Martin Greenberg: Visions of Liberty

“I know about that,” Dantler said. “I suppose it’s sort of a guarantee he won’t become a public charge.”

“Right. Records is supposed to cash the return ticket and send the money along with all of his other assets to his designated beneficiary. Whether it actually does this I couldn’t say. And that’s the whole story.”

“You didn’t report the murder to the police authorities?”

“What police authorities? I just told you—Llayless has got no government. It’s got no authorities, police or any other kind. Who would I report it to?”

“Then a murderer can’t be arrested and brought to trial?”

“Who would arrest him, and who would hold his trial? There’s no police. There’s no court. There’s no judge. There’s no jail for wrongdoers. Actually, it was a dirty shame. Dougie was well liked, and Lefory was a jerk. Everyone was angry about what happened.”

“But you let him carry on scot-free as though he hadn’t done anything?”

“I wouldn’t say that. We shouldered him right out of camp.”

“How did you do that?”

“No one would talk with him. No one would work with him. No one would eat with him—we form teams and take turns cooking. No team would have him. No one would kip with him. After a couple of days of that, he left. Sneaked out of camp early one morning and walked over the mountain to the Laughingstock. It was almost a day before anyone missed him.”

“That seems like a rather mild punishment for a murderer,” Dantler observed dryly. “What happened to him after that?”

“He got a job at the Laughingstock. Llayless’s mines are always short of labor. But we let the Laughingstock workers know about him, and he didn’t stay there long. Probably they shouldered him, too.”

“But you don’t know that for certain.”

“No, I don’t know it for certain. But I know he didn’t stay there long.”

“Do you know where he went from there?”

“I never heard him mentioned again after he left the Laughingstock, but you can bet that the workers there passed the information about him along to workers at the next place he caught on.”

Dantler stayed overnight. The men gave him what was, for the Last Hope, a fabulous luxury—a tent all to himself. The food was rough but filling. The other amenities were just a shade above zero. There was barely enough hot water—heated over a campfire—to go around. There was plenty of ore soup, though—a hot, stimulating drink made with local herbs—and it was obvious that no one at the camp went hungry. Early the next morning he walked back over the mountain to the Laughingstock. All of the camp’s men came along to make certain he didn’t get lost. The loaded mules came, too, and the men took turns pushing cartloads of ore.

“Paths look different going the other way,” Kit Grumery explained.

At the Laughingstock settlement, he took his leave of his Last Hope companions and went directly to the office and asked to see the manager. A different clerk was on duty, and for a second time Dantler presented his credentials. He was admitted to the manager’s office at once and greeted by Ed Mullard, a grizzled oldster who had spent his life scratching for pay dirt and finally rode to riches on the coattails of someone luckier than he who found the Laughingstock claim.

He scowled at Dantler’s credentials, then scowled more fiercely at Dantler. “I hope you’re not about to interfere with our operations. There’s nothing for the GBI to investigate here.”

“My information is that you harbored a murderer. That’s what I want to know about.”

Mullard leaned back and stared at Dantler. “If there’s ever been a murderer on this claim, it’s news to me.”

“A man named Roger Lefory came to work for you immediately after murdering a fellow worker at Last Hope.”

“Lefory,” Mullard mused. “Yes, I do remember him because he was always complaining about something. But I had no idea he was a murderer.”

“Tell me about him,” Dantler said.

Mullard leaned back and meditated. “For one thing, he was the most accident-prone man I’ve ever met. Mining is a dangerous business, and things do happen, but with Lefory it got to be ridiculous. Tunnels only seemed to collapse while he was in them. Scaffolding gave way only when he was passing it. Machinery failed dangerously only when he was tending it. Hot water spilled only when he was there to get burned. He kept complaining that his fellow workers arranged these accidents, which of course was nonsense. No one could have arranged all that. They were the sort of things that are bound to occur from time to time, and he happened to be unlucky. Finally a gear broke on a tipcart loaded with ore, and he was buried up to his neck and had to be dug out. He just missed being buried alive. The next day he

turned up missing. There’s a passenger car on every ore train, so it’s easy for men to desert if for any reason they don’t like their work here.”

“Do you know where he went?”

“To Pummery. That’s where all the ore trains go. He found a job at one of the smelters. I received a notice with the usual request for his work history.”

“Did you send down his personal effects and any wages he had due him?”

“By quitting without notice, he forfeited any wages owed to him. I know nothing about his personal effects. Probably he took with him anything he wanted to keep. He hadn’t been here long enough to have accumulated much.”

Obviously Mullard had nothing more to tell him, so Dantler boarded the passenger car on the next departing ore train and rode down to Pummery in a totally frustrated mood.

The world of Llayless had been named after an early explorer, but through eight sectors of space it was known as “Lawless.” Among worlds, it was a genuine oddity—a single-owner world. Old Albert Nicols, the original owner, who had managed, by dint of rigged poker games, loans foreclosed with indecent haste, and questionable wills to consolidate several hundred claims into one title deed, had taken a young wife just before he died. By that time Llayless was an extremely wealthy mining world with only a tiny fraction of its potential being exploited, and the widow inherited everything. She immediately established her residence several sectors away on a world that offered far more comfort than the world of Llayless could have provided for her, and from that vantage point she kept close tabs on her accumulating mining royalties and gave generously to charities.

Single ownership was not the world’s only peculiarity. It had no government. Those who leased land and mineral rights were responsible, by contract, for their holdings and everyone they permitted on them. Some administered them in a stern, paternal fashion; some were tyrannical dictators; a few ran their holdings congenially as partnerships. Occasionally one let things degenerate into rowdyism but only until the world’s factor heard about it.

Finally, the world of Llayless was “Unnullified.” This was a form of probation inflicted on all recently discovered and newly settled worlds. The sacred constitution of the Inter-World Federation guaranteed certain human rights and considerations throughout its territory, and a world that failed in this respect was nullified, which meant that it was totally embargoed. A world without government was placed in limbo with the label “Unnullified” until it got its act together. After a reasonable time the world would either be normalized or changed to Nullified status.

Birk Dantler had looked into the Llayless’s history before he left on his assignment. He was startled to find that there had been no updating of its status since it was, as a newly settled world, marked “Unnullified.” He took the matter to his superiors, who took it to their superiors. Someone had goofed.