The Blue Marble Gambit (27 page)

Before
I could pursue this fascinating conversational thread, the Chief Justice
nodded, thricely, and spoke. "Very Well. Since you
are willing to stake your life, I will allow the Analysis. Bailiff, on my order, please dispatch the
human immediately, by any means you prefer."

The
Boffs and Etzans cheered politely. Any primate death was a good one.

The Bailiff, a large saurian with a mouthful of railroad spikes,
smiled ferociously as he shuffled behind me.
That made his preferred means painfully
clear.

"Ned!"
I screamed inside my head. "What have we done?"

Ned
appeared, now a professor, all in tweed. "You did it, actually. You see
,
the only way to get the Judge to
consider our position was for you to back it up with your life. You know that Orlyxes love to gamble;
this makes it more interesting for him. That's what Urtok means-"

"Ned! You- "

"Now
now. The measure was adopted to
prevent empty posturing by lawyers. Apparently, more advanced civilizations tend to become ever more
besotted with lawyers, until everybody is so busy suing everybody that nothing
else can be done. Several major
civilizations sank away under the weight of it all. Urtok has effectively curbed this,
although there is some dispute whether this is because it has made lawyers
behave, or simply weeded out the troublesome ones. But you - we - have nothing to worry
about, if you did everything right."

I
could smell unwashed lizard behind me. Maybe it was washed lizard, but it smelled unwashed. "If. If.
If there are no contaminants.
If the analysis works.
If. I don't like that word in this context, Ned!" I called him a few names, and asked if
he couldn't have come up with something else.

"Probably,"
he said. "But this was the
surest bet."

"Clerk,"
the Judge was ordering, "proceed with the Analysis!"

"Most
Honorous One," said the Etzan, "I protest! I-"

"You
are willing also to invoke Urtok?"

"Er,
no," the Etzan immediately replied.

"The
Analysis shall proceed."

A
slimy tendril of the Clerk fed the canister into a wide slot in the base of the
Chief Judge's bench. Inside, Ned
explained, lay a sophisticated computer that would perform an
atom by atom
analysis of the Sacred Clod within. It had to match the claimed planet for
the claim to be valid.

It
was over in seconds, which Ned said was an unusually long time. The results appeared on the screen before
the Judge. Mandibles chittered on
first one, then another, then all three heads. Then the heads themselves began to bob
up and down, like mutant mobile apples.

"Most
irregular," muttered all the heads, slightly out of phase, so they sounded
like echoes. The first head, then
the second, and in turn the third looked up, in a rather disquieting ripple of
xenobiology.

The
Etzan looked calmly bored. I wiped
sweat from my forehead. The Bailiff
crept closer behind me; I could feel hot lizard
breath
on my neck. I hope he bites you
first, Ned, I subvocalized.

"Error!"
thundered all the Chief Judge's heads, in perfect three-part harmony. "The offered Sacred Clod is not of
Earth! Claim of Etz denied! Ownership remains with the
primates!"

The
Etzan was on his feet, arms thrashing. "Impossible! We demand
Re-Analysis! The vid proves our
claim!"

All
the Judge's heads shook. "Denied. The Clod is
not of Earth!"

In
the Boff bleachers, as I now thought of them, tentacles were flapping. This looked oddly similar to the Etzan
area, where thousands of arms were angrily waving.

The
Etzan lawyer was objecting. "It is so! The
vid! The canister! All is in
order!
"

All
three Orlyx heads turned on the Etzan. "The Clod is not of Earth! The Clod has been identified!"

Uh
oh, I thought.

"If
not Earth, then where is it from?" the Etzan asked, barely able to keep a
respectful tone.

"The
Clod," the Judge replied, "is in fact from Boff."

A
huge asparagus in the gallery leapt to its thousand finger-feet. Not much of a leap, really, but
impressive in its own way. The Boff
screamed into a translator pickup. "Impossible. No Etzans
have ever defiled Boff with their presence!"

Two
of the Chief Judge's heads turned dispassionately towards the Boff. "Nevertheless, here it is, and
there you are," the Judge intoned solemnly. This was one of the sacred legal maxims
of the Galactic Court. The Judge
raised a gavel and slammed it down with a chitinous crack.

"Case
dismissed!"

"Not
so fast," said the oily Etzan, quieting his followers with four raised
arms. "We wish to maintain the
action. With one amendment: we now
wish to claim Boff."

"Impossible,"
screamed the Boff, the razor scythes flicking out, fully extended.

"Hardly,"
countered the Etzan. "The time
code on the canister is undisputed, correct,
Your
Most
Truly Magnificent Honor?"

"Correct,"
the Judge agreed.

"And
of course all that is legally required for a claim is a valid sample, proof of
a visit, and proof that no sentients existed there at the time of the
claim. It is also undisputed that
the Boffs, though close, had not yet achieved space flight and so were not
sentient at the date on the canister. Correct?"

"Correct,"
the Judge agreed in a muffled tone. His tone was muffled because all around him an armored shelter was
erecting. Tiny slits, closed with
clearsteel, remained for him to peer through.

The
Etzan continued. "Ten thousand
years ago, the Boffs had not claimed their own planet. They could not, for they had not yet
developed the ability to leave it."

This
sank in.

"Interessssting,"
mused the Chief Judge in three overlapping voices.

"Infidel!"
screamed the Boff, suddenly charging, moving faster than any vegetable has a
right to. "Die,
scum!" Yellow-white blades
flicked and snicked; a mass of other Boffs followed close behind. The Etzan contingent began scrambling
madly for the oddly rounded tools on their bony hips.

I
grabbed Trina and ran for the door. We dove into the outer chamber as the first thumps and alien screams
started to sound.

"I
think we did it," Trina panted.

"I
think so too," I agreed. A
loud blast shook the floor.

"What
now?" A window exploded
outward.

I
smiled an evil grin. "Well, I
was on my way to Eros when all this happened."

She
acted shocked. "Eros? The Planet of Sin?" The
whine of energy
weapons interrupted wet chopping sounds, and were
in turn interrupted by
more wet chopping sounds. A few
screams nicely seasoned the grisly auditory buffet.

"That's
the one. Non-stop, twenty-nine
hours a day."

"I've
never been there."

The
Admiral tumbled into the dust, helped along by another blast from within the
Court. There were more pleasantly
shrill alien screams.

"It's never too late," I gallantly
suggested to Trina.

Her
eyes said no
no,
but her lips said, "Yes
yes."

The
Admiral slowly rose to his feet, brushing himself off. He looked from one of us to the other,
and back again. More thumps and
screams and roars and chops and blasts sounded from the courtroom.

"Say
it," I said.

He
smiled. The diamond tooth
glittered.

"Say
it," I warned, advancing. My
musky scent preceded me, I knew. I
fanned my leopard cloak to help it along.

Admiral
Uncle backed away. Trina began to
circle around him.

He
looked at her. "Et tu,
Trina?"

"Et
me," she agreed.

"Oh,
alright. Court ... Dismissed."

"Thank
you."

I
held out my arm and Trina took it. There was no sunset to walk into and so we settled for a slightly dimmer
patch of the ship's lights. A
bulkhead in front of us blew and three Etzans, an Orlyx, and two Boffs landed
in a fighting mess, wrapped in such a tangle that the scene looked like a
surrealist painting painted by a surrealist painting.

It seemed like the right thing to do, so we
ran.

--The End --