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  "Ma'am is there someplace close that could style my friends hair? Someplace nice, but that will do walk-ins?"

  "Let me check. I know a place nearby, but I'll have to ask if my stylist is there today and if he'll fit you in."

  She turned away and called, then leaned over the counter along the wall and scribbled something. Turning back she offered the note. "If you can go right over, my stylist Kim will take her right in. Be nice to him please. He said he'd skip lunch to take care of her. I drew you a little map."

  "We will," Roger assured her. "Thank you." He traded her a folded twenty for the note, smooth as could be and was rewarded with a smile. He was happy to see when they got outside, that it was only two blocks away.

  He left Martee looking at pictures of hair styles and ducked out to a pharmacy and an optometrist across the street.

  The transformation was startling. The sides of her face, even her ears were uncovered. The cut was very short, with the sides fluffed somehow in layers. She even looked taller with her neck visible. Roger tipped the fellow Kim well, conscious she might want to come back here another time.

  "I think I'm ready for lunch now," she announced.

  "One last stop, please." He took her across to the optometrist.

  "Would you show the lady a couple of the nonprescription sunglasses in a light tint? Perhaps one pair of dark also."

  She left wearing a pair of faintly rose tinted big lenses, in a gold frame to match the chain. The wool slacks, black turtleneck under the navy blazer and hair cut made her a new woman. They were late for lunch and both starved, but they'd accomplished a lot.

  "I know a place on the way that serves a wonderful pizza," he informed her. It was after the lunch rush and they almost had the place to themselves, but they still had the 'Wait to be Seated' sign out. He could see two waitresses working. The one he knew was OK and asked the manager to be put on Alice's side.

  Martee was confident enough now, to ask about what choices she had to order. Pizza was something new to her. Her world didn't have anything very similar. The salad was an even bigger hit and she took such care eating it slowly, that Roger started to get fidgety, because he had some things to show her.

  When she finally finished, he showed her how to stow her sunglasses in the side pockets of the purse. "The pistol we're going back to pick up will fit right down the center perfectly. And there is plenty of room in one of these side compartments for extra ammo and these," he showed her a set of three small cylinders in his hand.

  "What are those, something else dangerous?" she wondered.

  "Lip gloss," he explained. "I got three colors I thought would work for you. You can pick one and there should be a mirror in the ladies’ room. I didn't think to get you a small mirror," he apologized. "I forgot most ladies have one in their purse. It's considered classier to go to the ladies’ room to put on makeup. anyway," he explained. "Let me get you some help."

  He hailed Alice and when she brought the bill he asked if she would accompany Martee to the ladies’ room and show her how to put on lip gloss. It was after the usual lunch hour so she wasn't that busy. It amused her, he could tell from the lifted eyebrow.

  Martee looked happy when she came back and a little excited. "You did something else, beside the gloss," he said, uncertain. "What is it…?"

  "Alice said my eyebrows needed a touch up too, so she changed them with a little dark pencil she gave me. I really like it, don't you?"

  Roger was no fool, so he agreed.

  When they went back out, to walk to Mountain Sports, they passed an intense little man in a very ugly sports coat and horrid olive pants going in the restaurant, with a dog-eared photo clutched in his hand. Roger worked very hard, not to look over his shoulder at him, but it didn't matter. The fellow never looked at the gaudy Earth woman on his arm.

  Chapter 8

  The computer check ran flawlessly, so he was free to buy and Frank had the pistol mounted with a 30mm red dot sight.

  "It's such a slim gun, even the 40mm sight looked out of place," he explained. If he guessed it was really for Martee he never let on. "What sort of holster do you have in mind?"

  "What do you have notched for the sight, that will clip inside a waist band?"

  There wasn't anything, but a semi-rigid plastic shell clip-on for the gun could be modified. A little cutting with a jewelers’ saw, a few strokes with a deburring tool and a buff with a nonwoven abrasive pad made the sight fit. A soft zip case and a cleaning kit and they were done at that counter.

  "Help me pick one of these for you," Roger asked her stopping at a display of heavy parkas.

  "They had much prettier ones at the ladies shop," Martee protested.

  "Yes and they would be fine for running between the truck and a store, even in the coldest winter day. But if you got the truck struck in a ditch half way to town and had to walk you'd freeze to death. This is something where you have to consider function over form," he insisted.

  She picked one, which just happened to be the brightest color with contrasting piping, but he could tell she wasn't convinced a flashy ski jacket wouldn't be better. He was pretty sure the course of least resistance would be to simply buy both.

  Cooperville was large enough to have a big box electronics store and Rog bought the best laptop they had, with a DVD4+ burner and a jumbo pack of 500Gig disks. He was pretty sure Martee would like it better than a netbook, with a very limited screen. He bought the dual power set up, one battery and one alcohol fuel cell. As much cheaper as it was, he didn't want a hard drive with moving parts, no matter how reliable it was. Instead he went for the solid state memory with 400TB.

  With full multimedia and voice recognition, it should be perfect for Martee. Just for safety he bought an extra fuel cell and a padded carrier case for it that would hold accessories. He knew exactly what he wanted and the salesman seemed a bit disappointed by that. Martee just tagged along and listened as he explained why he was choosing each feature and what she could do with it. The bill was a bit of a bite, but this should be the last big expense for awhile. He put it on his debit card, there was no practical way to hide the transaction anyway.

  "That's how I'm used to paying for things," Martee commented after watching the transaction.

  "Do you have a card like this?"

  "Some people, especially children carry a little thing," she made a square with her finger tips, "thicker like the one you use to unlock your truck. But most people it is built in their phone, or like me in their computer."

  "So you don't use cash?"

  "Not widely, for several thousands of years and then it was little pieces of metal like I saw them give you at Keith's. We can get paper printed out like I told you, but it's uncommon. Sometimes people use them for street food vendors and hobbyists who sell fruit and such along the road. But almost any real business takes electronic payments. I don't know why they bother anymore."

  "Probably to cover up payments that would embarrass people," Roger predicted, "I can see politicians making all cash disappear, when nobody takes bribes and kickbacks anymore."

  "When we get back home I'll show you how to use this computer," he promised, as they got back to the truck, "and tomorrow maybe start on how to use the pistol properly. This computer has a lot more memory than yours. It will hold as much music as you can possibly listen to the whole winter. I'm assuming you still want to stay awhile? You are blending in nicely, but I think you still need to learn a lot, before I'd trust you to travel anywhere on your own."

  "Please. I thank you for your hospitality. I'd have never stayed out of trouble with your police, much less my own, without you. I still have to find some way to get local funds also. I really appreciate you letting me use the computer."

  "Maybe I wasn't clear. I bought the computer for you. It's not a loan; it is a gift. I don't think you have any idea what a huge body of music and movies there is to download. You could sample it all for years and never listen to something twice."

  "I'm
overwhelmed," she said, her face said it was no exaggeration. "My little computer was a fortune in our money and my job superiors wouldn't help me buy it at all. You can't get a personal weapon because they just don't sell them. They are made for police and if you had one it would have to be stolen. When I can find a way to make local money, you should let me pay for some of the expense I am causing you." She worried.

  "When I feel I can go back to my ship safely, I brought some trade goods. We don't have anything like your art, that wouldn't get laughed at, but I brought basic materials you value more than we do. We do mining in space and visit very different worlds, so what we regard as scarce is different. That kind of trade would be forbidden without openly recognizing your world, but I’m a criminal now for coming here anyway, so what's the difference?"

  "Well sure, I can see that would make you feel better. I can help you figure out how to convert your trade goods and if you have enough I wouldn't feel bad to let you kick in a little for expenses. What you got to swap?" he wondered.

  "I brought a bunch of the natural carbon crystals, you people like so well. But nobody on our worlds cuts them to be pretty like you do, so they are just plain. I hope they are still tradable uncut?" she asked.

  "Are they clear, or do they have little specks and impurities in them?" he managed to ask, without his voice cracking too bad.

  "These are nice and clear, because they were sorted out to make lenses and instrument covers. There are some worlds where they scoop them up with a big machine off the ground," she demonstrated with her cupped hand, "but the clear ones cost a little more, because of sorting them from the ones they crush for abrasive," she informed him.

  "They have an automatic machine that grinds a little flat on them and shines a light through it, but it doesn't work as well as we might like. It can tell if some are clear but not if they have a tint of color, so we'll have to look and see if there are any to throw away."

  "The pretty ones are at a premium here too," he assured her. "If they have a tint don't worry, people like those kind too," shaking his head at her idea of tossing them. "How big is your ship, that you have room to bring trade goods?"

  "Oh it's the commonest size. Not much bigger than this truck. It is really hard to make anything bigger than one of these big trucks we pass, with the separate trailer, go between stars. Even that is much more expensive to make than my little ship and the authorities discourage it as inefficient."

  "So you have nothing like a bulk carrier to haul ore or grain?"

  "There are a few things, like rare drugs and seeds, that are worthwhile, but even things like this computer are cheaper to make where you need it. You pretty much have to be able to make what you need to live on each planet, you can't live on imports. We just don't make pretty little things, like you people do."

  "How about that mothership you told me about? Surely it must be bigger than a semi?"

  "Oh sure, but they built it here from local materials. Now that it's made it will always stay here. It is more like a dormitory than a ship. They usually build something like that, where they don't want their people mingling with the natives. It's much too big to jump between stars. They can move around, but they mostly leave it on the far side of your moon now. It's really tough to sneak around now that your radar is so good. "

  "So, if you had a hard time affording a computer, how could you possibly afford a starship?"

  "Oh, I could never buy one," she said emphatically. "It was a rental. I may be a bit late returning it and they may be a little upset there wasn't enough in my account to cover the fee for the overage," she said coyly.

  Why, Roger wondered, don’t I feel any attraction at all? She prettied herself up quite a bit and is witty. He loved her droll humor when the language barrier drops enough to allow it to come across like just now.

  When they returned home the sun was set, but they were still in twilight. Before he even opened the storm shutters Roger looked at the ground around the cabin leaving his truck headlights on across the ground at the entry. Once he was satisfied no one had been around unless they were a better woodsman than he, they opened the shutters and went in.

  Supper was Mexican food, mostly some things from the freezer, he had made enough of before for several meals. The corn tortilla enchiladas were his own, but assembled a couple months ago with shredded spicy pork that had just a touch of smoky taste from the grill. He had a jar of Salsa Verde he made from fresh tomatillos and the jalapeños had not quite enough kick so he added one habañero to the batch. He squeezed a fresh lime in it because the taste faded in a week and put it out with a bottle of Crystal hot sauce. Rice he made fresh and had to be happy with black beans from a can, with a spoon full of diced garlic from the fridge. He warned Martee to taste it carefully, worried how she'd react to the heat, but she loved it and put more of the Salsa Verde on than he would have guessed she could tolerate.

  "I tried to grow tomatillos here, to make the sauce but it didn't work too well. The growing season is too short here and they got a little shocky after I put them out. This is the sort of thing you have to drive to Cooperville to buy instead of Sitra Falls. John at the Foodland could get a lot more business with the summer folks, if he'd put out a few more things like tomatillos in the summer, but he won't. They stop in for bread and milk but drive up to Cooperville if they want a fancy ham, or some kind of fish that doesn't come in a freezer pack."

  Martee was holding the Crystal hot sauce, rolling the bottle around in her hand, playing with it.

  "I see you tried a little of that on your rice. It isn't much hotter than the green stuff, but you can use it on a lot of things. Sometimes I just open a can of tuna when I'm in a hurry and dump a good dollop of that on top." She made a note he would bet was ‘dollop.’ It was getting noticeably longer between things she had to note.

  "What I'm marveling at is not the sauce, but the bottle. It is so pleasing to the eye. It is not efficient for shipping and the shape has no advantage to gripping it," she said sliding her hand up the tapered neck, "but it is so beautiful you could put the empty in a museum exhibit. Maybe someone did," she mused, "before the cops went around trying to clean up Earth influences."

  "It might look better still full," he pointed out. "After all, the green cap is mean to counterpoint the red color and the empty bottle wouldn't show that."

  "You're a soldier, but you understand how the person thought who created this," she marveled.

  "Well sure. You have to understand we are bombarded with advertising and marketing ploys, from before we can walk. If you don't get some sense of how they are trying to hook you, they'll fleece you sure as shit."

  "That is not nice language to teach me, Roger. If I repeat it in the wrong place I may upset people like you did at breakfast when we met." It was the first time he was sure she was irritated with him over anything. She continued looking at her screen. "This fleece is like what you get off sheep?" she asked.

  "Well, I was a soldier," he emphasized. "We're sort of expected to be crude with our language on occasion. And it can be expressive to use a crude term for a crude reality, although it gets old real fast and just sounds like you are a moron if you use it too much. I'll try to warn you," he allowed, backing down a little. "Computer," he instructed by voice, "do a net search for – sheep shearing, video – and display on screen." For once it didn't hiccup at a voice command and displayed a fellow, Australian by the clothing, shearing a sheep with surprising speed. Martee was so fascinated she temporarily stopped eating.

  "That's how the advertising boys will leave you, after they have you convinced you absolutely need whatever they are selling today," as the newly-nude sheep staggered back to its feet, all disoriented from its indignities.

  "Perhaps our police were right," Martee admitted dismayed, "but we'd give up so much," she said looking back at the bottle.

  "So Martee, why are you concerned about that?" Something about her tone worried him. "I'm sure there must be more here than you can possibly ab
sorb in a lifetime, if you want to pursue it and it doesn't sound like your authorities are going to give most of your people a chance to get fleeced," he pointed out.

  "I didn't know… You couldn't possibly understand," she struggled to explain. "I saw some Earth objects as a child and more later where I was employed. I'm what you'd call a History professor, at the closest thing we have to a university. These artifacts were presented as products of a primitive culture that wasted effort on meaningless decoration. There are some few people on other planets who are hunters, who use the bead and stitching to decorate their clothing, but when I saw the full dress of a Plains Indian with every surface covered with bright patterns of solid beadwork and the painting and metal work and beautiful leather work and feathers all on one costume…" She spread her hands to show it was too much to encompass.

  "I knew there was no comparison with any other culture we had found. It affected a few of us deeply, but others looked at it in puzzlement. Some people just don't 'get it' as you'd say. They look at something beautiful and there just isn't any reaction. And of course the official reaction is one of hostile superiority. They certainly never anticipated it would appeal to anyone, or they would have never allowed samples to be brought out. The problem got much worse, when things started being sent home that were as good as anything modern we built and still beautiful," she said. "They could not dismiss them as primitive."

  "Like what?" Roger urged her.

  "Like computers. I remember a pocket calculator that was brought back by the same museum that displayed the American Indian clothing. It said Texas Instruments on the face and it had a model number. It had such a grace to its proportions and pleasant colors on the face. It was easy to assume it was a special piece, a one of a kind piece of art, not consumer goods. The corners were all rounded and the keys were of a soft material even though they had symbols on them. It was art just sitting, not even turned on."