"Just this one. You've got cans of telefilm in the cellar, but them I
don't mind. This," he flicked it with a thumbnail, "I do mind."
"As long as I stay," Phoebe said quietly, "my darling Don's picture
stays."
"But what about your darling Henry? Am I just a humandroid who looks and
behaves and talks like a human being? Haven't I got feelings?" Henry
strode around the room, hitting the fibroid floor like a prehistoric
monster on a sandpaper bridge. "Either that picture goes," he said
finally, definitely, "or I go!"
Phoebe shook out her blonde hair, letting it fall about her shoulders.
"Too bad."
* * * * *
Inside of an hour he had packed his suitcases. Phoebe cried bitterly,
but wouldn't budge about the picture. Henry took the plane. He put up at
his club, went to the bar, and was gobbling down something called
pressurized scotch, when he heard a noise back of him.
"Get away from me!" said Henry, who was quite a few over the traditional
eight by this time. "I've had enough of Don Manton, let alone his
helpers."
Speed Roggs, who had taken a couple of trips with Manton, was tall and
thin as the barstool, and with a spaceman's ability to think fast when
he had to. Loudly he ordered a Venuswiz, explaining to a disgusted
Henry, "After the barkeep mixes the drink he melts the swizzle stick and
pours that in, too." He gulped the stuff down gratefully, then said,
"Tell me your troubles, Hank."
Henry did. Speed Roggs looked disgusted. "Are you serious?" he asked,
and when Henry swore to cut Speed's throat on asking that again, went
on, "Women are space-mad!"
As Henry agreed, Roggs said, "The one thing you don't understand about
Don Manton is that he was maladjusted. He couldn't stay still, he always
wanted what he couldn't have. That goes for his feelings for women,
too."
Henry looked up with bloodshot eyes nearly popping out of his head.
Roggs kept going. "Don and Phoebe never got along once they were
married. It was Manton's fault. Like all explorers he was unhappy over
his lot and looked beyond the rainbow. In fact, he told me once that the
only reason he went in for exploring space was to get away from his
wife."
Henry Weller suddenly rocked with laughter. He got to his feet, took
Roggs, and went to his room, still laughing. He lay on the bed for half
an hour. At the end of that time he sat up.
"Tell the manager I won't be here for supper," he said to Speed. "I've
got a little trip to make."
"Where are you going?"
"Home, to give the good tidings to my wife."
Henry's fibroid house looked about the same. He parked the plane and let
himself in by the roof door and down the extension staircase. He found
Phoebe in the kitchen bent over a pot, and at sound of him she turned. A
near-smile flickered in her blue eyes.
"Phoebe ..."
"Henry ..."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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