（外文电子版资料）The Menace from Earth.docVIP

The Menace from Earth My name is Holly Jones and Im fifteen. Im very intelligent but it doesnt show, because I look like an underdone angel. Insipid. I was born right here in Luna City, which seems to surprise Earthside types. Actually, Im third generation; my grandparents pioneered in Site One, where the Memorial is. I live with my parents in Artemis Apartments, the new co-op in Pressure Five, eight hundred feet down near City Hall. But Im not there much; Im too busy. Mornings I attend Tech High and afternoons I study or go flying with Jeff Hardesty -- hes my partner -- or whenever a tourist ship is in I guide groundhogs. This day the Gripsholm grounded at noon so I went straight from school to American Express. The first gaggle of tourists was trickling in from Quarantine but I didnt push forward as Mr. Dorcas, the manager, knows Im the best. Guiding is just temporary (Im really a spaceship designer), but if youre doing a job you ought to do it well. Mr. Dorcas spotted me. Holly! Here, please. Miss Brentwood, Holly Jones will be your guide. Holly, she repeated. What a quaint name. Are you really a guide, dear? Im tolerant of groundhogs -- some of my best friends are from Earth. As Daddy says, being born on Luna is luck, not judgment, and most people Earthside are stuck there. After all, Jesus and Gautama Buddha and Dr. Einstein were all groundhogs. But they can be irritating. If high school kids werent guides, whom could they hire? My license says so, I said briskly and looked her over the way she was looking me over. Her face was sort of familiar and I thought perhaps I had seen her picture in those society things you see in Earthside magazines -- one of the rich playgirls we get too many of. She was almost loathsomely lovely. . . nylon skin, soft, wavy, silverblond hair, basic specs about 35-24-34 and enough this and that to make me feel like a matchstick drawing, a low intimate voice and everything necessary to make plainer females think about pacts wi