believe that we’ve seen the last of our troublesome visitor,” said Thaddeus.
He paused. He shrugged. He smiled.
“I’ve decided that I’ll never have children.”
TO ERR IS INHUMAN, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
An opaque blot against the colorless glare of eternal sunlight, the ship of the R’rin circled silently in free orbit, just beyond the topmost limits of atmosphere. Hundreds of miles below, a small spinning planet trailed its cone of shadow, oblivious to the menace overhead.
Inside the ship, in the lounge common to the crew, two men sprawled on cushioned couches, comfortable under synthetic gravity, their capable bodies carelessly disposed in attitudes of relaxation. And yet, a careful observer could have noticed a slight, tense constraint that gave the lie to their superficial ease.
Ostensibly they ignored one another. The eyes of one were fastened on a small viewing-screen, while the other fingered the intricate links of a shimmery, semi-invisible metal puzzle. At length the man with the puzzle stretched long legs and arms, and inquired, with an elaborate yawn, “What’s the Truth from the rest of the fleet, Alath?”
* * * *
His companion turned away from the screen. “Not much,” he said, “Two ships have been destroyed in the fighting in the Fifth Sector, near…” he named a star at the edge of the Galaxy, “…and aboard the Star of Home, Captain Thillian has been replaced.”
“Replaced?” questioned the first.
“Degraded,” Alath explained briefly, and the other, whose name was Ketil, sighed.
“I knew Thillian at the Academy. I never thought him very stable. Which reminds me,” he drew himself upright, discarding his puzzle, “I suppose I ought to take another took at the-former-Narth.”
“Poor fellow,” Alath murmured. “I’ll come along, if you don’t mind.”
“All right.” Ketil covered a yawn with his hand. The men, leaving the lounge, strolled down a corridor along the central axis of the ship; at the far end of the living-quarters, a steel gating barred further progress, and Ketil, sliding aside a moving panel, peered cautiously through the opening.
The room behind the grating was carefully padded with foam-soft material; but was bare of any further furnishing, other than rude sanitary conveniences. Naked on the padding, a man sprawled in an attitude of exhaustion and despair; but as he caught sight of the two regarding him through the opening, he sprang up, and his features contorted themselves into a horrible travesty of humanity.
“Alath…! Ketil!” His voice held supplication, “Let me out of here, get me out, do something! You’re my friends, you’ll listen to me, won’t you? I didn’t—I’m not what they said—I made a mistake, I tell you. I counted wrong, it was a slip of the tongue…”
Ketil stepped backward, his lip curling up in instinctive distaste, but Alath’s voice was compassionate. “Hold on, old fellow, hold on. Perhaps when we’re back in Galactic Center…”
“Alath,” the man in the cell implored, “You don’t believe…”
“Belief has nothing to do with it,” said Alath primly, receding somewhat from the prisoner, who leaped forward, seizing the bars, clutching and rattling them with desperate force.
Narth’s voice was a hoarse furnace of blistering hate. “Just wait! Just wait, just wait,” he threatened. “Some day it will happen to you! Some day you’ll know…”
Ketil put a hand on Alath’s shoulder. “Come along,” he advised, “We can’t help him, Alath, and I’m supposed to make sure no one hangs around the Cells.”
“Just one minute—Narth, are you comfortable, old man? Getting enough to eat? Is there anything I can…”
Narth spat a furious obscenity, and both men shuddered. Alath sighed as Ketil slid the aperture closed again. “Poor fellow,” he repeated.
“Poor fellow, nothing,” Ketil snorted, “why in the name of the blazing radioactive suns of Thetti did he have to crack up now, when we’re already so short-handed that it hurts to think of what might happen if we’re ordered to attack that ball of dirt down there!”
“We are shorthanded,” Alath admitted, “the whole fleet is short-handed. But I do feel sorry for Narth—do you think we will attack the planet, Ketil?”
“No telling, until the other scout ships get back,” Ketil grunted, “but I don’t know why we shouldn’t. When I took the pickup down, I didn’t see any evidence that they were anything more than a low-grade technological society. By all appearances, they’re still running on atomics…no sign of photo n-converters anywhere. No spaceports. Of course, I didn’t land, or even go down under the cloud layer…” He broke off, aware that he was being diverted from the original topic. “As for Narth,” he grimaced “he’s just a pervert like any other pervert, and I wouldn’t waste sympathy on him. You didn’t know it, Alath. I was there when be spoke the…” his voice dropped to a hollow mutter, “…the un-Truth!”
Alath looked at the rivets in the floor, as Ketil went on, “I was there when he said—said it deliberately, Alath—that there were ten unopened rations-bins in the storage, when we’d counted eleven together!”
“He may not have seen the other one,” Alath suggested without enthusiasm.
“You psychologists!” Ketil snapped, “You can always find an excuse to defend any kind of filth, can’t you! You know…”
“I know,” Alath said hastily, “To err is inhuman. Truth distinguishes the Human. Still, there is a chance…”
“All your fancy words can’t make it anything but perversion,” Ketil said with an uncompromising frown.
“Still, the punishment seems cruel,” mused Alath, as they returned to the common lounge.
“Cruel; but necessary,” Ketil said. He picked up his puzzle and slid it back and forth in his hands for a few seconds, then flung it away. He paced the lounge for minutes, then turned to Alath, as if defending his own stand. “You must understand me, Alath,” he pleaded, “I liked Narth—what was Narth—too! Humanity, he’s been my bunkmate for five trips! That’s one reason I’m so repelled—how would you feel if you discovered you’d been bunking with a pervert who embraced un-Truth?”
Alath bent and fiddled with a dial on the viewing-screen before he answered slowly, “Ketil, no one but a licensed psych-prob can prove it was Perversion. It may have been merely Error. Yes, I know…” he forestalled Ketil’s interruption with a patient gesture, “.…to err is inhuman, and it’s quite true that Narth—the-former-Narth,” he corrected himself—“has forfeited his humanity, whether error or perversion. Still, you have no right to call him a pervert before a psych-prob verifies his intent, Ketil. And to deny that I pity him would be un-Truth!”
Ketil bowed his head. “To your Truth,” he said in the formal phrase, “your privilege, Alath.” He turned away, took up his puzzle again, then flung it petulantly away. “Get an-other newsreel,” he snapped, “how can we amuse ourselves in this fallible old hulk?”
Alath did not turn or look at him. “Do it yourself,” he retorted; “I dislike you now! To your Truth!” and he slammed out of the lounge.
Ketil remained behind, not turning on the viewing-screen, but his hands were not steady, and spurting anger surged up in him. He tried to pull himself together. Humanity, this waiting, waiting, waiting for attack was getting on his nerves! He must be on the very edge of a crackup himself, if he could be so furious at Alath’s Truth! But the fact remained that he and Alath had been friends for a long time, too; and the cold statement of dislike hurt him like a blow.
He ought to follow Alath and make up the quarrel. It was his own fault. He’d insisted on talking about Narth; Alath had tried