Jack Vance - Meet Miss Universe

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Jack Vance . . . Meet Miss Universe - Fantastic Universe March 1955

The Oxford English Dictionary would scarcely hold all of the words that have been written about

feminine beauty by Shakespeare alone. Lesser bards have swelled the total hugely. Is feminine

beauty only skin-deep? Or can it be more justly compared to a sunset, staining the sky with depths

beyond depths of radiance? Science-fiction maestro Jack Vance has an answer that will give you

pause, in a frame of reference startlingly, excitingly new.

Miss universe was quite the most glamorous creature in all the

universe of stars. How could earthmen be so tragically blind?

Hardeman Clydell turned to-ward his smart young assistant Tony LeGrand.

"Your idea has a certain mad charm," he said. "But—can it add to what we've

already got?"

"That's a good question," Le-Grand said. He looked down across what they

already had: the Calif-nia Tri-Centennial Exposition, a concrete disk two

miles wide, crusted with white towers, rust-red terraces, emerald gardens,

sapphire pools, segmented by four great: boulevards: North, East, South,

West—3.1416 square miles of grandeur and expense in the middle of the Mojave

Desert.

A five-thousand-foot pylon, rear-ing from the Conclave of the Universe,

held a tremendous mag-nesium parasol against the sting of the desert sun.

Half-way up the pylon, a platform supported the administrative offices and an

ob-servation deck where Hardeman Clydell, the Exposition's General Director,

and Tony LeGrand now stood.

"I believe," said LeGrand, frowning at the cigar Clydell had given him,

"that anything can stand improvement, including the Cali-fornia Tri-Centennial

Exposition."

Hardeman Clydell smiled indul-gently. "Assuming all these beau-tiful women

exist—"

"I'm sure they do."

"—how do you propose to lure them here across all that space, all those

light years?"

LeGrand, glib, insouciant, hand-some, considered himself an au-thority on

female psychology. "In the first place, all beautiful' women are vain."

"As well as all the rest of them."

LeGrand nodded. "Exactly. So we offer free passage on a deluxe packet and a

grand prize for the winner. We won't have any trou-ble collecting

contestants."

Clydell puffed on his cigar. He had enjoyed a good lunch; the construction,

furbishing, decoration of the Exposition was proceeding on schedule; he was in

the mood for easy conversation.

"It's a clever thought," said Clydell. "But—" He shrugged. "There are

considerations past and beyond the mere existence of beautiful women."

"Oh, I agree one hundred per cent."

"Lots of the out-world folk don't like to travel. I believe the word is

'parochial.' And what do we use for prizes? There's a problem!"

LeGrand nodded thoughtfully. "It's got to be something spectacu-lar." He

was usually able to shift the ground under Clydell, maneuvering so that

Clydell's objections con insensibly became arguments pro.

"'Spectacular' isn't enough," said Clydell. "We've also got to be

practical. We offer a yacht. A girl from Deserta Delicta wins. She's never

seen more than a mud-puddle. What does she do with the yacht?"

"Something we've got to consider."

Clydell went on. "Take a girl on Conexxa. Give her jewels and she'd laugh

at you. She's thrown diamonds big as your fist at strange dogs."

"Maybe a Rolls Royce Aero-naut—"

"There again. Veidranus ride butterflies. Picture a Veidranu girl driving

an Aeronaut through all those vines and flowers!"

LeGrand took a shallow puff at the cigar. "It's a challenge, Harde-man . .

. What kind of prize would you suggest?"

"Something indefinite," said Cly-dell. "Give 'em whatever they want. Let

the winner name it."

"Suppose she named the city of Los Angeles?" LeGrand said with a merry

laugh.

"Anything within reason. Set a valuation of a hundred thousand dollars on

it."

"By golly, Hardeman, I think you've come up with something!" Tony put

down his cigar. "Of course there are problems ..."

This was a key gambit. Harde-man Clyde's favorite aphorism was, "Every

problem has its solu-tion." To use the word "problem" was to push one of

Clydell's most reliable buttons.

"Hmmf. Nothing which couldn't be solved," said Clydell. "Every problem has

its solution."

Tony approached the second phase of his plan; so startling and outré was

the entirety that he had not dared to broach the whole thing at once.

"We'd be pretty limited, of course," he said. "There's only half a dozen

worlds with humanoid life. Some of those are C's and D's —not really human at

all. And we wouldn't want to fool with any-thing second-rate." He slapped his

fist into his palm. "I've got it! Listen to this, Hardeman, it's a killer!"

"I'm listening," said Clydell noncommittally.

"Let's throw the contest wide open! Come one, come all! Every planet sends

their most beautiful female!"

Clydell stared blankly. "What do you mean, 'every planet’? Every planet in

the Solar System?"

"No!" cried LeGrand enthusias-tically. "Every planet that's got an

intelligent civilization. Let the whole galaxy in on it!"

Clydell smiled at the whimsy of his aide. "Okay. We get a Millamede and a

Johnsonian, a Pentacynth or two, and maybe a Jangrill from Blue-star if we can

find one. So horrible that even their own husbands won't look them in the

face. And we set them up against, say, Althea Daybro, or Mercedes O'Donnell."

Clydell spat over the railing, made a rasping noise in his throat. "I admit

it makes a macabre spec-tacle—but where does 'beauty con-test' come in?"

LeGrand nodded thoughtfully. "It's a problem that's got to be worked out. A

problem ..."

Clydell shook his head. "I'm not sold on this last angle. It lacks

dignity."

"You're right," said Tony Le-Grand. "We can't let this become a farce.

Because it's not just an ordinary beauty-contest—it's more important. An

experiment in inter-world relations. Now if we got some very distinguished men

for judges—yourself for instance—the Secretary General—Mathias Bradisnek—Herve

Christom. Also judges from some of the other worlds. The Prime of Ursa Major.

The Veidranu Prefect—what's his name? And the Baten Kaitos Grand Mar-shall

..."

Clydell puffed his cigar. "Organizing it that way would make the judging

impartial . . . But how in the world could I compare some cute little Earth

girl with a Sadal Suud Isobrod? Or one of those Pleiades dragon-women? That's

the rub of the whole matter."

"It's a stumbling block ... A big problem. A big problem."

"Well," said Clydell. "Every problem has its solution. That's an axiom,"

Tony said thoughtfully, "Sup-pose we judged each candidate by her own

standards—by the ideals of her own people? That way the contest becomes

perfectly fair."

Clydell puffed vigorously on his cigar. "Possible, possible."

"We do some research, get the ideal of every race. A set of

specifi-cations. Whoever most closely ap-proaches the ideal specifications is

winner. Miss Universe!"

Hardeman Clydell cleared his throat. "All this is very well, Tony.

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Jack Vance - Meet Miss Universe

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