MAID—TO ORDER!
By HAL ANNAS
Herb Cornith didn't really mind getting
married as long as the girl answered his strict
specifications which were simply—a superwoman!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
February 1951
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Herb Cornith shook his dark head in disappointment. "Nope," he said,"she won't do. Lacks an ounce of being the right weight."
The willowy blonde behind the desk blinked blue eyes and frowned."But Mr. Cornith," she insisted, "you fit Miss Lucy Hollowell'sspecifications perfectly. She even specified that the man must be veryexacting, meticulous and choosy. Certainly you are being all of thatwhen you quibble over an ounce in her weight."
Cornith picked up the specification sheet in his muscular right hand.He studied it out of thoughtful brown eyes. "This doesn't look right,"he said. "I'll admit that I have strong features, but I'm not handsome."
"To a woman, you are handsome, Mr. Cornith. In fact, magnetically so."
"I'm only six feet tall, not seventy-three inches."
"That is a typographical error, Mr. Cornith. It should read seventy-twoinches. The corrected copy should be along soon. Something went wrongwith the machine."
"And my eyes are not particularly expressive. I generally conceal mythoughts."
"That, Mr. Cornith, is merely your own opinion. You don't know whatexpression you might put into your eyes when you look into the eyes ofyour soul-mate."
"The eyes of my what?"
"Excuse me, Mr. Cornith. I know you're not the poetic type. You're therugged type, but brainy, realistic. Still, you fit the specifications."
"You said there was another sheet to the specifications?"
"Yes. It won't be finished until tomorrow. But let me assure you thatit fits you. In fact, it describes your every virtue and fault."
Cornith glanced round the large room. His brown eyes came to rest ona model of an early Martian rocket ship. He studied it for a space,mentally seeing its interior and its outmoded atomic drive. It remindedhim that he should get back to the laboratory and check on thoseray-collector tests. This business of dickering over specifications fora wife was a nuisance. His requirements had been on file since he hadtaken the Levet test at the age of eighteen. Because of his exactingnature they had been hard to fill. Now at twenty-seven he was stillunmarried. Not that he cared. But by reason of the fact that he was ofthe higher mental level, and physically fitted to survive in a complexand expanding civilization, he was urged by the Foundation to marry andbeget children.
This was the accepted procedure. Marriage was seldom discouraged, butit was urged only on those who came up to certain specifications. Thepurpose was to improve mankind in order that man might hold his own ina solar system that was even now reaching out toward the stars. Thesystem had long been in effect on Mars, but owing to the colder climateand the thinner atmosphere, Mars had less than a tenth the populationof earth. Selective breeding alone had enabled these to survive.
"Sorry," Cornith said. "This Lucy Hollowell fits everything except sheis too skinny. I don't want a bag of bones for a wife."
The blonde smiled wryly. "She is only a half-ounce under thespecifications, to be exact. Perhaps you have not carefully read yourrequirements. Let me remind you, Mr. Cornith, the Foundation probedyour every thought, conscious and subconscious, your every physicalreaction, and they specified merely that the girl must be unusuallyintell