Tommy sighed. "In a word—yes. So far we've gotten nowhere at a thousand miles an hour."
"I can't do it!" the cosmetician wailed, hurling himself down on a chair and burying his face in his hands. "I've failed. Failed!"
The Grdznth sitting on the stool looked regretfully from the cosmetician to the Public Relations men. "I say—I am sorry...." His coarse voice trailed off as he peeled a long strip of cake makeup off his satiny green face.
Pete Greenwood stared at the cosmetician sobbing in the chair. "What's eating him?"
"Professional pride," said Tommy. "He can take twenty years off the face of any woman in Hollywood. But he's not getting to first base with Gorgeous over there. This is only one thing we've tried," he added as they moved on down the corridor. "You should see the field reports. We've tried selling the advances Earth will have, the wealth, the power. No dice. The man on the street reads our PR-blasts, and then looks up to see one of the nasty things staring over his shoulder at the newspaper."
"So you can't make them beautiful," said Pete. "Can't you make them cute?"
"With those teeth? Those eyes? Ugh."
"How about the 'jolly company' approach?"
"Tried it. There's nothing jolly about them. They pop out of nowhere, anywhere. In church, in bedrooms, in rush-hour traffic through Lincoln Tunnel—look!"