Healer, page 9
part #3 of LaNague Federation Series
“Well, you’re right on that account. I haven’t the vaguest idea of what you’re talking about.”
“Okay, then I’ll take it upon myself to give you an outline of what you can expect from Tolive and what Tolive expects from you. The Contract sounds rather cold and terrible unless you know the background of the planet and understand the rationale for some of the clauses.”
“I don’t think you should waste your breath.”
“Yes, you do. You’re interested now, though you won’t admit it.”
Dalt sighed reluctantly. “I admit it. But I can’t think of anything you can say that’ll make public floggings look good.”
“Just listen.” She finished her drink and signaled for another. “Like most of the Federation member planets, Tolive was once a splinter world. It was settled by a very large group of anarchists who left Earth as one of the first splinter colonies. They bore no resemblance to the bearded, bomb-throwing stereotype from the old days of Earth, nor to the modern-day Broohnins. They merely held that no man has the right to rule another. A noble philosophy, wouldn’t you say?”
Dalt gave a noncommittal shrug.
“Good. Like most anarchists of their day, however, they were anti-institutionalists. This eventually caused some major problems. They wanted no government at all: no police, no courts, no jails, no public works. Everything was to be handled by private firms. It took a couple of generations to set things up, and it worked quite well … at first. Then the private police forces got out of hand; they’d band together and take over a town and try to set up some sort of neofeudal state. Other police forces had to be hired to come in and roust them out, and there’d be a lot of bloodshed and property destruction.” She paused briefly as the waiter brought a fresh drink and El recommended that they order the vegetable platter.
“So,” she continued, “after this happened a few too many times, we—my ancestors, that is—decided that something had to be done to deal with the barbarians in our midst. After much debate, it was finally decided to create a bare minimum of public institutions: police, judiciary, penal, and administration.”
“No legislature?”
“No. They balked at creating posts for men who like to make rules to control other men; the very concept of a legislature was suspect—and still is, as far as I’m concerned. I mean, what kind of a man is it who wants to spend his life making plans and rules to alter or channel lives other than his own? There’s a basic flaw in that kind of man.”
“It’s not so much a desire to rule,” Dalt said. “With many it’s merely a desire to be at the center of things, to be in on the big decisions.”
“And those decisions mean power. They feel they are far better suited to make decisions about your life than you are. An ancient Earthman said it best: ‘In every generation there are those who want to rule well—but they mean to rule. “They promise to be good masters— but they mean to be masters.’ His name was Daniel Webster.”
“Never heard of him. But tell me: how can you have a judiciary if you have no law?”
“Oh, there’s law—just no legislature. The minimum necessary legal code was formulated and incorporated into the Contract. Local police apprehend those who break the Contract and local judges determine to what extent it has been broken. The penal authority carries out the sentence, which is either public flogging or imprisonment.”
“What?” Dalt said mockingly. “No public executions?”
El found no amusement in his attitude. “We don’t kill people—someone just may be innocent.”
“But you flog them! A person could die on that pillory!”
“That pillory is actually a highly sophisticated physiological monitor that measures physical pain in Gomler units. The judge decides how many Gomler units should be administered and the machine decides when that level has been reached relative to the individual in the pillory. If there are any signs of danger, the sentence is immediately terminated.” They paused as the waiter placed the cold vegetable platters before them.
“He goes to prison then, I guess,” Dalt said, eagerly biting into a mushroom-shaped tomato. Delicious.
“No. If he’s undergone that much stress, he’s considered a paid-up customer. Only our violent criminals go to jail.”
Dalt looked bewildered. “Let me get this straight: Nonviolent criminals receive corporal punishment while violent criminals are merely locked away? That’s a ridiculous paradox!”
“Not really. Is it better to take a young man such as the car thief out there today and lock him up with armed robbers, killers, and kidnapers? Why force a sneak thief to consort with barbarians and learn how to commit bigger and better crimes? We decided to break that old cycle. We prefer to put him through a little physical pain and a lot of public humiliation for a few minutes, and then let him go. His life is his own again, with no pieces missing. Our system is apparently working because our crime rate is incredibly low compared to other planets. Not out of fear, either, but because we’ve broken the crime-imprisonment-crime-imprisonment cycle. Recidivism is extremely low here!”
“But your violent criminals are merely sent to prison?”
“Right, but they’re not allowed to consort with one another. The prison has historically acted as a nexus for the criminal subculture and so we decided to dodge that pitfall. We make no attempt at rehabilitation—that’s the individual’s job. The purpose of the prison on Tolive is to isolate the violent criminal from peaceful citizens and to punish him by temporarily or permanently depriving him of his freedom. He has a choice of either solitary confinement or of being blocked and put to work on a farm.”
Dalt’s eyes were wide. “A work farm! This sounds like the Dark Ages!”
“It’s preferable to reconditioning him into a socially acceptable little robot, as is done on other, more ‘enlightened’ planets. We don’t believe in tampering with a man’s mind against his will; if he requests a mind block to make subjective time move more quickly, that’s his decision.”
“But work farms!”
“They have to help earn their keep some way. A blocked prisoner has almost no volition; consequently, the farm overhead is low. He’s put to work at simple agrarian tasks that are better done by machine, but this manages to defray some of the cost of housing and clothing him. When the block is finally removed—as is done once a year to give him the option of remaining blocked or returning to solitary—he is usually in better physical condition than when he started. However, there’s a piece of his life missing and he knows it … and he doesn’t soon forget. Of course, he may never request a block if he wishes to press his case before the court—but he spends his time in solitary, away from other criminals.”
“Seems awful harsh,” Dalt muttered with a slow shake of his head.
El shrugged. “They’re harsh men. They’ve used physical force or the threat of it to get what they want and we don’t take kindly to that on Tolive. We insist that all relationships be devoid of physical coercion. We are totally free and therefore totally responsible for our actions—and we hold each other very close to that responsibility. It’s in the Contract.”
“But who is this Contract with?”
(“It’s ‘whom,’ “) Pard interjected. Silence!
“Tolive,” El replied.
“You mean the Tolivian government?”
“No, the planet itself. We declared our planet a person, just as corporations were declared legal entities many centuries ago.”
“But why the planet?”
“For the sake of immutability. In brief: All humans of sound mind must sign the Contract within six months of their twentieth birthday—an arbitrary age; they can sign beforehand if they wish—or on their arrival on the planet. The Contract affirms the signer’s right to pursue his own goals without interference from the government or other individuals. In return for a sum not to exceed more than five per cent of his annual income, this right will be protected by the agents of the planet—the police, courts, et cetera. But if the signer should inject physical coercion or the threat of it into any relationship, he must submit to the customary punishment, which we’ve already discussed. The Contract cannot be changed by future generations, thus we safeguard human rights from the tamperings of the fools, do-gooders, and powermongers who have destroyed every free society that has ever dared to rear its head along the course of human history.”
Dalt paused. “It all sounds so noble, yet you make a dangerous drug like Zemmelar freely available and yon have stores that sell the most prurient, sick material I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s sold because there are people who want to buy it,” El replied with another shrug. “If a signer wants to pollute his body with chemicals in order to visit an artificial Nirvana, that’s his business. The drugs are available at competitive prices, so he doesn’t have to steal to feed his habit; and he either learns how to handle his craving or he takes a cure, or he winds up dead from an overdose. And as for prurience, I suppose you stopped in at Lin’s—he’s our local pornographer. All I’ll say about that is that I’m not for telling another individual how to enjoy himself … but didn’t you hunt up any other lit shops? There’s a big one on the square that sells nothing but classics: from The Republic to No Treason to The Rigrod Chronicles, from Aristotle to Hugo to Heinlein to Borjay. And down on BenTucker Drive is a shop specializing in new Tolivian works. But you never bothered to look for them.”
“The scene in the park cut short my window shopping,” Dalt replied tersely. They ate in silence for a moment and Pard took the opportunity to intrude.
(“What’re you thinking?”)
I’m thinking that I don’t know what to think.
(“Well, in the meantime, ask her about that tax.”)
Good ideal Dalt swallowed a mouthful and cleared his throat “How do you justify a tax in a voluntary society?”
“It’s in the Contract. A ceiling of five per cent was put on it because if a government spends much more than that, it’s doing more than it should.”
“But you don’t even have any government to speak of; how does it spend even that much?”
“Federation dues, mostly: We have no army so we have to depend on the Fed Patrol for protection from external threat. The rest of the expenses go to the police, judiciary, and so on. We’ve never reached five per cent by the way.”
“So it’s not a completely voluntary society, then,” Dalt stated.
“Signing the Contract is voluntary, and that’s what counts.” She ran her napkin across her mouth. “And now I’ve got to run. Finish your meal and take your time and think about what we’ve discussed. If you want to stay, Webst will probably be waiting back at the complex. And don’t worry about the bill… it’s on me today.” She leaned over, brushed her lips against his cheek, and was gone before Dalt could say a word.
(“Quite an exit,”) Pard said with admiration.
Quite a woman, Dalt replied, and went back to eating.
(“Still ready to take the first shuttle out of here?”)
I don’t know. Everything seems to fit together in some weirdly logical way.
(“Nothing weird about it at all. It works on the principle that humans will act responsibly if you hold them responsible for their actions. I find it rather interesting and want to spend some time here; and unless you want to start the fiercest argument of our partnership, you’ll agree.”)
Okay. We’ll stay.
(“No argument?”)
None. I want to get to know El a little—a lot!— better.
(“Glad to hear it.”)
And the funny thing is: the more time I spend with her, the less she reminds me of Jean.
(“That’s because she’s really nothing at all like Jean; she’s far more mature, far more intelligent. As a matter of fact, Ellen Lettre is one of the more fascinating things on this fascinating planet.”)
Dalt’s lack of response as he cleared his plate was tacit agreement. On the way out, his eye was caught by a golden seal on the door. It read: “Premises, kitchen, and food quality graded Class I by Nauch & Co., Inc.” The date of the most recent inspection was posted below.
(“I guess that’s the Tolivian equivalent of a department of public health,”) Pard said. (“Only this Nauch is probably a private company that works on a subscription basis. When you think about—”)
Pard paused as a ground car whined to a halt before the restaurant and Dr. Webst leaped out. He looked relieved at the sight of Dalt.
“Glad I found you,” he said as he approached. “I met Dr. Lettre back at the complex and asked her when you were coming back; she said she wasn’t sure if you were coming back at all.”
“That was a possibility.”
“Well, look, I don’t know what this is all about, but you must come back to the complex with me immediately.”
Dalt stiffened. “You’re not trying to make an order out of that, I hope.”
“No, of course not. It’s just that I’ve made some startling discoveries about you that may have great medical significance. I’ve doubled-checked everything.”
“What are you talking about?” Dalt had a sudden uneasy feeling.
Webst grabbed Dalt’s arm and guided him toward the car. “I’m babbling, I know, but I’ll explain everything on the way over to the complex.” He paused in mid-stride. “Then again, maybe it’s you who should do the explaining.”
“Me?” Dalt was genuinely puzzled.
“Yes. Just who or what are you, Mr. Dalt?”
VIII
“This is my psi pattern,” Webst said, pointing to an irregular red line undulating across the viewscreen in his office. “It shows the low level of activity found in the average human—nothing special about my psi abilities. Now, when we focus the detector on you, look what happens.” He touched a panel and two green lines appeared on the screen. The one at the lower end was very similar to Webst’s and occasionally superimposed itself on it at certain points.
“That’s what I expected from you: another normal pattern. And I got it… but what the hell is that?” He was pointing to the large, smoothly flowing sine-wave configuration in the upper part of the screen. “We have tried this out on thousands of individuals and I have never once seen a pattern that even vaguely approximates that, neither in configuration nor in amplitude.
“Whatever it is,” Webst continued as he blanked the screen, “it seems to like you, ‘cause it goes where you go. At first I thought it was a malfunction, that’s why I brought you over to Big Blue, where we have another model. But the same pattern appeared as soon as you walked into the building—and disappeared as soon as you left. So, what have you got to say for yourself, Mr. Dalt?”
Dalt shrugged with convincing bafflement. “I really don’t know what to say.” Which was true. His mind raced in an attempt to give Webst, obviously an expert in psionics, a plausible but fictitious explanation. The machine in question was a fairly recent development of IMC research—it detected levels of psionic capacity, even in the nascent stage, and was planned for interplanetary marketing to the psi schools which were springing up on every planet. The current thrust of Webst’s research was in the field of psionics and psychotherapy, so he took the liberty of screening for psi ability everyone who entered his office. He felt he had hit pay dirt with Dalt.
“You mean to say that you’ve never had any inkling of psi ability?” Webst asked. Dalt shook his head. “Well then, are there any blank spots in your memory … do you ever find yourself somewhere and can’t recall how you got there?”
“What are you driving at?”
“I’m looking for a dissociative reaction or a second personality—something, anything, to explain that second level of activity. I don’t want to alarm you,” he said gently, “but you’re only allowed one: one mind, one psi level. The only conclusion I can draw is that you either have two minds or the most unusual single mind in the galaxy.”
(“He was right the first time.”)
I know, but what do we do?
(“Play dumb, of course. We wanted to get out of microbiology and into psych—this may be our chance.”)
Dalt mulled this over. Finally, “This is all very interesting, Dr. Webst, but quite meaningless as far as my professional life is concerned.” That should put the conversation on the track we want.
“That’s what I’d like to discuss with you,” Webst replied. “If I can get a release from Dr. Hyne, would you be interested in spending some time with my department assisting us with some experiments?”
“Just what kind of experiments?”
Webst came around his desk to stand before Dalt. “I’ve been trying to find a use for psionics in psychotherapy. We are daily trying to probe the minds of these so-called horrors cases in an effort to find out why they don’t respond to conventional therapy. I have no doubt that it’s the path of the future—all we need is the right technology and the right psi talents.
“Remember Sally Ragna? The girl who hides in the corner and no known psychotherapy can reach? That’s the kind of patient I’m after. We’ve developed an instrument to magnify psi powers, and right now a man with one per cent of your aptitude is trying to get a look inside her mind.” Webst suddenly stiffened and his eyes burned into Dalt. “Right now! Would you come over to Big Blue right now and give it a try? All I want you to do is take a quick look—just go in and out, no more!”
(“This is our chance,”) Pard urged. (“Take it!”) He was obviously anxious to give it a try.
“All right,” said Dalt, who had a few reservations lurking in the back of his mind. “Might as well give it a try and see if anything at all can be done.”
In Big Blue they seated him before Sally Ragna, who wasn’t cringing now, due to heavy sedation. The psi booster Webst had mentioned, a gleaming silver disk, was slung above them.
This is a waste of time, Dalt told Pard.
(“I don’t think so. I’ve learned one thing, anyway: That machine of Webst’s isn’t worth a damn—I’m not getting a bit of boost from it: But I don’t think I’ll need it. I’ve made a few probes using the same technique I played with on the liner and I’m meeting with very little resistance. I’m sure I can get in. One thing, though … I’m going to have to take you with me.”) I don’t know if I like that.
