Read Like A Writer

There are two ways to learn how to write fiction: by reading it and by writing it. Yes, you can learn lots about writing stories in workshops, in writing classes and writing groups, at writers' conferences. You can learn technique and process by reading the dozens of books like this one on fiction writing and by reading articles in writers' magazines. But the best teachers of fiction are the great works of fiction themselves. You can learn more about the structure of a short story by reading Anton Chekhov's 'Heartache' than you can in a semester of Creative Writing 101. If you read like a writer, that is, which means you have to read everything twice, at least. When you read a story or novel the first time, just let it happen. Enjoy the journey. When you've finished, you know where the story took you, and now you can go back and reread, and this time notice how the writer reached that destination. Notice the choices he made at each chapter, each sentence, each word. (Every word is a choice.) You see now how the transitions work, how a character gets across a room. All this time you're learning. You loved the central character in the story, and now you can see how the writer presented the character and rendered her worthy of your love and attention. The first reading is creative—you collaborate with the writer in making the story. The second reading is critical.

John Dufresne, from his book, The Lie That Tells A Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Hunt the Hunter by Kris Neville

HUNT the HUNTER

BY KRIS NEVILLE

Illustrated by ELIZABETH MacINTYRE

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction June 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Of course using live bait is the best
way to lure dangerous alien animals ...
unless it turns out that you are the bait!

"We're somewhat to the south, I think," Ri said, bending over the crude field map. "That ridge," he pointed, "on our left, is right here." He drew a finger down the map. "It was over here," he moved the finger, "over the ridge, north of here, that we sighted them."

Extrone asked, "Is there a pass?"

Ri looked up, studying the terrain. He moved his shoulders. "I don't know, but maybe they range this far. Maybe they're on this side of the ridge, too."

Delicately, Extrone raised a hand to his beard. "I'd hate to lose a day crossing the ridge," he said.

"Yes, sir," Ri said. Suddenly he threw back his head. "Listen!"

"Eh?" Extrone said.

"Hear it? That cough? I think that's one, from over there. Right up ahead of us."

Extrone raised his eyebrows.

This time, the coughing roar was more distant, but distinct.

"It is!" Ri said. "It's a farn beast, all right!"

Extrone smiled, almost pointed teeth showing through the beard. "I'm glad we won't have to cross the ridge."

Ri wiped his forehead on the back of his sleeve. "Yes, sir."

"We'll pitch camp right here, then," Extrone said. "We'll go after it tomorrow." He looked at the sky. "Have the bearers hurry."

"Yes, sir."

Ri moved away, his pulse gradually slowing. "You, there!" he called. "Pitch camp, here!"

He crossed to Mia, who, along with him, had been pressed into Extrone's party as guides. Once more, Ri addressed the bearers, "Be quick, now!" And to Mia, "God almighty, he was getting mad." He ran a hand under his collar. "It's a good thing that farn beast sounded off when it did. I'd hate to think of making him climb that ridge."

Mia glanced nervously over his shoulder. "It's that damned pilot's fault for setting us down on this side. I told him it was the other side. I told him so."

Ri shrugged hopelessly.

Mia said, "I don't think he even saw a blast area over here. I think he wanted to get us in trouble."

"There shouldn't be one. There shouldn't be a blast area on this side of the ridge, too."

"That's what I mean. The pilot don't like businessmen. He had it in for us."

Ri cleared his throat nervously. "Maybe you're right."

"It's the Hunting Club he don't like."

"I wish to God I'd never heard of a farn beast," Ri said. "At least, then, I wouldn't be one of his guides. Why didn't he hire somebody else?"

Mia looked at his companion. He spat. "What hurts most, he pays us for it. I could buy half this planet, and he makes me his guide—at less than I pay my secretary."

"Well, anyway, we won't have to cross that ridge."

"Hey, you!" Extrone called.

The two of them turned immediately.

"You two scout ahead," Extrone said. "See if you can pick up some tracks."

"Yes, sir," Ri said, and instantly the two of them readjusted their shoulder straps and started off.

Shortly they were inside of the scrub forest, safe from sight. "Let's wait here," Mia said.

"No, we better go on. He may have sent a spy in."

They pushed on, being careful to blaze the trees, because they were not professional guides.

"We don't want to get too near," Ri said after toiling through the forest for many minutes. "Without guns, we don't want to get near enough for the farn beast to charge us."

They stopped. The forest was dense, the vines clinging.

"He'll want the bearers to hack a path for him," Mia said. "But we go it alone. Damn him."

Ri twisted his mouth into a sour frown. He wiped at his forehead. "Hot. By God, it's hot. I didn't think it was this hot, the first time we were here."

Mia said, "The first time, we weren't guides. We didn't notice it so much then."

They fought a few yards more into the forest.

Then it ended. Or, rather, there was a wide gap. Before them lay a blast area, unmistakable. The grass was beginning to grow again, but the tree stumps were roasted from the rocket breath.

"This isn't ours!" Ri said. "This looks like it was made nearly a year ago!"

Mia's eyes narrowed. "The military from Xnile?"

"No," Ri said. "They don't have any rockets this small. And I don't think there's another cargo rocket on this planet outside of the one we leased from the Club. Except the one he brought."

"The ones who discovered the farn beasts in the first place?" Mia asked. "You think it's their blast?"

"So?" Ri said. "But who are they?"

It was Mia's turn to shrug. "Whoever they were, they couldn't have been hunters. They'd have kept the secret better."

"We didn't do so damned well."

"We didn't have a chance," Mia objected. "Everybody and his brother had heard the rumor that farn beasts were somewhere around here. It wasn't our fault Extrone found out."

"I wish we hadn't shot our guide, then. I wish he was here instead of us."

Mia shook perspiration out of his eyes. "We should have shot our pilot, too. That was our mistake. The pilot must have been the one who told Extrone we'd hunted this area."

"I didn't think a Club pilot would do that."

"After Extrone said he'd hunt farn beasts, even if it meant going to the alien system? Listen, you don't know.... Wait a minute."

There was perspiration on Ri's upper lip.

"I didn't tell Extrone, if that's what you're thinking," Mia said.

Ri's mouth twisted. "I didn't say you did."

"Listen," Mia said in a hoarse whisper. "I just thought. Listen. To hell with how he found out. Here's the point. Maybe he'll shoot us, too, when the hunt's over."

Ri licked his lips. "No. He wouldn't do that. We're not—not just anybody. He couldn't kill us like that. Not even him. And besides, why would he want to do that? It wouldn't do any good to shoot us. Too many people already know about the farn beasts. You said that yourself."

Mia said, "I hope you're right." They stood side by side, studying the blast area in silence. Finally, Mia said, "We better be getting back."

"What'll we tell him?"

"That we saw tracks. What else can we tell him?"

They turned back along their trail, stumbling over vines.

"It gets hotter at sunset," Ri said nervously.

"The breeze dies down."

"It's screwy. I didn't think farn beasts had this wide a range. There must be a lot of them, to be on both sides of the ridge like this."

"There may be a pass," Mia said, pushing a vine away.

Ri wrinkled his brow, panting. "I guess that's it. If there were a lot of them, we'd have heard something before we did. But even so, it's damned funny, when you think about it."

Mia looked up at the darkening sky. "We better hurry," he said.

When it came over the hastily established camp, the rocket was low, obviously looking for a landing site. It was a military craft, from the outpost on the near moon, and forward, near the nose, there was the blazoned emblem of the Ninth Fleet. The rocket roared directly over Extrone's tent, turned slowly, spouting fuel expensively, and settled into the scrub forest, turning the vegetation beneath it sere by its blasts.

Extrone sat on an upholstered stool before his tent and spat disgustedly and combed his beard with his blunt fingers.

Shortly, from the direction of the rocket, a group of four high-ranking officers came out of the forest, heading toward him. They were spruce, the officers, with military discipline holding their waists in and knees almost stiff.

"What in hell do you want?" Extrone asked.

They stopped a respectful distance away. "Sir...." one began.

"Haven't I told you gentlemen that rockets frighten the game?" Extrone demanded, ominously not raising his voice.

"Sir," the lead officer said, "it's another alien ship. It was sighted a few hours ago, off this very planet, sir."

Extrone's face looked much too innocent. "How did it get there, gentlemen? Why wasn't it destroyed?"

"We lost it again, sir. Temporarily, sir."

"So?" Extrone mocked.

"We thought you ought to return to a safer planet, sir. Until we could locate and destroy it."

Extrone stared at them for a space. Then, indifferently, he turned away, in the direction of a resting bearer. "You!" he said. "Hey! Bring me a drink!" He faced the officers again. He smiled maliciously. "I'm staying here."

The lead officer licked his firm lower lip. "But, sir...."

Extrone toyed with his beard. "About a year ago, gentlemen, there was an alien ship around here then, wasn't there? And you destroyed it, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir. When we located it, sir."

"You'll destroy this one, too," Extrone said.

"We have a tight patrol, sir. It can't slip through. But it might try a long range bombardment, sir."

Extrone said, "To begin with, they probably don't even know I'm here. And they probably couldn't hit this area if they did know. And you can't afford to let them get a shot at me, anyway."

"That's why we'd like you to return to an inner planet, sir."

Extrone plucked at his right ear lobe, half closing his eyes. "You'll lose a fleet before you'll dare let anything happen to me, gentlemen. I'm quite safe here, I think."

The bearer brought Extrone his drink.

"Get off," Extrone said quietly to the four officers.

Again they turned reluctantly. This time, he did not call them back. Instead, with amusement, he watched until they disappeared into the tangle of forest.

Dusk was falling. The takeoff blast of the rocket illuminated the area, casting weird shadows on the gently swaying grasses; there was a hot breath of dry air and the rocket dwindled toward the stars.

Extrone stood up lazily, stretching. He tossed the empty glass away, listened for it to shatter. He reached out, parted the heavy flap to his tent.

"Sir?" Ri said, hurrying toward him in the gathering darkness.

"Eh?" Extrone said, turning, startled. "Oh, you. Well?"

"We ... located signs of the farn beast, sir. To the east."

Extrone nodded. After a moment he said, "You killed one, I believe, on your trip?"

Ri shifted. "Yes, sir."

Extrone held back the flap of the tent. "Won't you come in?" he asked without any politeness whatever.

Ri obeyed the order.

The inside of the tent was luxurious. The bed was of bulky feathers, costly of transport space, the sleep curtains of silken gauze. The floor, heavy, portable tile blocks, not the hollow kind, were neatly and smoothly inset into the ground. Hanging from the center, to the left of the slender, hand-carved center pole, was a chain of crystals. They tinkled lightly when Extrone dropped the flap. The light was electric from a portable dynamo. Extrone flipped it on. He crossed to the bed, sat down.

"You were, I believe, the first ever to kill a farn beast?" he said.

"I.... No, sir. There must have been previous hunters, sir."

Extrone narrowed his eyes. "I see by your eyes that you are envious—that is the word, isn't it?—of my tent."

Ri looked away from his face.

"Perhaps I'm envious of your reputation as a hunter. You see, I have never killed a farn beast. In fact, I haven't seen a farn beast."

Ri glanced nervously around the tent, his sharp eyes avoiding Extrone's glittering ones. "Few people have seen them, sir."

"Oh?" Extrone questioned mildly. "I wouldn't say that. I understand that the aliens hunt them quite extensively ... on some of their planets."

"I meant in our system, sir."

"Of course you did," Extrone said, lazily tracing the crease of his sleeve with his forefinger. "I imagine these are the only farn beasts in our system."

Ri waited uneasily, not answering.

"Yes," Extrone said, "I imagine they are. It would have been a shame if you had killed the last one. Don't you think so?"

Ri's hands worried the sides of his outer garment. "Yes, sir. It would have been."

Extrone pursed his lips. "It wouldn't have been very considerate of you to—But, still, you gained valuable experience. I'm glad you agreed to come along as my guide."

"It was an honor, sir."

Extrone's lip twisted in wry amusement. "If I had waited until it was safe for me to hunt on an alien planet, I would not have been able to find such an illustrious guide."

"... I'm flattered, sir."

"Of course," Extrone said. "But you should have spoken to me about it, when you discovered the farn beast in our own system."

"I realize that, sir. That is, I had intended at the first opportunity, sir...."

"Of course," Extrone said dryly. "Like all of my subjects," he waved his hand in a broad gesture, "the highest as well as the lowest slave, know me and love me. I know your intentions were the best."

Ri squirmed, his face pale. "We do indeed love you, sir."

Extrone bent forward. "Know me and love me."

"Yes, sir. Know you and love you, sir," Ri said.

"Get out!" Extrone said.

"It's frightening," Ri said, "to be that close to him."

Mia nodded.

The two of them, beneath the leaf-swollen branches of the gnarled tree, were seated on their sleeping bags. The moon was clear and cold and bright in a cloudless sky; a small moon, smooth-surfaced, except for a central mountain ridge that bisected it into almost twin hemispheres.

"To think of him. As flesh and blood. Not like the—well; that—what we've read about."

Mia glanced suspiciously around him at the shadows. "You begin to understand a lot of things, after seeing him."

Ri picked nervously at the cover of his sleeping bag.

"It makes you think," Mia added. He twitched. "I'm afraid. I'm afraid he'll.... Listen, we'll talk. When we get back to civilization. You, me, the bearers. About him. He can't let that happen. He'll kill us first."

Ri looked up at the moon, shivering. "No. We have friends. We have influence. He couldn't just like that—"

"He could say it was an accident."

"No," Ri said stubbornly.

"He can say anything," Mia insisted. "He can make people believe anything. Whatever he says. There's no way to check on it."

"It's getting cold," Ri said.

"Listen," Mia pleaded.

"No," Ri said. "Even if we tried to tell them, they wouldn't listen. Everybody would know we were lying. Everything they've come to believe would tell them we were lying. Everything they've read, every picture they've seen. They wouldn't believe us. He knows that."

"Listen," Mia repeated intently. "This is important. Right now he couldn't afford to let us talk. Not right now. Because the Army is not against him. Some officers were here, just before we came back. A bearer overheard them talking. They don't want to overthrow him!"

Ri's teeth, suddenly, were chattering.

"That's another lie," Mia continued. "That he protects the people from the Army. That's a lie. I don't believe they were ever plotting against him. Not even at first. I think they helped him, don't you see?"

Ri whined nervously.

"It's like this," Mia said. "I see it like this. The Army put him in power when the people were in rebellion against military rule."

Ri swallowed. "We couldn't make the people believe that."

"No?" Mia challenged. "Couldn't we? Not today, but what about tomorrow? You'll see. Because I think the Army is getting ready to invade the alien system!"

"The people won't support them," Ri answered woodenly.

"Think. If he tells them to, they will. They trust him."

Ri looked around at the shadows.

"That explains a lot of things," Mia said. "I think the Army's been preparing for this for a long time. From the first, maybe. That's why Extrone cut off our trade with the aliens. Partly to keep them from learning that he was getting ready to invade them, but more to keep them from exposing him to the people. The aliens wouldn't be fooled like we were, so easy."

"No!" Ri snapped. "It was to keep the natural economic balance."

"You know that's not right."

Ri lay down on his bed roll. "Don't talk about it. It's not good to talk like this. I don't even want to listen."

"When the invasion starts, he'll have to command all their loyalties. To keep them from revolt again. They'd be ready to believe us, then. He'll have a hard enough time without people running around trying to tell the truth."

"You're wrong. He's not like that. I know you're wrong."

Mia smiled twistedly. "How many has he already killed? How can we even guess?"

Ri swallowed sickly.

"Remember our guide? To keep our hunting territory a secret?"

Ri shuddered. "That's different. Don't you see? This is not at all like that."

With morning came birds' songs, came dew, came breakfast smells. The air was sweet with cooking and it was nostalgic, childhoodlike, uncontaminated.

And Extrone stepped out of the tent, fully dressed, surly, letting the flap slap loudly behind him. He stretched hungrily and stared around the camp, his eyes still vacant-mean with sleep.

"Breakfast!" he shouted, and two bearers came running with a folding table and chair. Behind them, a third bearer, carrying a tray of various foods; and yet behind him, a fourth, with a steaming pitcher and a drinking mug.

Extrone ate hugely, with none of the delicacy sometimes affected in his conversational gestures. When he had finished, he washed his mouth with water and spat on the ground.

"Lin!" he said.

His personal bearer came loping toward him.

"Have you read that manual I gave you?"

Lin nodded. "Yes."

Extrone pushed the table away. He smacked his lips wetly. "Very ludicrous, Lin. Have you noticed that I have two businessmen for guides? It occurred to me when I got up. They would have spat on me, twenty years ago, damn them."

Lin waited.

"Now I can spit on them, which pleases me."

"The farn beasts are dangerous, sir," Lin said.

"Eh? Oh, yes. Those. What did the manual say about them?"

"I believe they're carnivorous, sir."

"An alien manual. That's ludicrous, too. That we have the only information on our newly discovered fauna from an alien manual—and, of course, two businessmen."

"They have very long, sharp fangs, and, when enraged, are capable of tearing a man—"

"An alien?" Extrone corrected.

"There's not enough difference between us to matter, sir. Of tearing an alien to pieces, sir."

Extrone laughed harshly. "It's 'sir' whenever you contradict me?"

Lin's face remained impassive. "I guess it seems that way. Sir."

"Damned few people would dare go as far as you do," Extrone said. "But you're afraid of me, too, in your own way, aren't you?"

Lin shrugged. "Maybe."

"I can see you are. Even my wives are. I wonder if anyone can know how wonderful it feels to have people all afraid of you."

"The farn beasts, according to the manual...."

"You are very insistent on one subject."

"... It's the only thing I know anything about. The farn beast, as I was saying, sir, is the particular enemy of men. Or if you like, of aliens. Sir."

"All right," Extrone said, annoyed. "I'll be careful."

In the distance, a farn beast coughed.

Instantly alert, Extrone said, "Get the bearers! Have some of them cut a path through that damn thicket! And tell those two businessmen to get the hell over here!"

Lin smiled, his eyes suddenly afire with the excitement of the hunt.

Four hours later, they were well into the scrub forest. Extrone walked leisurely, well back of the cutters, who hacked away, methodically, at the vines and branches which might impede his forward progress. Their sharp, awkward knives snickered rhythmically to the rasp of their heavy breathing.

Occasionally, Extrone halted, motioned for his water carrier, and drank deeply of the icy water to allay the heat of the forest, a heat made oppressive by the press of foliage against the outside air.

Ranging out, on both sides of the central body, the two businessmen fought independently against the wild growth, each scouting the flanks for farn beasts, and ahead, beyond the cutters, Lin flittered among the tree trunks, sometimes far, sometimes near.

Extrone carried the only weapon, slung easily over his shoulder, a powerful blast rifle, capable of piercing medium armor in sustained fire. To his rear, the water carrier was trailed by a man bearing a folding stool, and behind him, a man carrying the heavy, high-powered two-way communication set.

Once Extrone unslung his blast rifle and triggered a burst at a tiny, arboreal mammal, which, upon the impact, shattered asunder, to Extrone's satisfied chuckle, in a burst of blood and fur.

When the sun stood high and heat exhaustion made the near-naked bearers slump, Extrone permitted a rest. While waiting for the march to resume, he sat on the stool with his back against an ancient tree and patted, reflectively, the blast rifle, lying across his legs.

"For you, sir," the communications man said, interrupting his reverie.

"Damn," Extrone muttered. His face twisted in anger. "It better be important." He took the head-set and mike and nodded to the bearer. The bearer twiddled the dials.

"Extrone. Eh?... Oh, you got their ship. Well, why in hell bother me?... All right, so they found out I was here. You got them, didn't you?"

"Blasted them right out of space," the voice crackled excitedly. "Right in the middle of a radio broadcast, sir."

"I don't want to listen to your gabbling when I'm hunting!" Extrone tore off the head-set and handed it to the bearer. "If they call back, find out what they want, first. I don't want to be bothered unless it's important."

"Yes, sir."

Extrone squinted up at the sun; his eyes crinkled under the glare, and perspiration stood in little droplets on the back of his hands.

Lin, returning to the column, threaded his way among reclining bearers. He stopped before Extrone and tossed his hair out of his eyes. "I located a spoor," he said, suppressed eagerness in his voice. "About a quarter ahead. It looks fresh."

Extrone's eyes lit with passion.

Lin's face was red with heat and grimy with sweat. "There were two, I think."

"Two?" Extrone grinned, petting the rifle. "You and I better go forward and look at the spoor."

Lin said, "We ought to take protection, if you're going, too."

Extrone laughed. "This is enough." He gestured with the rifle and stood up.

"I wish you had let me bring a gun along, sir," Lin said.

"One is enough in my camp."

The two of them went forward, alone, into the forest. Extrone moved agilely through the tangle, following Lin closely. When they came to the tracks, heavily pressed into drying mud around a small watering hole, Extrone nodded his head in satisfaction.

"This way," Lin said, pointing, and once more the two of them started off.

They went a good distance through the forest, Extrone becoming more alert with each additional foot. Finally, Lin stopped him with a restraining hand. "They may be quite a way ahead. Hadn't we ought to bring up the column?"

The farn beast, somewhere beyond a ragged clump of bushes, coughed. Extrone clenched the blast rifle convulsively.

The farn beast coughed again, more distant this time.

"They're moving away," Lin said.

"Damn!" Extrone said.

"It's a good thing the wind's right, or they'd be coming back, and fast, too."

"Eh?" Extrone said.

"They charge on scent, sight, or sound. I understand they will track down a man for as long as a day."

"Wait," Extrone said, combing his beard. "Wait a minute."

"Yes?"

"Look," Extrone said. "If that's the case, why do we bother tracking them? Why not make them come to us?"

"They're too unpredictable. It wouldn't be safe. I'd rather have surprise on our side."

"You don't seem to see what I mean," Extrone said. "We won't be the—ah—the bait."

"Oh?"

"Let's get back to the column."

"Extrone wants to see you," Lin said.

Ri twisted at the grass shoot, broke it off, worried and unhappy. "What's he want to see me for?"

"I don't know," Lin said curtly.

Ri got to his feet. One of his hands reached out, plucked nervously at Lin's bare forearm. "Look," he whispered. "You know him. I have—a little money. If you were able to ... if he wants," Ri gulped, "to do anything to me—I'd pay you, if you could...."

"You better come along," Lin said, turning.

Ri rubbed his hands along his thighs; he sighed, a tiny sound, ineffectual. He followed Lin beyond an outcropping of shale to where Extrone was seated, petting his rifle.

Extrone nodded genially. "The farn beast hunter, eh?"

"Yes, sir."

Extrone drummed his fingers on the stock of the blast rifle. "Tell me what they look like," he said suddenly.

"Well, sir, they're ... uh...."

"Pretty frightening?"

"No, sir.... Well, in a way, sir."

"But you weren't afraid of them, were you?"

"No, sir. No, because...."

Extrone was smiling innocently. "Good. I want you to do something for me."

"I ... I...." Ri glanced nervously at Lin out of the tail of his eye. Lin's face was impassive.

"Of course you will," Extrone said genially. "Get me a rope, Lin. A good, long, strong rope."

"What are you going to do?" Ri asked, terrified.

"Why, I'm going to tie the rope around your waist and stake you out as bait."

"No!"

"Oh, come now. When the farn beast hears you scream—you can scream, by the way?"

Ri swallowed.

"We could find a way to make you."

There was perspiration trickling down Ri's forehead, a single drop, creeping toward his nose.

"You'll be safe," Extrone said, studying his face with amusement. "I'll shoot the animal before it reaches you."

Ri gulped for air. "But ... if there should be more than one?"

Extrone shrugged.

"I—Look, sir. Listen to me." Ri's lips were bloodless and his hands were trembling. "It's not me you want to do this to. It's Mia, sir. He killed a farn beast before I did, sir. And last night—last night, he—"

"He what?" Extrone demanded, leaning forward intently.

Ri breathed with a gurgling sound. "He said he ought to kill you, sir. That's what he said. I heard him, sir. He said he ought to kill you. He's the one you ought to use for bait. Then if there was an accident, sir, it wouldn't matter, because he said he ought to kill you. I wouldn't...."

Extrone said, "Which one is he?"

"That one. Right over there."

"The one with his back to me?"

"Yes, sir. That's him. That's him, sir."

Extrone aimed carefully and fired, full charge, then lowered the rifle and said, "Here comes Lin with the rope, I see."

Ri was greenish. "You ... you...."

Extrone turned to Lin. "Tie one end around his waist."

"Wait," Ri begged, fighting off the rope with his hands. "You don't want to use me, sir. Not after I told you.... Please, sir. If anything should happen to me.... Please, sir. Don't do it."

"Tie it," Extrone ordered.

"No, sir. Please. Oh, please don't, sir."

"Tie it," Extrone said inexorably.

Lin bent with the rope; his face was colorless.

They were at the watering hole—Extrone, Lin, two bearers, and Ri.

Since the hole was drying, the left, partially exposed bank was steep toward the muddy water. Upon it was green, new grass, tender-tuffed, half mashed in places by heavy animal treads. It was there that they staked him out, tying the free end of the rope tightly around the base of a scaling tree.

"You will scream," Extrone instructed. With his rifle, he pointed across the water hole. "The farn beast will come from this direction, I imagine."

Ri was almost slobbering in fear.

"Let me hear you scream," Extrone said.

Ri moaned weakly.

"You'll have to do better than that." Extrone inclined his head toward a bearer, who used something Ri couldn't see.

Ri screamed.

"See that you keep it up that way," Extrone said. "That's the way I want you to sound." He turned toward Lin. "We can climb this tree, I think."

Slowly, aided by the bearers, the two men climbed the tree, bark peeling away from under their rough boots. Ri watched them hopelessly.

Once at the crotch, Extrone settled down, holding the rifle at alert. Lin moved to the left, out on the main branch, rested in a smaller crotch.

Looking down, Extrone said, "Scream!" Then, to Lin, "You feel the excitement? It's always in the air like this at a hunt."

"I feel it," Lin said.

Extrone chuckled. "You were with me on Meizque?"

"Yes."

"That was something, that time." He ran his hand along the stock of the weapon.

The sun headed west, veiling itself with trees; a large insect circled Extrone's head. He slapped at it, angry. The forest was quiet, underlined by an occasional piping call, something like a whistle. Ri's screams were shrill, echoing away, shiveringly. Lin sat quiet, hunched.

Extrone's eyes narrowed, and he began to pet the gun stock with quick, jerky movements. Lin licked his lips, keeping his eyes on Extrone's face. The sun seemed stuck in the sky, and the heat squeezed against them, sucking at their breath like a vacuum. The insect went away. Still, endless, hopeless, monotonous, Ri screamed.

A farn beast coughed, far in the matted forest.

Extrone laughed nervously. "He must have heard."

"We're lucky to rouse one so fast," Lin said.

Extrone dug his boot cleats into the tree, braced himself. "I like this. There's more excitement in waiting like this than in anything I know."

Lin nodded.

"The waiting, itself, is a lot. The suspense. It's not only the killing that matters."

"It's not only the killing," Lin echoed.

"You understand?" Extrone said. "How it is to wait, knowing in just a minute something is going to come out of the forest, and you're going to kill it?"

"I know," Lin said.

"But it's not only the killing. It's the waiting, too."

The farn beast coughed again; nearer.

"It's a different one," Lin said.

"How do you know?"

"Hear the lower pitch, the more of a roar?"

"Hey!" Extrone shouted. "You, down there. There are two coming. Now let's hear you really scream!"

Ri, below, whimpered childishly and began to retreat toward the tether tree, his eyes wide.

"There's a lot of satisfaction in fooling them, too," Extrone said. "Making them come to your bait, where you can get at them." He opened his right hand. "Choose your ground, set your trap. Bait it." He snapped his hand into a fist, held the fist up before his eyes, imprisoning the idea. "Spring the trap when the quarry is inside. Clever. That makes the waiting more interesting. Waiting to see if they really will come to your bait."

Lin shifted, staring toward the forest.

"I've always liked to hunt," Extrone said. "More than anything else, I think."

Lin spat toward the ground. "People should hunt because they have to. For food. For safety."

"No," Extrone argued. "People should hunt for the love of hunting."

"Killing?"

"Hunting," Extrone repeated harshly.

The farn beast coughed. Another answered. They were very near, and there was a noise of crackling underbrush.

"He's good bait," Extrone said. "He's fat enough and he knows how to scream good."

Ri had stopped screaming; he was huddled against the tree, fearfully eying the forest across from the watering hole.

Extrone began to tremble with excitement. "Here they come!"

The forest sprang apart. Extrone bent forward, the gun still across his lap.

The farn beast, its tiny eyes red with hate, stepped out on the bank, swinging its head wildly, its nostrils flaring in anger. It coughed. Its mate appeared beside it. Their tails thrashed against the scrubs behind them, rattling leaves.

"Shoot!" Lin hissed. "For God's sake, shoot!"

"Wait," Extrone said. "Let's see what they do." He had not moved the rifle. He was tense, bent forward, his eyes slitted, his breath beginning to sound like an asthmatic pump.

The lead farn beast sighted Ri. It lowered its head.

"Look!" Extrone cried excitedly. "Here it comes!"

Ri began to scream again.

Still Extrone did not lift his blast rifle. He was laughing. Lin waited, frozen, his eyes staring at the farn beast in fascination.

The farn beast plunged into the water, which was shallow, and, throwing a sheet of it to either side, headed across toward Ri.

"Watch! Watch!" Extrone cried gleefully.

And then the aliens sprang their trap.

An Elephant for the Prinkip by L.J. Stecher

An Elephant For the Prinkip

BY L. J. STECHER, JR.

Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine August 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

A Delta class freighter can
carry anything—maybe more
than its skipper can bear!

A delta class freighter isn't pretty to look at, but it can be adapted to carry most anything, and occasionally even to carry it profitably. So when I saw one I didn't recognize sitting under the gantry at Helmholtz Spaceport, I hurried right over to Operations.

It looked as if I might be able to get my Gasha root off-planet before it started to spoil, after all.

It was the Delta Crucis, they told me. She was a tramp, and she hadn't yet been signed for a cargo. The skipper was listed as his own agent. They told me where they thought I could find him, so I drifted over to the Spaceport bar, and looked around.

I found my man quickly enough. He had the young-old look of a deep spacer. He wore a neat but threadbare blue uniform, with the four broad gold rings of command—rather tarnished—on each sleeve. He had a glass of rhial—a liquor that was too potent for my taste—in front of him at ten o'clock in the morning, and that wasn't a good sign. But he looked sober enough.

So I picked up a large schooner of beer at the bar and strolled over to his table in the far corner away from the window.

"Mind if I join you?" I asked casually. "I hate to drink alone."

He stared at me for a minute out of those pale-blue spacer's eyes of his, until I figured he thought he had me catalogued.

Then he motioned me to the chair across from his at the small table. We sat for a few minutes in silence, sizing each other up.

"That's a mighty nice looking freighter out there on pad seven," I said at last. "Yours?"

He uncapped his glass, took a sip of rhial, snicked the cover back, and let the heady stuff evaporate in his mouth. He breathed in sharply in the approved manner, but he didn't even shudder. He just nodded slowly, once.

That appeared to pass the conversational ball back to me. "I might have a cargo for you, if you can handle it," I said. "I hear these Delta class ships can manage almost anything, but this is a rough one. The Annabelle is the only ship in the area built to take my stuff, and she's grounded with transposer troubles."

He cocked one sandy eyebrow at me. I interpreted this to be a request for the nature of my cargo, so I told him, and let him ponder about it for a while.

"Gasha root," he said at last, and nodded once. "I can handle it. That'll be easy, for Delta Crucis. Like you said, she can handle anything. Her last cargo was a live elephant."

We completed our deal without much trouble. He drove a hard bargain, but a fair one, and he had plenty of self-confidence. He signed a contingent-on-satisfactory-delivery contract, and that's unusual for a ship that's handling Gasha. Hadn't thought I'd be so lucky. Gasha is tricky stuff.

We went over to the Government office to complete the deal—customs arrangements, notarizations, posting bonds and so forth—but we finally signed the contract, all legal and binding. His name turned out to be Bart Hannah.

Then, by unspoken consent, we went back to the bar.

It was after noon, by that time, so I had a Scotch, and then I had another. I was so relieved to have found a ship for my cargo that I didn't even think about lunch.

I got more and more mellow and talkative as time went by, but the skipper just sat there, breathing rhial. He didn't seem to change a bit.

Something had been bothering me, though, and I finally figured out what it was. So I stopped talking about my farming troubles, and asked Captain Hannah a direct question.

"You say you carried an elephant?" I asked. "A live elephant? In a space ship?"

He nodded. "It's an animal," he said. "A very large animal. From Earth."

"I know all about that," I said. "We're civilized here. We're not just a bunch of back-planet hicks, you know. We study all about the Home Planet at school. But why—and how—would anyone take an elephant into space?"

He stared at me for a while, then took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "I'll tell you," he said. "After all, it's nothing to be really ashamed of." He pondered for a full minute. "It all started just a few standard months ago, on Condor—over in Sector Sixty-four W."

"Sixty-four W?" I broke in. "That's clear over on the other side of the Galaxy."

He looked at me for awhile, and then went on just as if I hadn't spoken.

"I'd been doing all right with Delta Crucis," he said, "and salting away plenty of cash, but I wasn't satisfied. It was mostly short-haul stuff—ten or twenty light years—and it was mostly run-of-the-mill loads. Fleeder jewels, kharran, morab fur—that sort of thing, you know. I was getting bored. They said a Delta class freighter could carry just about anything, and I wanted to prove it. So when I heard that a rich eccentric, one planet out, on Penguin, might have an interesting job for me, I flitted right over.

"The Prinkip of Penguin wasn't just rich. He was rich rich. Penguin has almost twice the diameter of this planet, but it's light enough to have about the same surface gravity. To give you an idea, its two biggest bodies of water are about the size of the Atlantic Ocean, back on the Earth you've studied so much about. On Penguin they call them lakes. And the Prinkip owns the whole planet—free and clear. I should be so lucky with Delta Crucis.

"The Prinkip is a little skinny man, but that doesn't keep him from having a large-size hobby to go with his large-size planet. The Prinkip collects animals—one from each planet in his sector. He had a zoo with nearly three hundred monsters in it—always a sample of the largest kind from whatever planet it came from.

"He showed me around. It was the damndest sight you ever saw. He had one animal called a pfleeg. It was almost two hundred feet long; it walked around on two legs and sang like a bird. He had another one that had two hundred and thirty-four legs on a side. I counted them. It had four sides. Didn't care which one was up. He had animals under glass that didn't breathe at all. He had one animal under a microscope that was about a thousandth of an inch long, but he told me that it was the biggest one on Fartolp. He had a big satellite stuck up overhead in a one-revolution-a-day orbit for animals that needed light gravity. He had thirty-seven more beasts in that. All in all, he had one animal from every planet in Sector Sixty-four W that had life. He figured that he needed just one more animal to complete his collection. He wanted a sample of a creature from the Home Planet; one live and healthy sample of Earth's biggest animal. And he wanted to know if I could ship it to him.

"Well, I didn't give the matter too much thought. After all, I said to myself, if somebody had managed a three hundred ton monster almost two hundred feet long, I ought to be able to manage a little bitty elephant. So I said yes, and I gave him a contingent-on-satisfactory-delivery contract, for one adult specimen of Earth's largest animal, male or female, in good condition.

"It wasn't until about that time that the Prinkip told me how that biggest monster had been shipped. It had arrived in a cardboard box, wrapped in cotton. It seems that pfleeg eggs weigh just a little under three ounces. Well, I'd been done but I still figured I could make delivery."

He lapsed into silence for a moment, thinking deeply. "Did you know that there are two kinds of elephants on Earth, the African and the Indian, and that they aren't exactly the same size?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Our schools don't go that far," I said.

He nodded. "Neither do ours. So I immediately bought an Indian elephant. They're the kind, back on the Home planet, that you can find tame and easy to handle. They're also the wrong kind. The only reason I didn't head right back with it is that I was having trouble figuring out how to carry it in the Crucis. Even an Indian elephant weighs about six tons. At least, mine did. In itself, that's not a very big load, but the trip back would take a good many months of subjective time, and of course elephants eat on subjective time. And how they eat! The food I carried would weigh the same as the elephant.

"I wondered how elephants would like weightlessness, so I took my Indian elephant up on a little jaunt around Earth's satellite. The Moon, they call it. Elephants don't like weightlessness at all." He paused, and signaled the bartender for another drink. "I hope you never have to clean up after a space-sick elephant," he said darkly.

"That meant that I'd have to put spin on the Crucis for the entire trip back to Penguin. It's hard enough to try to navigate in hyperspace with spin on your ship, but that wasn't the worst of it. An elephant is a tremendous amount of off-center load for a ship with a large fraction of a one-gee spin on it. Too much load even to think about handling. Even though I couldn't come up with an answer, right off hand, I went ahead and turned in my Indian elephant on an African model. Beulah was her name, and she was a husky girl. She weighed in at just a little more than eight tons."

I waved my whisky glass at Captain Hannah. "But I don't see your problem," I said. "If you put the elephant on one side and his food on the other, there wouldn't be any off-balanced load, would there?"

"Not until the food was eaten, anyway," said the skipper witheringly, and I subsided with a fresh drink.

"Beulah was kind of cute, for all of her tonnage," said the skipper. "She had two enormous tusks, and a pair of ears like wings, and a nose that was longer than her tail. But she was mighty friendly, after she got to know me. She'd pick me up and carry me around, if I asked her to. And she'd eat right out of my hand. She turned out to be even tamer than the Indian elephant. All I had to do was figure out how to carry her.

"For a starter, I figured like you said, to have Beulah on one side of the cargo compartment, and her chow on the other. Then I calculated to have my own supplies on the other two sides of the space, so that I could move them away from her as her food stocks got smaller, and hold the balance that way. That wasn't enough, of course, so I built a couple of water tanks on the opposite side of the ring from Beulah.

"As you know, not much can be done about moving water around in a space ship—it's got its own cooling chores to perform—but every little bit helped. Finally, I jockeyed the master computer and the auxiliary computer down and ran them on tracks, so I could slide them around to compensate for Beulah's appetite. Some lead slugs brought the auxiliary's weight up equal to the master's, and they also brought my total load up to the absolute maximum that I could carry.

"It was almost enough. But a miss is as good as a mile, for a space ship. I was stuck, and there didn't seem to be a thing I could do about it. Even if I could have carried more weight it wouldn't have helped. Any more mass in the cargo compartment would have thrown the c.g. too far aft." He beckoned for more rhial.

"So what did you do?" I prompted. "You did say that you carried the elephant, didn't you?"

"Sure. Like I said, a Delta class freighter can do almost anything. Beulah gave me the answer herself. If you've ever lived with an elephant, one thing becomes clear mighty fast. They're a mighty efficient machine for converting fodder into elephant droppings. So I made a bin on the opposite side of the compartment from Beulah, and let her gradually fill it while she ate me out of balance. The weight of the—what's a nice word for it?—was just enough to let me keep the whole setup in dynamic balance."

"Compost heap?" I suggested dreamily, picturing the arrangement in my mind. There was poetry in it. Or was it poetic justice that I had in mind?

"That's it," said Captain Hannah. "Compost heap. Well, I started the journey with the ship full and Beulah and the compost heap empty. I finished pretty much the other way around. I suppose it sounds easy, but it wasn't.

"I started off with Beulah chained down in the middle of the compartment, and everything stacked around her. She didn't want me to leave when I went up to the bridge to take off, and hollered as piteously as you can imagine. But I couldn't have a nurse for her—mahout, they call them. I couldn't spare the weight. Or the salary, for that matter. She was chained down, so she couldn't move around and upset the balance.

"After chemical take off, we slid into parking orbit as sweet as you please. I hurried down to shift the load around. I didn't want to stay weightless any longer than I had to, because I remembered that sick Indian elephant—and Beulah outweighed him by almost two tons, and had a larger stomach to match. Of course, the Indian elephant had gone into orbit on a full belly, and I hadn't let Beulah have a bite to eat for hours. It made a difference, let me tell you.

"Beulah made trouble in her own way, though. As soon as I got within reach, she grabbed me with that long nose of hers, and wouldn't let go. She didn't hurt me or anything like that; she just wanted company in her misery. I couldn't coax her with food. The very thought of food made her shudder.

"I couldn't reach her chains to cut her loose, and I couldn't reach the radio to call for help. If it hadn't been for the Ionosphere Guard, I might have starved to death. I'd hired the parking orbit for twelve hours, and when I was still in it after that time, Port Control started to holler. I could hear them on my loud speaker, but I couldn't answer them. So the Ionosphere Guard finally sent up a small craft with a lieutenant and a three-man crew in it to see what was wrong.

"Those sailors were good. They didn't even look surprised; they just went to work as if they handled elephants in space every day. They drove four lines through the ring bolts I'd welded in the spin-deck, cast Beulah loose and hauled her over to her new spot as neat as you please.

"Then, no nonsense, the lieutenant ordered Beulah to let loose of me. She did, too.

"After that they left, stopping for just one drink of my good bourbon. I didn't drink rhial then.

"I wirelessed Port Control my penalty fees and another twelve hour's hire in the orbit, and started shifting the load. I was working on an empty stomach, and Beulah still didn't feel hungry, so she didn't remind me that I hadn't eaten. I almost collapsed before I got the job done.

"Then I put spin on, which made Beulah comfortable at last, and tried to juggle the ship into a hyper-trajectory, still without stopping for food or sleep. It didn't take long before Beulah started squalling for supper. After I fed her I had to adjust balance all over again. By that time I was pushing my new twelve-hour limit, and I didn't give much of a damn any more. I just counted to ten and pushed the button. Then I turned in and slept until Beulah started squalling for breakfast. I ignored her until I ate about three squares in a row, then I fed her and adjusted balance. After that I checked my trajectory.

"It was the best I've ever made in twenty-four years of jumping. It was beautiful.

"So I turned back in again and slept until Beulah woke me for lunch. I didn't know it at the time, but Beulah was eating for two. That possibility probably should have occurred to me earlier, what with the name 'Beulah', but you can't think of everything, and there I was, the first man to go into hyperspace with an elephant. Anyway, it didn't even worry me, even when I found out about it. I checked the contract. Everything seemed to be well covered. And according to my book on elephants, Beulah should still be only a potential mother when we reached Penguin. As a matter of fact, the whole idea made me feel just a little bit proud. Like a father, you know?

"What with having to shift weights after every meal, and Beulah setting the schedule for meals, I was kept mighty busy. My self-winding wristwatch overwound itself and stopped, in spite of the advertisements about it, and I didn't find out for almost two weeks, subjective, that Beulah's stomach ran fast. What's more, I think she knew it. Because when I finally woke up to what was going on, and started to run her schedule by the clock, she didn't fuss a bit. Beulah's a clever girl.

"I was so worn out when we finally reached Penguin that I just slid into orbit, kept spin on, laid out a couple of extra meals for Beulah and slept the clock around. The Prinkip was mighty mad about it when I finally turned on my radio, but I told him I had my cargo ready for delivery and where did he want me to put it? So he calmed down and gave me the coordinates.

"Of course, I had to take off the spin and shift Beulah back to the landing deck, and there wasn't any Ionosphere Guard around to help me if I got into any kind of trouble. So I was mighty careful. I put the chains on Beulah again, and then set up trip ropes so I could cut her loose without getting inside of reach of that nose of hers. Then I ran lines back to the first set of ring bolts, so I could drag her back, weightless, without any trouble. Beulah looked a little unhappy, but didn't make any fuss about it all. I started to take spin off, giving the orders to the angle jets through the computer right down in the cargo compartment, so the old girl wouldn't worry about where I was.

"Beulah didn't squall as her weight came off this time. She just reached down and tripped loose the chains around her ankles. Did I tell you that she was mighty clever?"

I nodded.

"Well, she started around that spin deck after me. I punched into the computer the maximum order for spin reduction, and started around the spin deck to keep away from her. Beulah grabbed hold of the computer with her nose—for support, I guess—when she got over there. She yanked the whole thing clear off the deck, breaking its cable. Crucis lurched once.

"And I ended up in the compost heap.

"With Beulah way off center, and with that last wild burst from the jets before they cut off, the ship was gyrating in a way that made my stomach uneasy. It didn't seem to bother Beulah, though. She just wanted to be near me. I got out of there fast, and went up onto the bridge.

"The main computer was out, of course. I couldn't interrogate the auxiliary computer remotely, so I had to fly that wobbling ship to a stop by the seat of my pants. I did it, too.

"Then I went back to the cargo compartment and hauled Beulah into the center. She didn't make any more trouble—she was sorry for what she had done.

"The coordinates the Prinkip had given me looked almighty close to a big pond that I didn't recall having seen before, but I was too busy making a landing with minimum fuel to ask him about it. I finally fought her down safely with one leg of my tripod actually in the pond, and clouds of steam rising up around Delta Crucis. I call it a pond. But on a normal-size planet it would be a good big lake.

"Anyway, I had made it safely to Penguin, and my elephant was alive and healthy. I congratulated Beulah when I untied her, and then I took her outside to meet the Prinkip. I think I was a little proud of myself, and of Beulah, and of Delta Crucis, too."

I was so stirred by hearing about this successful conclusion of Captain Hannah's mission that I shook his hand warmly and ordered a round of drinks for everyone in the room. Fortunately, it was not very crowded at the time.

"That's not quite the end of the story," said the skipper. "You see, the Prinkip had built the pond to keep Beulah in. He had somehow gotten the idea that I was bringing him a whale."

I looked blank.

"An Earth mammal. It lives in the oceans, and runs to maybe seventy or eighty tons."

I sat down slowly, and then made a sudden dive for my contract for the use of the Delta Crucis.

The skipper nodded. "I had a contingent contract with the Prinkip, too," he said, "and I hadn't delivered. I still haven't figured out how to make delivery of a whale, but I will some day.

"And if you're looking for that part of our contract where you agree to store any residual cargo I may be carrying, it's all legal and binding. Until I get back from hauling your Gasha root, you'll have to care for one adult female African elephant. But I'm sure you'll get to like Beulah as much as I have. She's a mighty clever elephant."

I called the waiter over and ordered a beaker of rhial.

"But you're lucky at that," said Hannah. "Check subparagraph f of paragraph 74 of our contract: Incidental accrual. When Beulah has her baby, the little tyke will be all yours."

Now I know why Captain Hannah drinks rhial in the morning.

So do I.

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Man in a Quandary by L.J. Stecher

MAN IN A QUANDARY

By L. J. STECHER, JR.

Illustrated by MARTINEZ

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction July 1958.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

If you were in my—well, shoes, if you don't mind
stretching a point—what would you do about this?

Dear Miss Dix VI:

I have a problem. In spite of rumors to the contrary, my parents were properly married, and were perfectly normal people at the time I was born. And so was I—normal, I mean. But that all contributed to the creation of my problem.

I do not know if you can help me resolve it, but you have helped so many others that I am willing to try you. I enjoin you not to answer this letter in your column; write me privately, please.

You know all about me, of course. Who doesn't? But most of what you know about me is bound to be almost entirely wrong. So I will have to clarify my background before I present my problem.

Know, then, that I am Alfred the Magnificent. It surprises you, I imagine, that I would be writing a letter to Miss Dix VI. After all, in spite of the tax rate, I am one of the richest—I will say it!—one of the richest men in the world.

Every word of that last statement is true. My parents were enormously wealthy, but I have accumulated even more of the world's goods than they ever did. And if they had not been loaded with loot, I would not be here now to be writing this letter to you.

Please excuse any lack of smoothness in the style and execution of this letter. I'm doing this all myself. Usually I dictate to a secretary—a live secretary—but you understand that that would not be advisable for a letter of this kind, I'm sure.

So. My background. I was born in 2352 and, having passed my infantile I.Q. test with flying colors, was admitted to the Harvard Creche for Superior Children at the usual age of three months.

The name of Alfred Vanderform naturally had been entered on the rolls much earlier. Ten years earlier, in point of fact. My parents had been fortunate enough to be selected to have three children and I was to be their first. They chose to begin with a son. They had known that they would be chosen, and that I would be a superior child, and had taken the wise precaution of signing me up for Harvard Creche as soon as the planners had finished drawing up their preliminary charts.

In spite of what you may have heard, there was absolutely no chance of falsifying the initial I.Q. examination; in those days, at least. I was a physically normal, mentally superior child. My progress at the creche was entirely satisfactory. I was an ordinarily above-average genius in every way.

At age six, I left the creche for my sabbatical year at home with my parents, and it was there that my first disaster occurred.

My mother and father moved into the same house while I was there, which was the custom then (and may still be, for all I know) in order to provide a proper home-like atmosphere for me. Through some carelessness in original planning, this was also the year that had been selected for the birth of their second child, which was to be a girl. Both parents were to be the same for all three of their children. Under usual circumstances, they would have paid enough attention to me so that the disaster would never have been allowed to take place, but plans for their second child must have made them a trifle careless.

At any rate, in spite of my early age, an embolism somehow developed and major damage to my heart resulted. It was here that the great wealth of my parents proved invaluable.

Prognosis was entirely unfavorable for me. The routine procedure for a three-offspring couple would have been to cancel the unsuccessful quota and reissue it for immediate production. However, it was too late to arrange for twins in their second quota and my parents decided to attempt to salvage me.

An artificial heart was prepared and substituted for the original. It had a built-in atomic battery which would require renovation no oftener than every twenty years. Voluntary control was provided through connection with certain muscles in my neck, and I soon learned to operate it at least as efficiently as a normal heart with the normal involuntary controls.

The mechanism was considerably bigger than the natural organ, but the salvage operation was a complete success. The bulge between my shoulder blades for the battery and the one in front of my chest for the pump were not excessively unsightly. I entered the Princeton Second Stage Creche for Greatly Superior Children on time, being accepted without objection in spite of my pseudo-deformity.

It cannot be proved that any special emolument was offered to or accepted by the creche managers in order to secure my acceptance. My personal belief is that nobody had to cough up.

Three years at Princeton passed relatively uneventfully for me. In spite of the best efforts and assurances of the creche psychologists, there was naturally a certain lack of initial acceptance of me by some of my creche mates. However, they soon became accustomed to my fore-and-aft bulges, and since I had greater endurance than they, with voluntary control over my artificial heart, I eventually gained acceptance, and even a considerable measure of leadership—insofar as leadership by an individual is possible in a creche.

Shortly after the beginning of my fourth year at the Princeton Creche, the second great personal disaster struck.

Somehow or other—the cause has not been determined to this day—my artificial heart went on the blink. I did not quite die immediately, but the prognosis was once again entirely unfavorable. Considerable damage had somehow eventuated to my lungs, my liver and my kidneys. I was a mess.

By this time, my parents had made such a huge investment in me, and my progress reports had been so uniformly excellent, that in spite of all the advice from the doctors, they determined to attempt salvage again.

A complete repackaging job was decided upon. Blood was to be received, aerated, purified and pumped back to the arterial system through a single mechanism which would weigh only about thirty-five pounds. Of course, this made portability an important factor. Remember that I was only ten years old. I could probably have carried such a weight around on my back, but I could never have engaged in the proper development of my whole body and thus could never have been accepted back again by Princeton.

It was therefore determined to put the machinery into a sort of cart, which I would tow around behind me. Wheels were quickly rejected as being entirely unsatisfactory. They would excessively inhibit jumping, climbing and many other boyish activities.

The manufacturers finally decided to provide the cart with a pair of legs. This necessitated additional machinery and added about twenty-five pounds to the weight of the finished product. They solved the problem of how I would handle the thing with great ingenuity by making the primary control involuntary. They provided a connection with my spinal cord so that the posterior pair of legs, unless I consciously ordered otherwise, always followed in the footsteps of the anterior pair. If I ran, they ran. If I jumped, they jumped.

In order to make the connection to my body, the manufacturers removed my coccyx and plugged in at and around the end of my spinal column. In other words, I had a very long and rather flexible tail, at the end of which was a smoothly streamlined flesh-colored box that followed me around on its own two legs.

A human has certain normally atrophied muscles for control of his usually non-existent tail. Through surgery and training, those muscles became my voluntary controllers for my tail and the cart. That is, I could go around waggin' my tail while draggin' my wagon.

Pardon me, Miss Dix VI. That just slipped out.

Well, the thing actually worked. You should have seen me in a high hurdle race—me running along and jumping over the hurdles, with that contraption galloping along right behind me, clearing every hurdle I cleared. I kept enough slack in my tail so I wouldn't get pulled up short, and then just forgot about it.

Going off a diving board was a little bit different. I learned to do things like that with my back legs under voluntary control.

Speaking of diving boards, maybe you wonder how I could swim while towing a trailer. No trouble at all. I would just put my tail between my legs and have my cart grab me around the waist with a kind of body scissors. The cart's flexible air sac was on its top when it was in normal position, so this held it away from my body, where it would not get squeezed. I would take in just enough air so that it was neutrally buoyant, and with its streamlined shape, it didn't slow me down enough to notice.

I usually "breathed"—or took in my air—through the intakes of the cart, and they stayed under water, but there was an air connection through my tail up to the lung cavity anyway, allowing me to talk. So I just breathed through my mouth in the old-fashioned way.

Backing up was rather a problem, with my posterior legs leading the way, and dancing was nearly impossible until I got the idea of having my trailer climb up out of the way onto my shoulders while I danced. That got me by Princeton's requirements, but I must confess that I was never very much in demand as a dancing partner.

At any rate, that system got me through to my sixth and last year at Princeton. I sometimes believe that I may be considered to be what is occasionally called an "accident-prone." I seem to have had more than my share of tough luck. During my last year at Princeton, I got my throat cut.

It was an accident, of course. No Princeton man would ever dream of doing away with someone he had taken a dislike to quite so crudely. Or messily.

By voluntary control of my heart, I slowed the action down to the point where I managed to keep from bleeding to death, but my larynx was destroyed beyond repair. That was when I got my Voder installation. It fitted neatly where my lungs used to be, and because it used the same resonant cavities, I soon learned to imitate my own voice well enough so that nobody could tell the difference, "before" or "after."

Actually, it was a minor accident, but I thought I'd mention it because of what the news media sometimes call my "inhuman voice." It even enables me to sing, something I never was much good at before that accident. Also, I could imitate a banjo and sing at the same time, a talent that made me popular at picnics.

That was the last real accident I had for quite a while. I got through my second (and last) home sabbatical, my Upper School, my First College and my Second College. I was chosen for, and got through, Advanced College with highest honors. Counting sabbaticals, that took a total of twenty-nine years, plus the last of my time at Princeton. And then, an eager youth of forty-two, I was on my own—ready to make my way in the world.

I was smart to avoid the government service that catches so many of us so-called super-geniuses. It's very satisfying work and all that, I suppose, but there's no money in it, and I was rich enough to want to get richer.

The cart containing my organs didn't get in my way too much. With my athletic days behind me, I taught it to come to heel instead of striding along behind me. It was less efficient, but it was a lot less conspicuous. I had a second involuntary control system built in so it would stay at heel without conscious thought on my part, once I put it there.

In my office, I would have it curl up at my feet like a sleeping dog. People told me it was hardly noticeable—even people who didn't work for me. It certainly didn't bother me or hold me back. I started to make money as though I had my own printing press and managed to hang onto most of it.

In spite of what the doom criers say, as long as there is an element of freedom in this country—and I think there always will be—there will be ways, and I mean legal ways, of coming into large hunks of cash. Within ten years, I was not only Big Rich; I was one of the most important people in the world. A Policy Maker. A Power.

It was about that time that I drank the bottle of acid.

Nobody was trying to poison me. I wasn't trying to kill myself, either. Not even subconsciously. I was just thirsty. All I can say is I did a first rate job with what was left of my insides.

Well, they salvaged me again, and what I ended up with was a pair of carts, one trotting along beside each heel. The leash for the second one was plugged into me in front instead of in the back, naturally, but with my clothes on, nobody could tell, just by looking, that they were attached to me at all.

The doctors offered to get me by without the second trailer. They figured they could prepare pre-digested food and introduce it into my bloodstream through the mechanism of my original wagon. I refused to let them; I had gotten too used to eating.

So whatever I ate was ground up and pumped into my new trailer—or should it be "preceder"? There it would be processed and the nutriments passed into my bloodstream as required. I couldn't overeat if I tried. It was all automatic, not even hooked into my nervous system. Unusable products were compressed and neatly packaged for disposal at any convenient time. In cellophane. There was, of course, interconnection inside of me between the two carts.

I'm told I started quite a fad for walking dogs in pairs. It didn't affect me at all. I never got very good at voluntary control of my second trailer, but by that time my habit patterns were such that I hardly noticed it.

Oh, yes—about swimming. I still enjoyed swimming and I worked it out this way: Wagon number two replaced number one in straddling me, and wagon number one hung onto number two. It slowed me down, but it still let me swim. I quit diving. I couldn't spare the time to figure out how to manage it.

That took care of the next five years. I kept on getting richer. I was a happy man. Then came the crowning blow. What was left of me developed cancer.

It attacked my brain, among other things. And it was inoperable. It looked as if I had only a couple of years before deterioration of my mental powers set in, and then it would be the scrap heap for me.

But I didn't give up. By that time, I had gotten used to the parts-replacement program. And I was very rich. So I told them to get busy and build me an artificial brain as good as my own.

They didn't have time to make a neat package job this time. They took over three big buildings in the center of town and filled them with electronics. You should see the cable conduits connecting those buildings together! Then they bought the Broadway Power Plant and used most of its output. They ran in new water mains to provide the coolant.

They used most of my money, and it took all of my influence to speed things up, but they got the job done in time.

It won't do you any good to ask me how they transferred my memories and my personality to that mass of tubes and wires and tapes and transistors. I don't know. They tell me that it was the easiest part of the job, and I know that they did it perfectly. My brain power and my personality came through unchanged. I used them to get rich again in mighty short order. I had to, to pay my water and power bills.

I came out of it "Alfred the Magnificent" and still I'm just as human as you are, even if a lot of people—a few billions of them, I guess—won't believe it. Granted, there isn't much of the Original Me left, but there's an old saying that Glands Make the Man. Underneath it all, I'm the same Alfred Vanderform, the same old ordinary super-genius that I have always been.

I have almost finished with the background material, Miss Dix VI, and am nearly ready to present you my problem. I am now approaching the age of sixty—and have therefore reached the time of Selection for Fatherhood. I have, in fact, been fortunate enough to be one of the few selected to father three children.

If you have chanced to hear rumors that money changed hands in getting me selected, let me tell you that they are entirely true. The only thing wrong about the rumors is that none of them has named a big enough amount—not nearly big enough. It isn't that I don't qualify by any honest evaluation. I do. But there has been a good deal of prejudice against me as a Father, and even some skepticism about my capability. But that doesn't matter; what does is that I have been selected.

What is more, a single superior female was chosen to be Mother of all three of my children. By what is not at all a coincidence, this woman happens to be my private secretary. She is, I may add, very beautiful.

I am just old-fashioned enough to want my children to have all of the advantages that I had myself, including parents who are fully married, in the same way that my own mother and father were. Legal ceremony—religious service—everything!

So I have asked the chosen mother of my children-to-be to marry me, and Gloria—that's her name—has been gracious enough to accept. We are to be married week after next.

Now, Miss Dix VI, we come to my problem. How can I tell if Gloria is in love with me, or is just marrying me for my money?

Perplexed,
Alfred Vanderform
(The Magnificent)

License to Steal by Louis Newman

Ignorance of the law can so be a valid excuse—and
the result is this hilarious but legal....

LICENSE TO STEAL

By LOUIS NEWMAN

Illustrated by WOOD

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine August 1959.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The history of man becomes fearfully and wonderfully confusing with the advent of interstellar travel. Of special interest to the legally inclined student is the famous Skrrgck Affair, which began before the Galactic Tribunal with the case of Citizens vs. Skrrgck.

The case, and the opinion of the Court, may be summarized as follows:

Skrrgck, a native of Sknnbt (Altair IV), where theft is honorable, sanctioned by law and custom, immigrated to Earth (Sol III) where theft is contrary to both law and custom.

While residing in Chicago, a city in a political subdivision known as the State of Illinois, part of the United States of America, one of the ancient nation-states of Earth, he overheard his landlady use the phrase "A license to steal," a common colloquialism in the area, which refers to any special privilege.

Fig. 1: Actual scene of license issue (Skrrgck superimposed)

Skrrgck then went to a police station in Chicago and requested a license to steal. The desk sergeant, as a joke, wrote out a document purporting to be a license to steal, and Skrrgck, relying on said document, committed theft, was apprehended, tried and convicted. On direct appeal allowed to the Galactic Tribunal, the Court held:

(1) All persons are required to know and obey the law of the jurisdiction in which they reside.

(2) Public officials must refrain from misrepresenting to strangers the law of the jurisdiction.

(3) Where, as here, a public official is guilty of such misrepresentation, the requirement of knowledge no longer applies.

(4) Where, as here, it is shown by uncontradicted evidence that a defendant is law-abiding and willing to comply with the standards of his place of residence, misrepresentation of law by public officials may amount to entrapment.

(5) The Doctrine of Entrapment bars the State of Illinois from prosecuting this defendant.

(6) The magnitude of the crime is unimportant compared with the principle involved, and the fact that the defendant's unusual training on Sknnbt enabled him to steal a large building in Chicago, known as the Merchandise Mart, is of no significance.

(7) The defendant, however, was civilly liable for the return of the building, and its occupants, or their value, even if he had to steal to get it, provided, however, that he stole only on and from a planet where theft was legal.

Fig. 2: The moment of decision, case of Citizens vs. Skrrgck

The Skrrgck case was by no means concluded by the decision of the Galactic Tribunal, but continued to reverberate down the years, a field day for lawyers, and "a lesson to all in the complexities of modern intergalactic law and society," said Winston, Harold C, Herman Prof, of Legal History, Harvard.

Though freed on the criminal charge of theft, Skrrgck still faced some 20,000 charges of kidnapping, plus the civil liability imposed upon him by the ruling of the Court.

The kidnapping charges were temporarily held in abeyance. Not that the abductions were not considered outrageous, but it was quickly realized by all concerned that if Skrrgck were constantly involved in lengthy and expensive defenses to criminal prosecutions, there would be no chance at all of obtaining any restitution from him. First things first, and with Terrans that rarely means justice.

Skrrgck offered to pay over the money he had received for the building and its occupants, but that was unacceptable to the Terrans, for what they really wanted, with that exaggerated fervor typical of them, provided it agrees with their financial interests, was the return of the original articles. Not only were the people wanted back, but the building itself had a special significance.

Its full title was "The New Merchandise Mart" and it had been built in the exact style of the original and on the exact spot on the south side of the Chicago River where the original had stood prior to its destruction in the Sack of Chicago. It was more than just a large commercial structure to the Terrans. It was also a symbol of Terra's unusually quick recovery from its Empire Chaos into its present position of leadership within the Galactic Union. The Terrans wanted that building back.

So Skrrgck, an obliging fellow at heart, tried first to get it back, but this proved impossible, for he had sold the building to the Aldebaranian Confederacy for use in its annual "prosperity fiesta."

The dominant culture of the Aldebaranian system is a descendant of the "conspicuous destruction" or "potlatch" type, in which articles of value are destroyed to prove the wealth and power of the destroyers. It was customary once every Aldebaranian year—about six Terran—for the Aldebaranian government to sponsor a token celebration of this destructive sort, and it had purchased the Merchandise Mart from Skrrgck as part of its special celebration marking the first thousand years of the Confederacy.

Consequently, the building, along with everything else, was totally destroyed in the "bonfire" that consumed the entire fourth planet from the main Aldebaranian sun.

Nor was Skrrgck able to arrange the return to Terra of the occupants of the building, some 20,000 in number, because he had sold them as slaves to the Boötean League.

It is commonly thought slavery is forbidden throughout the Galaxy by the terms of Article 19 of the Galactic Compact, but such is not the case. What is actually forbidden is "involuntary servitude" and this situation proved the significance of that distinction. In the case of Sol v. Boötes, the Galactic Tribunal held that Terra had no right to force the "slaves" to give up their slavery and return to Terra if they did not wish to. And, quite naturally, none of them wished to.

It will be remembered that the Boöteans, a singularly handsome and good-natured people, were in imminent danger of racial extinction due to the disastrous effects of a strange nucleonic storm which had passed through their system in 1622. The physiological details of the "Boötean Effect," as it has been called, was to render every Boötean sterile in relation to every other Boötean, while leaving each Boötean normally capable of reproduction, provided one of the partners in the union had not been subjected to the nucleonic storm.

Faced with this situation, the Boöteans immediately took steps to encourage widespread immigration by other humanoid races, chiefly Terrans, for it was Terrans who had originally colonized Boötes and it was therefore known that interbreeding was possible.

But the Boöteans were largely unsuccessful in their immigration policy. Terra was peaceful and prosperous, and the Boöteans, being poor advertisers, were unable to convince more than a handful to leave the relative comforts of home for the far-off Boötean system where, almost all were sure, some horrible fate lay behind the Boöteans' honeyed words. So when Skrrgck showed up with some 20,000 Terrans, the Boöteans, in desperation, agreed to purchase them in the hope of avoiding the "involuntary servitude" prohibition of Article 19 by making them like it.

In this, they were spectacularly successful. The "slaves" were treated to the utmost luxury and every effort was made to satisfy any reasonable wish. Their "duties" consisted entirely of "keeping company" with the singularly attractive Boöteans.

Under these circumstances it is, perhaps, hardly surprising that out of the 20,101 occupants, all but 332 flatly refused to return to Terra.

The 332 who did wish to return, most of whom were borderline psychotics, were shipped home, and Boötes sued Skrrgck for their purchase price, but was turned down by the Galactic Quadrant Court on the theory of, basically, Caveat Emptor—let the buyer beware.

The Court in Sol v. Boötes had held that although adults could not be required to return to Terra, minors under the age of 31 could be, and an additional 569 were returned under this ruling, to the vociferous disgust of the post-puberty members of that group. Since there was apparently some question of certain misrepresentations by Skrrgck as to the ages or family affiliations of some members of this minor group, he agreed to an out-of-court settlement of Boötes' claim for their purchase price, thus depriving the legal profession of further clarification of the rights of two "good faith" dealers in this peculiar sort of transaction.

The Terran people, of course, were totally unsatisfied with this result. Led by some demagogues and, to a milder degree, by most of the political opposition to the existing Terran government, and reminded of certain actual examples from Terra's own history, many became convinced that some form of nefarious "brainwashing" had been exercised upon the "unfortunate" Terran expatriates. Excitement ran high, and there was even some agitation for withdrawal from the Galactic Union.

Confronted with such unrest, the Terran government made efforts to reach some settlement with Boötes despite the decision of the Court in Sol v. Boötes, and was finally able to gain in the Centaurian Agreement a substantial reparation, it being specifically stipulated in the Agreement that the money was to be paid to the dependents who suffered actual financial loss.

In a suit against the Terran government by one of the excluded families, to obtain for that family a share of the reparation, the validity of the treaty, as it applied to exclude the suing family and others in like position, was upheld by the United States Supreme Court.

The suit was begun before the Agreement had been ratified by the General Assembly, and the Court indicated that the plaintiff would have lost on the strength of a long line of cases giving the World President certain inherent powers over the conduct of foreign affairs. Since, however, the matter came up for decision after ratification, the Court said that the "inherent powers" question was moot, and that the Agreement, having been elevated to the status of a treaty by ratification, must be held valid under the "Supremacy of Treaties" section of Article 102 of the United Terran Charter.

Although this failed to satisfy the Terran people—and their anger may have contributed to the fall of the Solarian Party administration in the following election—the Treaty is generally considered by students of the subject as a triumph of Solarian diplomacy, and an outstanding example of intergalactic good faith on the part of Boötes.

Of course, neither the demagogy nor the anger could hide forever the true facts about how the Boöteans were treating their "slaves," and when the true facts became known, there was a sudden flood of migration from Terra to Boötes, which threatened to depopulate the Solarian Empire and drown Boötes. The flood was quickly dammed by the Treaty of Deneb restricting migration between the two systems. This treaty was held to be a valid police-powers exception to the "Free Migration" principle of Article 17 of the Galactic Compact in Boleslaw v. Sol and Boötes.

All this left Skrrgck with liabilities of some forty million credits and practically no assets. Like most Altairians, he was a superb thief but a poor trader. The price he had received for the Merchandise Mart and the "slaves," while amounting to a tidy personal fortune, was less than half the amount of the claims against him, and due to an unfortunate predilection for slow Aedrils and fast Flowezies, he only had about half of that left.

Skrrgck, who had by this time apparently developed a love of litigation equal to his love of thievery, used part of what he did have left in a last effort to evade liability by going into bankruptcy, a move which was naturally met with howls of outrage by his creditors and a flood of objections to his petition, a flood which very nearly drowned the Federal District Court in Chicago.

It would be difficult to imagine a more complex legal battle than might have taken place, nor one more instructive to the legal profession, had the situation been carried to its logical conclusion.

On the one hand was the age-old policy of both Terran and Galactic bankruptcy law. A man becomes unable to pay his debts. He goes into bankruptcy. Whatever he does have is distributed to his creditors, who must be satisfied with what they can get out of his present assets. They cannot require him to go to work to earn additional funds with which to pay them more. It is precisely to escape this form of mortgage on one's future that bankruptcy exists.

Yet here were over seven thousand creditors claiming that Skrrgck's debts should not be discharged in bankruptcy, because Skrrgck could be required to steal enough to satisfy them fully.

Could the creditors require Skrrgck to exert such personal efforts to satisfy their claims? A lawyer would almost certainly say "no," citing the Bankruptcy Act as sufficient grounds alone, not to mention the anomaly of having Terrans, in a Terran court, ask that Skrrgck, for their benefit, commit an act illegal on Terra and punishable by that Terran court.

The idea of a Terran court giving judicial sanction to theft is novel, to say the least. Indeed, Judge Griffin, who was presiding, was overheard to remark to a friend on the golf course that he "would throw the whole d—n thing out" for that reason alone.

Yet, in spite of this undeniable weight of opinion, it is difficult to say just what the final decision would have been had the matter been carried to the Galactic Tribunal, for in the original case of Skrrgck v. Illinois, that august body, it will be remembered, had specifically stated that Skrrgck was liable for the value of the building and its occupants, "even if he must steal to obtain it."

Now that hasty and ill-advised phrase was certainly dicta, and was probably intended only as a joke, the opinion having been written by Master Adjudicator Stsssts, a member of that irrepressible race of saurian humorists, the Sirians. But if the case had actually come before them, the Court might have been hoist on its own petard, so to speak, and been forced to rule in accord with its earlier "joke."

Unfortunately for the curiosity of the legal profession, the question was never to be answered, for Skrrgck did a remarkable thing which made the whole controversy irrelevant. What his motives were will probably never be known. His character makes it unlikely that he began the bankruptcy proceedings in good faith and was later moved by conscience. It is possible that the bankruptcy was merely an elaborate piece of misdirection. More probably, however, he simply seized on the unusual opportunity the publicity gave him.

Whatever the motives, the facts are that Skrrgck used the last of his waning resources to purchase one of the newly developed Terran Motors' "Timebirds" in which he traveled secretly to Altair. Even this first model of the Timebird, with its primitive meson exchange discoordinator, cut the trip from Sol to Altair from weeks to days, and Skrrgck, landing secretly on his home planet while his bankruptcy action was still in the turmoil stage, was able to accomplish the greatest "coup" in Altairian history. He never could have done it without the publicity of the legal proceedings. In a culture where theft is honorable, the most stringent precautions are taken against its accomplishment, but who could have expected Skrrgck? He was light-years away, trying to go into bankruptcy.

And so, while all eyes on Altair, as well as throughout the rest of the Galaxy, were amusedly fixed on the legal circus shaping up on Terra, Skrrgck was able to steal the Altairian Crown Jewels, and the Altairian Crown Prince as well, and flee with them to Sol.

The reaction was violent. The Galaxy was gripped by an almost hysterical amusement. Skrrgck's creditors on Terra were overjoyed. The Altairians made one effort to regain their valuables in the courts, but were promptly turned down by the Galactic Tribunal which held, wisely, that a society which made a virtue of theft would have to take the consequences of its own culture.

So Skrrgck's creditors were paid in full. The jewels alone were more than sufficient for that, containing as they did no less than seven priceless "Wanderstones," those strange bits of frozen fire found ever so rarely floating in the interstellar voids, utterly impervious to any of the effects of gravitation. Altair paid a fantastic price for the return of the collection, and Skrrgck also demanded, and got, a sizable ransom for the Prince, after threatening to sell him to Boötes, from whence, of course, he would never return. Being a prince in a democratic, constitutional monarchy is not as glamorous as you might think.

His creditors satisfied, Skrrgck returned to Sknnbt, dragging with him an angry Crown Prince—angry at having lost the chance to go to Boötes, that is. At Altair, Skrrgck was received as a popular hero. He had accomplished something of which every Altairian had dreamed, almost from the moment of his birth, and he was widely and joyously acclaimed. Riding on this wave of popular adulation, he entered politics, ran for the office of Premier, and was elected by an overwhelming majority.

As soon as he took office, he took steps, in accordance with Altairian custom, to wipe out the "stain" on his honor incurred by allowing the Chicago police sergeant to fool him with the now famous License to Steal.

He instituted suit against the sergeant for the expenses of his defense to the original theft charge.

The case was carried all the way to the Galactic Tribunal, which by this time was heartily sick of the whole mess. Feeling apparently that the sergeant was the original cause of said mess, the Court overruled his plea that he had merely been joking.

The Court cited an ancient case from West Virginia, U.S.A.—Plate v. Durst, 42 W. Va. 63, 24 SE 580, 32 L.R.A. 404. (Note: The date of this case is invariably given as 1896, which is most confusing, since the present date is only 1691. The 1896, however, refers to the eighteen hundred and ninety-sixth year of the pre-atomic era, which we, of course, style A.A.—Ante Atomica. Since the present era begins with the first atomic explosion, the case actually occurred in approximately the year 54 A.A.)

The Court quoted the opinion in this ancient case as follows: "Jokes are sometimes taken seriously by ... the inexperienced ... and if such is the case, and the person thereby deceived is led to (incur expenses) in the full belief and expectation that the joker is in earnest, the law will also take the joker at his word, and give him good reason to smile."

Accordingly, the sergeant was charged with a very large judgment. Although the City of Chicago paid this judgment, the sergeant had become the laughing-stock of the planet, so he applied for, and was granted, a hardship exception to the Treaty of Deneb and migrated to Boötes.

There, regarded as the real savior of the Boötean race, and a chosen instrument of the God of Boötes, he was received as a saint. He died in 1689, surrounded by his 22 children and 47 grandchildren, having made himself wealthy by becoming the leader of a most excessive fertility cult, which is only now being forcibly suppressed by the Boötean Government.

In 1635 P.A., someone on Earth remembered the kidnapping indictments still outstanding against Skrrgck and attempted to prosecute them. By this time, however, Skrrgck was Premier, the chief executive officer of Altair, and all extradition matters were within his sole discretion. In the exercise of this power, he refused to extradite himself, and the prosecutor on Earth, whose constituents were beginning to laugh at him, had the indictments quashed "in the interest of interstellar harmony."

The story has an interesting sequel. During Skrrgck's unprecedented six consecutive terms as Premier (no one else had ever served less than seven), he was able, by dint of unremitting political maneuvering, to have theft outlawed in the Altairian system. It was, he said, "a cultural trait that is more trouble than it is worth."

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