Free First Command by A. Bertram Chandler Page B

marvelous. But it’s not. I’m being undressed by dozens of pairs of eyes. Do you know, I was afraid that the King was going to order me to strip.”
    “That shouldn’t worry an Arcadian,” John Grimes told him. “After all, you’re all brought up as nudists.”
    “And I don’t see why it should worry him,” Brasidus put in, “unless he is ashamed of his deformities.”
    Margaret Lazenby flared, “To begin with, Sergeant, I’m not deformed. Secondly, the correct pronouns to use insofar as I am concerned are ‘she’ and ‘her.’ Got it?”
    “And are those pronouns to be used when talking of the other spacemen who are similarly . . . malformed?” asked Brasidus.
    “Yes. But, as a personal favor, will you, please, stop making remarks about the shape of my body?”
    “All right.” Then he said, meaning no offense, “On Sparta nobody is deformed.”
    “Not physically,” remarked Margaret Lazenby nastily, and then it was the Sergeant’s turn to lapse into a sulky silence, one that remained unbroken all the rest of the way to the ship.
    Brasidus left the spacemen at the barrier, then reported to Spaceport Security. Diomedes was seated in his inner office, noisily enjoying his midday meal. He waved the Sergeant to a bench, gestured toward the food and drink on the table. “Help yourself, young man. And how did things go? Just the important details. I already know that the King has agreed to let Grimes carry out some sort of survey, and I’ve just received word that Pausanius has lost his head. But what were your impressions?”
    Deliberately Brasidus filled a mug with beer. Officers were allowed stronger liquor than the lower-ranking hoplites, even those with the status of sergeant. He rather hoped that the day would soon come when he would be able to enjoy this tipple in public. He gulped pleasurably. Then he said, “It must be a funny world that they come from. To begin with, they didn’t seem to have any real respect for the King. Oh, they were correct enough, but . . . I could sense, somehow, that they were rather looking down on him. And then . . . they were shocked, sir, really shocked when I told them what was going to happen to Pausanius. It’s hard to credit.”
    “In my job I’m ready and willing to credit anything. But go on.”
    “This Margaret Lazenby, the Arcadian. She seems to have a terror of nudity.”
    “She, Brasidus?”
    “Yes, sir. She told me to refer to her as ‘she’. Do you know, it sounds and feels right, somehow.”
    “Go on.”
    “You’ll remember, sir, that we saw a picture in Lieutenant Commander Grimes’ cabin of what seemed to be a typical beach scene on Arcadia. Everybody was naked.”
    “H’m. But you will recall that in that picture humans and Arcadians were present in roughly equal numbers. To know that one is in all ways inferior is bad enough. To be inferior and in the minority—that’s rather much. His—or her—attitude as far as this world is concerned makes sense, Brasidus. But how did it come up?”
    “She said, when we were driving back through the city, that she felt as though she were being undressed by the eyes of all the people looking at her. (Why should she have that effect on humans? I’m always wondering myself what she is like under her uniform.) And she said that she was afraid that King Cresphontes was going to order her to strip in front of him and the Council.”
    “Men are afflicted by peculiar phobias, Brasidus. You’ve heard of Teleclus, of course?”
    “The Lydian general, sir?”
    “The same. A very brave man, as his record shows. But let a harpy get into his tent and he’s a gibbering coward.” He picked up a meaty bone, gnawed on it meditatively. “So don’t run away with the idea that this Arcadian is outrageously unhuman in his—or ‘her’—reactions.” He smiled greasily. “She may be more human than you dream.”
    “What are you getting at, sir? What do you know?”
    Diomedes waved the bone playfully at