Eric Russell: Now Inhale

“Your instinct,” said Taylor. “We see no sense in wasting time and money fighting when we can spend both exploring and exploiting.”

“Meaning that your space fleets include no warships?”

“Of course we have warships.”

“Many?”

“Enough to cope.”

“Pacifists armed to the teeth,” said Palamin to the others. He registered a knowing smile.

“Liars are. always inconsistent,” pronounced Eckster with an air of authority. He fixed a stony gaze upon the prisoner. “If you are so careful to avoid trouble, why do you need warships?”

“Because we have no guarantee that the entire cosmos shares our policy of live and let live.”

“Be more explicit.”

“We chevvy nobody. But someday somebody may take it into their heads to chevvy us.”

“Then you will start a fight?”

“No. The other party will have started it. We shall finish it.”

“Sheer evasion,” scoffed Eckster to Palamin and the rest. “The technique is obvious to anyone but an idiot. They settle themselves upon a hundred planets—if we can believe that number, which I don’t! On most there is no opposition because nobody is there to oppose. On the others the natives are weak and backward, know that a struggle is doomed to failure and therefore offer none. But on any planet sufficiently strong and determined to resist—such as Gombar for instance—the Terrans will promptly treat that resistance as unwarranted interference with themselves. They will say they are being chevvied. It will be their moral justification for a war.”

Palamin looked at Taylor. “What do you say to that?”

Giving a deep shrug, Taylor said, “That kind of political cynicism has been long out of date where I come from. I can’t help it if mentally you’re about ten millennia behind us.”

“Are we going to sit here and allow ourselves to be insulted by a prisoner in chains?” Eckster angrily demanded of Palamin. “Let us recommend that he be executed. Then we can all go home. I for one have had enough of this futile rigmarole.”

Another said, “Me, too.” He looked an habitual me-tooer.

“Patience,” advised Palamin. He spoke to Taylor. “You claim that you were under orders to examine the twin system of Halor and Ridi?”

“If by that you mean the adjacent binary, the answer is yes. That was my prescribed destination.”

“Let us suppose that instead you had been told to take a look over our Gombarian system. Would you have done so?”

“I obey orders.”

“You would have come upon us quietly and surreptitiously for a good snoop around?”

“Not necessarily. If my first impression had been one of friendliness, I’d have presented myself openly.”

“He is dodging the question,” insisted Eckster, still full of ire.

“What would you have done if you had been uncertain of our reaction?” continued Palamin.

“What anyone else would do,” Taylor retorted. “I’d hang around until I’d got the measure of it one way or the other.”

“Meanwhile taking care to evade capture?”

“Of course.”

“And if you had not been satisfied with our attitude you’d have reported us as hostile?”

“Potentially so.”

“That is all we require,” decided Palamin. “Your admissions are tantamount to a confession that you are a spy. It does not matter in the least whether you were under orders to poke your inquisitive nose into this system or some other system, you are still a spy.” He turned to the others. “Are we all agreed?”

They chorused, “Yes.”

“There is only one proper fate for such as you,” Palamin finished. “You will be returned to your cell pending official execution.” He made a gesture of dismissal. “Take him away.”

The guards took him by simple process of jerking the chair from under him and kicking him erect. They tried to rush him out faster than he could go, he stumbled in his leg irons and almost fell. But he found time to throw one swift glance back from the doorway and his strangely pale eyes looked frozen.

When the elderly warder brought in his evening meal, Taylor asked, “How do they execute people here?”

“How do they do it where you come from?”

“We don’t.”

“You don’t?” The warder blinked in amazement. Putting the tray on the floor, he took a seat on the bench beside Taylor and left the heavily-barred grille wide open. The butt of his gun protruded from its holster within easy reach of the prisoner’s grasp. “Then how do you handle dangerous criminals?”

“We cure the curable by whatever means are effective no matter how drastic, including brain surgery. The incurable we export to a lonely planet reserved exclusively for them.

There they can fight it out between themselves.”

“What a waste of a world,” opined the warder. In casual manner he drew his gun, pointed it at the wall and pressed the button. Nothing happened. “Empty,” he said.

Taylor made no remark.

“No use you snatching it. No use you running for it. The armored doors, multiple locks and loaded guns are all outside.”

“I’d have to get rid of these manacles before I could start something with any hope of success,” Taylor pointed out. “Are you open to bribery?”

“With what? You have nothing save the clothes you’re wearing. And even those will be burned after you’re dead.”

“All right, forget it.” Taylor rattled his irons loudly and looked disgusted. “You haven’t yet told me how I’m to die.”

“Oh, you’ll be strangled in public,” informed the warder. He smacked his lips for no apparent reason. “All executions take place in the presence of the populace. It is not enough that justice be done, it must also be seen to be done. So everybody sees it. And it has an excellent disciplinary effect.” Again the lip smacking. “It is quite a spectacle.”

“I’m sure it must be.”

“You will be made to kneel with your back to a post, your arms and ankles tied behind it,” explained the warder in tutorial manner. “There is a hole drilled through the post at the level of your neck. A loop of cord goes round your neck, through the hole and around a stick on the other side. The executioner twists the stick, thereby tightening the loop quickly or slowly according to his mood.”

“I suppose that when he feels really artistic he prolongs the agony quite a piece by slackening and re-tightening the loop a few times?” Taylor ventured.

“No, no, he is not permitted to do that,” assured the warden, blind to the sarcasm. “Not in a final execution. That method is used only to extract confessions from the stubborn. We are a fair-minded and tender-hearted people, see?”

“You’re a great comfort to me,” said Taylor.

“So you will be handled swiftly and efficiently. I have witnessed many executions and have yet to see a sloppy, badly performed one. The body-heaves and strains against its bonds, the eyes stick out, the tongue protrudes and turns black and complete collapse follows. The effect is invariably the same and is a tribute to the executioner’s skill. Really you have nothing to worry about, nothing at all.”

“Looks like I haven’t, the way you put it,” observed Taylor dryly. “I’m right on top of the world without anything to lose except my breath.” He brooded a bit, then asked, “ When am I due for the noose?”

“Immediately after you’ve finished your game,” the warder informed.

Taylor eyed him blankly. “Game? What game? What do you mean?”

“It is conventional to allow a condemned man a last game against a skilled player chosen by us. When the game ends he is taken away and strangled.”