Part 3

"It's nothing new. Tourists have always kicked up their heels. Guess what I saw while I was out to lunch. The cops grabbed a couple of your boys for shoplifting! They thought it was such fun to ride in the paddy-wagon. Back home, of course, they wouldn't think of repositing anything they weren't supposed to, but on Earth it's different."

"And for monkeyshines like that," the Ambassador growled, "I am driven half crazy working out sleep-record courses. '_Idioms of Earth English_'--'_What Not to Say on Backward Planets and Why_'--'_Earth Fashion Guide, What You Can Buy There and What to Reposit_.' Bah! I'm supposed to be a diplomat, not a fashion adviser!"

"Why don't you hire some help?" Jerry suggested.

"I have. I've hired a whole staff, with offices in all major Earth cities, to exchange platinum, bullion, and precious stones for Earth currencies. It's a man-sized job, I can tell you, to keep Earth currencies stable under this load!"

"You're doing a very good job," Jerry said, soothingly.

"You know what one of our citizens asked me yesterday? _How she could get a marriage license!_ Your officials had turned her down, because she'd been conditioned not to mention her birthplace and age. Mind you, a citizen of the Federated Planets wanted to marry an Earthman and live on this raw, Galactic frontier the rest of her life! Why, we don't even know whether the races can cross-breed!"

"That should be looked into," Jerry agreed.

"What are you trying to do?" the Ambassador demanded, "Drag the citizens of the Federated Planets down to the level of your jungle? You blithely assume those two shoplifters can be trusted with Matter Repositors when they get back home, but I'm not so sure. We haven't any jails to toss them into, but we may have to establish some. Matter-Repositor-proof jails!"

"That's your problem," Jerry said. "All I'm trying to do is make some money for myself and, other businessmen on Earth. Which I'm doing, thank you. And I doubt that you could stop me, at this point. Your citizens would raise quite a howl if my ads stopped appearing in the information bulletins."

"Money!" the Ambassador exclaimed, "All you Earthmen think about is money!" He leaned over Jerry's desk. "What if you could reposit the money--the gold, that is--without all the work you have to put into entertaining these tourists?"

"Hmm," Jerry said, thinking of his date for that evening, and other equally lovely tourists. "Money isn't the only thing in life. And don't forget the income tax. I've got to have some deductible expenses."

"Knowing you, I'd bet you could figure out some way of handling that little detail."

"What's your proposition?"

"Two years ago, you came to my office, wanting to import Matter Repositors. I told you Earth's civilization wasn't ready for them."

"We still aren't, according to what you say about our avaricious instincts."

"No, you're not. But you have methods of manipulating public opinion and attitudes that are far more advanced than those found on other planets."

"So you admit that Earth is advanced in _something_!" Jerry said happily.

"How would you like to have the name of Jerry Jergins go down in your history as the originator of the most significant public-relations campaign ever undertaken on this planet?" the Ambassador asked, temptingly. "You can handle it, if any man on Earth can."

"Softsoaping me again! What's the campaign? I'll listen to it, but I don't know whether I'll buy it."

"Your job would be to get Earth's psychology and sociology ready for the Matter Repositor."

Jerry reflected. "You mean I'd have to eliminate war, supplement the Voice of America, and so on? I'd have certain advantages over the Voice of America, at that. I wouldn't have a bunch of politicians playing football with my appropriations."

"This campaign would have to go further and deeper than the Voice of America. You might call it the Voice of Conscience. Its aim would be to make every human being on Earth care more about the welfare of his fellow-man than he cares about his own."

"A couple of thousand years back," Jerry said, soberly, "a better Promoter than I tried to put that idea across. The campaign He started is still running. It's taken hold in some quarters, but I wouldn't say public acceptance is anything like worldwide yet."

"Then you don't think you can do it?" the Ambassador asked, his eagerness somewhat deflated.

"I'm not committing myself to whether I could or couldn't. I could put the Ten Commandments on an international hookup. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor his goods. I could get Walt Disney to dramatize the golden rule."

"Ah, I see you have some ideas for the copy already," the Ambassador said. "I thought I could get you interested in it. Then you'll sign a contract?"

"No," Jerry said, briefly and definitely.

"Now, wait a minute, Mr. Jergins," the Ambassador protested. "Why do you suddenly become blunt and unqualified? Do you realize what I'm offering you? In return for ceasing this tourist promotion, I'm offering you the invention that obsolesces all others--the Matter Repositor!"

Jerry stood up and placed the palms of his hands flat on his desk. "I told you that you'd learn something in our primitive jungle, Mr. Ambassador. Well, this is it. We may be mechanical morons, according to your standards, but we naked savages can produce anything we need. Since we've corrected the misconception that what Earth produces isn't good enough for Earthmen, and whipped up a tourist trade, business is booming. And when it booms, we can distribute those Earth products in a way that suits us pretty well. A primitive way, you may think, but one that is adapted to the unfortunate circumstance that we aren't a bunch of little tin saints living in an ideal world.

"I asked you for Matter Repositors once, and you were wise enough to turn me down. I'm glad you did. They'd cause us more trouble than the atomic bomb. We don't want the damn things. Do _you_ understand _that_?"

On sudden impulse, Jerry strode across his office. There stood a large and brilliantly colored object, jarring oddly with the other furniture. Sometimes at a loss to spend his newly acquired wealth, Jerry had yielded, a month or so before, to a desire conceived in childhood to own a real honest-to-goodness juke box.

Jerry fished in his pocket for a nickel, deposited it in the slot, pushed button seven. Loud, tinny, and offensively blatant, the strains of "I Don't Wanna Leave the Congo" filled the office, effectively drowning out any further remarks the Ambassador from Outer Space might have wished to make.

"If you'll pardon me," Jerry shouted over the din, "I have some arrow heads to chip--and a potential extraterrestrial mate to woo with a quaint tribal ritual we call dating on Earth."

End of Project Gutenberg's The Pilot and the Bushman, by Sylvia Jacobs