Visions of Liberty Part 2

As he expected, Pummery kept everyone who worked for him on his toes.

Pummery did not bother to introduce Jabek. Instead, he introduced Dantler. He said, "This is Birk Dantler, an officer of the GBI, the Galactic Bureau of Investigation. The GBI is the investigative arm of the Inter-World Council. He has been sent here on a confidential mission of inspection and investigation.

Do you know what that means?"

"No, sir," Jabek answered apologetically.

"The Inter-World Council has a stranglehold on every world in the galaxy-if it chooses to apply it. At this moment, Officer Dantler is the most powerful man on the world of Llayless. If he finds this organization or any organization or individual on the world less than completely cooperative, he can express his dissatisfaction, and an absolute embargo will be placed on us. No ship will arrive; no ship will leave.

"You will prepare the necessary credentials for him. He can go wherever he likes, and transportation is to be arranged for him whenever he needs it; he is to see whatever he wants to see; he is to talk with whomever he wants to talk with. Any person who fails to cooperate fully will find him or herself on the next outbound s.p.a.ceship. The credentials you give him should make that clear."

Pummery turned to Dantler. "I can order everyone on the world of Llayless to cooperate with you, but I have no control over what they say, and I can't make them tell the truth. Neither can I tell you anything about this murder myself because I have no knowledge about it.

"I want to make one thing clear. We may have no government here, but as I already mentioned, we are not without laws-though we don't call them that. We have rules of conduct that we impose on ourselves, and they make human society possible. Until you arrived I would have said lawless Llayless is the most law-abiding world in the galaxy. If there has been a murder on this world, the fact that I never heard of it doesn't mean that the crime hasn't been noticed and the murderer hasn't already been punished-under our form of law, not yours. If I can a.s.sist you further, come and see me."

He got to his feet and touched Dantler's hand briefly. Mr. Jabek murmured, "Come with me, please,"

and led him into the adjoining office.

Half an hour later, armed with every credential Mr. Jabek could provide for him, Dantler returned to the ground floor and nodded perfunctorily at the blue-blond receptionist as he pa.s.sed her on his way to the exit.

Hunting for a murderer on a world without government was an entirely new experience for Dantler.

Regardless of what Pummery had said, there was a principle that held true everywhere in the galaxy: No government meant no laws. As he left for the Last Hope mine, the reported scene of the murder, he wondered again what he would charge the murderer with when he caught him, and what court of justice he would bring him before on a world that had no courts.

Probably it would have to be an intergalactic court on some other world, but on strictly local issues, such courts usually applied the laws of the world on which the lawbreaking occurred. There would have to be some roundabout charge-perhaps based on the fact that by murdering Douglas Vaisey, Roger Lefory had summarily terminated his right to that nebulous old saw of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The attorneys would have the time of their lives with it, but Dantler was confident of a conviction. Murder was the most serious charge in the legal a.r.s.enal, and courts would lean over backward to properly punish a murderer-especially when the murder had occurred on an Unnullified world that had neither government, law, nor courts.

Now Dantler was back in Pummery again, having tracked his murderer to Pummery's huge Smelter No.

2. It was an all-electric operation-clean, quiet, and effectively temperature controlled. Dantler's credentials gave him direct and immediate access to its superintendent, a youngish-looking black man named Edwin Sharle, who seemed as quietly competent and efficient as his smelter.

He was completely unaware that he had harbored a murderer among his employees, but the name "Roger Lefory" was familiar to him. "The man was always complaining about something," he said. "He kept claiming that the other employees were making him the victim of all their pranks. They smeared glue on his chair, and when he sat in it, he couldn't get up. He had to cut his trousers off, and they were ruined. His fellow workers had a way of timing their breaks so he was left with all the work to do. They filled his locker with trash, and another time they balanced a can of paint so it dumped on him when he opened the locker's door. That's only the beginning of a list. I'm sure a record was made. Do you want to see it?"

Dantler shook his head. "What did you make of all that?"

"I checked his work record from the Last Hope mine and, before and after that, the Laughingstock.

Everywhere he worked, he found excuses for not working. Many of the pranks he described sounded like fellow workers being fed up with his constantly shifting his workload to them. So I told him to try to be more friendly and cooperative with the people who worked with him and to do a little work himself."

"With what result?"

"He quit without notice. Went to one of the more distant mines, the Shangri-la, and got a job there. I know that because they asked me for his work record. I never heard him mentioned again."

Dantler's next stop was the Llayless Record Section, where he was given a computer station and access to the complete record of Roger Lefory-to the extent that the world kept records on one of its lesser residents. Lefory's entire employment history was there as far as the Shangri-la. Every employer, including the last one, remarked that the man was lazy and avoided work whenever he could. The file ended with a terse note from the Shangri-la manager, dated almost a year before. Employee Roger Lefory was missing from his job. There was nothing unusual about that-he had left every job he had held without notice-but this time there was no record that he had gone anywhere else. He had simply vanished.

Dantler made inquiries. There were a few solitary prospectors searching for paydirt on the far side of the mountains surrounding Pummery. Some of them had developed a knack for living off the country. There were edible plants, berries, and fruits. There were game birds and animals for those who had the skill to catch them. Most Llayless residents had no time for that sort of thing, but prospectors usually had little money and in any case didn't want to take the time for a long trip back to a commissary. There was nothing unusual about a man being missing for almost a year.

Before leaving for the Shangri-la mine, Dantler paid another call on Jeffrey Wallingford Pummery. The factor greeted him courteously and asked how he could be of service.

Dantler described his investigation to date. "A man was murdered," he said. "There are witnesses who saw it done. No report was made to anyone on the management level of the mines where Lefory worked, or to the smelter where he worked, or to world management because no report was required.

The murderer was left free to drift from job to job. Now he has gone prospecting and may be difficult to find. This represents a flagrant violation of the Inter-World Federation's const.i.tution-failing to protect the lives of your citizens by providing no mechanism for taking action against a murderer. I'm going to recommend that your world's status be changed immediately from 'Unnullified' to 'Nullified.' I'll get a s.p.a.cegram off today. As the law requires, I am giving you written notice of that fact so you can prepare your defense. There will be a hearing, of course."

Pummery glanced at the paper Dantler handed to him and then handed it back. There was a faint smile on his face. "I suggest that you hold off with your report-and with your notification-until you have completed your investigation. You haven't visited the Shangri-la mine, yet. Surely your investigation will be incomplete without evidence from the last place Lefory is known to have worked."

Dantler studied him warily. He scented a trap. After a moment's thought, he said, "Certainly, if you prefer it. It probably won't delay things more than a day."

The Shangri-la was just as promising a mine as the Laughingstock, its manager-one Pierre Somler-told Dantler, but it was still in an early stage of development. Thus far its profits had been invested in machinery; the dwellings were shacks, and so was the office.

The manager vividly remembered Lefory. "The record said he was lazy. He was spectacularly lazy. On my visits to the diggings, I rarely found him working. He was always taking a break."

"But you kept him on because of the labor shortage," Dantler said wearily.

Somler nodded. "That, and because we always hope that a poor employee will change his habits.

Usually that happens when dividends are paid and everyone else receives a tidy bonus. A poor employee's long list of demerits results in his receiving nothing. He immediately decides to be at the top of the list when the next dividends are declared. But it didn't happen that way with Lefory. Shiftless he was; shiftless he remained.

"Then there were his complaints about his fellow workers. He kept saying they were trying to 'get' him.

He had the darndest accidents, some of them almost unbelievable. He wanted to be a heavy machine operator, but on his first try, a freak short circuit nearly electrocuted him. After that he wouldn't go near one of the machines. The head flew off a fellow worker's pickax and put him in the hospital for a few days. If it'd hit him in the head instead of the back, it would have killed him. That sort of thing. Finally he vanished."

"Was it a planned disappearance? I mean-did he acc.u.mulate supplies for a stay in the wilderness and take prospecting equipment with him?"

"I think he did. He had mentioned to one of the workers that he was going back to Pummery the next morning and leave Llayless on the first ship out. He thought this was an unlucky world for him, and he could do better starting fresh somewhere else. But that night someone broke into the commissary and took the sort of supplies a prospector would want, and a worker saw Lefory sneaking away on a mountain path with a pack on his back."

"Is there any other evidence that he is out there in the wilderness?"

"No. But it's the ideal place for him. No fellow workers he has to get along with, he can work whatever hours he sets for himself, and take a day off when he wants to. All he has to do is figure out how to eat regularly."

"And all I have to do," Dantler said, "is figure out how to catch him. A world without a government, and without any police force, is a poor place for a manhunt."

Jeffrey Wallingford Pummery said with interest, "Do you mean you've abandoned your search?"

"Right. Lefory is bound to show up sometime. I'll leave a warrant for him. You'll have to apprehend him the moment he appears."

"Solitary prospectors who go off into the blue are usually looking for gold. They show up only at long intervals to cash in their acc.u.mulation, and if they've been lucky, they may buy supplies that will last for years."

"If he shows up at all, the warrant will see that he is detained for galactic police authorities."

"Have you considered the possibility that he might live the rest of his life out without being seen again?"

Pummery asked. "He might be able to cash in his gold without being seen if he has a confederate. Are you still intent on changing the status of this world to 'Nullified?' "

"I am."

"We'll contest the pet.i.tion, of course. And we'll win."

"How can you possibly win? There is no doubt at all that organizations on Llayless harbored a murderer.

Not only did they fail to punish him, but they helped him avoid punishment."

Pummery smiled. "I told you when you arrived-an Unnullified world, a world without government, can be far more law-abiding than your so-called normal worlds. According to the results of your own investigation, Lefory is one of the most severely punished men in galactic history."

"How do you figure that? No one punished him at all."

"Study your notes again. At the Last Hope mine, he was shouldered. At the Laughingstock, he was much more emphatically shouldered. Once he was almost killed. At Smelter No. 2, more of the same thing. The danger to his life was increasing. Finally, at the Shangri-la, he was escaping death by narrower and narrower margins.

"It isn't necessary for management to take a hand in the punishment of a murderer, you see. Every person on Llayless knows that if a Roger Lefory can murder in a fit of temper and escape the consequences, no person is safe. So the people of Llayless set about making an example of him. They put him through living h.e.l.l, one place after another. And when he finally announced to a fellow worker that he was leaving Llayless, they gave his punishment the final twist."

"And what was that?" Dantler demanded.

"You've already answered your question: He disappeared. His fellow workers so frightened him that he gave up his plan to return to Pummery and leave the planet. He was afraid he wouldn't live long enough to get there. Instead, he went to hide out beyond the mountains, thus condemning himself to perpetual h.e.l.l. Don't you believe for a moment that he is gleefully basking in the wilderness and chuckling about how he got away with murder. He is eating plants that make him sick and half starving because he hasn't the knack for catching birds or animals. He simply isn't the type for solitary prospecting. He wouldn't recognize paydirt if he fell in it. He desperately needs fellow workers he can shift his own share of work onto. Running back to Pummery and using the return ticket he has on file to get off the world is his kind of gambit, but he was too terrified to try it.

"The sanct.i.ty of life is a basic law among humans everywhere. An Unnullified world doesn't need the apparatus of government and courts to punish murderers. Word of a murder circulates among workers almost instantly. The murderer's deed dogs his tracks forever after. It followed Lefory everywhere, and his fellow workers reacted accordingly. If he shows up again, Llayless's community of workers will resume where it left off. His punishment is already a legend that will deter people from murder far into the future. Do you know how many murders there have been on Llayless in its history?"

Dantler shook his head.

"Two," Pummery said. "One happened twenty-eight years ago. That murderer's punishment is still remembered and still a deterrent-as Lefory's punishment will be for decades to come. How many murderers do you know of on normal worlds who have been released through lack of evidence or through legal manipulations? So many you couldn't answer, I'm sure. On an Unnullified world, where the people are the law, punishment is certain-and it is perpetual. It will dog Lefory again if he ever emerges from the wilderness. He can't escape it-can't escape the planet-because no one will let him."

"It sounds suspiciously like mob rule, which the Inter-World Federation outlaws. That simply won't do."

"Ah, but mob rule-thoughtless mob punishment without proper evidence-is an entirely different thing.

It wouldn't have popular support. Further, it would bring every management on Llayless down on it. We simply couldn't permit that. Punishment of the mob would be official, immediate, and severe."

He got to his feet. "I'm pleased to be able to introduce you to the way the law works on a world without government-a lawless world. I'm sorry you can't stay longer. We are very strong on law but unfortunately weak in amenities, and I apologize for that."

He nodded politely. Dantler, feeling himself dismissed, left. He had reached the street before he remembered that he had failed to serve on Pummery the notice of his intention to recommend an immediate change in Llayless's status.

He took the paper from his pocket, hesitated, and then tore it into very small pieces. The pieces dropped almost at his feet, and he kicked at them as he walked away.

The Right's Tough

by Robert J. Sawyer

"The funny thing about this place," said Hauptmann, pointing at the White House as he and Chin walked west on the Mall, "is that the food is actually good."

"What's funny about that?" asked Chin.

"Well, it's a tourist attraction, right? A historic site. People come from all over the world to see where the American government was headquartered, back when therewere governments. The guys who own it now could serve absolute c.r.a.p, charge exorbitant prices, and the place would still be packed. But the food really is great. Besides, tomorrow the crowds will arrive; we might as well eat here while we can."

Chin nodded. "All right," he said. "Let's give it a try."

The room Hauptmann and Chin were seated in had been the State Dining Room. Its oak-paneled walls sported framed portraits of all sixty-one men and seven women who had served as presidents before the office had been abolished.

"What do you suppose they'll be like?" asked Chin, after they'd placed their orders.

"Who?" said Hauptmann.

"The s.p.a.cers. The astronauts."

Hauptmann frowned, considering this. "That's a good question. They left on their voyage-what?" He glanced down at his weblink, strapped to his forearm. The device had been following the conversation, of course, and had immediately submitted Hauptmann's query to the web. "Two hundred and ten years ago," Hauptmann said, reading the figure off the ten-by-five-centimeter display. He looked up. "Well, what was theworld like back then? Bureaucracy. Government. Freedoms curtailed." He shook his head.

"Our world is going to be like a breath of fresh air for them."

Chin smiled. "After more than a century aboard a starship, fresh air is exactly what they're going to want."

Neither Hauptmann nor his weblink pointed out the obvious: that although a century had pa.s.sed on Earth since theOlduvai started its return voyage from Franklin's World, only a couple of years had pa.s.sed aboard the ship and, for almost all of that, the crew had been in cryosleep.

The waiter brought their food, a Clinton (pork ribs and mashed potatoes with gravy) for Hauptmann, and a Nosworthy (tofu and eggplant) for Chin. They continued chatting as they ate.

When the bill came, it sat between them for a few moments. Finally, Chin said, "Can you get it? I'll pay you back tomorrow."

Hauptmann's weblink automatically sent out a query when Chin made his request, seeking doc.u.ments containing Chin's name and phrases such as "overdue personal debt." Hauptmann glanced down at the weblink's screen; it was displaying seven hits. "Actually, old boy," said Hauptmann, "your track record isn't so hot in that area. Why don'tyou pick up the check for both of us, andI'll pay you back tomorrow?

I'm good for it."

Chin glanced at his own weblink. "So you are," he said, reaching for the bill.

"And don't be stingy with the tip," said Hauptmann, consulting his own display again. "Dave Preston from Peoria posted that you only left five percent when he went out to dinner with you last year."

Chin smiled good-naturedly and reached for his debit card. "You can't get away with anything these days, can you?"

The owners of the White House had been brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

The message, received by people all over Earth, had been simple: "This is Captain Joseph Plato of the UNSAOlduvai to Mission Control. h.e.l.lo, Earth! Long time no see. Our entire crew has been revived from suspended animation, and we will arrive home in twelve days. It's our intention to bring our landing module down at the point from which it was originally launched, the Kennedy s.p.a.ce Center. Please advise if this is acceptable."

And while the rest of the world reacted with surprise-who even remembered that an old s.p.a.ce-survey vessel was due to return this year?-the owners of the White House sent a reply. "h.e.l.lo,Olduvai ! Glad to hear you're safe and sound. The Kennedy s.p.a.ce Center was shut down over a hundred and fifty years ago. But, tell you what, why don't you land on the White House lawn?"