Robert Sheckley - Diplomatic Immunity

'Why?' Darrig asked.

'For obvious reasons. If I were to take positive action in a moment of anger, I might destroy your entire planet.'

'Do you expect us to believe that?' Cercy asked.

'Why not? Is it so hard to understand? Can't you believe that there are forces you know nothing about? And there is another reason for my passiveness. Certainly by this time you've deduced it?'

'To break our spirit, I suppose,' Cercy said.

'Exactly. My telling you won't make any difference, either. The pattern is always the same. An ambassador lands and delivers his message to a high-spirited, wild young race like yours. There is frenzied resistance against him, spasmodic attempts to kill him. After all these fail, the people are usually quite crestfallen. When the colonization team arrives, their indoctrination goes along just that much faster.' He paused, then said, 'Most planets are more interested in the philosophy I have to offer. I assure you it will make the transition far easier.'

He held out a sheaf of typewritten pages. 'Won't you at least look through it?'

Darrig accepted the papers and put them in his pocket. 'When I get time,'

'I suggest you give it a try,' the Ambassador said. 'You must be near the crisis point now. Why not give it up?'

'Not yet,' Cercy replied tonelessly.

'Don't forget to read the philosophy,' the Ambassador urged them.

The men hurried from the room.

'Now look,' Malley said once they were back in the control room, 'there are a few things we haven't tried. How about utilizing psychology?'

'Anything you like,' Cercy agreed, 'including black magic. What did you have in mind?'

'The way I see it,' Malley answered, 'the Ambassador is geared to respond instantaneously to any threat. He must have an all-or-nothing defensive reflex. I suggest first we try something that won't trigger that reflex.'

'Like what?' Cercy asked.

'Hypnotism. Perhaps we can find out something.'

'Sure,' Cercy said. 'Try it. Try anything.'

Cercy, Malley and Darrig gathered around the video screen as an infinitesimal amount of a light hypnotic gas was admitted into the Ambassador's room. At the same time, a bolt of electricity lashed into the chair where the Ambassador was sitting.

'That ;vas to distract him,' Malley explained. The Ambassador Vanished before the electricity struck him, and then appeared again, curled up in his armchair.

'That's enough,' Malley whispered, and shut the valve. They watched. After a while, the Ambassador put down his book and stared into the distance.

'How strange,' he said. 'Alfern dead. Good friend ... just a freak accident. He ran into it out there. Didn't have a chance. But it doesn't happen often.'

'He's thinking out loud,' Malley whispered, although there was no possibility of the Ambassador's hearing them. 'Vocalizing his thoughts. His friend must have been on his mind for some time.'

'Of course,' the Ambassador went on, 'Alfern had to die some time. No immortality - yet. But that way -no defence. Out there in space they just pop up. Always there, underneath, just waiting for a chance to boil out.'

'His body isn't reacting to the hypnotic as a menace yet,' Cercy whispered.

'Well,' the Ambassador told himself, 'the regularizing principle has been doing pretty well, keeping it all down, smoothing out the inconsistencies—

Suddenly he leaped to his feet, his face pale for a moment, as he obviously tried to remember what he had said. Then he laughed.

'Clever. That's the first time that particular trick has been played on me, and the last time. But, gentlemen, it didn't do you any good. I don't know, myself, how to go about killing me.' He laughed at the blank walls.

'Besides,' he continued, 'the colonizing team must have the direction now. They'll find you with or without me.'

He sat down again, smiling.

'That does it!' Darrig cried. 'He's not invulnerable. Something killed his friend Alfern.'

'Something out in space,' Cercy reminded him. 'I wonder what it was.'

'Let me see,' Darrig reflected aloud. 'The regularizing principle. That must be a natural law we know nothing about. And underneath - what would be underneath?'

'He said the colonization team would find us anyhow,' Malley reminded them.

'First things first,' Cercy said. 'He might have been bluffing us ... no, I don't suppose so. We still have to get the Ambassador out of the way.'

'I think I know what is underneath!' Darrig exclaimed. 'This is wonderful. A new cosmology, perhaps.'

'What is it?' Cercy asked. 'Anything we can use?'

'I think so. But let me work it out. I think I'll go back to my hotel. I have some books there I want to check, and I don't want to be disturbed for a few hours.'

'AH right,' Cercy agreed. 'But what?—'

'No, no, I could be wrong,' Darrig said. 'Let me work it out.'

He hurried from the room.

'What do you think he's driving at?' Malley asked.

'Beats me,' Cercy shrugged. 'Come on, let's try some more of that psychological stuff.'

First they filled the Ambassador's room with several feet of water. Not enough to drown him, just enough to make him good and uncomfortable.

To this, they added the lights. For eight hours, lights flashed in the Ambassador's room - bright lights to pry under his eyelids; dull, clashing ones to disturb him.

Sounds came next - screeches and screams and shrill, grating noises; the sound of a man's fingernails being dragged across slate, amplified a thousand times: and strange sucking noises, and shouts and whispers.

Then the smells. Then, everything else they could think of that could drive a man insane.

The Ambassador slept peacefully through it all.

'Now look,' Cercy said, the following day, 'let's start using our damned heads.' His voice was hoarse and rough. Although the psychological torture hadn't bothered the Ambassador it seemed to have backfired on Cercy and his men.

'Where in hell is Darrig?'

'Still working on that idea of his,' Malley said, rubbing his stubbled chin. 'Says he's just about got it.'

'We'll work on the assumption that he can't produce,' Cercy said. 'Start thinking. For example, if the Ambassador can turn into anything, what is there he can't turn into?'

'Good question,' Harrison grunted.

'It's the payoff question,' Cercy said. 'No use throwing a spear at a man who can turn into one.'

'How about this?' Malley asked. 'Taking it for granted he can turn into anything, how about putting him in a situation where he'll be attacked even after he alters?'

'I'm listening,' Cercy said.

'Say he's in danger. He turns into the thing threatening him. What if that thing were itself being threatened? And in turn, was in the act of threatening something else? What would he do then?'

'How are you going to put that into action?' Cercy asked.

'Like this.' Malley picked up the telephone. 'Hello? Give me the Washington Zoo. This is urgent.'

The Ambassador turned as the door opened. An unwilling, angry, hungry tiger was propelled in. The door slammed shut.

The tiger looked at the Ambassador. The Ambassador looked at the tiger.

'Most ingenious,' the Ambassador said.

At the sound of his voice, the tiger came unglued. He sprang like a steel spring uncoiled, landing on the floor where the Ambassador had been.

The door opened again. Another tiger was pushed in. He snarled angrily and leaped at the first. They smashed together in mid-air.

The Ambassador appeared a few feet off, watching. He moved back when a lion entered the door, head up and alert. The lion sprang at him, almost going over on his head when he struck nothing. Not finding any human, the lion leaped on one of the tigers.

The Ambassador reappeared in his chair, where he sat smoking and watching the beasts kill each other.