“Oh, yes. I’m too finicky to be a very good mixer. There’s just too damn many people I simply can’t stand the smell of.”
“There’s that smell thing again,” Thlaskin said. “You’ve harped on it before. You mean to say you people’s noses are that sensitive?”
“Absolutely. No two people smell alike, you know. Some smell nice and some just plain stink. F’rinstance, the boss here smells just wonderful—I could hug him all day and love it. Doctor Janowick, too, she smells almost like the skipper. You’re nice, too, Thlaskin, and so is Maluleme, and Nadine. And Tommie ain’t bad; but a lot of the others are just too srizonified much for my stomach.”
“I see,” Cloud said. “You do give some people a lot of room around here.”
“Yeah, and that’s what got this chick I was telling Thlaskin here about in such a jam. She’s been bending her elbow pretty free, and taking a jab or so of this and that between drinks. But she ain’t sozzled, y’understand, not by many a far piece; just lit up like Nyok spaceport. She’s maybe been a bit on the friendly side with a few of her friends, so this big bruiser—not a Vegian; no tail, even; an Aldebaranian or some-such-like and a Class A-Triple-Prime stinker—gets interested in a big way. Well, he smells just like a Tellurian skunk, so she brushes him off, kind of private-like, a few times, but it don’t take, so she finally has to give him the old heave-ho right out in front of everybody.
“ ‘You slimy stinker, I’ve told you a dozen times it’s no dice—you stink!’ she says, loud, clear, and plain. ‘This ship ain’t big enough to let me get far enough away from you to hold my breakfast down,’ she says, and this burns the ape plenty.
“ ‘Lookit here, babe,’ he says, coming to a boil, ‘Bend an ear while I tell you something. No klevous Vegian chippie is going to play high and mighty with me, see? I’m fed up to the gozzle. So come down off your high horse right now, or I’ll. . . .’
“ ‘You’ll what?’ she snarls, and puts a hand behind her back. She’s seeing red now, and fit to be tied. ‘Make just one pass at me, you kedonolating slime-lizard,’ she says, ‘and I’ll bust your pfztikated skull wide open!’
“He goes for her then, but, being a Vegian, her footwork’s a lot better than his. She ducks, sidesteps, pulls her sap, and lets him have it, but good, right behind the ear. It takes the ship’s croaker an hour to bring him to, and the skipper’s so scared he blasts right back to Vegia and the croaker calls the hospital and tells ’em to have a meat-wagon standing by when we sit down.”
“A very interesting and touching tale, Vesta,” Cloud said then, in English, “but pretty rough language for a perfect lady, don’t you think?”