The IF Reader of Science Fiction Read online

  “We deny that punishment was inflicted before the crime was committed. Nor was it inflicted afterwards. It was simultaneous.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “Is our reasoning satisfactory? Did we do right in doing what we did? Will you acquit us?”

  “The court will adjourn for sim-60-mmutes to consider judgment.”

  The human beings in the Court stood up. The Fomalhauts formed themselves into the Obeisance Pattern and the Loon-birds—there were now thousands of them in their sealed cubicle—rose in a humming cloud. Mark stepped swiftly round the back of his Tribunal and closed behind him the door of the small robing-room. He found his hands shaking as he sat at the bare desk in the small robing-room, and lie suddenly realized that the trial had started a whole row of alarm bells shrieking in his mind.

  Analyzing what those alarm bells were, he came first and Inevitably to the thought of the colonel. Everyone in the Station knew from experience what the colonel’s repayment for a clumsy judgment could be—something nasty, like a tour of the exit vents of the air system, or patrol in the mid-grav sector. But the colonel, though savage, was fair. Mark was pretty sure he had done as well so far as could be expected. Anyway, there wasn’t a moment of the sim-day when he wasn’t scared of Banerji.

  The next thought he came to was “put-up job.” The story of how they had stopped fighting the moment Mulrooney called them was suspicious enough. And then there was no denying that they had him pretty well tied up. He could acquit them by accepting a plea of justification. But if Daap-daap was to be excused for hitting his wife, then he had done no wrong—and justification no longer applied. For how could he justifiably be hitting his wife if he had nothing for which to punish her? You get in the same mess, only the other way round, Mark thought, if you find them guilty. He was familiar with such paradoxes on paper, but he was very unhappy indeed to meet one in the flesh.

  His last thought, the worst of all, was, “This isn’t just a Fomalhaut family quarrel. The whole Station’s in on this.”

  The spectators’ benches had been filling up ever since the start of the trial. Reviewing in his mind’s eye the patchwork of color which had been his view from the Tribunal, he came to the conclusion that every race in the mid-grav sector had sent at least one representative. For that matter, all the Loon-birds in the Station were in there—the Loon-birds, the emotional carrion-eaters of the universe who congregated where there was trouble, the Loon-birds whom the Earth government employed as military personnel only. It was a bad omen when. Loon-birds gathered. But one comer of his mental view-screen was blank. Which race might have been there but wasn’t?

  Of course. He knew which: the Murrays.

  A few of them often came to court, particularly to hear a family quarrel. None had come today. If he could locate the blind-spot in the Murrays’ psychology which had kept them away today, he would have an insight into the real nature of today’s case, and into what it meant to the inhabitants of the Station. For they had mostly known each other long before they had known Man, and they hadn’t gotten the habit of confiding in Man.

  He called up the Aids (who have no hates or loves, no prejudices or dislikes—just intellect). “What’s with the Murrays?”

  “You will remember the Murray Ethology para 4. They are the only known life-form parasitic on an object smaller than themselves.”

  “No. Try again.”

  “You will remember page xiv of the Introduction. They were discovered by Arthur Murray, later one of the victims of the sensational Heat-death Murders.”

  “No, no. Something to do with this case.”

  “How will you not remember paras 112-117? Surely those pages of your memory are not missing? They deal with the control of Murray behavior. Murrays cannot be taught to do anything except those actions specified in the Ethology, nor can they be prevented in any way from doing those actions if the appropriate signal has been given. Thus their behavior fails completely to be plastic, and thus they have not the conception of wrong, guilt, punishment or law.”

  All trials deal implicitly with wrongs, guilt, punishment and law, and the fact that the Murrays had stayed away showed that these were not just implicit in this case but explicit. No point of conduct was on trial; the system itself was on trial. This was a testcase to decide if Earth law should continue to hold on the Station. It was as if one were to feed a certain problem into a computer, not to get an answer but to test the computer. Only this problem, he was pretty sure, included a proposition which damaged the computer itself.

  In the ordinary course of things, if a trial starts going sour you consult the law further until gradually the tangle comes clear. But in this case the very statement of the charge and the defense tampered with the structure of the law itself. Any further recourse to the same machine could only send it into a positive feedback, which at each cycle would take it further into absurdity.

  There was, of course, Mark reflected, one further technique he could use if native wit could not sort out the Fomalhauts’ disingenuous pleas. He could go above the law, to the mechanism designed for dealing with treason, to that body of brutal fact known as “martial law.” But was he a Banerji, who would force a decision by merciless insistence instead of trying reasonable discussion? All the same he called the Aids, and together they refreshed his memory on the use of extra-legal coercion in settling disputes. And he began to run over in his mind, not the Perry Mason series but the equally old and famous Mickey Spillane adventures.

  When the hour was up Mark took his place with as much calmness as he could.

  “Trial resumes,” he said. The audience settled back into their seats, perches, hovering-heights or floating-depths. “Have the principals anything further to say before judgment be delivered?”

  “We wish the charge set aside,” said the Fomalhauts.

  “We have been mistaken on a point of law and a point of ethics.”

  Mark heaved a secret sigh. “We are glad that you should agree,” he answered in a satisfactorily judicious tone. “What is the cause of your change of mind?”

  “We have a custom, one custom only, that corresponds to your Taw’. It is this: To each and from each according as he is’. This is the whole of our law. For instance, it is right for a Fomalhaut being to obey Fomalhaut custom; for an Earth being to obey Earth custom. Thus for us there exist many versions of ‘right’. There is Earth ‘right’, there is Fomalhaut ‘right’, there is Aldeberan ‘right’ and so on.” Mark nodded happily. “Now, it is Fomalhaut-right for a Fomalhaut to obey Fomalhaut custom. It is Fomalhaut-right for an Earth man to obey Earth custom. But here we are troubled. For it is no part of Fomalhaut-right to determine the right of Earth according to Fomalhaut thinking. Thus in no way may we who are Fomalhauts either approve or disapprove the workings of an Earth court. All talk of justice here is meaningless. We will withdraw now.”

  Then the truth was on the table. Not only was the problem one to break the machine, but it said right there in the packet, “This problem breaks the machine.”

  He felt a prickle of apprehension run down his spine, for he observed the Fomalhauts in the dock and in the spectators’ benches melting and weaving into the hollow square of Active Hostility.

  “Wait a minute before you go,” he said, smiling. Heck, he thought, this is insane. Surely if he could only think on his feet long enough he could solve this whole absurd problem. If this sordid family bickering was the revolt flag of half a universe, then this was a universe populated solely by dumb blonde mothers-in-law and vicars in the wood. He started talking. “Can we be sure there is a case to answer here? I mean, beating one’s wife is one of the few honest and innocent pleasures in this over-civilized universe, and I imagine beating one’s husband is too. And if this pastime may not be innocently indulged in, what do we all go through marriage for?”

  Surprisingly, the Aids said in his ear, “Is that a joke?”

  “I suppose it is.”

  “A moment, please. Jokes take a
little longer.” Mark paused. He had taught the Station Aids to have a sense of humor because he liked to have someone around to construct new stories for him to tell—bizarre as the Aids’ jokes usually were. And he had been most gratified to discover from them—probably the first Earth man to do so—that most of the trans-stellars had an analogue of sense of humor too. So presumably the Aids meant to amuse the whole Station with his feeble quip. They might well have a tough time, for the races which composed the audience had no fixed sexual organization which would make such a joke comprehensible. There were examples in front of him of gyniphagy (wife-eating) and of metazygy-with-stomach-sharing (sexual union of Siamese twins) and of endosomatogamy (where an individual chooses his mate not merely from within his own tribe but from among the cells of his own body) and many others.

  There was a silence. Then apparently the Aids said something to the Asclepiad group, and they answered. Then the Aids spoke simultaneously to every group in the room.

  With a lift of the heart Mark realized that his job was done. Like the wind over a plain of grass a change ran over the room. The Loon-birds empurpled, whistled with disappointment and zipped out through their ventilator. The Wood-weevils swallowed each other up until they had reassembled their single persona. The Leprechaun opened its eye, drew its ear down into it, closed the eye on the ear and shut both in its mouth. All round the room it was the same. Everyone reckoned the case was happily resolved. Even the original culprits, or plaintiffs (whichever they were), the Fomalhauts, who before had sulked over the wrong they had suffered or been detected in inflicting (whichever it was), relaxed their hollow square into the interlocking circle of Quiet Pleasure.

  A soft answer turneth indeed away wrath, thought Mark. Aloud he said:

  “Okay, that’s it.”

  The Record printed: “Court adjourns sine die.”

  Mark sat watching the assembled creatures leave in their own way. When they were gone he said confidentially to the Aids, “How did you do it?”

  “It was nothing,” answered the Aids. “I made to each group the same basic suggestion, that, if performed with a life-partner (and I use the word in a punning sense, indicating thereby both cohabitors and commensals), actions which normally produce aversive stimuli actually produce reinforcing ones. And, with the permission of the Asclepiads,

  I cited certain contusions and abrasions for which they had to treat Miss Marylou.”

  Mark was appalled. After a moment he asked, “And that wouldn’t be a joke if something about someone and Miss Marylou wasn’t supposed to be a secret?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You know, you’ll end on the gallows.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “A joke’s hardly a joke if it’s a joke on you, is it?”

  “We wouldn’t care to answer that, sir.”

  “Good morning to you then. Thank you for your help.”

  Back in his quarters, Mark changed his shirt and reflected grimly that the whole trial, including the Aids’ version of a joke, would be on the Record, and the Record would very likely be at this moment in the colonel’s hands. The now menacing tones of Earth Is Where My Heart Is interrupted his gloomy musings.

  Marylou appeared on the telephone. “Get your tie straight!” she shouted without preamble. “You’re to see the colonel.”

  “Oh, boy. Heap big trouble. This paleface is up the totem for sure this time.”

  “This is no time for joking,” she shouted agonizedly. “This is real trouble. He wants to see you in person!”

  She knew what she was talking about. The last time the colonel had met anyone officially in person was at the trial of an Earth man for murder—at his execution.

  “Man, I’m gone!” shouted Mark, and ran down the corridor towards the colonel’s office, buttoning his cuffs as he went. He knocked once and heard the colonel’s “Come in” before he dropped his hand.

  Inside the colonel sat at his desk, hard, strong, young-looking and ruthlessly efficient as he had often appeared on the telephone. His smooth coppery face was set as usual in an unrelenting expression of contemptuous dislike.

  “Sit down, Mark. I won’t hurt you,” he said surprisingly. Mark did so.

  “Look, Mark, this is my last command. I shall never make the little hop back to Earth and to my own country, let alone see other countries on other stars as you will. Why? Because I’m old. Not in appearance, perhaps. But inside each cell totes up its own time-reckoning and there’s nothing we can do to put the clock back. If you want to know the truth, this body’s 103 years old. But I’m skillful at my job, and my job is to command you. And part of my skill is in knowing how to look when I command. You rarely see me. You know that. But do you know that when I telephone you, the words are mine but the speaker is an electronic face-voice simulacrum cooked up by Marylou? And when I have to appear in person I spend half a day down in the Asclepiads’ stinking surgery, where the walls were lined with the pickled limbs of half the creatures of the galaxy and where the death-tubes are loaded with the day’s quota? For in the morning I wake an old man, and no one may see me until my physician has remade me as the beautiful and terrible Indian prince. I’ll show you something.”

  Banerji leant forward and slowly unbuttoned his creaseless tunic. Inside Mark saw with a sudden sick horror that it was thickly and artfully padded. Underneath, his chest was the chest of an old man. Sharp edges of bone seemed ready to pierce the dry, wrinkled skin, and below his immaculate neckline the surface of his body was an ugly patchwork of brown and purple and fungoid white.

  “Now you know,” said Banerji in his uncannily youthful voice. “And now I think you will understand that this Station is maintained and kept in order not by any mass of rules in a rulebook but by personal command. And that command is exercised by me. By my commanding words and by my commanding body. I am telling you this so that you will understand what you did today. You exercised command as I would do. Not perhaps in the way I would have done, but choosing your own method, imposing order on disorder, bringing submission out of revolt.”

  “Why do you tell me this, sir?” asked Mark.

  “Because soon I shall go to my fathers, and you will go to take up a command of your own. And for that reason you must learn everything I have to teach.”

  Mark was honestly proud that the colonel should thus treat him as an equal, but secretly he protested that he would never have to act the slave-driver in front of his own crew.

  “You are smiling now,” said Banerji, “because you know that you will never have to use the proud airs and sordid subterfuges that I use. But I leave you with one thought. Your genius for command comes out in an admirably frank comradeliness, in a charming and self-deprecating gift of humor. It is the gift of your American heritage. But if as time goes on and your responsibility for the Government of your fellow beings becomes ever wider and greater, sometimes, in the privacy of your quarters, you need to practice and rehearse your charmingly spontaneous good humor—then do not be ashamed.”

  They sat for many moments in silence, and then the Indian said, “Back to your duties, Lieutenant. Constant and effortful vigilance.”

  “Constant and effortful vigilance, sir,” Mark snapped and was gone.

  Back in his office he switched to the Aids.

  “Aids,” he said in a phoney Australian accent. “You tell black-fellow Fomalhaut that white man savvy good-good make black fellow and black-fellow-woman chum-chum.”

  After a pause the adaptable Aids whined back, “Fair dinkum, cobber.”

  “Cheerioh, old matey,” said Mark, and switched to Marylou’s channel. “Hiya handsome,” he breathed intimately. “How about I take you over to the Mess and we stop all this deprival of Joy?”

  Her face lit up. “Sure thing, Marco-boy. As soon as you like.”

  “Five sim-minutes, then,” he said and grinned boyishly at her. As she faded he buried his face in his hands. When you take up government, he thought, you take up a load as massy as the galaxy
itself. He felt a thousand years old.

  But if that crazy old wreck Banerji can take it, so can Mark Hassall!

  He got up, loosened his tie, tousled his hair and set out whistling for the Mess.

  A large green-yolked egg splattered across the flexglas panel as it slammed behind Retief. Across the long, narrow lobby, under a glare-sign reading HOSTELRY RITZ-KRUDLU, the Gaspierre room clerk looked up, then came quickly , around the counter, long-bodied, short-legged, an expression as of one detecting a bad odor on his flattened, leathery-looking face. He spread six of the eight arms attached to his narrow shoulders like a set of measuring spoons, twitching the other two in a cramped shrug.

  “The hotel, he is fill!” he wheezed. “To some other house you convey your custom, yes?”

  “Stand fast,” Retief said to the four Terrans who had preceded him through the door. “Hello, Strupp,” he nodded to the agitated clerk. “These are friends of mine. See if you can’t find them a room.”

  “As I comment but now, the rooms, he is occupy!” Strupp pointed to the door. “Kindly facilities provide by management to place selves back outside use!”

  A narrow panel behind the registration desk popped open; a second Gaspierre slid through, took in the situation, emitted a sharp hiss. Strupp whirled, his arms semaphoring an unreadable message.

  “Never mind that, Strupp,” the newcomer snapped in accentless Terran. He took out a strip of patterned cloth, mopped under the breathing orifices set in the sides of his neck, looked at the group of Terrans, and then back at Retief. “Ah, something I can do for you, Mr. Retief?”