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🟡 Highest Treason (Full Audiobook) | Randall Garrett · Classic Science Fiction Audiobooks: Free Public Domain Sci-Fi Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Part one of the Highest Treason. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. The
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Highest Treason by Randall Garrett, Part one, The Prisoner. The
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: two rooms were not luxurious, but mac Maine hadn't expected
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: that they would be. The walls were a flat metallic gray,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: unadorned and windowless. The ceilings and floors were simply continuations
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: of the walls, except for the glow plates overhead. One
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: room held a small cabinet for his personal possessions, a wide,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: reasonably soft bed, a small but adequate desk, and in
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: one corner a cubicle that contained the necessary sanitary plumbing facilities.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: The other room held a couch, two big easy chairs,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: a low table, some book shelves, a squat refrigerator containing
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: food and drink for his occasional snacks. His regular meals
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: were brought in hot from the main kitchen, and a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: closet that contained his clothing. The insignialous uniforms of a
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: carathi officer no thought, Sebastian mac Maine. It was not luxurious,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: but neither did it look like the prison cell it was.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: There was comfort here and even the illusion of privacy,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Although there were TV pickups in the walls, placed so
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: that no movement in either room would go unnoticed. The
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: switch which cut off the soft white light from the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: glow plates did not cut off the infrared radiation which
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: enabled his host to watch him while he slept. Every
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: sound was heard and recorded, but none of that bothered
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: mac Maine. On the contrary, he was glad of it.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: He wanted the Carothi to know that he had no
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: intention of escaping or hatching any plot against them. He
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: had long since decided that if things continued as they had,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Earth would lose the war with Caroath, and Sebastian mac
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Maine had no desire whatever to be on the losing
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: side of the greatest war ever fought. The problem now
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: was to convince the Carothi that he fully intended to
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: fight with them, to give them the full benefit of
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: his ability as a military strategist, to do his best
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: to win every battle for caroth and that was going
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: to be the most difficult task of all. A tell
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: tale glow of red blinked rapidly over the door, and
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: a soft chime pinged in time with it. Macmain smiled inwardly,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: although not a trace of it showed on his broad jawed,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: blocky face, to give him the illusion that he was
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: a guest rather than a prisoner. The Kerothie had installed
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: an announcer at the door and invariably used it. Not
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: once had any one of them ever simply walked in
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: on him come in. Mac Maine said he was seated
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: in one of the easy chairs in his living room,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: smoking a cigarette and reading a book on the history
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: of caroth But he put the book down on the
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: low table as a tall Corothi came in through the doorway.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Mac Main allowed himself a smile of honest pleasure. To
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: most earthmen, all the carrot skins look alike, and mac
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Maine admitted honestly to himself he hadn't yet trained himself
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: completely to look beyond the strangeness that made the Corothi
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: different from earthmen and see the details that made them
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: different from each other. But this was one Corothi that
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: mac Main would never mistake for any other talis. He
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: stood up and extended both hands in the Corothi fashion.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: The other did the same, and they clasped hands for
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: a moment. How are your guts, he added in carothc
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: they functioned smoothly, My sibling by choice, answered space, General
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: poland Thalis and your own smoothly. Indeed, it's been far
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: too long a time since we have touched the Coroathi
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: stepped back a pace and looked the earth. When up
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and down, you look healthy enough for a prisoner. You're
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: treated well, then well enough, Sit down, my sibling by choice,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: mac Main waved toward the couch near by. The General
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: sat down and looked around the apartment. Well, well, you're
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: getting preferential treatment, all right. This is as good as
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: you could expect as a battleship commander. Maybe you're being
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: trained for the job. Mac Main laughed, allowing the touch
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: of sardonicism that he felt to be heard in the laughter.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I might have hoped so once, Talis, but I'm afraid
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: I have simply come out even I have traded nothing
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: for nothing. General Talis reached into the pocket of his
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: uniform jacket and took out the thin aluminum case that
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: held the Corothi equivalent of cigarettes. He took one out,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: put it between his lips, and lit it with the
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: hot point that was built into the case. McMain took
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: an earth cigarette out of the package on the table
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: and allowed Talis to light it for him. The pause
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: and the silence McMain knew were for a purpose. He
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: waited Talis had something to say, but he was allowing
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the earthman to adjust to surprise. It was one of
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: the fine points of Corothi etiquette. A sudden silence on
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: the part of one participant in a conversation under these
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: particular circumstances meant that something unusual was coming up, and
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: the other person was supposed to take the opportunity to
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: brace himself for a shock. It could mean anything. In
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: the Corothi space forces, a superior informed a junior officer
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: of the junior's forthcoming promotion by just such tactics, But
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the same tactics were used when informing a person of
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: the death of a loved one. In fact, McMain was
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: well aware that such a peer period of silence was
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: dereguerre in a Carothi court just before sentence was pronounced,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: as well as a preliminary to a proposal of marriage
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: by a Corothi mail to the light of his love
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: macmain could do nothing but wait. It would be indelicate
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: to speak until Talis felt that he was ready for
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: the surprise. It was, not, however, indelicate, to watch Talis's
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: face closely. It was expected. Theoretically, one was supposed to
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: be able to discern at least whether the news was
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: good or bad. With Talis, it was impossible to tell,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: and macmain knew it would be useless to read the
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: man's expression, but he watched none the less. In one way,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Talis's face was typically Corothi. The orange pigmented skin and
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: the bright grass green eyes were common to all Corothi.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: The planet Karoath, like Earth, had evolved several different races
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: of humanoid, but unlike Earth, the distinction was not one
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: of McMain took a drag off his cigarette and forced
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: himself to keep his mind off whatever it was that
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Talis might be about to say. He was already prepared
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: for a death sentence, even a death sentence by torture.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Now he felt he could not be shocked, and rather
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: than build up the tension within himself to an unbearable degree,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: he thought about Talis rather than about himself. Talis, like
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: the rest of the Corothi was unbelievably humanoid. There were
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: internal differences in the placement of organs and differences in
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: the functions of those organs. For instance, it took two
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: separate organs to perform the same function that the liver
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: performed in earthmen, and the kidneys were completely absent, that
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: function being performed by special tissues in the lower colon,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: which meant that the Corothi were more efficient with water
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: saving than earthmen, since the waste products were excreted as
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: relatively dry solids through an all purpose cloaca. But external
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: a Corothi would need only a touch of plastic surgery
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and some make up to pass as an earthman in
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: a stage play. Close up, of course, the job would
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: be much more difficult, as difficult as a negro trying
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: to disguise himself as a swede or vice versa. But
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Talis was I would have a word, Talis said, shattering
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: mac maine's carefully neutral train of thought. It was a
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: standard opening for breaking the paws of adjustment, but at
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: presage good news rather than bad. I await your word,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: mcmaine said. Even after all this time, he still felt
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: vaguely proud of his ability to handle the subtle idioms
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: of Carothic I think. Talis said carefully that you may
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: be offered a commission in the Carothi's space forces. Sebastian
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: mac maine let out his breath slowly, and only then
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: realized that he had been holding it. I am grateful
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: my sibling by choice, he said. General Talis tapped his
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: cigarette ash into a large blue ceramic ashtray. Macmain could
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: smell the acrid smoke from the alien plant matter that
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: burned in the Corothi cigarette, a chopped up inner bark
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: from a Corothi tree. Macmain could no more smoke a
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Carothi cigarette than Talis could smoke tobacco, but the two
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: were remarkably similar in their effects. The surprise had been
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: delivered now, as was proper, Talis would move adroitly all
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: around the subject until he was ready to return to
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: it again. You have been with us, how long, Sebastian,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: he asked, two and a third cronat Talis nodded, nearly
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: a year of your time, McMain smiled. Talis was as
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: proud of his knowledge of Earth terminology as macmain was
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: proud of his mastery of carothic lacking three weeks. McMain said,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: what three Oh, yes, a long time, said Talis. Damn it,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: re mained thought, in a sudden surge of impatience. Get
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: to the point his face showed only calm. The board
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: of strategy asked me to tell you, Talis continued, After all,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: my recommendation was partially responsible for the decision. He paused
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: for a moment. But it was merely a conversational hesitation,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: not a formal hiatus. It was a hard decision. Sebastian,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: you must realize that we have been at war with
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: your race for ten years now. We have taken thousands
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: of Earthmen as prisoners, and many of them have agreed
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: to co operate with us. But with one single exception,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: these prisoners have been the moral dregs of your civilization.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: They have been men who had no pride of race,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: no pride of society, no pride of self. They have
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: been weak, self centered, small minded cowards, who had no
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: thought for Earth and earthmen, but only for themselves. Hut,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: he said hurriedly, that all of them are that way,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: or even the majority. Most of them have the minds
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: of warriors, although I must say not strong warriors. That
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: last McMain knew was a polite concession. The Coroathi had
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: no respect for earthmen, and McMain could hardly blame them.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: For three long centuries, the people of Earth had had
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: nothing to do but indulge themselves in the pleasures of
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: material wealth. It was a wonder that any of them
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: had any moral fiber left. But none of those who
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: had any strength agreed to work with us. Tullis went
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: on with one exception. You am I weak, then McMain asked.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: General Talis shook his head in a peculiarly human like gesture. No, no,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: you are not, and that is what has made us
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: pause for three years. His grass green eyes looked candidly
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: into mc main's own. You aren't the type of person
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: who betrays his own kind. It looks like a trap.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: After a whole year, the Board of Strategy still isn't
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: sure that there is no trap. Talis stopped, leaned forward,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: and ground out the stub of his cigarette in the
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: blue ash tray. Then his eyes again sought mac main's.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: If it were not for what I personally know about you,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: the Board of Strategy would not even consider your proposition.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I take it then that they have considered it. McMain asked,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: with a grin, as I said, Sebastian Talis said, you
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: have won your case. After almost a year of your time,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: your decision has been justified. Macmain lost his grin. I
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: am grateful, Talis, he said gravely. I think you must
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: realize that it was a difficult decision to make. His
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: thoughts went back a cross long months of time and
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: longer light years of space, to the day when that
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: decision had been made and of Part one, Part two
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: of The Highest Treason. This is a LibriVox recording. All
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. The Highest
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Treason by Randall Garrett, Part two. The Decision. Colonel Sebastian
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: mcmaine didn't feel that morning as though this day were
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: different from any other. The sun, faintly veiled by a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: few wisps of cloud, shown as it always had. The
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: guards at the doors of the Space Force Administration building
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: saluted him as usual. His brother officers nodded politely as
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: they are always did. His aid greeted him with the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: usual good morning, sir. The duty list lay on his desk,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: as it had every morning for years. Sebastian mac maine
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: felt tense and a little irritated with himself, but he
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: felt nothing that could be called a premonition. When he
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: read the first item on the duty list, his irritation
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: became a little stronger. Interrogate Corothi General. The interrogation duty
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: had swung round to him again. He didn't want to
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: talk to General Tollis. There was something about the alien
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: that bothered him, and he couldn't place exactly what it was.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Earth had been lucky to capture the alien officer. In
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: a space war, there's usually very little left to capture
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: after a battle, especially if your side lost the battle.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, the Corothi general wasn't so lucky.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: The food that had been captured with him would run
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: out in less than six months, and it was doubtful
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: that he would survive on Earth. It was equally doubtful
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: that any more Corothi food would be captured. For two years,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Earth had been fighting the Corothi, and for two years
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Earth had been winning a few minor skirmishes and losing
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the major battles. The Carothig hadn't hit any of the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: major colonies yet, but they had swallowed up outpost after outpost,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: and Earth's space fleet was losing ships faster than her
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: factories could turn them out. The hell of it was
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: that nobody on Earth seemed to be very much concerned
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: about it at all. Macmain wondered why he let it
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: concern him. If no one else was worried, why did
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: he let it bother him. He pushed the thought from
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: his mind and picked up the questionnaire form that had
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: been made out for that morning session with the Corothi General.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Might as well get it over with. He glanced on
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: the list of further duties for the day. It looked
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: as though the routine interrogation of the Carathig General was
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: likely to provide most of the interest in the day
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: that He took the dropshoot down to the basement of
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the building to the small prison section where the alien
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: officer was being held. The guards saluted nonchalantly as he
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: went in. The routine questioning sessions were nothing new to them.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: McMain turned the lock on the prisoner's cell door and
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: went in. Then he came to attention and saluted the
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Carathigh General He was probably the only officer in the
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: place who did that. He knew the others treated the
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: alien general as though he were a criminal. Worse, they
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: treated him as though he were a petty thief or
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: a common pickpocket. Criminal. Yes, but of a definitely inferior type.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: General talis as always stood and returned the salute katomoonik
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: kono macmain. He said. The Carothi language lacked many of
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the voiced consonants of English and Russian, and as a
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: result Talis's use of B, d, G, J, V and
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: z made them come out as p, T, k, c, h,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: F and s. The English R as it is pronounced,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: and run or rat eluded him entirely, and he pronounced
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: it only when he could give it. The guttural pronunciation
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: of the German ar. The terminal n G always came
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: out as n k. The nasal M and N were
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: a little more drawn out than in English, but they
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: were easily understandable. Good morning, General, Thollas mc maine said,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Sit down, how do you feel this morning? The General
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: sat again on the hard bunk that, aside from the
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: single chair, was the only furniture in the small cell,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: as well as Kotepie expected, I get very little exercise.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I how is it set? I become soft? Soft? Is correct? Correct?
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: You've learned our language very well for so short a time,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: The General shrugged off the compliment. When it is a
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: matter of loan and alta to suffy one nons you
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: think then that your survival has depended on your learning
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: our language. The General's orange face contrived a wry smile.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Obviously your people vil not learn Corothic. If I can't
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: answer questions, I am of no use. As long as
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I am of use, I will live not. Mac Maine
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: decided he might as well spring his bomb on the
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Kerothi officer now as later. I am not so certain
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: but that you might have stretched out your time longer
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: if you had forced us to learn Carothic. General, he
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: said in Carothic. He knew his Carothic was bad, since
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: it had been learned from the Kerothi spacemen who had
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: been captured with the general, and the man had been
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: badly wounded and had survived only two weeks. But that
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: little bit of basic instruction, plus the work he had
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: done on the books and tapes from the ruined Carothi ship,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: had helped him. Ah, The General blinked in surprise. Then
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: he smiled. Your accent, he said in Carothic is atrocious,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: but certainly no worse than mine when I speak your inklitch.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: I suppose you intend to question me in Caroothic, now, eh,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: in the hope that I may reveal more in my
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: own tongue. Possibly you may, mc maine said, with a grin.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: But I learned it from my own information. For your own? What? Oh?
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I see interesting? I know no others of your race
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: who would do such a thing. Anything which is difficult
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: is beneath them. Not so general, I am not unique.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: There are many of us who don't think that way.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: The general shrugged. I do not deny it. I merely
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: say that I have met none. Certainly they do not
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: tend to go into military service. Possibly that is because
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: you are not a race of fighters. It takes a
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: fighter to tackle the difficult, just because it is difficult.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Mac Main gave him a short, hard laugh. Don't you
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: think getting information out of you is difficult? And yet
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: we tackle that? Not the same thing at all? Routine?
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: You have used no pressure, no threats, no promises, no torture,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: no stress. Mac Main wasn't quite sure of his translation
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: of the last two negative phrases. You mean the application
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: of physical pain. That's barbaric. I won't pursue the subject,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the general said, with sudden irony. I can understand that,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: but you can rest assured that we would never do
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: such a thing. It isn't civilized. Our civil police do
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: use certain drugs to obtain information, but we have so
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: little knowledge of Carothigh body chemistry that we hesitate to
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: use drugs on you. The application of stress, you say,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: is not civilized, not perhaps according to your definition of
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: He used the English word syphilist. No, not syphilist, but
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: it works again, he smiled. I said that I have
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: become soft since I have been here, but I fear
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: that your civilization is even softer. A man can lie
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: even if his arms are pulled off or his feet crushed.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Mc maine said stiffly. The corowth I looked startled. When
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: he spoke again. It was in English. I f for
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: say no more. If you huff questions to ask, go ahead,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I will not take up time with further. Tolkin a
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: little angry with himself and with the General, but Maine
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: spent the rest of the hour, asking routine questions and
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: getting nowhere. Filling up the tape in his mini quarter
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: with the same old answers that others had gotten. He left,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: giving the General a brisk salute and turning before the
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: General had time to return it. Back in his office,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: he filed the tape dutifully and started on item two
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: of the duty list, strategy analysis of battle reports. Strategy
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: analysis always irritated and upset him. He knew that if
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: he'd just go about it in the approved way, there
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: would be no irritation, only boredom, but he was constitutionally
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: incapable of working that way. In spite of himself, he
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: always played a little game with himself and with the
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: General strategy computer. The only battle of significance in the
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: past week had been the defense of an Earth outpost
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: called Bennington four. Theoretically, mcmaine was supposed to check over
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: the entire report, find out where the losing sight had aired,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: and feed correctional information into the computer, but he couldn't
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: resist stopping after he had read the first section information
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: known to Earth commander at moment of an initial contact.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Then he would stop and consider how he personally would
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: have handled the situation if he had been the Earth commander.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: So many ships in such and such places, enemy fleet
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: approaching at such and such velocities. Battle array of enemy,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Thus and so now what? McMain thought over the information
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: on the defense of Bennington for and devised a battle plan.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: There was a weak point in the enemy's attack, but
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: it was rather obvious. McMain searched until he found another
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: week point, much less obvious than the first. He knew
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: it would be there it was. Then he proceeded to
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: ignore both weak points and concentrate on what he would
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: do if he were the enemy commander. The weak points
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: were traps. The computer could see them and avoid them,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: which was just exactly what was wrong with a computer's logic.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: In avoiding the traps, it also avoided the best way
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: to hit the enemy. A weak point is weak, no
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: matter matter how well it may be booby trapped. In
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: baiting a rat trap, you have to use real cheese
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: because an imitation won't work. Of course, McMain thought to himself,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: you can always poison the cheese. But let's not carry
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the analogy too far. All right, then, how to hit
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: the traps? It took him half an hour to devise
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: a completely wacky and unorthodox way of hitting the holes
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: in the enemy advance. He checked the time carefully, because
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: there's no point in devising a strategy if the battle
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: is too far gone to use it by the time
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: you figured it out. Then he went ahead and read
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: the rest of the report. Earth had lost the outpost,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: and worse, mcmain's strategy would have won the battle if
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: it had been used. He fed it through his small
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: office computer to make sure the odds were good. And
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: that was the thing that made McMain hate strategy analysis.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Too often he won two often Earth lost. A computer
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: was fine for working out the logical outcome of a
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: battle if it was given the proper strategy, but it
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: couldn't devise anything new. Colonel mcmaine had tried to get
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: himself transferred to space duty, but without success. The commanding
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: staff didn't want him out there. The trouble was that
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: they didn't believe McMain actually devised his strategy before he
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: read the complete report. How could anyone outthink a computer
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: he'd offered to prove it give me a problem, He'd
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: told his immediate superior General Matsukuo, give me the initial
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: contact information of a battle I haven't seen before, and
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I'll show you. And Matsukuo had said testily, Colonel, I
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: will not permit a member of my staff to make
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: a fool of himself in front of the commanding staff
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: setting yourself up as someone superior to the strategy board
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: as the most antisocial type of egocentrism imaginable. You were
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: given the same education at the academy as every other officer.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: What makes you think you are better than they? As
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: time goes on, your automatic promotions will put you in
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: a position to vote on such matters, provided you don't
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: prejudice the promotion board against you by anti social behavior.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I hold you in the highest regard, Colonel, and I
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: will say nothing to the promotion board about this, but
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: if you persist, I will have to do my duty. Now.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I don't want to hear any more about it. Is
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: that clear? It was. All mcmahin had to do was wait,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: and he'd automatically be promoted to the commanding staff, where
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: he would have an equal vote with the others of
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: his rank, one unit vote to begin with, and an
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: additional unit for every year thereafter. It's a great system
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: for running a peacetime social club. Maybe McMain thought, but
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: it's no way to run a fighting force. Maybe the
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Carathigh General was right. Maybe Homo sapiens just wasn't a
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: race of fighters. They had been once mankind had fought
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: its way to domination of Earth by battling every other
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: form of life on the planet, from the smallest virus
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: to the biggest carnivore. The fight against disease was still
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: going on, as a matter of fact, and man was
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: still fighting the elemental fury of Earth's climate. But man
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: no longer fought with man. Was that a bad thing?
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: The discovery of atomic energy two centuries before had literally
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: made war impossible. If the race was to survive, small
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: struggles bred bigger struggles, or so the reasoning went. Therefore,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: the society had unconsciously sought to eliminate the reasons for struggle.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: What bred the hatreds and jealousies among men? What caused
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: one group to fight? Society had decided that intolerance and
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: hatred were caused by inequality, the jealousy of the inferior
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: toward his superior, the scorn of the superior toward his inferior,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: The have not envies, the have, and the have looks
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: down upon the have not. Then let us eliminate the
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: have not. Let us make sure that everyone is a have.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Raise the standard of living, make sure that every human
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: being has the necessities of life, food, clothing, shelter, proper
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: medical care, and proper education. More, give them the luxuries too.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Let no man be without anything that is poorer in
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: quality or less in quantity than the possessions of any other.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: There was no longer any middle class, simply because there
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: were no other classes for it to be. In the
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: middle of the poor, you will have always with you,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Jesus of Nazareth had said. But in a material sense
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: that was no longer true. The poor were gone, and
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: so were the rich. But the poor in mind and
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: the poor in spirit were still there in ever increasing numbers.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Material wealth could be evenly distributed, but it could not
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: remain that way unless society made sure that the man
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: who was more clever than the rest could not increase
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: his wealth at the expense of his less fortunate brethren.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Make it his social stigma to show more ability than
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: the average. Be kind to your fellow man, don't show
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: him up as a stupid clod, no matter how colottish.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: He may be. All men are created equal, and let's
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: make sure they stay that way. There could be no
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: such thing as a classless society. Of course, that was
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: easily seen. No human being could do everything, learn everything,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: be everything. There had to be doctors and lawyers and
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: policemen and bartenders and soldiers and machinists and laborers and
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: actors and writers and criminals and bumbs. But let's make
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: sure that the differentiation between classes is horizontal, not vertical.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: As long as a person does his job the best
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: he can, he's as good as anybody else. A doctor
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: is as good as a lawyer, isn't he? Then? A
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: garbage collector is just as good as a nuclear physicist,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: And an astronomer is no better than a street sweeper.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: And what of the loafer, the bum the man who's
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: too lazy or weak willed to put out any more
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: effort than is absolutely necessary to stay alive. Well, my goodness,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: the poor chap can't help it, can he? It isn't
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: his fault, is it? He has to be helped. There
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: is always something he is both capable of doing and
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: willing to do. Does he like to sit around all
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: day and do nothing but watch television. Then give him
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: a sheet of paper with all the programs on it
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: and two little boxes marked yes and no, and he
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: can put an X in one or the other to
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: indicate whether he likes the program or not. Useful, Certainly,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: all these sheets can be tallied up in order to
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: find out what sort of program the public likes to see.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: After all, his vote is just as good as anyone else's,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: isn't it. And a program analyst is just as good,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: just as important, and just as well cared for as
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: anyone else. And what about the criminal? Well, what is
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: a criminal? A person who thinks he's superior to others.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: A thief steals because he thinks he has more right
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: to something than it's real owner. A man kills because
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: he has an idea that he has a better right
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: to live than someone else. In short, a man breaks
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the law because he feels superior, because he thinks he
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: can out smart society and the law, or simply because
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: he thinks he can outsmart the policeman on the beat. Aviously,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: that sort of antisocial behavior can't be allowed. The poor
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: fellow who thinks he's better than anyone else has to
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: be segregated from normal society and treated for his aberrations,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: but not punished. Heavens, no, his erratic behavior isn't his fault,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: is it. It was axiomatic that there had to be
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: some sort of vertical structure to society. Naturally, a child
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: can't do the work of an adult, and a beginner
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: can't be as good as an old hand. Aside from
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: the fact that it was actually impossible to force everyone
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: into a common mold, it was recognized that there had
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: to be some incentive for staying with a job. What
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: to do? The labor unions had solved that problem two
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: hundred years before, promotion by seniority. Stick with a job
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: long enough, and you'll automatically rise to the top. That way,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: everyone had as good a chance as everyone else. Promotion
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: tables for individual jobs were worked out on the basis
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: of longevity tables, so that by the time a man
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: reached the automatic retirement age, he was automatically at the
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: highest position he could hold. No fuss, no bother, no trouble,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: just keep your nose clean and live as long as possible.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: It eliminated a struggle. It eliminated the petty jockeying for
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: position that undermined efficiency in an organization. Everybody deserves an
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: equal chance in life, so make sure everybody gets it.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Colonel Sebastian mac Maine had been born and reared in
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: that society. He could see many of its faults, but
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: he didn't have the orientation to see all of them.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: As he'd grown older, he'd seen that, regardless of the
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: position a man held according to seniority, a smart man
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: could exercise more power than those above him if he
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: did it carefully. A man is a slave if he
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: is held rigidly in a pattern and not permitted to
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: step out of that pattern. In ancient times, a slave
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: was born at the bottom of the social ladder, and
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: he remained there all his life. Only rarely did a
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: slave of exceptional merit manage to rise above his assigned position.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: But a man who is forced to remain on the
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: bottom step of a stationary stairway is no more a
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: slave than a man who is forced to remain on
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: a given step of an escalator, and no less so. Slavery, however,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: has two advantages, one for the individual and one which
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: in the long run, can be good for the race.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: For the individual, it offers security and that is the
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: goal which by far the greater majority of mankind seeks.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: The second advantage is more difficult to see. It operates
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: only in favor of the exceptional individual. There are always
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: individuals who aspire to greater heights than the one they
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: are occupy at any given moment, But in a slave
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: society they are slapped back into place if they act hastily.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Just as the one eyed man in the Kingdom of
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: the Blind can be king if he taps the ground
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: with a cane, so the gifted individual can gain his
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: ends in a slave society, provided he thinks out the
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: consequences of any act in advance. The law of gravity
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: is a universal edict which enslaves in a sense every
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: particle of matter in the cosmos. The man who attempts
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: to defy the injustice of that law by ignoring the
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: consequences of its enforcement will find himself punished rather severely.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: It may be unjust that a bird can fly under
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: its own muscle power, but a man who tries to
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: correct that injustice by leaping out of a skyscraper window
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: and flapping his arms vigorously will find that overt defiance
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: of the law of gravity brings very serious penalties. Indeed,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: the wise man seeks the loopholes in the law, and
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: loopholes are caused by other laws which counteract, not defy,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: the given law. A balloon full of hydrogen falls up
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: in obedience to the law of gravity, a contradiction, a paradox. No,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: it is the law of gravity which causes the density
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: and pressure of a planet's atmosphere to decrease with altitude,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: and that decrease in pressure forces the balloon upwards until
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: the balance point between atmospheric density and the internal density
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: of the balloon is reached. The illustration may seem obvious
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: and elementary to the modern man, but it seems so
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: only because he understands, at least to some extent, the
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: laws involved. It was not obvious to even the most
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: learned man of say, the thirteenth century. Slavery too has
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: its laws, and it is as dangerous to defy the
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: laws of a society as it is to defy those
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: of nature, and the only way to escape the punishment
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: resulting from those laws is to find the loopholes. One
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: of the most basic laws of any society is so
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: basic that it is never ever written down, and that law,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: like all basic laws, is so simple an expression and
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: so obvious an application that any man above the moron
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: level has an intuitive grasp of it. It is the
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: first law one learns as a child, Thou shalt not
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: suffer thyself to be caught. The unthinking man believes that
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: this basic law can be applied by breaking the laws
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: of his society in secret. What he fails to see
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: is that such law breaking requires such a fantastic network
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: of lies, subtrifuges, evasions, and chicanery that the structure itself
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: eventually breaks down, and his guilt is obvious to all.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: The very steps he has taken to keep from getting
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: caught eventually becomes signposts that point unerringly at the lawbreaker himself.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Like the loopholes in the law of gravity, the loopholes
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: in the laws of society cannot entail a defiance of
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: the law. Only compliance with those laws will be ultimately successful.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: The wise man works within the framework of the law,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: not only the written but the unwritten law of his society.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: In a slave society, any slave who openly rebels will
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: find that he gets squashed pretty quickly. But many a
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: slave owner has danced willingly to the tune of a
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: slave who was wiser and cleverer than he, without ever
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: knowing that the tune played was not his own. And
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: that is the second advantage of slavery. It teaches the
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: exceptional individual to think. When a wise, intelligent individual openly
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: and violently breaks the laws of his society, there are
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: two things which are almost certain. One he knows that
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: there is no other way to do the thing he
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: feels must be done, and two, he knows that he
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: will pay the penalty for his crime in one way
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: or another. Sebastian macmain knew the operations of those laws.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: As a member of a self enslaved society. He knew
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: that to betray any sign of intelligence was dangerous. A
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: slight slip could bring the scorn of the slaves around him,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: a major offense could mean death. The war with Karroth
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: had thrown him slightly off balance, but after his one
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: experience with General Matsukuo, he had quickly regained his equilibrium.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: At the end of his work day, McMain closed his
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: desk and left his office precisely on time. As usual,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: working over time, except in the gravest emergencies, was looked
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: upon as antisocialism. The offender was suspected of having ambition,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: obviously a bad thing. It was during his meal at
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: the officer's mess that Colonel Sebastian McMain heard the statement
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: that triggered the decision in his mind. There were three
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: other officers seated with McMain around one of the four
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: placed tables in the big room. McMain only paid enough
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: attention to the table conversation to be able to make
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: the appropriate noises at the proper times. He had long
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: since learned to do his thinking under cover of general banalities.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Colonel van Duson was a man who would never have
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: made private first class in an army that operated on
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: a strict merit system. His thinking was muddy and his
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: conversation betrayed it. All he felt comfortable in talking about
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: was just exactly what he had been taught, slogans, banalities
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: and bromides. He knew his catechism and he knew it
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: was safe. But I mean is we got nothing to
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: worry about? We all together and we can do anything.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: As long as we don't rock the boat, we'll come through, okay, sure,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: said Major Brock, looking up from his plate and blank
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: faced surprise. I mean, who says different? Guy on my
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: research team, said Van Duson, plying his fork industriously. A
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: wise guy. Second, lewis one of them, oh, said the major,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: knowingly one of them. He went back to his meal.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: What'd he say? McMain asked, just to keep his oar in. Uh,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: nothing serious, I guess, said Van Douson, around a mouthful
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: of steak. Said we were all clogged up with paperwork,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: making reports on tests, things like that. Said, why don't
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: we figure out something to pop those carrot skins out
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: of the sky. So I said to him, look, lieutenant,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: I said, you got your job to do. I got mine.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: If the paperwork's piling up, I said, it's because somebody
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: is pollin his share. An it better not be you,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: I said. He chuckled and spared another cube of steak
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: with his fork. That's settled him down. He's all right,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: though young yet, you know, since he gets the hang
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: of have a space force operates, he'll be okay. Since
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Van Duson was the senior officer at the table, the
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: others listened respectfully as he talked, only inserting a word
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: now and then to show that they were listening. McMain
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: was thinking deeply about something else entirely, but Van Duson's
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: influence intruded a little. Mc main was wondering what it
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: was that bothered him about General Talis, the Corothi prisoner.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: The alien was pleasant enough in spite of his position.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: He seemed to accept his imprisonment as one of the
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: fortunes of war. He didn't threaten or bluster, although he
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: tended to maintain an air of superiority that would have
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: been unbearable in unearthman. Was that the reason for his
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: uneasiness in the general's presence. No mac main could accept
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: the reason for that attitude. The General's background was different
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: from that of an earthman, and therefore he could not
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: be judged by terrestrial standards. Besides, mac main could acknowledge
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: to himself that Talis was superior to the norm, not
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: only to the norm of Caroth, but that of Earth.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Mac Main wasn't sure he could have acknowledged superiority in
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: another earthman, in spite of the fact that he knew
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: there must be men who were his superiors in one
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: way or another. Because of his social background, he knew
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: that he would probably form an intense and instant dislike
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: for any earthman who talked away Talis did, but he
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: found that he actually liked the alien officer. It came
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: as a slight shock when the realization hit mac Main
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: that his liking for the general was exactly why he
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: was uncomfortable around him. Damn it. A man isn't supposed
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: to like his enemy, and most especially when that enemy
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: does and says things that one would despise in a friend.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Come to think of it, though, did he mac Main
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: actually have any friends? He looked around him, suddenly clearly
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: conscious of all the other men in the room. He
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: searched through his memory, thinking of all his acquaintances and relatives.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: It was an even greater shock to realize that he
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: would not be more than faintly touched emotionally if any
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: or all of them were to die at that instant.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Even his parents, both of whom were now dead, were
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: only dim figures in his memory. He had mourned them
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: when an aircraft accident had taken both of them when
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: he was only eleven. But he found himself wondering if
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: it had been the loss of loved ones that had
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: caused his emotional upset, or simply the abrupt vanishing of
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: a kind of s curity he had taken for granted,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: and yet he felt that the death of General Pulling
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: Talis would leave an empty place in his life. Colonel
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: van Duson was still holding forth, So I told him,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: I said, look, you tenant, I said, don't rock the boat.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: You're a kid yet, you know, I said, you got
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: equal rights with everybody else. I said, but if you
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: rock the boat, you aren't gonna get along. So well,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: you just behave yourself, I said, and pull your share
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: of the load, and do your job right, and keep
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: your nose clean, and you'll come out all right. Time
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: I get to be on the general staff, I told him, why,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: you'll be taking over my job. Maybe that's the way
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: it works. I said, he's a good kid. I mean,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: he's a fresh young punk. That's all he'll learn. Okay,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: he'll climb right up once he's got the right attitude.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: Why when I was, but McMain was no longer listening.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: It was astonishing to realize that what Van Duson had
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: said was perfectly true. A blockhead like Van Duson would
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: simply be lifted to a position of higher authority, only
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: to be replaced by another blockhead, there would be no
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: essential change in the status quo. The coroath I were
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: winning steadily, and the people of Earth and her colonies
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: were making no changes whatever in their way of living.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: The majority of people were too blind to be able
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: to see what was happening, and the rest were afraid
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: to admit the danger even to themselves. It required no
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: great understanding of strategy to see what the inevitable outcome
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: must be. At some point in the last few centuries,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: human civilization had taken the wrong path, a path that
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: led only to oblivion. It was at that moment that
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Colonel Sebastian macmain made his decision. End of Part two,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Part three of The Highest Treason. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. The
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Highest Treason by Randall Garrett, Part three, The Escape. Are
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: you sure you understand Tallas McMain asked in caroth The
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: alien general nodded emphatically, perfectly. Your Carothic is not so
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: bad that I can misunderstand your instructions. I still don't
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: understand why you are doing this. Oh, I know that
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: reasons you've given me, but I don't completely believe them. However,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: I'll go along with you. The worst that could happen
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: would be for me to be killed, and I would
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: sooner face death in trying to escape than am waiting
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: for your executioners. If this is some sort of trap,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: some sort of weird way, your race's twisted idea of
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: kindness has evolved to dispose of me, then I'll accept
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: your sentence. It's better than starving to death or facing
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: a firing squad. Not a firing squad, mc maine said,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: that wouldn't be kind and odorless, but quite deadly. Gas
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: would be pumped into this cell while you slept. That's worse.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: When death comes, I want to face it and fight
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: it off as long as possible, not have it sneaking
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: up on me in my sleep. I think i'd rather starve,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: you would, said mc main. The food that was captured
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: with you has nearly run out, and we haven't been
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: able to capture any more. But rather than let you suffer,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: they would have killed you painly. He glanced at the
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: watch on his instrument cuff. Almost time, mc main looked
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: the alien over once more. Tollis was dressed in the
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: uniform of Earth's Space Force and the insignia of a
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: full general gleamed on his collar. His face and hands
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: had been sprayed with an opaque pink tan film, and
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: his hairless head was covered with a black wig. He
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: wouldn't pass a close inspection, but mc main fervently hoped
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: that he wouldn't need to think it out. Be sure
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: you're right, then go ahead. Sebastian mac maine had done
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: just that. For three months. He had worked over the
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: details of his plan, making sure that they were as
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: perfect as he was capable of making them. Even so,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: there was a great deal of risk involved, and there
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: were too many details that required luck for mc maine
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: to be perfectly happy about the plan. But time was
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: running out as the general's food supply dwindled. His execution
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: dayton and now it was only two days away. There
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: was no point in waiting until the last minute. It
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: was now or never. There were no spying TV cameras
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: in the general cell, no hidden microphones to report and
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: record what went on. No one had ever escaped from
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: the Space Force's prison. Therefore no one ever would mc
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: main glanced again at his watch. It was time. He
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: reached inside his blouse and took out a fully loaded handgun.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: For an instant, the alien officer's eyes widened and he stiffened,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: as if he were ready to die in an attempt
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: to disarm the Earthman. Then he saw that mc main
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: wasn't holding it by the butt. His hand was clasped
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: around the middle of the weapon. This is a chance
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: I have to take, mc maine said evenly. With this gun,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: you can shoot me down right here and try to
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: escape alone. I've told you every detail of our course
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: of action, and with luck, you might make it alone.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: He held out his hand with the weapon resting on
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: his open General Talis eyed the Earthman for a long second, then,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: without haste, he took the gun and inspected it with
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: a professional eye. Do you know how to operate it,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: McMain asked, forcing calmness into his voice. Yes, We've captured
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: plenty of them. Talis thumbed the stud that allowed the
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: magazine to slide out of the button into his hand.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Then he checked the mechanism and the power cartridges. Finally,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: he replaced the magazine and put the weapon into the
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: empty sleeve. Holster that mc main had given him. McMain
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: led his breath out slowly. All right, he said, let's go.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: He opened the door of the cell and both men
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: stepped out into the corridor. At the far end of
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: the corridor, some thirty yards away, stood the two armed
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: guards who kept watch over the prisoner. At that distance,
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: it was impossible to tell that Talis was not what
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: he appeared to be. The guard had been changed while
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: mc maine was in the prisoner's cell, and he was
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: relying on the laxed discipline of the soldiers to get
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: him and Talis out of the cell block. With luck,
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: the guards would have failed to listen too closely to
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: what they had been told by the men they replaced.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: With even greater luck, the previous guardsman would have failed
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: to be too explicit about who was in the prisoner's cell.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: With no luck at all, mc main would be forced
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: to shoot to kill. Mc main walked casually up to
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: the two men, who came to an easy attention. I
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: want you two men to come with me. Something odd
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: has happened in General Quimby, and I want two witnesses
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: as to what went on. What happened, Sir one of
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: them asked, don't know for sure, mc maine said, in
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: a puzzled voice. But General and I were talking to
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: the prisoner when all of a sudden he fell over.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: I think he's dead. I couldn't find a heartbeat. I
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: want you to take a look at him so that
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: you can testify that we didn't shoot him or anything.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: Oh Ediently, the two guards headed for the cell, and
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: mc maine fell in behind them. You couldn't a shot him, sir,
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: said the second guard. Confidently, we would have heard the shot. Besides,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: said the other, it don't matter much. He was going
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: to be gassed day after tomorrow. As the trio approached
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: the cell, Talis pulled the door open a little wider,
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: and in doing so, contrived to put himself behind it
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: so that his face couldn't be seen. The young guards
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: weren't too awed by a full general, after all, they'd
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: be generals themselves some day. They were much more interested
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: in seeing the dead alien. As the guards reached the
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: cell door, mc main unholstered his pistol from his sleeve
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: and brought it down hard on the head of the
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: nearest youth. At the same time, Talis stepped from behind
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: the door and clouded the other. Quickly, mc maine disarmed
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: the fallen men and dragged them into the open cell.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: He came out again and locked the door securely. Their
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: guns were tossed into an empty cell nearby. They won't
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: be missed until the next change of watch in four hours.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Mc maine said. By then it won't matter one way
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: or another. Getting out of the huge building that house
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: the administrative offices of the Space Force was relatively easy.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: A lift chute brought the pair to the main floor,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: and this late in the evening, there weren't many people
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: on that floor. The officers and men who had night
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: duty were working on the upper floors. Several times, Tallis
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: had to take a handkerchief from his pocket and pretend
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: to blow his nose in order to conceal his alien
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: features from some one who came too close, but no
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: one appeared to notice anything out of the ordinary as
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: they walked out boldly through the main door. Fifteen minutes later,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: the guards merely came to attention and relaxed as a
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: tall colonel and a somewhat shorter general strode out. The
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: general appeared to be having a fit of sneezing and
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: the Colonel was heard to say, that's quite a cold
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: you've picked up, sir, Better get over to the dispensary
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: and pick up an anti cariiza shot um, said the
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: General do. Getting to the spaceport was no problem at all.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Mac maine had an official car waiting, and the two
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: sergeants in the front seat didn't pay any attention to
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: the General getting in the back seat because Colonel mc
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: maine was talking to them. We're ready to roll, sergeant,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: he said to the driver. General Quimby wants to go
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: straight to the Manila, so let's get there as fast
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: as possible. Take off his scheduled in ten minutes. Then
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: he got into the back seat himself. The one way
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: glass partition that separated the back seat from the front
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: prevented either of the two men from looking back at
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: their passengers. Seven minutes later, the staff car was rolling
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: unquestioned through the main gate of Wiki Key Spaceport. It
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: was all so incredibly easy, mc main thought. Nobody questioned
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: an official car, nobody checked anything too closely. Nobody wanted
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: to risk his lifelong security by doing or saying something
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: that might be considered antisocial by busy General Besides, it
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: never entered any one's mind that there could be anything
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: wrong if there was a war on Apparently no one
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: had been told about it. Yet McMain thought, Was I
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: ever that stubbornly blind? Not quite, I guess, or I'd
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: never have seen what is happening? But he knew he
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: hadn't been too much more perceptive than those around him.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Even to an intelligent man, the mask of stupidity can
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: become a barrier to the outside world as well as
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: a concealment from it. The interstellar ship Manila was a small, fast,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: ten man blaster boat designed to get into the thick
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: of a battle quickly, strike hard, and get away. Unlike
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: the bigger, more powerful battle cruisers, she could be landed
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: directly on any planet with less than a two G
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: pole at the surface. The really big babies had to
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: be parked in an orbit and loaded by shuttle. They'd
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: break up of their own weight if they tried to
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: set down on anything bigger than a good sized planetoid.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: As long as their anti acceleration fields were on, they
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: could take unimaginable thrusts along their axis, but the AA
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: fields were the cause of those thrusts as well. As
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: the protection against them. The ships couldn't stand still while
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: they were operating, so there were no protection at all
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: against a planet's gravity, but a blaster boat was small
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: enough and compact enough to take the strain. It had
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: taken careful preparation to get the Manila ready to go
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: just exactly when May needed it. Papers had to be
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: forged and put into the chain of commands communication at
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: precisely the right times. Others had had to be taken
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: out and replaced with harmless near duplicates so that the
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: commanding staff wouldn't discover the deception. He had had to
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: build up the fictional identity of a General Lucius Quimby
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: in such a way that it would take a thorough
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: check to discover that the officer who had been put
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: in command of the Manila was non exist. It was
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: two minutes until take off time when the staff car
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: pulled up at the foot of the ramp that led
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: to the main airlock of the I S. S. Manila.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: A young looking captain was standing nervously at the foot
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: of it, obviously afraid that his new commander might be
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: late for the take off, and wondering what sort of
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: decision he would have to make if the General wasn't
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: there at take off time. McMain could imagine his feelings.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: General Quimby developed another sneezing fit as he stepped out
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: of the car. This was the touchiest part of mcmain's plan,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: the weakest link in the whole chain of action. For
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: a space of perhaps a minute, the disguised carothi General
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: would have to stand so close to the young captain
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: that the crudity of his make up job would be detectable.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: He had to keep that handkerchief over his face and
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: yet do it in such a way that it would
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: seem natural. As Talis climbed out of the car, chuffing
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: windily into the kerchief, McMain snapped in order to the
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: sar behind the wheel, that's all. We're taking off almost immediately,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: so get that car out of here. Then he walked
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: rapidly over to the captain, who had snapped to attention.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: There was a definite look of relief on his face
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: now that he knew his commander was on time, All
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: ready for take off, Captain, everything checked out, ammunition, energy
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: packs all filled to capacity, all the crew aboard full,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: rations and stores stowed away, The captain kept his eyes
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: on mc maine's face as he answered yes, sir, Yes, sir, Yes, sir.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: To the rapid fire of questions, he had no time
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: to shift his gaze to the face of his new coo,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: who was snuffling his way toward the foot of the
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: landing ramp. Mc main kept firing questions until Tollis was
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: half way up the ramp. Then he said, oh, by
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: the way, Captain, was the large package containing General Quimby's
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: personal gear brought aboard the big package? Yes, sir, about
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: fifteen minutes ago, good, said mc main. He looked up
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: the ramp. Are there any special orders at this time, sir?
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: He asked, No, said Talis, without turning. Carry on, Colonel.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: He went on up to the airlock. It had taken
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: Tollis hours of practice to say that phrase properly, but
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: the training have been worth it. After Tollis was well
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: inside the airlock, mc main whispered to the young captain,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: as you can see the General has got a rather
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: bad cold. He'll want to remain in his cabin until
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: he's over it. See that anti cariza shots are sent
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: up from the dispensary as soon as we are out
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: of the Solar system. Now let's go. We have less
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: than a minute till take off. Mc main went up
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: the ramp with the captain scrambling up behind him. Tollis
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: was just stepping into the commander's cabin as the two
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: men entered the airlock. Mc main didn't see him again
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: until the ship was twelve minutes on her way, nearly
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: five billion miles from Earth and still accelerating. He identified
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: himself at the door, and Talis opened it cautiously. I
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: brought your antichoriza shot, sir, he said. In a small
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: ship like the Manila, the captain and the seven crew
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: members could hear any conversation in the companion ways. He
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: stepped inside and closed the door. Then he practically collapsed
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: on the nearest chair and had a good case of
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: the shakes. This is so far, so good, he said.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: General Thollis grasped his shoulder with a firm hand. Brace
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: up SEPASTI, he said gently, and Carothic, you've done a
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: beautiful job. I still can't believe it, but I'll have
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: to admit that if this is an act, it's a
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: beautiful one. He gestured toward the small desk in one
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: corner of the room and the big package that was
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: sitting on it. The food is all there. I'll have
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: to eat sparingly, but I can make it. Now. What's
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: the rest of the plan. Mc maine took a deep breath,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: held it, and let it out slowly. His shakes subsided
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: to a faint, almost in perceptible quiver. The captain doesn't
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: know our destination. He was told that he would receive
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: secret instructions from you. His voice, he noticed, thankfully, was
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: almost normal. He reached into his uniform jacket and took
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: out an official looking, sealed envelope. These are the orders.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: We are going out to arrange a special truce with
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: the COROTHI what that's what it says here. You'll have
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: to get on the sub radio and do some plain
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: and fancy talking. Fortunately, not a man jack aboard this
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: ship knows a word of your language, so they'll think
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: you're arranging truce terms. They'll be sitting ducks when your
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: warship pulls up alongside and sends in a boarding party.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: By the time they realize what has happened, it'll be
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: too late. You're giving us the ship too. Talis looked
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: at him, wonderingly and eight prisoners nine said mc maain,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: I'll hand over my side arm to you just before
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: your men come through the air. General Talis sat down
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: in the other small chair, his eyes still on the earthman.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: I can't help but feel that this is some sort
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: of trick. But if it is, I can't see through it.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: Why are you doing this, Sebastian. You may not understand this, Talis,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: mcmaine said evenly, But I am fighting for freedom, the
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: freedom to think. End of Part three, Part four of
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: The Highest Treason. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. The Highest Treason
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: by Randall Garrett, Part four. The trader convincing the COROTHI
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: that he was in earnest was more difficult than mc
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: main had at first supposed he had done his best,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: and now, after nearly a year of captivity, Talis had
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: come to tell him that his offer had been accepted.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: General Talis sat across from Colonel macmain, smoking his cigarette absently.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: Just why are they accepting my proposition, McMain asked, bluntly,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: Because they can afford to Talis said with a smile.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: You will be watched my sibling by choice, watched every
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: moment for any sign of treason. Your flagship will be
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: a small ten man blaster boat, one of our own.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: You gave us one, we'll give you one. At the worst,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: we will come out. Even at the best, your admittedly
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: brilliant grasp of tactics and strategy will enable us to
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: save thousands of corothi lives, to say nothing of the
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: immense savings in time money. All I ask is a
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: chance to prove my ability and my loyalty. You've already
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: proven your ability. All of the strategy problems that you
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: have been given over the past year were actual battles
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: that had already been fought. In eighty seven percent of
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: the cases, your strategy proved to be superior to our own.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: In most of the others, it was just as good.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: In only three cases was the estimate of your losses
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: higher than the actual losses. Actually, we'd be fools to
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: turn you down. We have everything to gain and nothing
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: to lose. I felt the same way a year ago,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: said mc main. Even being watched all the time will
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: allow me more freedom than I had on Earth. If
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: the Board of Strategy is willing to meet my terms,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Talis chuckled. They are. You'll be the best paid officer
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: in the entire fleet. None of the rest of us
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: gets a tenth of what you'll be getting as far
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: as personal value is concerned, and yet it costs us
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: practically nothing. You drive an attractive bargain Sepasti. Is that
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: the kind of pay you'd like to get, Talis mc
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: maine asked, with a smile. Why not. You'll get your
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: terms full pay as a Carothi general with retirement on
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: full pay after the war is over, the pick of
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: the most beautiful by your standards of the Earth women.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: We capture a home on Keroth built to your specifications,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: and full citizenship, including the freedom to enter into any
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: business relationship you wish. If you keep your promises, we
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: can keep ours and still come out ahead. Good. When
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: do we start now, said Talis, rising from his chair.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: Put on your dress uniform and we'll go down to
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: see the High Commander. We've got to give you a
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: set of generals insignia my sibling by choice. Talis waited
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: while mc main donned the blue trousers and gold trimmed
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: red uniform of a Corothi officer. An he was through,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: mc main looked at himself in the mirror. There's one
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: more thing, Talis, he said, thoughtfully, what's that this hair?
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: I think you'd better arrange to have it permanently removed
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: according to your custom. I can't do anything about the
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: color of my skin, but there's no point in my
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: looking like one of your wild hillmen. You're very gracious,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: Talis said, and very wise. Our officers will certainly come
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: closer to feeling that you are one of us. I
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: am one of you. From this moment, mc main said,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: I never intend to see Earth again, except perhaps from
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: space when we fight the final battle of the war.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: That may be a hard battle, Talis said, maybe, mc
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: maine said thoughtfully, on the other hand, if my overall
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: strategy comes out the way I think it will, that
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: battle may never be fought at all. I think that
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: complete and total surrender will end the war before we
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: ever get that close to Earth. I hope you're right,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: Talis said firmly. This war is costing far more than
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: we had anticipated, in spite of the weakness of your
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: that is of Earth well, mc main said, with a
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: slight grin. At least you've been able to capture enough
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: earth food to keep me eating, while all this time
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: Talis's grin was broad. You're right, we're not doing too
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: badly at that. Now, let's go. The High Commander is waiting.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: Mc main didn't realize until he walked into the big
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: room that what he was facing was not just a
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: discussion with a high officer, but what amounted to a
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: court of inquiry. The High Commander, a dome headed, wrinkled,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: yellow skinned, hard eyed old crothe, was seated in the
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: center of a long high desk, flanked on either side
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: by two lower ranking generals who had this same deadly
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: hard look. Off to one side, almost like a jury
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: in a jury box, sat twenty or so lesser officers,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: none of them ranking below the Corothi equivalent of lieutenant colonel.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: As far as macmain could tell, none of the officers
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: wore the insignia of fleet officers, the spaceship and comet
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: that showed that the wearer was a fighting man. These
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: were the men of the Permanent Headquarters Staff, the military
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: group that controlled not only the armed forces of caroth
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: but the civil government as well. What's this, Macmain hissed
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: in a whisper aside in English. Pair up, my brother,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: Talis answered softly in the same tongue, or Isabel. Macmain
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: had known, long before he had ever heard of General
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: poland Talis, that the hegemony of caroth was governed by
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: a military junta, and that all Corothi were regarded as
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: members of the armed forces. Technically there were no civilians.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: They were legally members of the unorganized reserve and were
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: under military law. He had known that Carothi society was
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: in its own way as much a slave society as
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: that of Earth, but it had the advantage over Earth
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: in that the system did allow for advance by merit.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: If a man had the determination to get ahead and
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: the ability to cut the throat, either literally or figuratively,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: of the man above him in rank, he could take
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: his place. On a more strictly legal basis, it was
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: possible for a common trooper to become an officer by
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: going through the schools set up for that purpose, but
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: in practice it took both poll and pressure to get
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: into those schools. In theory, any citizen of the agemony
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: could become an officer, and any officer could become a
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: member of the permanent headquarters staff. Actually, a much greater
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: preference was given to the children of officers. Examinations were
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: given periodically for the purpose of recruiting new members for
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: the elite officer's Corps, and any citizen could take the
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: examination once, but the tests were heavily weighted in favor
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: of those who were already well versed in matters military,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: including what might be called the inside jokes of the
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: officer's corps. A common trooper had some chance of passing
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: the examination, a civilian had a very minute chance. A
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: non commissioned officer had the best chance of passing the examination,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: but there were age limits which usually kept NCOs from
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: getting a commission. By the time a man became a
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: non commissioned officer, he was too old to be admitted
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: to the officer's training schools. There were allowances made for
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: extraordinary merit which allowed common troopers or upper grade NCOs
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: to be commissioned in spite of the general rules, and
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: an astute man could take advantage of those allowances. Ability
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: could get a man up the ladder, but it had
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: to be a particular kind of ability. During his sojourn
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: as a guest of the Carothi macmaine had made a
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: point of exploring the history of the race. He knew
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: perfectly well that the histories he had read were doctored, twisted,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: and in general totally unreliable in so far as presenting
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: anything that would be called a history by an unbiased investigator.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: But knowing this, mac maine had been able to learn
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: a great deal about the present society. Even if the
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: history was worthless as such, it did tell something about
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: the attitudes of a society that would make up such
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: a history. And too, he felt that in general the
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: main events which had been cataloged actually occurred. The details
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: had been blurred and the attitudes of the people had
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: been misrepresented, but the skeleton was essentially factual. Macmain felt
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: that he knew what kind of philosophy had produced the
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: mental attitudes of the court he now faced, and he
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: felt he knew how to handle himself before them. Half
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: a dozen paces in front of the great the color
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: of the floor tiling was different from that of the
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: rest of the floor. Instead of a solid blue, it
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: was a dead black Talis, who was slightly ahead of
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: mc main, came to a halt as his toes touched
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: the edge of the black area. Uh oh a balk line,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: McMain thought. He stopped sharply at the same point. Both
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: of them just stood there for a full minute while
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: they were carefully inspected by the members of the court.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: Then the High Commander gestured with one hand, and the
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: officer to his left leaned forward and said, why is
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: this one brought before us in the uniform of an officer,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: bear of any insignia of rank. It could only be
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: a ritual question. Mc main decided they must know why
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: he was there. I bring him as a candidate for
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: admission to our in group. Talis replied formally, and ask
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: the indulgence of your superiorities? Therefore, and who are you
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: to ask our indulgence? Talis identified himself at length, name, rank,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: serial number, military record, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: By the time he had finished, mc main was beginning
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: to think that the recitation would go on forever. The
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: High Commander had closed his eyes, and he looked as
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: if he had gone to sleep. There was more formality
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: through it all. Mcmahin stood at rigid attention, flexing his
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: calf muscles occasionally to keep the blood flowing in his legs.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: He had no desire to disgrace himself by passing out
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: in front of the court. Finally, the Corothi officer stopped
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: asking Talis questions and looked at the High Commander. Mc
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: maain got the feeling that there was about to be
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: a departure from the usual procedure. Without opening his eyes,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: the High Commander said, in a brittle, rather harsh voice,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: these circumstances are unprecedented. Then he opened his eyes and
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: looked directly at McMain. Never as an animal been proposed
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: for such an honor in times past. Such a proposal
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: would have been mockery of this court ennisin group, and
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: a crime of such monstrous proportions as to merit excommunication.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: McMain knew what that meant. The word was used literally.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: The condemned one was cut off from all communication by
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: having his sensory nerves surgically severed. Madness followed quickly. Psychosomatic
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: death followed eventually, as the brain cut off from any
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: outside stimuli except those which could not be eliminated without
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: death following instantly. Finally became incapable of keeping the body
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: alive without feedback control was impossible, and the organism as
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: a whole slowly deteriorated until death was inevitable. At first,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: the victim screamed and thrashed his limbs as the brain
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: sent out message after message to the rest of the
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: but since the brain had no way of knowing whether
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: the messages have been received or acted upon, the victims
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: soon went into a state comparable to that of catatonia
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: and finally died. If it was not the ultimate impunishment,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: it was a damned close approach, McMain thought, and he
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: felt that the word damned could be used in that
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: sense without fear of exaggeration. However, the High Commander went
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: on gazing at the ceiling circumstances change. It would once
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: have been thought vile that a machine should be allowed
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: to do the work of a skilled man, and the
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: thought that a machine might do the work with more
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: precision and greater rapidity would have been almost blasphemous. This
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: case must be viewed in the same light as we
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: are replacing certain of our workers on our outer planets
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: with earth animals simply because they are capable of doing
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: the work more cheaply. So we must recognize that the
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: same interests of economy govern In this case, a computing
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: animal in that sense is in the same class as
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: a computing machine. It will be folly to waste their
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: abilities simply because they are not human. There also arises
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: the question of command. It has been represented to this
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: Court by certain officers who have been active in investigating
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: the Candida animal, that it would be as degrading to
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: ask a human officer to take orders from an animal
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: as it would be to ask him to take orders
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: from a commoner of the unorganized reserve, if not more so.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: And I must admit there is, on the surface of it,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: some basis for this reasoning, But again we must not
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: let ourselves be misled. Does not a spaceship pilot in
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: a sense take orders from the computer that gives him
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: his orbits and courses? In fact, do not all computers
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: give orders in one way or another to those who
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: use them. Why then, should we refuse to take orders
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: from a computing animal. He paused and appeared to listen
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: to the silence in the room, before going on stand
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: at ease until the High Commander looks at you again.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: Talis said, in a low aside, this was definitely the
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: pause for adjusting. To surprise, it seemed interminable, though it
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: couldn't have been longer than a minute later that the
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: High Commander dropped his gaze from the ceiling to mc main.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: When mac maine snapped to attention again, the others in
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: the room became suddenly silent. We feel, the hard faced
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: old Crothi continued, as if there had been no break,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: that in this case we are justified in employing the
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: animal in question. However, we must make certain exceptions to
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: our normal procedure. The candidate is not a machine, and
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: therefore cannot be treated as a machine. Neither is it human,
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: and therefore cannot be treated as you. Therefore, this is
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: the judgment of the Court of the n Group. The animal,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: having shown itself to be capable of behaving in some
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: degree as befits an officer, including as we have been informed,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: voluntarily conforming to our custom as regards superfluous hair, it
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: shall henceforth be considered as having the same status as
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: an untaught child or a barbarian in so far as
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: social conventions are concerned, and shall be entitled to the
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: use of the human pronoun he. Further, he shall be
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: entitled to wear the uniform he now wears and the
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: insignia of a general of the fleet. He shall be
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: entitled as far as personal contact goes to the privileges
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: of that rank, and shall be addressed as such. He
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: will be accorded the right of punishment of an officer
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: of that rank, in so far as disciplining his inferiors
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: is concerned, except that he must first secure the concurrence
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: of his guardian officer. As hereinafter proved, he shall also
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: be subject to punishment in the same way and for
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: the same offenses as humans of his rank, taking into
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: account physiological differences, Except as hereinafter provided his reward for
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: proper service the High Commander listed, the demands mcmaine had
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: made are deemed fitting and shall be paid, providing his
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: duties in service are carried out as proposed. Obviously, however,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: certain restrictions must be made. Colonel mcmaine, as he is
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: entitled to be called, is employed solely as a strategy computer.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: His ability as such, and his knowledge of the psychology
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: of the earth animals, are, as far as we are
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: concerned at this moment, his only useful attributes. Therefore, his
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: command is restricted to that function. He is empowered to
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: act only through the other officers of the Fleet as
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: this Court may appoint. He is not to command directly. Further,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: it is ordered that he shall have a guardian officer
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: whose shall accompany him at all times and shall be
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: directly responsible for his actions. That officer shall be punished
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: for any deliberate crime committed by the aforesaid General McMain,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: as if he had himself committed the crime, until such
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: time as this Court may appoint another officer for the purpose.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: General Poland tallis previously identified in these proceedings, is appointed
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: as guardian officer. The High Commander paused for a moment,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: then he said, proceed with the investment of the insignia
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: and of Part four, Part five of the Highest Treason.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. The Highest Trees by Randall Garrett,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: Part five The Strategy. General Sebastian mac maine, sometime Colonel
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: of Earth Space Force and presently a general of the
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: Corothi Fleet, looked at the array of stars that appeared
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: to drift by the main viewplate of his flagship, the
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: blaster boat Shoodose behind him. General Talis was saying, you've
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: done well, Sebastian, better than anyone could have really expected.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: Three battles so far, and every one of them won
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: by a margin far greater than anticipated. Any ideas that
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: anyone may have had that you were not wholly working
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: for the Corothi cause has certainly been dispelled. Thanks Talis,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: McMain turned to look at the Corothi officer. I only
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: hope that I can keep it up now that we're
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: ready for the big push. I can't help but wonder
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: what would happen if I were to lose a battle. Frankly,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: Talis said that would depend on several things, the main
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: one being whether or not it appeared that you had
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: deliberately thrown the advantage to the enemy. But nobody expects
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: you or any one else to win every time. Even
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: the most brilliant commander can make an honest mistake, and
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: if it can be shown that it was an honest mistake,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: and one furthermore that he could not have been expected
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: to avoid, he wouldn't be punished for it. In your case,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: I'll admit that the investigation would be a great deal
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: more thorough than normal, and that you wouldn't get as
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: much of the benefit of the doubt as another officer might.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: But unless there is a deliberate error, I doubt that
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: anything serious would happen. Do you really believe that, Talis,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: or is it just wishful thinking on your part? Knowing
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: as you do that your punishment will be the same
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: as mine if I fail, McMain asked flatly. Talis didn't hesitate.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: If I didn't believe it, I would ask to be
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: relieved as your guardian, and the moment I did that,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: you would be rem moved from command. The moment I
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: feel that you are not acting for the best interests
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: of Caroath, I will lapt not only to protect myself,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: but to protect my people. That's fair enough, mac maine said,
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: But how about the others. I cannot speak for my
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: fellow officers, only for myself. Then Talis's voice became cold.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: Just keep your hands clean, surpassion, and all will be well.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: You will not be punished for mistakes, only for crimes.
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: If you are planning no crimes, This worry of yours
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: is needless. I cease to worry about myself long ago,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: mac Maine said coolly, I do not fear personal death,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: not even by excommunication. My soul. Worry is about the
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: ultimate outcome of the war, if I should fail that,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: and nothing more. I believe you, Talis said, let us
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: say no more about it. Your actions are difficult for
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: us to understand in some ways. That's all. No caroath
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: I would ever change his allegiances you have, Nor has
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: any Earth officer that we have captured shown any desire
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: to do so. Oh, some of them have agreed to
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: do almost anything we wanted them to, but these were
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: not the intelligent ones, and even they were only doing
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: it to save their own miserable hides. Still, you are
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: an exceptional man Sepasti, unlike any other of your race
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: as far as we know. Perhaps it is simply that
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: you are the only one with enough wisdom to seek
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: your intellectual equals rather than remain loyal to a mass
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: of stupid animals who are fit only to be slaves.
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: It was because I foresaw their eventual enslavement that I
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: acted as I did, mac Maine admitted. As I saw it,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: I had only two choices to remain as I was
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: and become a slave to the coroath I, or to
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: put myself in your hands willingly and hope for the
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: best as you. He was interrupted by a harsh voice
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: from a nearby speaker. Battle stations, battle stations, enemy fleet,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: and detector range contact. In twelve minutes, Thalis and McMain
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: headed for the command room at a fast to trot.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: The three other Corothi who made up the strategy staff,
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: came in at almost the same time. There was a
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: flurry of activity as the computers and viewers were ready
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: for action. Then the Corothi looked expectantly at the earthmen.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: Mac maine looked at the detector screens. The deployment of
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: the approaching Earth fleet was almost as he had expected
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: it would be. There were slight differences, but they would
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: require only minor changes in the strategy he had mapped
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: out from the information brought in by the Corothi scout ships. Undoubtedly,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: the Corothi position had been relayed to the Earth commander
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: by their own advanced scouts, buzzing about in tiny one
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: man shells, just small enough to be undetectable at normal range,
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: watching the positions on the screens carefully, mc main called
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: out a series of numbers in an unhurried voice, and
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: watched as the orders relaid by the Corothi's staff changed
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: the position of parts of the Corothi fleet. Then, as
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: the computer led Earthfleet jockey to compensate for the change
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: in the Corothi deployment, mac Main called out more orders.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: The High Commander of Keroth had called McMain a computing animal,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: but the term was far from accurate. Mc main couldn't
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: possibly have computed all the variables in that battle, and
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: he didn't try. It was a matter of human intuition
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: against mechanical logic. The advantage lay with mc main, for
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: while the computer could not logically fathom the intuitive processes
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: of its human opponent, mac main could and did have
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: an intuitive grasp of the machine's logic. Mc main didn't
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: need to know every variable in the pattern. He only
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: needed to know the pattern as a whole. The she
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: dose was well in the rear of the main body
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: of the Corothi fleet. There was every necessity for keeping
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: mc main's flagship out of as much of the fighting
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: as possible. When the first contact was made, mac main
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: was certain of the outcome. His voice became a steady drone.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: As he called out instructions to the staff officers, his
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: mind was so fully occupied with a moving pattern before
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: him that he noticed nothing else in the room around him.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: Spaceship against spaceship, the two fleets locked in battle. The
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: warheads of ultralight torpedoes flared their eyes, searing explosions soundlessly
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: into the void. Ships exploded like overcharged beer bottles as
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: blaster energy caught them and smashed through their screens. Men
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: and machines flamed and died, scattering the strip nuclei of
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: their component atoms through the screaming silence of space and
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: through it all. Sebastian mac maine watched, dispassionately, calling out
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: his orders as ten Earthmen died for every Corothi death.
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: This was a crucial battle. The big push towards the
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: center of Earth's cluster of worlds had begun. Until now,
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: the Corothi had been fighting the outposts, the planets on
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: the fringes of Earth's sphere of influence, which were only
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: lightly colonized and therefore relatively easy to take. Earth's strongest
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: fleets were out there to protect planets that could not
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: protect themselves. Inside that periphery were the more densely populated planets,
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: the self sufficient colonies, which were more or less able
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: to defend themselves without too much reliance on space fleets
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: as such. But now that the backbone of the Earth's
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: space force had been all but broken, it would be
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: a relatively easy matter to mop up planet after planet,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: since each one could be surrounded separately, pounded into surrender
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: and secure before going on to the next. That at
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: least had been the original Corothi intention. But mac maine
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: had told him that there was another way, a way which,
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: if it succeeded, would save time, lives and money for
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: the Corothi, and if it failed, mc maine said they
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: would be no worse off. They would simply have to
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: resume the original plan. Now, the first of the big
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: colony planets was to be taken when the protecting Earth
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: fleet was reduced to tatters. The Corothi would go on
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: to Euston's world as the first step in the big
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: push toward Earth itself. But mc main wasn't thinking of
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: that phase of the war that was still in the future,
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: while the hellish space battle was still at hand. He
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: lost track of time as he watched the Corothi fleet
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: take advantage of their superior tactical position and tear the
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: Earth Fleet to bits. Not until he saw the remains
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: of the earth Fleet turned tail and run did he
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: realize that the battle had been won. The Corothi fleet
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: consolidated itself. There was no point in pursuing the fleeting
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: Earth's ships that would only break up the solidity of
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: the Corothi deployment. The losers could afford to scatter, the
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: winners could not. Early in the war, the Corothi had
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: used that trick against Earth. The Corothi had broken in flood,
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: and the Earth Fleet had split up to chase them down.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: The scattered Earth's ships had suddenly found that they had
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: been led into traps composed of hidden clusters of Corothi ships. Naturally,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: the trick had never worked again for either side. All right,
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: mc maine said, when it was all over, let's get
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: on to Euston's world. The staff men, including Talis, were
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: already on their feet, congratulating mc maine and shaking his hands.
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: Even General Hokotan, the headquarters staff men who had been
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: transferred temporarily to the Fleet Force to keep an eye
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: on both mc main and Talis was enthusiastically pounding mc
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: main's shoulder. No one aboard was supposed to know that
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: Hokotan was a head quarters officer, but mac maine had
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: spotted the spy rather easily. There was a difference between
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: the fighters of the fleet and the politicos of headquarters.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: The politicos were no harder, perhaps nor more ruthless than
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: the fighters, but they were of a different breed. Theirs
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: was the ruthlessness of the bully who steps on those
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: whore a weaker, rather than the ruthlessness of the man
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: who kills only to win a battle. Mac maine had
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: the feeling that the head quarters staff preferred to spend
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: their time browbeating their underlings rather than risk their necks
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: with someone who could fight back. However weakly, General hokoton
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: seemed to have more of the fighting quality than most
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: HQ men, but he wasn't a fleet officer at heart.
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: He couldn't be compared to Talis without looking small and mean.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: As a matter of cold fact, very few of the
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: officers were in any way comparable to Talis, not even
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: the fleet men. The more mac maine learned of the Carothi,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: the more he realized just how lucky he had been
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: that it had been Talis and not some other Corothi
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: general who had been captured by the Earth forces. He
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: was not at all sure that his plan would have
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: worked at all with any of the other officers he
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: had met. Talis, like mc main, was an unusual specimen
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: of his race. Mc maain took the congratulations of the
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: Corothi officers with a look of pleasure on his face,
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: and when they had subsided somewhat, he grinned and said,
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: let's get a little work done around here. Shall we
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: we have a planet to reduce shit? They laughed. Reducing
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: a planet didn't require strategy, only firepower. The planet based
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: defenses couldn't maneuver. But the energy reserve of a planet
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: is greater than that of any fleet, no matter how large.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: Each defense point would have to be cut down individually
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: by the massed power of the fleet, cut down one
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: by one until the planet was helpless. The planet as
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: a whole might have more energy reserved than the fleet,
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: but no individual defense point did. The problem was to
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: avoid being hit by the rest of the defense points
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: while one single point was bearing the brunt of the
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: fleet's attack. It wasn't without danger, but it could be done,
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: and for a job like that, mc maine's special abilities
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: weren't needed. He could only watch and wait until it
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: was over. So he watched and waited. Unlike the short
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: time fury of a space battle, the reduction of a
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: planet took days of steady pounding. When it was over,
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: the blaster boats of the Corothi fleet in the shuttles
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: from the Great Battle Cruisers landed on Euston's world and
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: took possession of the planet. Mc maine was waiting in
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: his cabin when General Hokoto brought the news that the
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: planet was secured. They are ours, the HQ man said,
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: with a superior smile. The sniveling animals didn't even seem
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: to want to defend themselves. They don't even know how
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: to fight a hand to hand a battle. How could
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: such things have ever evolved intelligence enough to conquer space.
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: Hookatan enjoyed making such remarks to mc maine's face, knowing
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: that since mac maine was technically a Corothi, he couldn't
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: show any emotion when the enemy was insulted. Macmain showed
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: none got them all, eh, He said, all but a
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: few who scattered into the hills and forests. But not
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: many of them had the guts to leave the security
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: of their cities even though we were occupying them. How
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: many are left alive an estimated hundred and fifty million,
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: more or less good. That should be enough to set
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: an example. I picked Euston's World because we can withdraw
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: from it without weakening our position. Its position in space
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: is such that it would constitute no menace to us
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: even if we never reduced it. That way, we can
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: be sure that our little message is received on Earth.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: Hokatan's grin was wolfish, and the whole weak hearted race
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: will shake with feary Exactly Talus can speak English well
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: enough to be understood. Have him make the announcement to them.
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: He can word it however he likes, But the essence
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: is to be this. Euston's World resisted the occupation by
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: Carothi troops. An example must be made of them to
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: show them what happens to earthmen who resist. That's all.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: That's enough. Oh, by the way, make sure that there
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: are plenty of their cargo spaceships in good working order.
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: I doubt that we've ruined them all, but if we
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: have repair some of them. And two, you better make
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: sure that you allow some of the merchant spacemen to escape,
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: just in case there are no space pilots among those
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: who took to the hills. We want to make sure
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: that someone can use those ships to take the news
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: back to Earth and the rest, Hokatan asked, with an
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: expectant look. He knew what was to be done, but
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: he wanted to hear McMain say it again. McMain obliged,
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: hang them, every man, every woman, every child. I want
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: them to be decorating every lamp, post and roof beam
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: on the planet, dangling like overripe fruit when the Earth
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: forces return. And of Part five, Part six of The
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: Highest Treason. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. The Highest Treason by Randall Garrett,
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: Part six the results. I don't understand it, said General
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: poland thalis worriedly, where are they coming from, how are
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: they doing it? What's happened? But Maine and the four
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: Carothi officers were sitting in the small dining room that
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: doubled as a recreation room between meals. The nervous strain
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: of the past few months was beginning to tell on
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: all of them. Six months ago, Talis continued jerkily. We
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: had them beaten, one planet after another was reduced in turn.
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: Then out of nowhere comes a fleet of ships we
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: didn't even know existed, and they've smashed us at every turn.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: If they are ships, said Lupot, the youngest officer of
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: the Shuddo's staff. Who ever heard of a battleship that
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: was undetectable at a distance of less than half a
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: million miles, it's impossible. Then we're being torn to pieces
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: by the impossible Hogaton snapped before we even know they
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: are anywhere around there, blasting us with everything they've got.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: Not even the strategic genius of General mc maine can
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: help us if we have no time to plot strategy.
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: The Carothi had been avoiding mc main's eyes, but now
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: at the mention of his name, they all looked at him,
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: as if their collective gaze had been drawn to him
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: by some unknown attractive force. It's like fighting ghosts, mc
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: maine said, in a hushed voice. For the first time,
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: he felt a feeling of awe that was almost akin
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: to fear. What had he done? In another sense, that
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: same question was in the mind of the COROTHI have
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: you any notion at all what they are doing or
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: how they are doing it, asked Talis gently. None. Macmain
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: answered truthfully, none at all. I swear to you they
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: don't even behave like Earthman, said the fourth Crothi, a
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: thick necked officer named Ossif they not only outfight us,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: the outthink us at every return, is it possible, General macmain,
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: that the Earthmen have allies of another race, a race
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: of intelligent beings that we don't know of, he left
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: unsaid the added implication, and that you have neglected to
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: tell us about. Again, said McMain, I swear to you
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: that I know nothing of any third intelligent race in
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: the galaxy. If there were such allies, Talis said, isn't
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: it odd that they should wait so long to aid
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: their friends? No odder than that the earth one should
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: suddenly develop super weapons that we cannot understand, much less
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: fight against, Hokaton said, with a touch of anger. Not
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: super weapons, MacMahon corrected, almost absently. All they have is
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: a method of making their biggest ships undetectable until they're
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: so close that it doesn't matter. When they do register
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: on our detectors, it's too light. But the weapons they
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: strike with are the same type as they've always used.
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: I believe all right, then, Hokaton said, his voice showing
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: more anger. One weapon or whatever you want to call it,
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: practical invisibility, but that's enough. An invisible man with a
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: knife is more deadly than a dozen ordinary men with
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: modern armament. Are you sure you know nothing of this,
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: General McMain. Before mac mahin could answer, Talis said, don't
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: be ridiculous, Hokaton. If he had known that such a
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: weapon existed, would he have been foo to leave his
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: people with that secret. They stand a good chance of
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: beating us in less than half the time it took
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: us to wipe out their fleet, or rather to wipe
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: out as much of it as we did. They got
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: a new fleet somewhere, said young Lupot, almost to himself.
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: Talis ignored him. If McMain deserted his former allegiance knowing
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: that they had a method of rendering the action of
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: a space drive indetectable, then he was and is a
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: blithering idiot, and we know he isn't all right, all right,
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: I concede that snapped Hokatan. He knows nothing. I don't
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: say that I fully trust him even now, but I'll
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: admit that I cannot see how he is to blame
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: for the reversals of the past few months. If the
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: Earthman had somehow been informed of our activities, or if
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: we had invented a super weapon and they found out
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: about it, I would be inclined to put the blame
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: squarely on mc main. But how would he get such
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: information out? Talis cut in sharply. He has been watched
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: every minute of every day. We know he couldn't send
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: any information to Earth. How could he telepathy? For all
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: I know? Hokatan retorted, but that's beside the point. I
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: don't trust him any farther than I can see him,
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: and not completely even then. But I can see that
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: there is no possible connection between this new menace and
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: anything but Maine might have done. This is no time
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: to'll worry about that sort of thing. We've got to
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: find some way of getting our hands on one of
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: those ghost ships. I do suggest put in the thick
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: necked Ossif that we keep a closer watch on General
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: mc main. Now that the Earth animals are making a comeback,
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: he might decide to turn his coat now, even if
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: he has been innocent of any accigainst Kiro so far,
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: Hokatan's laugh was a short, hard bark. Oh, we'll watch
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: him all right, osuf. But as Talis has pointed out,
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: McMain is not a fool, and he would certainly be
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: a fool to return to Earth if his leaving it
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: was a genuine act of desertion. The last planet we
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: captured before this invisibility thing came up to stop us
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: was plastered all over with notices that the Earth Fleet
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: was concentrating on the capture of the arch traitor McMain.
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: The price on his head as a corpse is enough
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: to allow an Earthman to retire in luxury for a life.
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: The man who brings him back alive gets ten times
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: that amount. Of course, it's possible that the whole thing
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: is a put up job, a smoke scream for our benefit.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: That's why we must and will keep a closer watch.
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: But only a few of the Earth's higher up would
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: know that it was a smoke screen. The rest believe it.
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: Whether it is true or not, Macmain would have to
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: be very careful not to let the wrong people get
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: their hands on him if he returned. It's no smoke screen,
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: mcmaine said, in a matter of fact tone. I assure
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: you that I have no intention of returning to Earth.
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: If caroth loses this war, then I will die either
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: fighting for the Corothi or by execution at the hands
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: of earthmen if I am captured, or he added musingly,
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: perhaps even at the hands of the Corothi. If someone
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: decides that a scapegoat is needed to atone for the
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: loss of the war. If you are guilty of treason,
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: hokatm bart, you will die as a traitor. If you
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: are not, there is no need for your death. The
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: Corothi do not need scapegoats. Talk talk talk, Talis said
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: with a sudden bellow. We have agreed that Macmain has
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: done nothing that could even remotely be regarded as a vicious.
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: He has fought hard and loyally. He has been more
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: ruthless than any of us in destroying the enemy. Very well,
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: we will guard him more closely. We can put him
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: in our irons if that's necessary. But let's quit yapping
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: and start thinking. We've been acting like frightened children, not
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: knowing what it is we fear inventing. Our fear caused
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: anger on the most handy target. Let's act like men,
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: not like children. After a moment, Hogatan said, I agree.
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: His voice was firm, but calm. Our job will be
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: to get our hands on one of those new earthships.
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: Anyone have any suggestions? They had, all kinds of suggestions,
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: one after another. The detectors, however, worked because they detected
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: the distortion of space, which was as necessary for the
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: drive of a ship as the distortion of air was
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: necessary for the movement of a propeller driven air aircraft.
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: None of them could see how a ship could avoid
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: making that distortion, and none of them could figure out
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: how to go about capturing a ship that no one
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: could even detect until it was too late to set
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: a trap. The discussion went on for days, and it
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: was continued the next day and the next, and the
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: days dragged out into weeks. Communications with Kiroas broke down
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: the fleet to headquarters. Courier ships, small in size, without
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: armament and practically solidly packed with drive mechanism, could presumably
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: outrun anything but another unarmed courier. An armed ship of
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: the same size would have to use some of the
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: space for her weapons, which meant that the drive would
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: have to be smaller. If the drive remained the same size,
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: then the armament would make the ship larger. In either case,
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: the speed would be cut down. A smaller ship might
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: outrun a standard courier, but if they got much smaller,
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: there wouldn't be room inside for the pilot none the less.
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: Courier after courier never arrived at its destination, and the
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: Corothi fleet was being decimated by the hit and run
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: tactics of the Earth's ghost ships, and Earth never lost
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: a ship. By the time the Corothi ships knew their
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: enemy was in the vicinity, the enemy had hit and
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: vanished again. The Corothi never had a chance to ready
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: their weapons. In the long run, they never had a
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: chance at all. Mc main waited with almost fatalistic complaisance
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: for the inevitable to happen. When it did happen, he
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: was ready for it. The Shidos, tiny flagship of what
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: had once been a mighty armada and was now only
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: a tattered remnant, was floating in orbit along with the
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: other remaining ships of the fleet around a loaded red
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: giant Sun. With their drys off, there was no way
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: of detecting them at any distance, and the chance of
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: their being found by accident was microscopically small. But they
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: could not wait forever. Water could be recirculated and energy
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: could be tapped from the nearby sun, but food was
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: gone once it was eaten. Hokatan's decision was inevitable, and,
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: under the circumstances, the only possible one. He simply told
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: them what they had already known, that he was a
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: headquarters staff officer. We haven't heard from headquarters in weeks,
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: he said. At last, the Earth Fleet may already be
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: well inside our periphery. We'll have to go home. He
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: produced a document which he had obviously been holding in
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: reserve for another purpose, and handed it to Talis, Headquarters
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: Staff Orders. Talis, it empowers me to take command of
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: the fleet in the event of an emergency, and the
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: decision as to what constitutes an emergency was left up
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: to my discretion. I must admit that this is not
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: the emergency any of us at headquarters anticipated. Talis read
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: through the document. I see that it isn't, he said dryly.
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: According to this, macmaine and I are to be placed
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: under immediate arrest as soon as you find it necessary
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: to act, yes, said Hokatan bitterly, So you can both
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: consider yourselves under arrest. Don't bother to lock yourselves up.
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: There's no point in it, General McMain, I see no
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: reason to inform the rest of the fleet of this,
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: so we will go on as usual. The orders I
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: have to give are simple. The fleet will head for
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: home by the most direct possible geodesic. Since we cannot fight,
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: we will simply ignore a tax and keep going as
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: long as we last. We can do nothing else, he
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: paused thoughtfully, and General mcmahin, in case we do not
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: live through this, I would like to extend my apologies.
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: I do not like you. I don't think I could
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: ever learn to like an anim to like a NONCROTHI,
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: but I know when to admit an error and judgment.
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: You have fought bravely and well better I know than
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: I could have done myself. You have shown yourself to
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: be loyal to your adopted planet. You are a CAROTHI
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: in every sense of the word except the physical. My
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: apologies for having wronged you. He extended his hands and
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: mc main took them. A choking sensation constricted the Earthman's
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: throat for a moment. Then he got the words out,
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: the words he had to say. Believe me, General Hokotan.
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: There was no need for an apology, no need whatever.
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you, said Hokotan. Then he turned and left the room.
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: All right, Talus mc maine said, hurriedly, let's get moving.
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: The orders were given to the remnants of the fleet,
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: and they cut in their drives to head homeward, and
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: the instant they did, there was chaos. Earth's fleet of
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: ghost ships had been patrolling the area for weeks, knowing
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: that the Corothi fleet had last been detected somewhere in
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: the vicinity. As soon as the spatial distortions of the
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: Corothi drives flashed on the earth ship's detectors, the earth
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: Fleet widely scattered over the whole circumambient volume of space
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: coalesced towards the center of the spatial disturbance, like a
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: cloud of bees, all heading for the same flower. Where
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: there had been only the dull red light of the
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: giant star, there suddenly appeared the blinding blue white brilliance
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: of disintegrating matter, blossoming like cruel, deadly beautiful flowers in
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: the midst of the Corothi ships, then fading slowly as
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: each expanding cloud of plasma cooled. Sebastian mac main might
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: have died with the others, except that the Shudos, as
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: the flagship, was to trail behind the fleet, so her
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: drive had not yet been activated. The Shudos was still
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: in orbit, moving it only a few miles per second
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: when the Earth Fleet struck. Her drive never did go
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: on A bomb only a short distance away, as the
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: distance from atomic disintegration is measured, sent the Shudos spinning
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: away end over end like a discarded cigar butt, flipped
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: toward a gutter, one side caved in near the rear,
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: as if it had been kicked in by a giant foot.
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: There was still air in the ship. Mc main realized
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: groggily as he awoke from the unconsciousness that had been
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: thrust upon him. He tried to stand up, but he
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: found himself staggering toward one crazily slanted wall. The stagger
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: was partly due to his grogginess and partly due to
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: the Coriolis flour acting within the spinning ship. The artificial
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: gravity was gone, which meant that the interstellar drive engines
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: had been smashed. He wondered if the emergency rocket drive
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: was still working, not that it would take him anywhere
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: worth going to in less than a few centuries, but
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: then Sebastian McMain had nowhere to go anyhow. Talis lay
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: against one wall, looking very limp macmain half staggered over
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: to him and knelt down. Talis was still alive. The
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: centrifugal force caused by the spinning ship gave an effective
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: pull of less than one earth gravity, but the weird
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: twists caused by the Coriolis forces made motion and orientation difficult. Besides,
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: the ship was spinning slightly on her long axis as
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: well as turning end for end. Mc maine stood there
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: for a moment, trying to think he had expected to die.
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: Death was something he had known was in fitable from
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: the moment he made his decision to leave Earth. He
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: had not known how or when it would come, but
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: he had known that it would come soon. He had
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: known that he would never live to collect the reward
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: he had demanded of the coroth I for faithful service.
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: Traitor he might be, but he was still honest enough
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: with himself to know that he would never take payment
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: for services he had not rendered. Now death was very near,
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: and Sebastian Macmain almost welcomed it. He had no desire
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: to fight it. Talis might want to stand and fight
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: death to the end, but Talis was not carrying the
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: monstrous weight of guilt that would stay with Sebastian Macmain
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: until his death, no matter how much he tried to
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: justify his actions. On the other hand, if he had
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: to go, he might as well do a good job
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: of it. Since he still had a short time left,
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: he might as well wrap the whole thing up in
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: a neat package. How again, his intuitive ability to see
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: pattern gave him the answer long before he could have
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: reasoned it out. They will know, he thought, but they
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: will never be sure. They know I will be immortal
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: and my name will live forever, although no earthman will
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: ever again use the surname McMain nor the given name Sebastian.
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: He shook his head to clear it. No use thinking
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: like that. Now there were things to be done Talis. First,
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: McMain made his way over to one of the emergency
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: medical kits, that he knew were kept in every compartment
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: of every ship. One of the doors of a wall
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: locker hung open, and the blue green medical symbol used
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: by the Corothi showed darkly in the dim light that
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: came from the three unshattered glow plates in the ceiling.
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: He opened the kit, hoping that it contained something equivalent
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: to adhesive tape. He had never inspected a Corothi medical
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: kit before. Fortunately, he could read Corothi. If a military
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: government was good for nothing else, at least it was
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: capable of enforcing a simplified phonetic orthography so that words
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: were pronounced as they were spelled. And he forced his
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: wandering mind back to his work. The blow on the head,
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: plus the crazy effect the spinning was having on his
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: inner ears, plus the cock eyed gravitational orientation that made
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: his eyes feel as though they were seeing things at
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: two different angles, all combined to make for more than
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: a little mental confusion. There was adhesive tape all right,
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: wound on its little spool. It looked almost homey. He
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: spent several minutes winding the sticky plastic ribbon around Tollis's
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: wrists and ankles. Then he took the gun from the
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: Carothi general's sleeve holster. He had never been allowed one
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: of his own, and holding it firmly in his right hand,
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: he went on a tour of the ship. It was
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: hard to move around. The centrifugal force varied from point
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: to point throughout the ship, and the corridors were cluttered
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: with debris that seemed to move with a life of
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: its own. As each piece shifted slowly under the effects
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: of the various forces working on it, and as the
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: various masses moved about, the rate of spin of the
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: ship changed as the law of conservation of angular momentum operated.
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: The ship was full of sliding, clattering, jangling noises as
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: the stuff tried to find a final resting place and
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: bring the ship to equilibrium. He found the door to
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: Ossif's cabin open, in the room empty. He found Ossif
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: in Lupat's cabin trying to get the younger officer to
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: his feet. Ossif saw mac Main at the door and said,
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: you're alive. Good help me. Then he saw the gun
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: in mcmain's hand and stopped. It was the last thing
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: he saw before McMain shot him neatly between the eyes
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: Leupot only half conscious, never even knew he was in danger,
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: and the blast that drilled through his brain prevented him
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: from ever knowing anything again in this life. Like a
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: man in a dream. McMain went on to Hokaton's cabin,
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: his weapon at the ready. He was rather pleased to
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: find that the h Q General was already quite dead,
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: his neck broken as cleanly as if it had been
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: done by a hangman hardly an hour before. McMain would
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: cheerfully have shot Hokatom where it would hurt the most
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: and watch him die slowly. But the memory of Hookatan's
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: honest apology made the earthman very glad that he did
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: not have to shoot the general at all. There remained
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: only the five man crew the ends, the old technician
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: and his gang who actually ran the ship. They would
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: be at the tail of the ship in the engine compartment.
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: To get there, he had to cross the center of
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: spin of the ship in the change of gravity from
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: one direction to another. Decreasing towards zero, Passing the null
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: point and rising again on the other side made him nauseous.
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: He felt better after his stomach had emptied itself. Cautiously,
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: he opened the door to the drive compartment and then
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: slammed it hard in sudden fear when he saw what
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: had happened. The shielding had been torn away from one
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: of the energy converters and exposed the room to high
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: energy radiation. The crewmen were quite dead. The fear went
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: away as quickly as it had come. So maybe he'd
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: dosed himself with a few hundred rntgans, So what a
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: little radiation? Never heard a dead man. But he knew
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: now that there was no possibility of escape. The drive
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: was wrecked, and the only their means of escape the
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: one man courier boat that every blaster boat carried, had
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: been sent out weeks ago and had never returned. If
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: only the courier boat were still in its cradle, McMahon
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 1: shook his head. No, it was better this way, much better.
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: He turned and went back to the dining room where
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: Talis was trussed up. This time, passing the null gy
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: point didn't bother him much at all. Talis was moaning
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: a little and his eyelids were fluttering by the time
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: mcmahin got back. The Earthman opened the medical kid again
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: and looked for some kind of stimulant. He had no
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: knowledge of medical or chemical terms in Carorothic. But there
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: was a box of glass ampules bearing instructions to crush
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: and allow patient to inhale fumes. That sounded right. The
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: stuff smelled like a mixture of spirits of ammonia and
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: Beutelmr Captain, but it did the job. Talis coughed convulsively,
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: turned his head away, coughed again, and opened his eyes.
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: Mc main tossed the stinking ampule out into the corridor
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: as Thollis tried to focus his eyes. How d'ye feel,
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: mc main asked. His voice sounded oddly thick in his
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: own ears. All right, I'm all right? What happened? He
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: looked wonderingly around near miss. Must be anyone hurt. They're
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: all dead, but you an me, mc main said, dead?
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: Then we better. He tried to move, and then realized
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: that he was bound hand and foot. The sudden realization
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: of his position seemed to clear his brain completely, sepast
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: what's going on here? Why am I tied up? I
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: had to tie you, mc main explained, carefully, as though
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: to a child. There are some things I have to
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 1: do yet, and I wouldn't want you to stop me.
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe I should have just shot you while you were unconscious.
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: That would have been kinder to both of us, I think.
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: But but Talis, I had to tell somebody. Someone else
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: has to know, someone else has to judge. Or maybe
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: I just want to unload it on someone else, someone
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: who will carry the burden with me for just a
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: little while. I don't know, Sebastian, what are you talking about?
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: The Carothi's face shone dully orange in the dim light.
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: His bright green eyes looked steadily at the Earthman, and
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: his voice was oddly gentle. I'm talking about treason, said
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: mc ming. Do you want to listen? I don't have
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: much choice, do I, Talis said. Tell me one thing. First,
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: are we going to die? You are, Talis, But I won't.
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be immortal. Talis looked at him for
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: a long moment. Then all right, Sebastian. I'm no psych man,
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: but I know you're not well. I'll listen to whatever
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: you have to say. But first, untie my hands and feet.
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 1: I can't do that, Talis. Sorry, but if our positions
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 1: were reversed, I know what I would do to you
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: when I heard the story, and I can't let you
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: kill me. Because there's something more that has to be done.
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: Talis knew at that moment that he was looking at
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: the face of death, and he also knew that there
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: was nothing whatever he could do about it except talk
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: and listen very well, Sebastian, he said, lovely, go ahead, Treason,
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: you say, how against whom? I'm not quite sure? Said
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 1: Sebastian McMain. I thought maybe you could tell me. End
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 1: of Part six, Part seven of The Highest Treason. This
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. The Highest Treason by Randall Garrett, Part
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 1: seven The Reason Let me ask you one thing, Tallis
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: McMain said. Would you do anything in your power to
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: save Karros from destruction, anything, no matter how drastic, if
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: you knew that it would save Caroth in the long run.
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: A foolish question, of course, I would. I would give
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: my life, your life, a mere nothing, a pittance any
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: man could give his life. Would you consent to live
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: forever for Caroath? Talas shook his head as though he
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: were puzzled. Live forever? That's twice or three times you
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: said something about that. I don't understand you. Would you
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: consent to live forever as a filthy curse on the
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: lips of every crowth I old enough to speak? Would
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 1: you consent to be a vile, inhuman monster, whose undead
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: spirit would hang over your homeland like an evil miasthma
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: for centuries to come, whose very name would touch a
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: flame of hatred in the minds of all who heard it.
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: That's a very a dramatic way of putting it. The growath,
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: I said, but I believe I understand what you mean. Yes,
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: I would consent to that if it would be the
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: only salvation of caroath. Would you slaughter helpless millions of
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: your own people so that other billions might survive? Would
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: you ruthlessly smash your system of government and your whole
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 1: way of life if it were the only way to
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: save the people themselves? I am beginning to see what
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: you're driving at, Talis said slowly, And if it is
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: what I think it is, I think I would like
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: to kill you very slowly. I know, I know, but
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: you haven't answered my question. Would you do those things
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: to save your people? I would, said Talis coldly. Don't
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: misunderstand me. I do not loathe you for what you
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: have done to your own people. I hate you for
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: what you have done to mine. That's as it should be,
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: said mc main. His head was clearing up more. Now
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: he realized that he had been talking a little wildly
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: at first. Or was he really insane? Had he been
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: insane from the beginning. Now he knew with absolute clarity
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: that every step he had made had been cold, calculating
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: and ruthless, but utterly and absolutely sane. He suddenly wished
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: that he had shot Tollis without wakening him. If his
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 1: mind hadn't been in such a state of shock, he
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: would have. There was no need to torture the man
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: like this. Go on, said Tollis, in a voice that
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: had suddenly become devoid of all emotion. Tell it all
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: earth was stagnating, mc maine said, surprised at the sound
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 1: of his own voice. He hadn't intended to go on,
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: but he couldn't stop. Now you saw how it was.
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: Every standard had become meaningless because no standard was held
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: to be better than any other standard. There was no
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: beauty because beauty was superior to ugliness, and we couldn't
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 1: allow superiority or inferiority. There was no love, because in
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 1: order to love someone or something, you must feel that
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: it is in some way superior to that which is
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: not loved. I'm not even sure I know what those
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: terms mean, because I'm not sure I ever thought anything
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: was beautiful. I'm not sure I ever loved anything. I
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: only read about such things in books, but I know
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: I felt the emptiness inside me where those things should
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: have been. There was no morality either. People did not
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: refrain from stealing because it was wrong, but simply because
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 1: it was pointless to steal what would be given to
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 1: you if you asked for it. There was no right
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 1: or wrong. We had a form of social contract that
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: we called marriage, but it wasn't the same thing as
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: marriage was in the old days. There was no love.
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 1: There used to be a crime called adultery, but even
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: the word had gone out of use on the earth,
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: I knew. Instead, it was considered antisocial for a woman
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: to refuse to give herself to other men. To do
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: so might indicate that she thought herself superior, or thought
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 1: her husband to be superior to other men. The same
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 1: thing applied to men in their relationships with women. Other
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: than their wives. Marriage was a social contract that could
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: be made or broken at the whim of the individual.
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: It served no purpose because it meant nothing. Neither party
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: gained anything by the contract that they wouldn't have had
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 1: without it. But a wedding was an excuse for a
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 1: gala party at which the couple were the center of attention.
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 1: So the contract was entered into lightly for the sake
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 1: of a gay time for a while, them broken again
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 1: so that the game could be played with someone else,
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: the game of musical bedrooms. He stopped and looked down
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: at the helpless crothe That doesn't mean much to you,
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: does it. In your society, women are chattel to be owned,
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 1: bought and sold. If you see a woman you want,
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: you offer a price to her father or brother or husband,
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 1: whoever the owner might be. Then she's yours until you
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 1: sell her to another. Adultery is a very serious crime
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: on caroth, but only because it's an infringement of property rights.
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: There's not much love lost there either, is there. I
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: wonder if either of us knows what love is. Talis,
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 1: I love my people, Talis said grimly. Mac Maine was
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: startled for a moment. He never thought about it that way.
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: You're right, Talis, He said, At last, you are right.
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: We do know, And because I love the human in
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: spite of its stagnation and its spirit of total mediocrity,
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: I did what I had to do. You will pardon me,
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: Tolla said, with only the faintest bit of acid in
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 1: his voice. If I do not understand exactly what it
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: is that you did. Then his voice grew softer. Wait,
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 1: perhaps I do understand. Yes, of course you think you understand.
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: Wmc maine looked at him narrowly. Yes, I said that
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 1: I am not a psychomedic. Am I Getting angry with you?
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: Proves it. You fought hard and well for Carol Sebastian,
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: and in doing so you had to kill many of
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 1: your own race. It is not easy for a man
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: to do, no matter how much your reason tells you
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: it must be done. And now, in the face of death,
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: remorses come. I do not completely understand the workings of
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: the earthman's mind, but I that's just it, you don't,
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: mc maine interrupted. Thanks for trying to find an excuse
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: for me, Talis, But I'm afraid it isn't so. Listen.
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: I had to find out what Earth was up against.
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: I had a pretty good idea already that the Corotha
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: I would win, would wipe us out or enslave us
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: to the last man. And after I had seen Carroth,
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: I was certain of it. So I sent a message
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: back to Earth, telling them what they were up against,
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: because up till then they hadn't known. As soon as
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: they knew, they reacted as they have always done when
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 1: they are certain that they faced danger. They fought. They
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: unleashed the chained down intelligence of a few extraordinary Earthmen
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 1: and to release the fighting spirit of even the ordinary Earthmen,
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: and they won. Talis shook his head. You sent no message, Sepassion.
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 1: You were watched. You know that you could not have
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 1: sent a message. You saw me send it, mc maine said,
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 1: so did everyone else in the fleet. Hokaton helped me
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 1: send it, made all the arrangements at my orders. But
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 1: because you do not understand the workings of the earthman's mind,
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: you didn't even recognize it as a message, Talis, What
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 1: would your people have done of an invading force which
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: had already proven that it could whip Kiroath easily did
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 1: to one of your planets What we did on Euston's world.
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: If the enemy showed us that they could easily beat
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: us and then hang the whole population of a planet
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: for resisting, why we would be fools to resist, unless,
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 1: of course, we had a secret weapon in a hidden
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 1: pocket the way Earth had no, Talis. No, that's where
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 1: you're making your mistake. Earth didn't have that weapon until
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 1: after the massacre on Euston's world. Let me ask you
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 1: another thing. Would any carothe have ordered that massacre? I
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: doubt it, Talis said, Slowly, Killing that many potential slaves
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: will be wasteful and expensive. We are fighters, not butchers.
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 1: We kill only when it is necessary to win. The
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: remainder of the enemy is taken care of as the
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: rightful property of the conqueror. Exactly, prisoners were part of
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: the loot, and it's foolish to destroy loot. I noticed
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: that in your history books. I noticed too, that in
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: such cases the captives recognized the right of the conqueror
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 1: to enslave them and made no trouble. So after Earth's
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: forces get to Keroth, I don't think we'll have any
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: trouble with you, Not if they set us an example
• 2:15:42
  Speaker 1: like Euston's world, Talis said, and can prove that resistance
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 1: is futile. But I don't understand the message. What was
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: the message and how did you send it? The massacre
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: on Euston's World was the message, Talis. I even told
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 1: the staff when I suggested it. I said that such
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 1: an act would strike terror into the minds of earthmen,
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 1: and it did. Tallis it did, But that terror was
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 1: just the goad they needed to make them fight. They
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: had to sit up and take notice. If the Coroathi
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 1: had gone on the way they were going, taking one
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 1: planet after another as they planned, the Coroath I would
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 1: have won. The people of each planet would think it
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 1: can't happen here. And since they felt that nothing could
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 1: be superior to anything else, they were complacently certain that
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 1: they couldn't be beat Of course, maybe Earth couldn't beat
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 1: you either, but that was all right. It just proved
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 1: that there was no such thing as superiority. But Euston's
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 1: World jarred them badly. It had to Hell does more
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: than Heaven can to wake the fear of God in man.
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: They didn't recognize beauty, but I shoved ugliness on their throats.
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 1: They didn't know love and friendship, so I gave them
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 1: hatred and fear. The committing of atrocities has been the
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 1: mistake of aggressors throughout Earth's history. The battle cries of
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: countless wars have called upon the people to remember an atrocity.
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 1: Nothing else hits an earthman as hard as a vicious, brutal,
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 1: unnecessary murder. So I gave them the incentive to fight, Talis.
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 1: That was my message. Talis was staring at him, wide eyed.
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: You are insane. No, it worked. In six months, they
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 1: found something that would enable them to blast the devil
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 1: Corowthi from the skies. I don't know what the society
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 1: of Earth is like now, and I never will, but
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 1: at least I know that men are allowed to think again,
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 1: and I know they'll survive. Suddenly realized how much time
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: had passed. Had it been too long, no, there would
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 1: still be earth ships prowling the vicinity, waiting for any
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: sign of a Corothi ship that had hidden in the
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 1: vastness of space by not using its engines. I have
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: some things I must do, Tallis, he said, standing up slowly.
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: Is there anything else you want to know? Talis frowned
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: a little, as though he were trying to think of something,
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 1: but then he closed his eyes and relaxed. No, Sebastian, nothing, nothing,
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 1: Do whatever it is you have to do, Talis, McMain said.
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 1: Talis didn't open his eyes, and McMain was very glad
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: of that. Talis, I want you to know that, in
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 1: all my life, you were the only friend I ever had.
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: The bright green eyes remained closed. That may be so, yes, Sebastian,
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: I honestly think you believe that I do, said mc main,
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 1: and shot him carefully through the head. End of part seven,
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: Part eight of The Highest Treason. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. The
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 1: Highest Treason by Randall Garrett, Part eight, the end and epilogue.
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 1: Hold it, the voice bellowed thunderingly from the loud speakers
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: of the six Earth ships that had boxed in the derelict.
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 1: Hold it, don't bomb that ship. I'll personally have the
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: head of any man who damages that shap In five
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: of the ships, the commander simply held off the bombardment
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: that would have vaporized the derelict. In the sixth Major Thornton,
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 1: the group commander, snapped off the microphone. His voice was
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 1: shaky as he said, that was close. Another second and
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: we'd have lost that ship forever. Captain Verensky's oriental features
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: had a half startled, half puzzled. Look, I don't get it.
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 1: You grabbed that mic control as if you've been bitten.
• 2:20:31
  Speaker 1: I know that she's only a derelict. After that burst
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 1: of fifty g acceleration for fifteen minutes, there couldn't be
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 1: anyone left alive on her. But there must have been
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: a reason for using atomic rockets instead of their anti
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 1: acceleration fields. What makes you think she's not dangerous. I
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: didn't say she wasn't dangerous. The Major snapped, She may be,
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: probably is, but we're going to capture her if we can. Look.
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 1: He pointed at the image of the ship in the screen.
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 1: She wasn't spinning now or looping end over end. After
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 1: fifteen minutes of high acceleration, her atomic rockets had cut out,
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: and now she moved serenely at constant velocity, looking as
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: dead as a battered tin can. I don't see anything,
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 1: Captain Vrensky said. The carothic symbols on the side pallattle, unvoiced,
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 1: sibilant rounded. I don't read Carothic, Major, said the captain.
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: I Then he blinked and said, shoot Dose. That's it,
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 1: the Shoot Dose of Koth, the flagship of the Corothi fleet.
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: The look in the major's eyes was the same look
• 2:21:45
  Speaker 1: of hatred that had come into the captain's. Even if
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 1: its armament is still functioning, we have to take the chance,
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 1: Major Thornton said, even if they're all dead, we have
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: to try to get the butcher's body. He picked up
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: the microphone again. Attention group, listen carefully and don't get
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: itchy trigger fingers. That ship is the Shoe Dose, the
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 1: Butcher's ship. It's a ten man ship, and the most
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 1: she could have aboard would be thirty even if they
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 1: jammed her full to the hull. I don't know of
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 1: any way that anyone could be alive on her after
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 1: fifteen minutes at fifty g's of atomic drive. But remember
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: that they don't have any idea of how our counteraction
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 1: generators damp out spatial distortion either. Remember what doctor Pendrick said,
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: No man is superior to any other in all ways.
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: Every man is superior to every other in some way.
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 1: We may have the counteraction generator, but they may have
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 1: something else that we don't know about, so stay alert.
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 1: I am going to take a landing party aboard. There's
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: a reward out for the butcher, and that reward will
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: be split proportionately among us. It's big enough for us
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: all to enjoy it, and we'll probably get citations if
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: we bring him in. I want ten men from each ship.
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not asking for volunteers. I want each ship commander
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 1: to pick the ten men he thinks will be least
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 1: likely to lose their heads in an emergency. I don't
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 1: want anyone to panic and shoot when he should be thinking.
• 2:23:16
  Speaker 1: I don't want anyone who had any relatives on Euston's world. Sorry,
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: but I can allow vengeance yet. We're a thousand miles
• 2:23:25
  Speaker 1: from the Shudos. Now close in slowly until we're within
• 2:23:30
  Speaker 1: a hundred yards. The boarding parties will don armor and
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 1: prepare to board. While we're closing in. At a hundred yards,
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 1: we stop and the boarding parties will land on the whole.
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 1: I'll give further orders. Then one more thing. I don't
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 1: think her AA generators could possibly be functioning, judging from
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 1: that dent in our hole, but we can't be sure.
• 2:23:52
  Speaker 1: If she tries to go into AA drive, she is
• 2:23:54
  Speaker 1: to be bombed. No matter who is a board It
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: is better that sixty men die than let the butcher escape.
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: All right, let's go move in. Half an hour later,
• 2:24:07
  Speaker 1: Major Thornton stood on the whole of the shudos, surrounded
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 1: by the sixty men of the boarding party. Anybody see
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 1: anything through those windows, he asked. Several of the men
• 2:24:18
  Speaker 1: had peered through the direct vision ports, playing spotlight beams
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: through them. Nothing alive, said a sergeant, a remark which
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 1: was followed by a chorus of agreement. Pretty much of
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: a mess in there, said another sergeant. That fifty gees
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: mashed everything to the floor. Why'd anyone want to use
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: acceleration like that. Let's go in and find out, said
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 1: Major Thornton. The outer door to the air lock was closed,
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: but not locked. It swung open easily to disclose the
• 2:24:48
  Speaker 1: room between the outer and inner doors. Ten men went
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 1: in with the Major. The others stayed outside, with orders
• 2:24:55
  Speaker 1: to cut through the hole if anything went wrong. If
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: he's still alive, Major said, we don't want to kill
• 2:25:02
  Speaker 1: him by blowing the air Sergeants start the airlock cycle.
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 1: There was barely room for ten men in the airlock.
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 1: It had been built big enough for the full crew
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 1: to use it at one time, but it was only
• 2:25:15
  Speaker 1: just big enough. When the inner door opened, they went
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 1: in cautiously. They spread out and searched cautiously. The caution
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 1: was unnecessary, as it turned out there wasn't a living
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 1: thing aboard. Three officers shot through the head, Sir, said
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 1: the sergeant. One of 'em looks like he died of
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 1: a broken neck, but it's hard to tell. After that
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 1: fifty gees mashed him. Crewman in the engine room, five
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: of em mashed up, But I'd say they'd died a
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 1: radiation since a shielding on one of the generators was
• 2:25:45
  Speaker 1: ruptured by the blast that made that debt in the hole.
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: Nine bodies, the Major said, musingly, all coroth I and
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 1: all of them probably dead before the fifty g acceleration.
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 1: Keep looking, sergeant, we've got to find that tenth man.
• 2:26:06
  Speaker 1: Another twenty minute search gave them all the information they
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 1: were ever to get. No earth food aboard, said the major.
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 1: One space soup missing, hand weapons missing, two emergency survival
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 1: kits and two medical kits missing, and most important of all,
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 1: the courier boat is missing. He bit at his lower
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: lip for a moment, then went on outer air lock
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 1: door left unlocked. Three croth eyes shot after the explosion
• 2:26:42
  Speaker 1: that ruined the a A drive and before the fifty
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 1: g acceleration. He looked at the sergeant. What do you
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: think happened? He got away, the tough looking noncomb said grimly,
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 1: took the courier boat and scooted it away from here.
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: Why did he set the timer on the drive? Then?
• 2:27:03
  Speaker 1: What was the purpose of that fifty g blast to
• 2:27:06
  Speaker 1: distract us? I'd say, sir, while we were chasing this thing,
• 2:27:10
  Speaker 1: he high tailed it out. He might have at that,
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 1: the Major said, musingly, A one man courier could have
• 2:27:19
  Speaker 1: gotten away. Our new detection equipment isn't perfect yet. But
• 2:27:26
  Speaker 1: at that moment one of the troopers pushed himself down
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 1: the corridor toward them. Look, sir, I found this in
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 1: the pocket of the carrot skin, who was taped up
• 2:27:34
  Speaker 1: In there. He was holding a piece of paper. The
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: Major took it, read it, then read it aloud, greeting's
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 1: fellow earthmen. When you read this, I will be safe
• 2:27:47
  Speaker 1: from any power you may think you have to arrest
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 1: or punish me. But don't think you are safe from me.
• 2:27:55
  Speaker 1: There are other intelligent races in the galaxy, and I'll
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 1: be around for a long time to come. You haven't
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 1: heard the last of me. With love, Sebastian Mucmain. The
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 1: silence that followed was almost deadly. He did get away,
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: snarled the sergeant at last, maybe, said the major. But
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense. He sounded agitated. Look in the
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 1: first place, how do we know the courier boat was
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 1: even aboard. They'd been trying frantically to get word back
• 2:28:33
  Speaker 1: to Karros. Does it make sense that they'd save this boat?
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 1: And why all the fanfare? Suppose he did have a boat,
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 1: Why would he attract our attention with that fifty g
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 1: flare just so he could leave us a note? What
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: do you think happened, sir? The sergeant asked, I don't
• 2:28:53
  Speaker 1: think he had a boat. If he did, he'd want
• 2:28:57
  Speaker 1: us to think he was dead, not the other way around.
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 1: I think he set the drive timer on this ship,
• 2:29:04
  Speaker 1: went outside with his supplies, crawled up a drive tube,
• 2:29:07
  Speaker 1: and waited until that atomic rocket blast blew him into plasma.
• 2:29:12
  Speaker 1: He was probably badly wounded and didn't want us to
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 1: know that we'd won. That way, we'd never find him.
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: There was no belief on the faces of the men
• 2:29:22
  Speaker 1: around him. Why'd he want to do that, Sir, asked
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: the sergeant, Because as long as we don't know, he'll
• 2:29:31
  Speaker 1: haunt us. He'll be like Hitler or Jack the Ripper.
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 1: He'll be an immortal menace instead of a dead villain
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: who could be forgotten. Maybe so, Sir, said the sergeant,
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: but there was an utter lack of conviction in his voice.
• 2:29:47
  Speaker 1: But we'd still better comb this area and keep our
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 1: detectors hut. We'll know what he was up to when
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: we catch him. But if we don't find him, the
• 2:29:57
  Speaker 1: Major said, softly, we'll never No, that's the beauty of it, Sergeant.
• 2:30:03
  Speaker 1: If we don't find him, then he's one in his
• 2:30:06
  Speaker 1: own fiendish, twisted way. He's one. If we don't find him,
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: said the sergeant stolidly. I think we'd better keep a
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 1: sharp eye out for the next intelligent race we meet.
• 2:30:19
  Speaker 1: He might find him first, maybe, said the Major, very softly.
• 2:30:26
  Speaker 1: That's just what he wanted. I wish I knew why.
• 2:30:35
  Speaker 1: The end The End of the Highest Treason by Randal
• 2:30:40
  Speaker 1: Garrett