Pallas

by L. Neil Smith

  “Only the Middle Ages’re over, Squire Altman, in case you weren’t aware of it, an’ we ain’t none of the disarmed and cowering peasantry you’re used to bullying.”

  Emerson had stood half-frozen in the middle of the living room until this moment. “Well,” he turned to Gretchen, “I guess the Chief Administrator gave a damn after all. Nice to be wanted.” He left her side—the girl almost extended a hand to stop him, then thought better of it—to join his landlady at the door. “I’ll talk to him, Mrs. Singh. I don’t want anyone to get hurt over—”

  “Over a sacred principle.” Mrs. Singh turned and looked him hard in the eye. “Don’t you forget that for a minute, son. There’s a deal more happening here than just the business of the moment. And you’d better not go out there without that weapon of yours drawn and the hammer at full cock, you hear me?” She lowered her voice, almost to a whisper. “Gretchen’ll be right behind you, Emerson. Bein’ the mistrusting and suspicious type I am, I’m gonna watch the back door!”

  Emerson glanced down briefly at the Grizzly, which suddenly seemed to hang twice as heavy in its holster as it usually did. Although the blue goons only had their electronic shock batons, he knew from previous experience that they could be very fast with them. Once they so much as touched him with them he’d be completely incapacitated. If he had to draw, it would take him forever to get the big autopistol into action. He’d only been using it for what amounted to target practice anyway, not combat exercises, and he now appreciated the utter folly of employing the hammer-down, so-called “Ahern carry” for safety’s sake.

  He regretted even more the fact that he’d never reloaded the weapon after the previous day’s match.

  Not realizing that she’d left an unarmed boy behind, Mrs. Singh headed for the kitchen, on her way to the back door. Gretchen glanced after her, came to what she may have known was the decision of a lifetime, and remained where she was. When Emerson unhooked the screen and stepped out onto the porch, leaving the massive autoloader in its holster where, he believed, it already looked impressive and intimidating enough, Gretchen—who knew his habits and may have been aware of the condition of the Grizzly—was not behind him, but beside him.

  “Well,” the Chief Administrator managed to get in the first word, “I see that you’ve picked up a couple of bad habits, living among these barbarians.” He tossed a sneering glance, first at Gretchen, then at the gun on Emerson’s hip. “Take that filthy thing off, little man, and get into the car. I’m not entirely certain why, but your parents are anxious to see you. I only hope for their sake that you haven’t already killed somebody or acquired some kind of disease.”

  As often happens in an emotional and potentially violent confrontation, the boy never heard or understood those ugly words until afterward. Emerson could see both his parents aboard the Project vehicle, surrounded by goons. For some reason, Altman had brought his son, Gibson Junior, along, as well. Alice Ngu’s face pressed against the plastic of the canopy, staring out at her son. His father kept his eyes ahead, stoically refusing to look his way. It all seemed to bother Emerson less than he’d expected. He’d made his choice more than a year ago.

  “I’d like to see them, too,” he replied, nevertheless. “Let them out of that thing and well talk here.”

  The Chief Administrator shook his head, apparently more in sorrow than in anger. “I’m afraid it isn’t as simple as that, child. You know your own people and their beliefs, better than I do. This is a matter of ‘face.’ They feel disgraced by what you’ve done, by the ingratitude to me and to the Project that it represents. They will refuse to have anything to do with you again unless and until you return willingly and accept whatever penalty the law sees fit to impose on you.”

  “Sounds to me like a blank check if ever I heard of one.” Suddenly aware that he’d unconsciously imitated Mrs. Singh’s West American accent, Emerson gave him a humorless grin. “Return willingly and accept whatever penalty the law sees fit to impose? And you’re the person I’m supposed to make it out to? You’re the law?”

  “You know perfectly well that I am, according to the charter of the United Nations”—the Senator shrugged and gave him a generous, self-deprecatory smile—“as well as the government of the United States of America. Now I’m getting quite weary of your nonsense. Tell me truthfully, aren’t you, just a little bit, as well? Let’s avoid any further unpleasantness. Take off that...that thing, tell that little slut of yours good-bye, and come with us. Immediately!”

  Across the road, high in the air above an empty and uncultivated field, a circling hawk suddenly spied something small and furry moving in the buffalo grass below. It stooped and struck. The victim squealed briefly and fell silent. For the first time in his life, having witnessed this sort of thing often in the Project fields, the boy felt no pity for the rabbit being lifted and carried away in the claws of the raptor, but understood and shared the exultation of the predator.

  “I believe...” Emerson drew the giant Grizzly and thumbed the hammer back as if there were a round in the chamber and seven more in the magazine. He aligned the colorful front sight precisely on the center of Altman’s torso as if he were a seventy-five-yard turkey. The two thugs flanking the Senator tensed, but they were basically powerless to do anything about it and they knew it. At the same time, Emerson heard the sweet whispery ring of steel on wet-formed leather as the girl standing beside him followed his example. “...I’ll decline your offer.”

  “Your call, Emerson,” came Gretchen’s voice, gentle but determined. He half expected her to remind him to take a breath, focus on the front sight, and squeeze. Unlike the boy, she hadn’t missed the Chief Administrator’s unpleasant insinuations. “I’ve got the others covered—don’t think I can trust myself with Altman.”

  The Chief Administrator gave her an odd, evaluating look, as if he knew her already but at the same time was meeting her all over again. Emerson nodded without looking back at her, keeping his gun level, wondering why he didn’t feel afraid.

  “In effect,” he told the man, “there isn’t any US government any more, although you manage to keep the fact from most of your slaves. And the UN has nothing to say about what goes on outside the Rimfence. This is Pallas we’re standing on and I’m a free man. I’m not your servant or my parents’ property, and I won’t go back to be beaten up or buggered by your trained animals. Now get out of here or I’ll kill you where you stand.” He wished he hadn’t cocked the Grizzly quite so soon. Psychologically, this would have been a better time.

  The Senator swallowed, but stood his ground. Emerson suddenly understood, in a manner rare even among grown-ups, that the man may have been a lot of evil things, but he wasn’t a coward. “You’d actually shoot another human being, child, and an unarmed one at that, over an abstract philosophical concept so alien to your upbringing that you can’t possibly understand it, let alone believe it?”

  “I’d shoot a politician, Senator,” the boy told him, convinced, at least for the moment, that he was speaking the plain truth. “It isn’t the same thing at all.”

  “No,” Gretchen agreed cheerfully, “it isn’t.”

  Emerson had been glaring at the Senator, all his attention focused on the man while he trusted Gretchen to keep an eye on the pair of thugs he’d brought with him. Now he was distracted for an instant as, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a small cloud of dust coming up the road from the nearby town. At the base of that cloud strode Aloysius Brody, cane in one hand, pistol in the other, followed by at least two dozen well-armed, angry-looking men and women.

  Beside Emerson, Gretchen smiled, nodded to herself, and released what must have been a very deep breath, although she kept her own weapon ready in her hand.

  “Chief...” One of the Senator’s toughs tried to warn him that something new was happening. It was a noisy crowd coming up the road and Altman had already turned to see what the racket was about. So did his men, their confrontation with Emerson and Gretchen mom
entarily forgotten. As the people from Curringer approached Mrs. Singh’s front gate, another pair of goons alighted from the rollabout, handling their shock batons uneasily and looking to the Senator for some indication of his wishes.

  Altman didn’t seem to notice.

  “Gretchen!” the innkeeper shouted when he was near enough. “Your mother called t’say you could use some moral support. Stand yer ground, Emerson! Now what’s this all about, Senator darlin’?”

  Emerson was mildly confused, although he realized it was irrelevant at the moment. From what Gretchen had said, he’d thought Brody had stayed at the house last night. He had a brief, ridiculous mental flash of the man sneaking out the back door, pants in hand.

  Equally taken by surprise, Altman snarled. “Stay out of this! It’s Project business!”

  Brody raised a hand, telling his companions to remain in the road. He came through the gate himself, making a ceremony of letting his pistol pivot around his finger by the trigger guard, rolling it backward in his hand until he held it by the slide with its handle reversed, and dropping the weapon into his holster with a twist at the last moment so that it settled with the handle in a normal position. “I can scarcely believe that haulin’ Curringer’s new champion silhouette shooter off t’durance vile is legitimate Project business. Like all Pallatians, this young fellow’s a free man. He’s got rights which must be respected.”

  Behind Emerson, the screen door creaked as Mrs. Singh joined him and her daughter on the porch. She’d either decided it was safe to leave the back door unguarded or simply couldn’t resist finding out what was going on here at the front of the house. Uncharacteristically, she remained silent, waiting for others to talk.

  The Senator shook his head, obviously relieved that they were all still talking. He visibly began to relax. Emerson knew that this sort of thing was what he was best at. “Judge Brody, the boy is a minor, a legal ward of the Greeley Utopian Memorial Project, of which I happen to be Chief Administrator. I have a duty which I cannot neglect, to his parents and the community as a whole—”

  “I’m glad to see we share the same opinion of your community!” Mrs. Singh put in. For the first time, Emerson noticed that she’d acquired another gun from somewhere in the house. She held both of them at her waist now, leveled on Altman.

  Brody’s expression was pained. “Now, let’s try not to complicate things more than they hafta be.” He eyed the muzzles of Mrs. Singh’s pistols, then turned to Altman. “Senator, y’must know I’ve a duty of me own t’discharge, one I take no less seriously than you do yours, for all that it’s a bit on the informal side.” He turned to the porch again. “Emerson, me boy, would y’be objectin’ to a hearin’ t’settle this matter once an’ for all, over to the Nimrod?”

  Brody’s proposition caught Emerson by surprise. He supposed he’d been expecting his new friends simply to run Altman and company off, back to where they’d come from. In his life at the Project, he’d never had any reason to trust adults before, and he was suddenly filled now with an odd foreboding, a premonition of betrayal. “I don’t know, Mr. Brody. I don’t see why I should have to—”

  Brody shook his head. “Y’don’t hafta do anything, son, but this’d settle it publicly an’ permanently, to everybody’s satisfaction. Or at least their mutual an’ equal dissatisfaction. Y’know these lawyer types, me boy, sneaky an’ persistent bastards that they be. Y’don’t wanna go through this malarkey every few months, do ye?”

  The boy shook his head. “No, sir, I don’t.”

  “Best t’get it done, then. An’ don’t ‘sir’ me, Emerson.”

  “Yes, s—I mean, Mr. Brody.”

  The older man looked him over carefully, tossed the briefest possible glance at Gretchen, then scrutinized Emerson again. “Time y’started callin’ me Aloysius, me boy.”

  “Yes, Mr.—Aloysius.”

  “An’ how about yerself, Senator darlin’?” Brody had turned to Altman. “If ye’re dead set on the due process of law, let’s see where that leads us. Y’may be the HMFWIC where ye’re from, but, as y’know, it’s me that’s the magistrate here.”

  Emerson wondered what an HMFWIC was. For some reason Altman seemed even more dubious about the idea than the boy himself. Nevertheless, after some thought, he nodded. “Very well, Judge Brody. I’ll go along with you—provisionally.”

  “Done.” Brody clapped his hands together once, then looked at his watch. “We’ll all meet at the Nimrod in two hours. That’ll just give me an’ mine a chance to tidy up a bit.”

  He winked at Emerson.

  Emerson suddenly felt very cold.

  A Planetful of Lawyers

  For any twentieth-century American who’d been paying attention at all, the phrase “criminal justice system” should have been warning enough.

  —William Wilde Curringer, Unfinished Memoirs

  They took his gun at the door.

  The Senator and his enforcers had climbed back aboard their rollabout after reaching an agreement with Brody and returned to Curringer. When the time arrived, two hours later, Emerson and Gretchen, along with her mother and the other boarders, had walked into town, fully armed and in their best clothes. Emerson wore a stiff woolen suit of Horatio Singh’s which the widow had been threatening to cut down for him.

  It was clear that news of Emerson’s plight and the Chief Administrator’s mission had spread by word of mouth; there had been nothing said about it on the radio Emerson had listened to while he’d waited. Altman and his party weren’t popular. People had gathered in knots along both sides of the street, muttering to each other and watching the rollabout. For his part, the Senator, perhaps wisely considering how well armed these hostile observers happened to be, had kept himself and his own people securely buttoned up inside the vehicle.

  Emerson wasn’t certain how fair and impartial this hearing would be, but decided, pragmatically, that since Pallas in general and its magistrate in particular appeared to be siding with him, he didn’t care. Fair and impartial were one thing, admirable in themselves as far as that went. What was right was something altogether different. As he and his companions passed through the middle of Curringer—gathering well-wishers and spectators along the way—Brody, who’d apparently been off somewhere on an errand of his own, met them on his way back to the Nimrod, escorted them inside, and helped them dispose of their guns.

  “Hand ’em over t’young Tyr,” he grinned. “They’ll be taken care of.”

  There was something much like sawdust on the floor. The building’s construction of long, narrow, folded strips of plastic-coated sheet steel gave an impression of wooden planks. Mrs. Singh mumbled under her breath but complied, glaring at Brody’s assistant as he hung her gunbelt on the tines of a set of elk antlers which had frightened and disgusted Emerson the first time he’d set foot in the Nimrod. Now they merely seemed a part of the wall, along with a boar’s head, a stuffed trout, a jackelope—the product of some whimsical Wyoming taxidermist, he’d been told—and other trophies of the hunt.

  Only then did he and Gretchen follow her example, and in no better humor—which was expected and allowed for. Outside the Project, Pallatians would tolerate a demand that they disarm themselves only in saloons and courtrooms, which, in Curringer, happened to be the same. Many maintained that even this was too much restraint on the rights of the individual and therefore set a dangerous precedent.

  Although the bar itself was closed in anticipation of the hearing, the room was half full of customers, as it always seemed to be whether liquor was being served or not. Several of the girls from Galena’s had taken a table toward the back of the room and sat around it in their working clothes—consisting mostly of brief swatches of bright colors and satiny finishes—laughing, giggling, and commenting in loud whispers on the scene about them. As he squeezed past their table, one of them, a little blond hardly older than himself, eyed him speculatively. Her golden hair was frothy, he thought, rather than curly, and hovered about her head like
a pale cloud. She winked at him.

  He averted his eyes and blushed.

  The Nimrod happened to be the principal social gathering-spot in Curringer only indirectly because it was a bar. Many theories had been offered over the years to explain it, but no one knew why the personal use of alcohol—another of agriculture’s dubious gifts—had been diminishing on the asteroid almost since terraformation. Possibly the requirement that they do their drinking in a state most regarded as nakedness had something to do with it, although that failed to account for those seated here with softdrinks before them, their guns hanging on the wall with Emerson’s and Gretchen’s and Mrs. Singh’s.

  The widow maintained that there was no mystery to it at all. Before the fall of the Soviet Empire, she pointed out, the alcoholism rate in Moscow had been estimated at sixty percent, and liver disease had been a principal cause of death in European welfare states from Sweden to France. Deprive a people of what they worked so hard to earn and you deprive them of hope. Deprive them of hope and almost automatically they look to the bottle. In the old United States, where the IRS Code had supplanted the Bill of Rights to become the highest law of the land and Americans were intimidated into forking over half of what they earned, drunk drivers killed the population equivalent of a medium-sized town every year.

  In the absence of any more acceptable explanation, the proprietors of establishments like the Nimrod had been compelled to diversify the number and variety of services they offered the public. One saloon, the Surly Snail, served as the town’s post office. Another, His Master’s Voice, centered on the radio station Emerson had listened to clandestinely in his cavelet at the Project. And the Nimrod, of course, was the bailiwick of His Honor, Aloysius Brody.

  Just because Emerson’s weapon was no longer on his hip didn’t necessarily mean it had to be out of sight; in fact, some special measures had been taken to assure it wasn’t. As he’d entered the Nimrod and surrendered his belt, he watched it being hung on a back wall behind a waist-high rail along with those handed over by all who had preceded and followed him in. With Mrs. Singh and her daughter, he took a table in the center of the room where he could keep an eye on his gun. New as he was to the Outside, he was suddenly aware that he agreed with the cranky, rugged individualists, most of them being among the oldest, earliest arrivals on the asteroid, who complained about this custom. Whatever he did, calm or angry, drunk or sober (in fact he had never had an alcoholic drink, in this place or any other), was his own responsibility, and that—his responsibility—was what he suddenly felt deprived of.