The Girls From Earth

By FRANK M. ROBINSON
Illustrated by EMSH
Problem: How can you arrange marriages with men in one solar system, women in another—and neither willing to leave his own world?
The beasts aren't much help, are they?
Karl Allen snatched a breath of air and gave another heave on the line tied to the raft of parampa logs bobbing in the middle of the river.
No, he grunted, they're not. They always balk at a time like this, when they can see it'll be hard work.
Joseph Hill wiped his plump face and coiled some of the rope's slack around his thick waist.
Together now, Karl. One! Two!
They stood knee-deep in mud on the bank, pulling and straining on the rope, while some few yards distant, in the shade of a grove of trees, their tiny yllumphs nibbled grass and watched them critically, but made no effort to come closer.
If we're late for ship's landing, Joe, we'll get crossed off the list.
Hill puffed and wheezed and took another hitch on the rope.
That's what I've been thinking about, he said, worried.