The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Customs Lounge, by E.A. Proulx This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: The Customs Lounge Author: E.A. Proulx Release Date: February 16, 2020 [EBook #61424] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CUSTOMS LOUNGE *** Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

THE CUSTOMS LOUNGE

BY E. A. PROULX

Anything can happen in the
customs lounge—since they
let those Earth people in!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

There were usually a few Customs Inspectors in the lounge, waiting to begin their shifts, hanging around trading news and incidents and drinking the bad, lukewarm kasser that was a standing joke in the Immigration-Customs Service.

Old Grag was telling for perhaps the eightieth time of a success of his when he was young in the Service.

"... They had this small box of sticky, squashy sweets with them. The young one was eating one. Many another Inspector would have passed them through, but I thought the young one chewed too much and too loud. So I said, 'Mind if I have one?'

"'Wah!' says they together, 'it would set you on edge, Noble Wise Inspector. It is the taste of another world.' They was Venusers, and they started shifting and hopping around, and humming their national anthem, you know how they used to do back in the old days. I made quite a nice little find. Almost a half-scree of chamfer in each one of those sweets. I got a promotion out of that, and the Venusers got a six-year close out."

"Hee, that's nothing. I recall back when we first opened up for Immigration, and a whole shipload of earthers came in. They were crammed in like tigs in a nest, and as usual they didn't know one word of the language, they didn't have any idea of where to go or how to do anything, and they'd got separated from their controller. They just stood around, huddled together and jabbering at each other. Well, I checked out about twenty of them, and then there comes up this big ugly female. Well, I jacks the elevator up some more, and I looks down at her.

"'Name!', I call. 'Gladdis Cracklegill,' or some other weird earth name she screams at me. 'Too much name,' I say. 'You've got enough name there for five of you. Which will you choose, Glad, Is, Crack, El or Gil?'

"Well, it took me a while to make her understand me—my earth accent wasn't too good then, and she was slow-headed, having only one, like all earthers. But I finally made her understand what I wanted to know, and then, by Clag, what a ramping frowst she did make!

"It was while she was screeching at me that I noticed her teeth were pretty big, even for such a huge beast as she was. So I secretly turned on the Dento-Spyer, right into her jaws, and what a sight on the view screen! Each of those big teeth was false and filled to the top with Earth seeds she was trying to smuggle!"

"I'm with you, Nask," said Inspector Sprim. "And I don't understand why they still keep routing earthers through Immigration anyway. They claim they're a borderline case, but when you've seen as many as I have, you know, which side of the border they're on."

Nask went off to the kasser dispenser and his place was taken by Brif, the head Inspector, who had been listening.

"Un-edge yourself, Sprim," smiled Brif, contracting one of his heads. "I have good news, rare news and fine news. The Four Council decision just came down to us. Earthers are now to be routed through Livestock instead of Immigration beginning very soon."

A cheer went up from the little group of Customs and Immigration officials. The one Livestock Inspector in the lounge groaned in despair.

"They've made themselves a mistake," he sputtered. "Earthers can be clever and tricky even after they're altered. Why, I seen them pull every trick in the book coming through here. Did I ever tell you about the stunted one with an artificial head who tried to pass himself off as a rest-park planner? Well, it seems that...."

Two young, but large inspectors sneaked away from the group when they saw old Flimp was launched into one of his dull yarns again.

Outside the lounge, after a quick look up and down the hall, they ducked into the robot-cleaner storage closet.

"Boy," gasped the shorter inspector. "I had to get out of there. Besides the torture of listening to that two-headed monster babble on and on about how he outwitted earthers when he was still able to move around, this miserable thing has started to come loose again."

He gave an impatient wrench to his left head, and it wobbled enough to expose some of the delicate wires that the earth robotic engineer had labored over so many hours.

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