The Calibrated Alligator by Robert Silverberg

Author:Robert Silverberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holt Rinehart and Winston
Published: 1969-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

But the matter, of course, was far from ended so far as the Leeminorrans were concerned. Their troubles, Norden thought, were just beginning.

He stared at the solidophoned figure of Director Thornton and said, “I did the same thing Devall did, sir. One of my men committed a crime against their laws, they came to me to demand him for trial, and I handed him over to them. You have to admit I was perfectly fairminded about it.”

“You were,” Thornton chuckled. “Clean and aboveboard in the dirtiest way possible.”

“I object! Just because I handpicked my criminal, and just because he deliberately committed blasphemy in the most open and casual manner, and just because I knew that Leeminorran law provided recourse to trial by combat if the accused man requested it—”

“—and just because your man Pickering just happened to be one of Earth’s most murderous professional boxers,” Thornton added—

“Well? The job got done, didn’t it?” Norden demanded.

“It did indeed. And very well, too, according to your report. There’ll be a commendation for you, Norden. And when you’re through with Leeminorr, I’ll try to find a less wintry world for your next stop. Seems to me you’ve had a succession of rough assignments.”

“I like it that way, sir,” Norden said quietly.

“But—”

“Sir?”

That was all he needed to say.

Later, as he sat alone in his room filling out the routine report on the weather for that day, he paused to think over what he had done.

He felt pretty good about it. He had come to Leeminorr with a purpose, and he had fulfilled that purpose.

He scribbled busily away. Fifth September 2709. Colonel Lome Norden reporting. Eighteenth day of our stay on Leeminorr, World Five of System 2279~sub~c. Morning temperature 23 at 0700.—

The Corps, he thought, had been saddled by the Devall Precedent: when an Earthman commits a crime on an alien world where he’s part of a study team, he’s responsible to the inhabitants of that world.

Devall had been an intelligent man, but a fuzzy thinker. His line of reasoning was down in his report: I believed I should treat the aliens as equals, and the best way to prove this equality to them was to subject ourselves to their legal code.

That was all well and good, thought Norden, as he continued working. There was only one minor hitch: the aliens were not equal. It was sloppy-minded to insist that they were.

The Markins had used trial by ordeal; the Leeminorrans, trial by combat. Both good systems, in their day—but not the best. Their results had little to do with actual justice, much as their proponents thought they did.

Norden had fought a double battle, and had won both. He had effectively smashed the Devall Precedent, and he had taught the Leeminorrans a few things about justice.

Simple. Just see to it that your man commits a flagrant abuse of the law in the presence of a few hundred witnesses —and then, when they take him away for trial, have him prove his undeniable innocence by their laws.

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