Space Service

by Andre Norton

Alen needed no warning. His grounding included Lyran legal concepts—and on the backward little planet touched with many relics of feudalism, “responsible” covered much territory.

  “What has Chief Elwon done?” he parried.

  “As you see,” the watchman glumly replied, pointing to his wounds. “And the same to three others before we got him out of the wrecked wineshop and into the castle. Are you responsible for him?”

  “Let me speak with my trader for a moment. Will you have some wine meantime?” He signaled and one of the guards brought a mug. “Don’t mind if I do. I can use it,” sighed the watchman.

  “We are in trouble,” said Alen to blackbeard. “Chief Elwon is in the ‘castle’—prison—for drunk and disorderly conduct. You as his master are considered responsible for his conduct under Lyran law. You must pay his fines or serve his penalties. Or you can ‘disown’ him, which is considered dishonorable but sometimes necessary. For paying his fine or serving his time you have a prior lien on his services, without pay—but of course that’s unenforceable off Lyra.” Blackbeard was sweating a little. “Find out from the policeman how long all this is likely to take. I don’t want to leave Elwon here and I do want us to get off as soon as possible. Keep him occupied, now, while I go about some business.”

  The trader retreated to a corner of the darkening barnlike tavern, beckoning Garthkint and a guard with him as Alen returned to the watchman.

  “Good keeper of the peace,” he said, “will you have another?” He would.

  “My trader wishes to know what penalties are likely to be levied against the unfortunate Chief Elwon.”

  “Going to leave him in the lurch, eh?” asked the watchman a little belligerently. “A fine master you have!”

  One of the dealers at the table indignantly corroborated him. “If you foreigners aren’t prepared to live up to your obligations, why did you come here in the first place? What happens to business if a master can send his man to steal and cheat and then say: ‘Don’t blame me—it was his doing!’ ”

  Alen patiently explained: “On other planets, good Lyrans, the tie of master and man is not so strong that a man would obey if he were ordered to go and steal or cheat.”

  They shook their heads and muttered. It was unheard-of.

  “Good watchman,” pressed the Herald, “my trader does not want to disown Chief Elwon. Can you tell me what recompense would be necessary—and how long it would take to manage the business?”

  The watchman started on a third cup which Alen had unostentatiously signaled for. “It’s hard to say,” he told the Herald weightily. “For my damages, I would demand a hundred credits at least. The three other members of the watch battered by your lunatic could ask no less. The wineshop suffered easily five hundred credits’ damage. The owner of it was beaten, but that doesn’t matter, of course.”

  “No imprisonment?”

  “Oh, a flogging, of course”—Alen started before he recalled that the “flogging” was a few half-hearted symbolic strokes on the covered shoulders with a light cane—“but no imprisonment. His Honor, Judge Krarl, does not sit on the night bench. Judge Krarl is a newfangled reformer, stranger. He professes to believe that mulcting is unjust—that it makes it easy for the rich to commit crime and go scot-free.”

  “But doesn’t it?” asked Alen, drawn off-course in spite of himself. There was pitying laughter around him.

  “Look you,” a dealer explained kindly. “The good watchman suffers battery, the mad Cephean or his master is mulcted for damages, the watchman is repaid for his injuries. What kind of justice is it to the watchman if the mad Cephean is locked away in a cell unfined?” The watchman nodded approvingly. “Well said,” he told the dealer. “Luckily we have on the night bench a justice of the old school, His Honor, Judge Treel. Stern, but fair. You should hear him! ‘Fifty credits! A hundred credits and the lash! Robbed a ship, eh? Two thousand credits!’ ” He returned to his own voice and said with awe: “For a murder, he never assesses less than ten thousand credits!”

  And if the murderer couldn’t pay, Alen knew, he became a “public charge,” “responsible to the state”—that is, a slave. If he could pay, of course, he was turned loose.

  “And His Honor, Judge Treel,” he pressed, “is sitting tonight? Can we possibly appear before him, pay the fines and be off?”

  “To be sure, stranger. I’d be a fool if I waited until morning, wouldn’t I?” The wine had loosened his tongue a little too far and he evidently realized it. “Enough of this,” he said. “Does your master honorably accept responsibility for the Cephean? If so, come along with me, the two of you, and we’ll get this over with.”

  “Thanks, good watchman. We are coming.”

  He went to blackbeard, now alone in his corner, and said: “It’s all right. We can pay off—about a thousand credits—and be on our way.”

  The trader muttered darkly: “Lyran jurisdiction or not, it’s coming out of Elwon’s pay. The bloody fool!”

  They rattled through the darkening streets of the town in one of the turbine-powered wagons, the watchman sitting up front with the driver and the trader and the Herald behind.

  “Something’s burning,” said Alen to the trader, sniffing the air.

  “This stinking buggy—” began blackbeard. “Oops,” he said, interrupting himself and slapping at his cloak.

  “Let me, trader,” said Alen. He turned back the cloak, licked his thumb, and rubbed out a crawling ring of sparks spreading across a few centimeters of the cloak’s silk lining. And he looked fixedly at what had started the little fire. It was an improperly covered slow-match protruding from a holstered device that was unquestionably a hand weapon.

  “I bought it from one of their guards while you were parleying with the policeman,” explained blackbeard embarrassedly. “I had a time making him understand. That Garthkint fellow helped.” He fiddled with the perforated cover of the slow-match, screwing it on more firmly.

  “A pitiful excuse for a weapon,” he went on, carefully arranging his cloak over it. “The trigger isn’t a trigger and the thumb-safety isn’t a safety. You pump the trigger a few times to build up pressure, and a little air squirts out to blow the match to life. Then you uncover the match and pull back the cocking-piece. This levers a dart into the barrel. Then you push the thumb-safety which puffs coal-dust into the firing chamber and also swivels down the slow-match onto a touch-hole. Poof, and away goes the dart if you didn’t forget any of the steps or do them in the wrong order. Luckily, I also got a knife.”

  He patted the nape of his neck and said, “That’s where they carry ’em here. A little sheath between the shoulderblades—wonderful for a fast draw-and-throw, though it exposes you a little more than I like when you reach. The knife’s black glass. Splendid edge and good balance.

  “And the thieving Lyrans knew they had me where it hurt. Seven thousand, five hundred credits for the knife and gun—if you can call it that—and the holsters. By rights I should dock Elwon for them, the bloody fool. Still, it’s better to buy his way out and leave no hard feelings behind us, eh, Herald?”

  “Incomparably better,” said Alen. “And I am amazed that you even entertained the idea of an armed jail-delivery. What if Chief Elwon had to serve a few days in a prison? Would that be worse than forever barring yourself from the planet and blackening the names of all traders with Lyra? Trader, do not hope to put down the credits that your weapons cost you as a legitimate expense of the voyage. I will not allow it when I audit your books. It was a piece of folly on which you spent personal funds, as far as the College and Order of Herald is concerned.”

  “Look here,” protested blackbeard. “You’re supposed to be spreading utilitarian civilization, aren’t you? What’s utilitarian about leaving one of my crewmen here?”

  Alen ignored the childish argument and wrapped himself in angry silence. As to civilization, he wondered darkly whether such a trading voyage and his part in it were relevant at all. Were the slanders true? Was the
College and Order simply a collection of dupes headed by cynical oldsters greedy for luxury and power?

  Such thoughts hadn’t crossed his mind in a long time. He’d been too busy to entertain them, cramming his head with languages, folkways, mores, customs, underlying patterns of culture, of hundreds of galactic peoples—and for what? So that this fellow could make a profit and the College and Order take a quarter of that profit. If civilization was to come to Lyra, it would have to come in the form of metal. If the Lyrans didn’t want metal, make them take it.

  What did Machiavelli say? “The chief foundations of all states—are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed, they have good laws.” It was odd that the teachers had slurred over such a seminal idea, emphasizing instead the spiritual integrity of the weaponless College and Order—or was it?

  The disenchantment he felt creeping over him was terrifying. “The castle,” said the watchman over his shoulder, and their wagon stopped with a rattle before a large but unimpressive brick structure of five stories.

  “You wait,” the trader told the driver after they got out. He handed him two of his fifty-credit bills. “You wait, you get many, many more money. You understand, wait?”

  “I wait plenty much,” shouted the driver delightedly. “I wait all night, all day. You wonderful master. You great, great master, I wait—”

  “All right,” growled the trader, shutting him off. “You wait.” The watchman took them through an entrance hall lit by hissing pressure lamps and casually guarded by a few liveried men with truncheons. He threw open the door of a medium-sized, well-lit room with a score of people in it, looked in, and uttered a despairing groan.

  A personage on a chair that looked like a throne said sharply, “Are those the star-travelers? Well, don’t just stand there. Bring them in!”

  “Yes, your honor, Judge Krarl,” said the watchman unhappily. “It’s the wrong judge!” Alen hissed at the trader. “This one gives out jail sentences!”

  “Do what you can,” said blackbeard grimly.

  The watchman guided them to the personage in the chair and indicated a couple of low stools, bowed to the chair and retired to stand at the back of the room.

  “Your honor,” said Alen, “I am Journeyman-Herald Alen, Herald for the trading voyage—”

  “Speak when you’re spoken to,” said the judge sharply. “Sir, with the usual insolence of wealth you have chosen to keep us waiting. I do not take this personally; it might have happened to Judge Treel, who—to your evident dismay—I am replacing because of a sudden illness, or to any other member of the bench. But as an insult to our justice, we cannot overlook it. Sir, consider yourself reprimanded. Take your seats. Watchman, bring in the Cephean.”

  “Sit down,” Alen murmured to the trader. “This is going to be bad.”

  A watchman brought in Chief Elwon, bleary-eyed, tousled and sporting a few bruises. He gave Alen and the trader a shamefaced grin as his guard sat him on a stool beside them. The trader glared back.

  Judge Krarl mumbled perfunctorily: “Letbattlebejoinedamongtheseveralpartiesinthisdisputeletnomanquestionourimpartialawardingofthevictoryspeaknowifyouyieldinsteadtoourjudgment. Well? speak up, you watchmen!”

  The watchman who had brought the Herald and the trader started and said from the back of the room: “Iyieldinsteadtoyour honorsjudgment.”

  Three other watchmen and a battered citizen, the wineshop-keeper, mumbled in turn: “Iyieldinsteadtoyourhonorsjudgment.”

  “Herald, speak for the accused,” snapped the judge.

  Well, thought Alen, I can try. “Your Honor,” he said, “Chief Elwon’s master does not yield to your honor’s judgment. He is ready to battle the other parties in the dispute or their masters.”

  “What insolence is this?” screamed the judge, leaping from his throne. “The barbarous customs of other worlds do not prevail in this court! Who spoke of battle—?” He shut his mouth with a snap, evidently abruptly realizing that he had spoken of battle, in an archaic phrase that harked back to the origins of justice on the planet. The judge sat down again and told Alen, more calmly: “You have mistaken a mere formality. The offer was not made in earnest.” Obviously, he didn’t like the sound of that himself, but he proceeded, “Now say ‘Iyieldinsteadtoyourhonorsjudgment!’ and we can get on with it. For your information, trial by combat has not been practiced for many generations on our enlightened planet.” Alen said politely: “Your Honor, I am a stranger to many of the ways of Lyra, but our excellent College and Order of Heralds instructed me well in the underlying principles of your law. I recall that one of your most revered legal maxims declares: ‘The highest crime against man is murder; the highest crime against man’s society is breach of promise.’ ”

  Purpling, the judge snarled: “Are you presuming to bandy law with me, you slippery-tongued foreigner? Are you presuming to accuse me of the high crime of breaking my promise? For your information, a promise consists of an offer to do, or refrain from doing, a thing in return for a consideration. There must be the five elements of promiser, promisee, offer, substance, and consideration.”

  “If you will forgive a foreigner,” said Alen, suddenly feeling the ground again under his feet, “I maintain that you offered the parties in the dispute your services in awarding the victory.”

  “An empty argument,” snorted the judge. “Just as an offer with substance from somebody to nobody for a consideration is no promise, or an offer without substance from somebody to somebody for a consideration is no promise, so my offer was no promise, for there was no consideration involved.”

  “Your honor, must the consideration be from the promisee to the promiser?”

  “Of course not. A third party may provide the consideration.”

  “Then I respectfully maintain that your offer was a promise, since a third party, the government, provided you with the considerations of salary and position in return for you offering your services to the disputants.”

  “Watchmen, clear the room of uninterested persons,” said the judge hoarsely. While it was being done, Alen swiftly filled in the trader and Chief Elwon. Blackbeard grinned at the mention of a five-against-one battle royal, and the engineer looked alarmed.

  When the doors closed, leaving the nine of them in privacy, the judge said bitterly: “Herald, where did you learn such devilish tricks?”

  Alen told him: “My College and Order instructed me well. A similar situation existed on a planet called England during an age known as the Victorious. Trial by combat had long been obsolete, there as here, but had never been declared so—there as here. A litigant won a hopeless lawsuit by publishing a challenge to his opponent and appearing at the appointed place in full armor. His opponent ignored the challenge and so lost the suit by default. The

  English dictator, one Disraeli, hastily summoned his parliament to abolish trial by combat.”

  “And so,” mused the Judge, “I find myself accused in my own chamber of high crime if I do not permit you five to slash away at each other and decide who won.”

  The wineshop-keeper began to blubber that he was a peaceable man and didn’t intend to be carved up by that black-bearded, bloodthirsty star-traveler. All he wanted was his money.

  “Silence!” snapped the judge. “Of course there will be no combat. Will you, shopkeeper, and you watchmen, withdraw if you receive satisfactory financial settlements?”

  They would.

  “Herald, you may dicker with them.”

  The four watchmen stood fast by their demand for a hundred credits apiece, and got it. The terrified shopkeeper regained his balance and demanded a thousand. Alen explained that his blackbearded master from a rude and impetuous world might be unable to restrain his rage when he, Alen, interpreted the demand and, ignoring the consequences, might beat him, the shopkeeper, to a pulp. The asking price plunged to a reasonable five hundred, which was paid over. The shopkeeper got the judge’s
permission to leave and backed out, bowing.

  “You see, trader,” Alen told blackbeard, “that it was needless to buy weapons when the spoken word—”

  “And now,” said the judge with a sneer, “we are easily out of that dilemma. Watchmen, arrest the three star-travelers and take them to the cages.”

  “Your honor!” cried Alen, outraged.

  “Money won’t get you out of this one. I charge you with treason.”

  “The charge is obsolete—” began the Herald hotly, but he broke off as he realized the vindictive strategy.

  “Yes, it is. And one of its obsolete provisions is that treason charges must be tried by the parliament at a regular session, which isn’t due for two hundred days. You’ll be freed and I may be reprimanded, but by my head, for two hundred days you’ll regret that you made a fool of me. Take them away.”

  “A trumped-up charge against us. Prison for two hundred days,” said Alen swiftly to the trader as the watchmen closed in.

  “Why buy weapons?” mocked the blackbeard, showing his teeth. His left arm whipped up and down, there was a black streak through the air—and the judge was pinned to his throne with a black glass knife through his throat and the sneer of triumph still on his lips.

  The trader, before the knife struck, had the clumsy pistol out, with the cover off the glowing match and the cocking piece back. He must have pumped and cocked it under his cloak, thought Alen numbly as he told the watchmen, without prompting: “Get back against the wall and turn around.” They did. They wanted to live, and the grinning blackbeard who had made meat of the judge with a flick of the arm was a terrifying figure.

  “Well done, Alen,” said the trader. “Take their clubs, Elwon. Two for you, two for the Herald. Alen, don’t argue! I had to kill the judge before he raised an alarm—nothing but death will silence his breed. You may have to kill too before we’re out of this. Take the clubs.” He passed the clumsy pistol to Chief Elwon and said: “Keep it on their backs. The thing that looks like a thumb-safety is a trigger. Put a dart through the first one who tries to make a break. Alen, tell the fellow on the end to turn around and come to me slowly.”