THE POLITE PEOPLE OF PUDIBUNDIA
By R. A. LAFFERTY
This was a world where minding
your manners was more than just
a full-time job—it was murder!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Well, you will soon see for yourself, Marlow. Yes, I know there arepeculiar stories about the place. There are about all places. The youngpilots who have been there tell some amusing tales about it."
"Yes. They say the people there are very polite."
"That is the honorable ancestor of all understatements. One of thepilots, Conrad, told us that the inhabitants must always carry seventypes of eyeglasses with them. None of the Puds, you see, may evergaze directly on another. That would be the height of impoliteness.They wear amber goggles when they go about their world at large,and these they wear when they meet a stranger. But, once they areintroduced to him, then they must thereafter look on him through blueglasses. But at a blood relative they gaze through red, and at anin-law through yellow. There are equally interesting colors for othersituations."
"I would like to talk to Conrad. Not that I doubt his reports. It isthe things he did not report that interest me."
"I thought you knew he had died. Thrombosis, though he was sound enoughwhen first certified."
"But if they are really people, then it should be possible tounderstand them."
"But they are not really people. They are metamorphics. They becomepeople only out of politeness."
"Detail that a little."
"Oh, they're biped and of a size of us. They have a chameleon-like skinthat can take on any texture they please, and they possess extremeplasticity of features."
"You mean they can take on the appearance of people at will?"
"So Bently reported."
"I hadn't heard of him."
"Another of the young pilots. According to Bently, not only do the Pudstake on a human appearance, they take on the appearance of the humanthey encounter. Out of politeness, of course."
"Quite a tribute, though it seems extreme. Could I talk to Bently?"
"Also dead. A promising young man. But he reported some of the mostamusing aspects of all: the circumlocutions that the Puds use inspeaking our language. Not only is the Second Person eschewed out ofpoliteness, but in a way all the other Persons also. One of them couldnot call you by your name, Marlow. He would have to say: 'One hears ofone who hears of one of the noble name of Marlow. One hears of one evennow in his presence.'"
"Yes, that is quite a polite way of saying it. But it would seem thatwith all their circumlocutions they would be inefficient."
"Yet they are quite efficient. They do things so well that it is almostimperative that we learn from them. Yet for all our contacts, for alltheir extreme politeness coupled with their seeming openness, we havebeen able to learn almost nothing. We cannot learn the secret of theamazing productivity of their fields. According to Sharper, another ofthe young pilots, they suggest (though so circumspectly that it seemshardly a suggestion, certainly not a criticism) that if we were morepolite to our own plants, the plan