree one hundred per cent."
"Lots of the out-world folk don't like to travel. I believe the word is
'parochial.' And what do we use for prizes? There's a problem!"
LeGrand nodded thoughtfully. "It's got to be something spectacu-lar." He
was usually able to shift the ground under Clydell, maneuvering so that
Clydell's objections
con
insensibly became arguments
pro
.
"'Spectacular' isn't enough," said Clydell. "We've also got to be
practical. We offer a yacht. A girl from Deserta Delicta wins. She's never
seen more than a mud-puddle. What does she do with the yacht?"
"Something we've got to consider."
Clydell went on. "Take a girl on Conexxa. Give her jewels and she'd laugh
at you. She's thrown diamonds big as your fist at strange dogs."
"Maybe a Rolls Royce Aero-naut—"
"There again. Veidranus ride butterflies. Picture a Veidranu girl driving
an Aeronaut through all those vines and flowers!"
LeGrand took a shallow puff at the cigar. "It's a challenge, Harde-man . .
. What kind of prize would you suggest?"
"Something indefinite," said Cly-dell. "Give 'em whatever they want. Let
the winner name it."
"Suppose she named the city of Los Angeles?" LeGrand said with a merry
laugh.
"Anything within reason. Set a valuation of a hundred thousand dollars on
it."
"By golly, Hardeman, I think you've come up with something!" Tony put
down his cigar. "Of course there are problems ..."
This was a key gambit. Harde-man Clyde's favorite aphorism was, "Every
problem has its solu-tion." To use the word "problem" was to push one of
Clydell's most reliable buttons.
"Hmmf. Nothing which couldn't be solved," said Clydell. "Every problem has
its solution."
Tony approached the second phase of his plan; so startling and outré was
the entirety that he had not dared to broach the whole thing at once.
"We'd be pretty limited, of course," he said. "There's only half a dozen
worlds with humanoid life. Some of those are C's and D's —not really human at
all. And we wouldn't want to fool with any-thing second-rate." He slapped his
fist into his palm. "I've got it! Listen to this, Hardeman, it's a killer!"
"I'm listening," said Clydell noncommittally.
"Let's throw the contest wide open! Come one, come all! Every planet sends
their most beautiful female!"
Clydell stared blankly. "What do you mean, 'every planet’? Every planet in
the Solar System?"
"No!" cried LeGrand enthusias-tically. "Every planet that's got an
intelligent civilization. Let the whole galaxy in on it!"
Clydell smiled at the whimsy of his aide. "Okay. We get a Millamede and a
Johnsonian, a Pentacynth or two, and maybe a Jangrill from Blue-star if we can
find one. So horrible that even their own husbands won't look them in the
face. And we set them up against, say, Althea Daybro, or Mercedes O'Donnell."
Clydell spat over the railing, made a rasping noise in his throat. "I admit
it makes a macabre spec-tacle—but where does 'beauty con-test' come in?"
LeGrand nodded thoughtfully. "It's a problem that's got to be worked out. A
problem ..."
Clydell shook his head. "I'm not sold on this last angle. It lacks
dignity."
"You're right," said Tony Le-Grand. "We can't let this become a farce.
Because it's not just an ordinary beauty-contest—it's more important. An
experiment in inter-world relations. Now if we got some very distinguished men
for judges—yourself for instance—the Secretary General—Mathias Bradisnek—Herve
Christom. Also judges from some of the other worlds. The Prime of Ursa Major.
The Veidranu Prefect—what's his name? And the Baten Kaitos Grand Mar-shall
..."
Clydell puffed his cigar. "Organizing it that way would make the judging
impartial . . . But how in the world could I compare some cute little Earth
girl with a Sadal Suud Isobrod? Or one of those Pleiades dragon-women? That's
the rub of the whole matter."
"It's a stumbling block ... A big problem. A big problem."
"Well," said Clydell. "Every problem has its solution. That's an axiom,"
Tony said thoughtfully, "Sup-pose we judged each candidate by her own
standards—by the ideals of her own people? That way the contest becomes
perfectly fair."
Clydell puffed vigorously on his cigar. "Possible, possible."
"We do some research, get the ideal of every race. A set of
specifi-cations. Whoever most closely ap-proaches the ideal specifications is
winner. Miss Universe!"
Hardeman Clydell cleared his throat. "All this is very well, Tony.
. . .But, you're neglecting one very important aspect. Financing."
"It's too bad," said Tony.
"What's too bad?"
"You and I being in the posi-tion we are. We’re stuck by the ethics of the
situation."
Clydell looked at him with a puzzled frown, opened his mouth to speak, but
Tony hurried on.
"There's no way we could honor-ably stage this tremendous spectacle
ourselves."
Clydell looked interested. "You think it would make money?"
Tony LeGrand smiled wryly. "How many people have seen as much as a Mars
Arenasaur? Let alone a Pentacynth or a Sagittarius Helmet-head? And we'll
have the beauty queens of the whole uni-verse gathered here!"
"True," said Clydell. "Very true indeed."
"It'll be the biggest thing in the whole Exposition."
Clydell threw his cigar over the side. "It'll bear thinking about."
Which Tony LeGrand knew to be a form of qualified approval.
II
Hardeman Clydell, for reasons known best to himself, had never married. At
this stage in his life he was portly, with a smooth pink face, fine white hair
which he wore in dashing sideburns. An extremely wealthy man, he was serving
as General Director at a salary of a dollar a year. He was an ardent
sportsman; he owned his own space-boat; he enjoyed cooking and serving little
dinners of viands im-ported from distant worlds. His cigars were rolled to
order from a special black tobacco grown on the Andaman Islands, smoked over
na-tive campfires, cured with arrack, and aged between oak leaves.
He had met Tony LeGrand on the beach at Tannu Tuva, offered him a cigar.
When' Tony pro-nounced it the best he had ever smoked, Clydell knew that here
was a man whose judgment he could trust absolutely. He hired Tony as his
private assistant and trouble-shooter.
Tony had made himself invalu-able. Clydell found that some of his most
ingenious ideas occurred during talks with Tony . . . The Galactic Beauty
Contest for in-stance. From the germ of an idea— who had voiced it first,
himself or Tony? —Clydell had organized a scheme that would make talk for
years to come!
With the grand design sketched in, Clydell allowed Tony to man-age the
morass of petty detail. When Tony ran into something he couldn't handle, he
came to Clydell for advice. By and large he seemed to be doing a good
workman-like job.
After considering the extensive list of worlds known to be inhabit-ed by
intelligent or quasi-intelligent races, Tony, with Clydell's counsel,
eliminated all but thirty-three. The criteria which they applied were:
1.
Is the race socially organized?
(Races living without social structure, in a state of intense
competition, or anarchy, might not comprehend the theory of the contest,
and so might prove uncooperative, perhaps make trouble if they failed to
win.)
2.
Can we adequately commu-nicate?
Are interpreters available? (The Merak tribes used clair-voyance to read
another in-dividual's internal flagella. The Gongs of Fomalhaut
transmitted information through the medium of com-plex odors,
impregnated into wads of hair and spit. The air-swimming Carboids of
Cepheus 9621 communicated by a system susceptible to no ex-planation
whatever. None of these races were considered.)
3. Is the race's environment easily duplicable on Earth?
(The weirdly beautiful Pavos d'Oro lived at a temperature of 2,000° K.
The complex molecules of the Sabik Betans exploded in pressures less
than 30,000 Earth atmospheres. The viability of the Chastainian Grays
depended on their fluid-gaseous helium blood-stream, a state which could
be maintained only at or near 0° K.)
4. Is there an element of the race which reasonably can be spoken of as
female?
(Styles of reproduction among the life forms of the universe admitted of
the most extreme variation. The Giant Annelids of Mauvaise collapsed
into two hundred segments, each of which might become an adult organism.
Among the Grus Gammans not two but five different sexes participated
in the procreative act. The humanoid Churo of Gondwana were
mono-sexual.)
5. Is the race notoriously short-tempered, vicious or truculent? Are they
able to check any habits or instincts which might prove of-fensive or
dangerous to visitors at the Exposition?
When the five criteria had been applied to the life-forms which peopled the
worlds of the galaxy, all were eliminated but thirty-three, eight of which
were humanoid, classes A to D. (Class A comprised true men and close variants;
any-thing less man-like than Class D was no longer really man-like.)
Hardeman Clydell made a quick check of Tony's research, pointing out a flaw
here, a miscalculation there; adding a race or two, finding others unsuitable
on one score or another. Tony argued over Clydell's decisions.
"These Soteranians — they're beautiful things! I've seen pictures! Great
filmy wings!"
"Too ticklish taking care of them," Clydell said. "They breathe flourine .
. . Same way with those porcelain insects that live in a vacuum."
Tony shrugged. "Okay. But here—" he pointed to one of Cly-dell's additions
"—Mel. I don't get it. In fact I've never heard of the place."
Clydell nodded placidly. "Inter-esting race. I read an article about them.
Rigidly stratified; the males do the work and the females stay at home and
preen. Should make a fine addition."
"What do they look like?"
Clydell clipped the end from one of his cigars. Tony tried to appear busy,
but Clydell held out his cigar-case. "Here, Tony, have a smoke. You appreciate
'em; wouldn't waste them on anyone else."
"Thanks, Hardeman. About these Mels—"
"To tell you the truth, I don't remember much about them. They live in
monstrous cities, they're said to be hospitable to a fault, extremely friendly
all around. Just the sort we want. Good-sized crea-tures."
"Okay," said Tony. "Mel, it is." The final list numbered thirty-one races.
It was at this point that Tony secured the ideal specifica-tions. He sent
coded space-wave messages to Earth representatives on each planet, describing
his prob-lem and requesting absolutely exact data on the local concept of
female beauty.
When the information had been returned and filed, Tony prepared
invitations, which were signed by Hardeman Clydell, and dispatched to each of
the planets. The value of the prize had been hiked to a million dollars, both
to entice con-testants and to make more of a splash in the news organs of the
world.
Twenty-three of the thirty-one worlds agreed to send representa-tives.
"Think of it!" marvelled Harde-man Clydell. "Twenty-three worlds confident
enough in the beauty of their women to pit them against the class of the
galaxy!"
And Tony LeGrand started grinding out publicity.
"The most beautiful creatures in the universe! Meet Miss Universe, at the
California Tri-Centennial Exposition!"
III
The California Tri-Centennial Exposition opened at eight o'clock on the
morning of Admission Day. During the first twenty-four hours well over a
million men, women, and children entered the grounds through turnstiles at the
heads of the four great boulevards, or up from the underground tube
termi-nals. Second day attendance was almost 900,000; the count on the third
day was 800,000. After the first week, attendance leveled off at a steady
half-million a day.
The Trans-Galactic Beauty Con-test was scheduled for the month of February,
when attendance might be expected to undergo a seasonal lull.
Twenty-three glass-walled cases, fifty-five feet long, thirty feet deep,
twenty feet high, were being con-structed under joint supervision of the
Astro-physical Society of Amer-ica and the World Bureau for Bio-logical
Research. Each case careful-ly duplicated home conditions of pressure,
temperature, gravity, radi-ation and chemistry for one of the contestants.
In most cases the adjustments were minor: the addition of a few percent of
sulphur dioxide to the atmosphere; the elimination of water vapor; regulation
of the temperature.
The interior of each vivarium simulated a landscape on the con-testant's
home planet. Case#21 was a lake of quicksilver, broken by carborundum crags.
The floor of Case #6 was crusted over with brown algae. A curtain of liverish
Spiratophore hung at the back; a long igloo of dried moss humped up at the
right.
Case #17 was upholstered with a brown shaggy fiber, like enormous-ly
magnified sponge. Hanging on hooks were massive toilet implements. This was
the vivarium in which Miss Mel would display her-self to the eyes of curious
Earth people.
Case #20 was a jungle of the red, yellow, blue and green vegeta-tion of
Veidranu... Case #15 de-picted the Martian desert, with the crystal curve of a
dome-wall at the back. Case #9 simulated a street in Montparnasse: plane
trees, a side-walk cafe, kiosks plastered with posters. This last was
Exposition headquarters for Miss Earth, Sancha Garay of Paris.
During the middle of January contestants began to arrive at Los Angeles
space-port. Hardeman Cly-dell, a judge, decided to see none of the off-world
beauties before the actual contest, and Tony LeGrand delivered official
greetings in his name.
Back at the Exposition office, he reported to Clydell.
"There's one or two cute ones among the humanoids. The others may be
beautiful in a technical sense—but not for me."
Clydell looked curiously at a bruise on Tony's face. "Did you get in a
fight?"
"That's your friendly Miss Mel. She reached out to pat my cheek."
"Oh," said Clydell. "She's the big one, isn't she?"
"Big and rough. Miss Mel. Or better Miss Smell. Part elephant, part dragon,
part gorilla, part lion. And affectionate? Already she's invited me home for a
visit. I can stay as long as I want."
"No trifling with the ladies' affections," Clydell warned with a waggish
shake of the finger, and a mocking smile.
"I wouldn't mind trifling with Miss Veidranu or Miss Alschain . . ." He
handed Clydell a packet of blue-bound pamphlets.
"What am I supposed to do with these?" asked Clydell.
"Read them. It's information you'll need for the judging: a briefing on the
background of each of the contestants, a description of her home planet, and
most impor-tant, the standards on which she is to be judged."
"Well, well," said Clydell. "Let's see what we have here." He reach-ed in
his humidor for a cigar, push-ed it across to Tony.
"Not now, Chief. I've just had lunch."
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