Retief and the Pangalactic Pageant of Pulchritude — Keith Laumer

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES RETIEF A DULL BOY.. .

That's why a chance to apply his diplomatic skills to the Annual Pangalactic Pageant of Pulchritude should have proved quite a relief for the Galaxy's Only Two-fisted Diplomat; after all, what could be more pleasantly relaxing than playing chaperone to the most beautiful creatures of the galaxy? Only, perhaps, helping to choose the very fairest of the fair from within that beauteous sisterhood, which was to be another of Relief's duties.

Alas, for the notoriously unlovely Groaci not even a contest of cosmic comity is sacred; they will have to learn the hard way that -- even though he has somehow been classified as a contestant -- Retief is not just another pretty face.