The People Upstairs

Evelyn E. Smith

• Publisher: Start Publishing LLC
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781649741691
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Science Fiction
• Index: Literature

There was something subtly different about them. Old Mrs. Danko sensed this, and muttered about the evil eye. A number of people have suggested that extra-terrestrials live among us. Here is a different kind of story suggesting just this possibility, written from the standpoint of the alien, faced with the necessity of adjusting to a (to him—to her) strange and even distasteful culture. Evelyn E. Smith is best known as the author of the Miss Melville mysteries. From 1952 to 1969 she wrote dozens of science fiction and fantasy short stories that appeared in magazines such as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy, Super Science Fiction, and Fantastic Universe. Her stories were witty, well written, often humorous, and always unforgettable.

There was something subtly different about them. Old Mrs. Danko sensed this, and muttered about the evil eye. A number of people have suggested that extra-terrestrials live among us. Here is a different kind of story suggesting just this possibility, written from the standpoint of the alien, faced with the necessity of adjusting to a (to him—to her) strange and even distasteful culture.

“Good evening, Mrs. Greene,” the woman from the third floor said, as the woman from the sixth entered the self-service elevator.

“Good evening, Mrs. Gottesmann,” Mrs. Greene replied, not discourteously, but with an absent air so far removed from her usual detached friendliness that the woman from the third was moved to inquire further. Perhaps she would pick up some tidbit of disaster to be relayed to the other tenants as they foregathered at the washing machines in the basement.

At that, Mrs. Greene gave her neatly coiffed head a little shake and smiled. “I’m just tired,” she said. “You know how exhausting shopping can be. And those subways !”

Her voice had a foreign accent, but, then, so did the other woman’s. Very few native-born Americans lived in this section of New York City, except for the very young who had achieved their nativity during the past decade or so. However, although Mrs. Gottesmann’s accent was readily identifiable as German, Mrs. Greene’s was hard to place. The neighbors had spent the better part of ten years trying to place it and had come to their own conclusions.

“Yes, the trains are awful,” Mrs. Gottesmann agreed, disappointed. “I try to do as much of my shopping around here as I can.” She waited...but Mrs. Greene merely smiled in reply.

When the other woman left the elevator at the third floor, the faint frown reappeared on Mrs. Greene’s face—a very smooth face, in spite of the fact that it was frankly middle-aged; even the scowl hardly dinted it.

Still frowning, she got out at the sixth floor and unlocked the door to her apartment. “Is that you, dear?” a man’s voice called from inside, not in English.

“Yes, Dan,” she said, so wearily that her husband came out into the foyer to see what was wrong.

He was a medium-sized, stocky man of about her age, with nothing to give him distinction save the fact that his face was light green. Not a striking light green, but a green that was a perfectly reasonable and appropriate color for a skin—rather a dull green, though by no means olive. And the pupils of his eyes were red—a restrained, almost maroon, red. Back on Milotis, he had been picked for this job as much for the very ordinariness of his appearance as for his ability, and, even without his disguise, he looked strangely ordinary in Earth terms as well as Milotan.

His wife peeled the silk-thin plastomask from her face and slipped off the contact lenses. “I’ve been to New York to see Dr. Robinson,” she said tonelessly.

“You’re ill!” He moved closer to her, as if to protect her bodily from the attacking virus. “But I thought we were immune to all Earth diseases!”

“So far as I know, we still are.”

A brilliant scarlet flared briefly in Dan’s eyes. “It’s something organic? Then we must go back. He can’t treat you adequately here.”

She smiled at him, and her voice was a little easier. “Organic, in a sense. I’m going to have a baby.”

She removed her coat.

He took it from her and stood there holding it. “But you’re past the age!”

“Evidently not. Either hang up my coat, dear, or let me do it myself.”

He opened the door to the closet and, neatly, as he did everything, placed the coat on a hanger; then followed her to the bedroom. All the rooms in the small apartment were furnished in the conventional department store modern—brown monotone...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• The People Upstairs