She understood, and stared horrified at me. I'd lost. Bowed my head, feeling like the damned fool I was.
She looked around the room. "It's so strange!"
"And with ingrained racial conditioning, you couldn't respond to a thin, sallow alien."
"I don't know," she said hesitantly.
"I do!" Mel said. "The oldest story in science fiction; it's true; I can't write it."
"Why not?"
"No editor in right or wrong mind would buy the beautiful Earth damsel, after whom lusts the Monster from Venus—"
Frank snapped: "He isn't a monster! And his manners are better than many writers' I could name ..."
Her voice trailed off with awareness of Mel's tiny smile—a smile that widened. He pulled her toward the door. "What a story! We'll hold the wedding in a Turkish Bath."
Alone, I sighed, comfortable again after three years. I was grateful to the GG, and would do anything, within limits, for them. Yet, my newly adopted planet needed protection. Babes in the woods, they'd be torn to pieces outside.