The Moralist

'In the comparative quiet that followed, there was a rapid-fire shifting of ideas, deleting some, adding to others, and Prunella was doomed. The plot wasn't too thick. It depended only on the fact that an expert's eye was needed to detect the difference between sheer Enduron, the newest and best of the synthetic fibers, and sheer silk. By the same token, the reverse was true. That is, given silk, one could easily mistake it for Enduron.

'The services of a woman on Terra were necessary to us, so Sparks magnanimously recruited his young sister, a writer or artist or something of the sort, who lives somewhere in southern Europe. All she had to do was buy a dozen pairs of the fluffiest, frilliest, most outrageously feminine silk undies she could find in the most chi-chi shop in Paris and then send them to Prunella with a note honoring her as the first woman on Xenon and asking Prunella to accept them as a token of admiration from one woman to another. Some fictitious name was to be signed to it.

'We raided the office, obtained Prunella's file and copied out the proper measurements from it. Sparks fed the message, measurements and a blank signed photo-check into the coder and the automatic ultra-wave transmitter took it with a swift blip of sound and that was that.'

I waited for Lee to catch his breath, which he did by inhaling from a full glass. Then he continued talking.

'All this occurred about the middle of Xenon's third month. We expected the skivies to arrive on a supply ship due the first of the following month, which gave us nearly three Earth weeks to wait, but we didn't mind. After all, we had something to wait for.

'The ship, bless the crew, was on schedule almost to the hour. Adams had had his wide-angle 'scope aimed at the sky above Xenon since long before breakfast, and he and the detectors ran a dead heat when the ship winked out of sub-space about two million or so miles out.

'By mid-morning, the ship's gravitors had floated her into the field for the usual feather-light landing, and mail call, always the first order of business, was over.

'Women have a well-deserved reputation for dawdling over trifles when important matters wait, but that morning Prunella broke all previous records. She gossiped with the ship's captain about interminable bills of lading, she inspected the field for any possible damage by the ship, she swallowed enough coffee to start a fair-sized shortage. Finally, just in time to save the station from a mass nervous collapse, she left the office for her quarters, carrying her mail in one hand and that small, all-important package in the other.

'She reappeared for lunch wearing the tiny smile of a woman who knows she is appreciated by someone and, we hoped, also wearing something else not quite so visible. Never was one so closely watched by so many. If she looked distressed, we gloated. If she squirmed in her chair, we rejoiced. Her every move was analyzed for possible puff symptoms.

'Prunella, that evening, dined as the captain's guest aboard ship. In the mess hall, with Mr. Paulson installed in the seat of honor, the arguments were long, loud and heated: She had 'em on. She didn't. The puffs had her. They didn't.

'I hadn't realized there were so many synonyms for fool and idiot or so many genteel ways to sneer until my learned colleagues that night debated the case of the puffs versus Prunella. We went to bed still in an agony of indecision.'

Lee waited for me to be appropriately sympathetic. I obliged.

'The next morning, Prunella had breakfast alone in her quarters, but then she often did. Or I should say she ordered breakfast sent and then ate only a little of it and sent it back. A short while later, Prunella left her room, went to the library and returned to her quarters with a spool of microfilm in her hand. All the people who could cram into the tiny library cubicle were in before the hiss of Prunella's closing door died away. A wild rape of the library files improved our digestions, dispositions and belief in the ultimate triumph of good over evil — Prunella had withdrawn the film on 'Effects of Xenon Life-forms on the Human Body.'

'I learned later that some far-sighted soul had added lurid details to the section of the film dealing with the puffs, describing minutely what one could expect after powder puff infestation. Odd thing about a few of those added details — some of the more horrible ones had never been noticed before nor have they been reported since.

'Prunella went aboard the supply ship Hunter shortly after noon, scratching determinedly in several places that no lady should, at least in public.

'The captain, most of his loading done and seeing her dire need, blasted off for Terra immediately and flipped into sub-space much closer to the planet than he should have. Prunella was on Terra that same night, Xenon time. The captain told me on his next trip that Pruny had commandeered both quarantine nurses at Polar Space Field to work on her. It still took the two women several hours to finish, according to him. She must have been covered with the things. Bet she looked as though she were sprouting fur.'

'One thing I don't understand,' I told Lee. 'You kept referring to a 'treatment' of some kind for the powder puffs. Didn't Prunella know about it? If she did, I don't see why she didn't take it on Xenon. Surely, at the risk of being insubordinate, you didn't deny it to her if she had ordered it.'

'Quite the contrary, Sam. Prunella knew all about the 'treatment.' And in spite of your suspicions as to our hard hearts, many of us offered our services after leering in what we hoped was a suggestive manner. You see, Sam, the mysterious treatment consisted of nothing more than a very close examination of every square centimeter of the skin with a high-power magnifier and using a pair of fine tweezers to pull out the puff rootlets. But in addition to all of Prunella's other faults and/or virtues, Prunella was a prude.'

We drank a silent toast to pure womanhood.

— JACK TAYLOR