Jim Baen’s Universe

by Edited by Eric Flint

  "Very well. Sup­po­se I did turn a tramp away from the do­or-what of it?"

  "Oh, not­hing; not­hing in par­ti­cu­lar. Only you li­ed to him."

  "I didn't! That is, I-"

  "Yes, but you did; you li­ed to him."

  I felt a gu­ilty pang-in truth, I had felt it forty ti­mes be­fo­re that tramp had tra­ve­led a block from my do­or-but still I re­sol­ved to ma­ke a show of fe­eling slan­de­red; so I sa­id:

  "This is a ba­se­less im­per­ti­nen­ce. I sa­id to the tramp-"

  "There- wait. You we­re abo­ut to lie aga­in. I know what you sa­id to him. You sa­id the co­ok was go­ne down-town and the­re was not­hing left from bre­ak­fast. Two li­es. You knew the co­ok was be­hind the do­or, and plenty of pro­vi­si­ons be­hind her."

  This as­to­nis­hing ac­cu­racy si­len­ced me; and it fil­led me with won­de­ring spe­cu­la­ti­ons, too, as to how this cub co­uld ha­ve got his in­for­ma­ti­on. Of co­ur­se he co­uld ha­ve cul­led the con­ver­sa­ti­on from the tramp, but by what sort of ma­gic had he con­t­ri­ved to find out abo­ut the con­ce­aled co­ok? Now the dwarf spo­ke aga­in:

  "It was rat­her pi­ti­ful, rat­her small, in you to re­fu­se to re­ad that po­or yo­ung wo­man's ma­nus­c­ript the ot­her day, and gi­ve her an opi­ni­on as to its li­te­rary va­lue; and she had co­me so far, too, and so ho­pe­ful­ly. Now wasn't it?"

  I felt li­ke a cur! And I had felt so every ti­me the thing had re­cur­red to my mind, I may as well con­fess. I flus­hed hotly and sa­id:

  "Look he­re, ha­ve you not­hing bet­ter to do than prowl aro­und prying in­to ot­her pe­op­le's bu­si­ness? Did that girl tell you that?"

  "Never mind whet­her she did or not. The ma­in thing is, you did that con­tem­p­tib­le thing. And you felt as­ha­med of it af­ter­ward. Aha! you fe­el as­ha­med of it now!"

  This was a sort of de­vi­lish glee. With fi­ery ear­nes­t­ness I res­pon­ded:

  "I told that girl, in the kin­dest, gen­t­lest way, that I co­uld not con­sent to de­li­ver jud­g­ment upon any one's ma­nus­c­ript, be­ca­use an in­di­vi­du­al's ver­dict was wor­t­h­less. It might un­der­ra­te a work of high me­rit and lo­se it to the world, or it might over­ra­te a trashy pro­duc­ti­on and so open the way for its in­f­lic­ti­on upon the world: I sa­id that the gre­at pub­lic was the only tri­bu­nal com­pe­tent to sit in jud­g­ment upon a li­te­rary ef­fort, and the­re­fo­re it must be best to lay it be­fo­re that tri­bu­nal in the out­set, sin­ce in the end it must stand or fall by that mighty co­urt's de­ci­si­on an­y­way."

  "Yes, you sa­id all that. So you did, you jug­gling, small-so­uled shuf­fler! And yet when the happy ho­pe­ful­ness fa­ded out of that po­or girl's fa­ce, when you saw her fur­ti­vely slip be­ne­ath her shawl the scroll she had so pa­ti­ently and ho­nestly scrib­bled at-so as­ha­med of her dar­ling now, so pro­ud of it be­fo­re-when you saw the glad­ness go out of her eyes and the te­ars co­me the­re, when she crept away so humbly who had co­me so-"

  "Oh, pe­ace! pe­ace! pe­ace! Blis­ter yo­ur mer­ci­less ton­gue, ha­ven't all the­se tho­ughts tor­tu­red me eno­ugh wit­ho­ut yo­ur co­ming he­re to fetch them back aga­in!"

  Remorse! re­mor­se! It se­emed to me that it wo­uld eat the very he­art out of me! And yet that small fi­end only sat the­re le­ering at me with joy and con­tempt, and pla­cidly chuc­k­ling. Pre­sently he be­gan to spe­ak aga­in. Every sen­ten­ce was an ac­cu­sa­ti­on, and every ac­cu­sa­ti­on a truth. Every cla­use was fre­ig­h­ted with sar­casm and de­ri­si­on, every slow-drop­ping word bur­ned li­ke vit­ri­ol. The dwarf re­min­ded me of ti­mes when I had flown at my chil­d­ren in an­ger and pu­nis­hed them for fa­ults which a lit­tle in­qu­iry wo­uld ha­ve ta­ught me that ot­hers, and not they, had com­mit­ted. He re­min­ded me of how I had dis­lo­yal­ly al­lo­wed old fri­ends to be tra­du­ced in my he­aring, and be­en too cra­ven to ut­ter a word in the­ir de­fen­se. He re­min­ded me of many dis­ho­nest things which I had do­ne; of many which I had pro­cu­red to be do­ne by chil­d­ren and ot­her ir­res­pon­sib­le per­sons; of so­me which I had plan­ned, tho­ught upon, and lon­ged to do, and be­en kept from the per­for­man­ce by fe­ar of con­se­qu­en­ces only. With ex­qu­isi­te cru­elty he re­cal­led to my mind, item by item, wrongs and un­kin­d­nes­ses I had in­f­lic­ted and hu­mi­li­ati­ons I had put upon fri­ends sin­ce de­ad, "who di­ed thin­king of tho­se inj­uri­es, may­be, and gri­eving over them," he ad­ded, by way of po­ison to the stab.

  "For in­s­tan­ce," sa­id he, "ta­ke the ca­se of yo­ur yo­un­ger brot­her, when you two we­re boys to­get­her, many a long ye­ar ago. He al­ways lo­vingly trus­ted in you with a fi­de­lity that yo­ur ma­ni­fold tre­ac­he­ri­es we­re not ab­le to sha­ke. He fol­lo­wed you abo­ut li­ke a dog, con­tent to suf­fer wrong and abu­se if he might only be with you; pa­ti­ent un­der the­se inj­uri­es so long as it was yo­ur hand that in­f­lic­ted them. The la­test pic­tu­re you ha­ve of him in he­alth and strength must be such a com­fort to you! You pled­ged yo­ur ho­nor that if he wo­uld let you blin­d­fold him no harm sho­uld co­me to him; and then, gig­gling and cho­king over the ra­re fun of the joke, you led him to a bro­ok thinly gla­zed with ice, and pus­hed him in; and how you did la­ugh! Man, you will ne­ver for­get the gen­t­le, rep­ro­ac­h­ful lo­ok he ga­ve you as he strug­gled shi­ve­ring out, if you li­ve a tho­usand ye­ars! Oh! you see it now, you see it now!"

  "Beast, I ha­ve se­en it a mil­li­on ti­mes, and shall see it a mil­li­on mo­re! and may you rot away pi­ece­me­al, and suf­fer till do­om­s­day what I suf­fer now, for brin­ging it back to me aga­in!"

  The dwarf chuc­k­led con­ten­tedly, and went on with his ac­cu­sing his­tory of my ca­re­er. I drop­ped in­to a mo­ody, ven­ge­ful sta­te, and suf­fe­red in si­len­ce un­der the mer­ci­less lash. At last this re­mark of his ga­ve me a sud­den ro­use:

  "Two months ago, on a Tu­es­day, you wo­ke up, away in the night, and fell to thin­king, with sha­me, abo­ut a pe­cu­li­arly me­an and pi­ti­ful act of yo­urs to­ward a po­or ig­no­rant In­di­an in the wilds of the Rocky Mo­un­ta­ins in the win­ter of eig­h­te­en hun­d­red and-"

  "Stop a mo­ment, de­vil! Stop! Do you me­an to tell me that even my very tho­ughts are not hid­den from you?"

  "It se­ems to lo­ok li­ke that. Didn't you think the tho­ughts I ha­ve just men­ti­oned?"

  "If I didn't, I wish I may ne­ver bre­at­he aga­in! Lo­ok he­re, fri­end-lo­ok me in the eye. Who are you?"

  "Well, who do you think?"

  "I think you are Sa­tan him­self. I think you are the de­vil."

  "No."

  "No? Then who can you be?"

  "Would you re­al­ly li­ke to know?"

  "Indeed I wo­uld."

  "Well, I am yo­ur Con­s­ci­en­ce!"

  In an in­s­tant I was in a bla­ze of joy and exul­ta­ti­on. I sprang at the cre­atu­re, ro­aring:

  "Curse you, I ha­ve wis­hed a hun­d­red mil­li­on ti­mes that you we­re tan­gib­le, and that I co­uld get my hands on yo­ur thro­at on­ce! Oh, but I will wre­ak a de­adly ven­ge­an­ce on-"

  Folly! Lig­h­t­ning do­es not mo­ve mo­re qu­ickly than my Con­s­ci­en­ce did! He dar­ted aloft so sud­denly that in the mo­ment my fin­gers clut­c­hed the empty air he was al­re­ady per­c­hed on the top of the high bo­ok­ca­se, with his thumb at his no­se in to­ken of de­ri­si­on. I flung the po­ker at him, and mis­sed. I fi­red the bo­otj­ack. In a blind ra­ge I flew from pla­ce to pla­ce, and snat­c­hed and hur­led any mis­si­le that ca­me handy; the storm of bo­oks, in­k­s­tands, and chunks of co­al glo­omed the air and be­at abo­ut the ma­ni­kin's perch re­len­t­les­sly, but all to no pur­po­se; the nim­b­le fi­gu­re dod­ged every shot; and not
only that, but burst in­to a cac­k­le of sar­cas­tic and tri­um­p­hant la­ug­h­ter as I sat down ex­ha­us­ted. Whi­le I puf­fed and gas­ped with fa­ti­gue and ex­ci­te­ment, my Con­s­ci­en­ce tal­ked to this ef­fect:

  "My go­od sla­ve, you are cu­ri­o­usly wit­less-no, I me­an cha­rac­te­ris­ti­cal­ly so. In truth, you are al­ways con­sis­tent, al­ways yo­ur­self, al­ways an ass. Ot­her wi­se it must ha­ve oc­cur­red to you that if you at­tem­p­ted this mur­der with a sad he­art and a he­avy con­s­ci­en­ce, I wo­uld dro­op un­der the bur­de­ning in in­f­lu­en­ce in­s­tantly. Fo­ol, I sho­uld ha­ve we­ig­hed a ton, and co­uld not ha­ve bud­ged from the flo­or; but in­s­te­ad, you are so che­er­ful­ly an­xi­o­us to kill me that yo­ur con­s­ci­en­ce is as light as a fe­at­her; hen­ce I am away up he­re out of yo­ur re­ach. I can al­most res­pect a me­re or­di­nary sort of fo­ol; but you pah!"

  I wo­uld ha­ve gi­ven an­y­t­hing, then, to be he­av­y­he­ar­ted, so that I co­uld get this per­son down from the­re and ta­ke his li­fe, but I co­uld no mo­re be he­av­y­he­ar­ted over such a de­si­re than I co­uld ha­ve sor­ro­wed over its ac­com­p­lis­h­ment. So I co­uld only lo­ok lon­gingly up at my mas­ter, and ra­ve at the ill luck that de­ni­ed me a he­avy con­s­ci­en­ce the only ti­me that I had ever wan­ted such a thing in my li­fe. By and by I got to mu­sing over the ho­ur's stran­ge ad­ven­tu­re, and of co­ur­se my hu­man cu­ri­osity be­gan to work. I set myself to fra­ming in my mind so­me qu­es­ti­ons for this fi­end to an­s­wer. Just then one of my boys en­te­red, le­aving the do­or open be­hind him, and ex­c­la­imed:

  "My! what has be­en go­ing on he­re? The bo­ok­ca­se is all one rid­dle of-"

  I sprang up in con­s­ter­na­ti­on, and sho­uted:

  "Out of this! Hurry! jump! Fly! Shut the do­or! Qu­ick, or my Con­s­ci­en­ce will get away!"

  The do­or slam­med to, and I loc­ked it. I glan­ced up and was gra­te­ful, to the bot­tom of my he­art, to see that my ow­ner was still my pri­so­ner. I sa­id:

  "Hang you, I might ha­ve lost you! Chil­d­ren are the he­ed­les­sest cre­atu­res. But lo­ok he­re, fri­end, the boy did not se­em to no­ti­ce you at all; how is that?"

  "For a very go­od re­ason. I am in­vi­sib­le to all but you."

  I ma­de a men­tal no­te of that pi­ece of in­for­ma­ti­on with a go­od de­al of sa­tis­fac­ti­on. I co­uld kill this mis­c­re­ant now, if I got a chan­ce, and no one wo­uld know it. But this very ref­lec­ti­on ma­de me so lig­h­t­he­ar­ted that my Con­s­ci­en­ce co­uld hardly ke­ep his se­at, but was li­ke to flo­at aloft to­ward the ce­iling li­ke a toy bal­lo­on. I sa­id, pre­sently:

  "Come, my Con­s­ci­en­ce, let us be fri­endly. Let us fly a flag of tru­ce for a whi­le. I am suf­fe­ring to ask you so­me qu­es­ti­ons."

  "Very well. Be­gin."

  "Well, then, in the first pla­ce, why we­re you ne­ver vi­sib­le to me be­fo­re?"

  "Because you ne­ver as­ked to see me be­fo­re; that is, you ne­ver as­ked in the right spi­rit and the pro­per form be­fo­re. You we­re just in the right spi­rit this ti­me, and when you cal­led for yo­ur most pi­ti­less enemy I was that per­son by a very lar­ge ma­j­ority, tho­ugh you did not sus­pect it."

  "Well, did that re­mark of mi­ne turn you in­to flesh and blo­od?"

  "No. It only ma­de me vi­sib­le to you. I am un­sub­s­tan­ti­al, just as ot­her spi­rits are."

  This re­mark prod­ded me with a sharp mis­gi­ving.

  If he was un­sub­s­tan­ti­al, how was I go­ing to kill him? But I dis­sem­b­led, and sa­id per­su­asi­vely:

  "Conscience, it isn't so­ci­ab­le of you to ke­ep at such a dis­tan­ce. Co­me down and ta­ke anot­her smo­ke."

  This was an­s­we­red with a lo­ok that was full of de­ri­si­on, and with this ob­ser­va­ti­on ad­ded:

  "Come whe­re you can get at me and kill me? The in­vi­ta­ti­on is dec­li­ned with thanks."

  "All right," sa­id I to myself; "so it se­ems a spi­rit can be kil­led, af­ter all; the­re will be one spi­rit lac­king in this world, pre­sently, or I lo­se my gu­ess." Then I sa­id alo­ud:

  "Friend- "

  "There; wa­it a bit. I am not yo­ur fri­end. I am yo­ur enemy; I am not yo­ur equ­al, I am yo­ur mas­ter, Call me 'my lord,' if you ple­ase. You are too fa­mi­li­ar."

  "I don't li­ke such tit­les. I am wil­ling to call you, sir. That is as far as-"

  "We will ha­ve no ar­gu­ment abo­ut this. Just obey, that is all. Go on with yo­ur chat­ter."

  "Very well, my lord-sin­ce not­hing but my lord will su­it you-I was go­ing to ask you how long you will be vi­sib­le to me?"

  "Always!"

  I bro­ke out with strong in­dig­na­ti­on: "This is simply an out­ra­ge. That is what I think of it! You ha­ve dog­ged, and dog­ged, and dog­ged me, all the days of my li­fe, in­vi­sib­le. That was mi­sery eno­ugh, now to ha­ve such a lo­oking thing as you tag­ging af­ter me li­ke anot­her sha­dow all the rest of my day is an in­to­le­rab­le pros­pect. You ha­ve my opi­ni­on my lord, ma­ke the most of it."

  "My lad, the­re was ne­ver so ple­ased a con­s­ci­en­ce in this world as I was when you ma­de me vi­sib­le. It gi­ves me an in­con­ce­ivab­le ad­van­ta­ge. Now I can lo­ok you stra­ight in the eye, and call you na­mes, and le­er at you, je­er at you, sne­er at you; and you know what elo­qu­en­ce the­re is in vi­sib­le ges­tu­re and ex­p­res­si­on, mo­re es­pe­ci­al­ly when the ef­fect is he­ig­h­te­ned by audib­le spe­ech. I shall al­ways ad­dress you hen­ce­forth in yo­ur o-w-n s-n-i-v-e-l-i-n-g d-r-a-w-l-baby!"

  I let fly with the co­al-hod. No re­sult. My lord sa­id:

  "Come, co­me! Re­mem­ber the flag of tru­ce!"

  "Ah, I for­got that. I will try to be ci­vil; and you try it, too, for a no­velty. The idea of a ci­vil con­s­ci­en­ce! It is a go­od joke; an ex­cel­lent joke. All the con­s­ci­en­ces I ha­ve ever he­ard of we­re nag­ging, bad­ge­ring, fa­ult-fin­ding, exec­rab­le sa­va­ges! Yes; and al­ways in a swe­at abo­ut so­me po­or lit­tle in­sig­ni­fi­cant trif­le or ot­her-des­t­ruc­ti­on catch the lot of them, I say! I wo­uld tra­de mi­ne for the smal­lpox and se­ven kinds of con­sum­p­ti­on, and be glad of the chan­ce. Now tell me, why is it that a con­s­ci­en­ce can't ha­ul a man over the co­als on­ce, for an of­fen­se, and then let him alo­ne? Why is it that it wants to ke­ep on peg­ging at him, day and night and night and day, we­ek in and we­ek out, fo­re­ver and ever, abo­ut the sa­me old thing? The­re is no sen­se in that, and no re­ason in it. I think a con­s­ci­en­ce that will act li­ke that is me­aner than the very dirt it­self."

  "Well, We li­ke it; that suf­fi­ces."

  "Do you do it with the ho­nest in­tent to im­p­ro­ve a man?"

  That qu­es­ti­on pro­du­ced a sar­cas­tic smi­le, and this reply:

  "No, sir. Ex­cu­se me. We do it simply be­ca­use it is 'bu­si­ness.' It is our tra­de. The pur­po­se of it is to im­p­ro­ve the man, but we are me­rely di­sin­te­res­ted agents. We are ap­po­in­ted by aut­ho­rity, and ha­ven't an­y­t­hing to say in the mat­ter. We obey or­ders and le­ave the con­se­qu­en­ces whe­re they be­long. But I am wil­ling to ad­mit this much: we do crowd the or­ders a trif­le when we get a chan­ce, which is most of the ti­me. We enj­oy it. We are in­s­t­ruc­ted to re­mind a man a few ti­mes of an er­ror; and I don't mind ac­k­now­led­ging that we try to gi­ve pretty go­od me­asu­re. And when we get hold of a man of a pe­cu­li­arly sen­si­ti­ve na­tu­re, oh, but we do ha­ze him! I ha­ve con­s­ci­en­ces to co­me all the way from Chi­na and Rus­sia to see a per­son of that kind put thro­ugh his pa­ces, on a spe­ci­al oc­ca­si­on. Why, I knew a man of that sort who had ac­ci­den­tal­ly crip­pled a mu­lat­to baby; the news went ab­ro­
ad, and I wish you may ne­ver com­mit anot­her sin if the con­s­ci­en­ces didn't flock from all over the earth to enj­oy the fun and help his mas­ter exor­ci­se him. That man wal­ked the flo­or in tor­tu­re for for­ty-eight ho­urs, wit­ho­ut eating or sle­eping, and then blew his bra­ins out. The child was per­fectly well aga­in in three we­eks."

  "Well, you are a pre­ci­o­us crew, not to put it too strong. I think I be­gin to see now why you ha­ve al­ways be­en a trif­le in­con­sis­tent with me. In yo­ur an­xi­ety to get all the ju­ice you can out of a sin, you ma­ke a man re­pent of it in three or fo­ur dif­fe­rent ways. For in­s­tan­ce, you fo­und fa­ult with me for lying to that tramp, and I suf­fe­red over that. But it was only yes­ter­day that I told a tramp the squ­are truth, to wit, that, it be­ing re­gar­ded as bad ci­ti­zen­s­hip to en­co­ura­ge vag­rancy, I wo­uld gi­ve him not­hing. What did you do then: Why, you ma­de me say to myself, 'Ah, it wo­uld ha­ve be­en so much kin­der and mo­re bla­me­less to ease him off with a lit­tle whi­te lie, and send him away fe­eling that if he co­uld not ha­ve bre­ad, the gen­t­le tre­at­ment was at le­ast so­met­hing to be gra­te­ful for!' Well, I suf­fe­red all day abo­ut that. Three days be­fo­re I had fed a tramp, and fed him fre­ely, sup­po­sing it a vir­tu­o­us act. Stra­ight off you sa­id, 'Oh, fal­se ci­ti­zen, to ha­ve fed a tramp!' and I suf­fe­red as usu­al. I ga­ve a tramp work; you obj­ec­ted to it-af­ter the con­t­ract was ma­de, of co­ur­se; you ne­ver spe­ak up be­fo­re­hand. Next, I re­fu­sed a tramp work; you obj­ec­ted to that. Next, I pro­po­sed to kill a tramp; you kept me awa­ke all night, oozing re­mor­se at every po­re. Su­re I was go­ing to be right this ti­me, I sent the next tramp away with my be­ne­dic­ti­on; and I wish you may li­ve as long as I do, if you didn't ma­ke me smart all night aga­in be­ca­use I didn't kill him. Is the­re any way of sa­tis­f­ying that ma­lig­nant in­ven­ti­on which is cal­led a con­s­ci­en­ce?"

  "Ha, ha! this is lu­xury! Go on!"