 Circus. This is a LibriVox recording, or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Daniele. Circus by Alan Edwin North. Just suppose, said Morgan, that I did believe you, just for argument. He glanced up at the man across the restaurant table. Where would we go from here? The man shifted uneasily in his seat. He was silent, staring down at his plate. Not a strange-looking man, Morgan thought. Right there, ordinary, in fact. A plain face, nose, a little too long, fingers a little too dainty. A suit that doesn't quite seem to fit, but all in all, a perfectly ordinary-looking man. Maybe too ordinary, Morgan thought. Finally, the man looked up. His eyes were dark, with a haunted look in their depths that chilled Morgan a little. Where do we go? I don't know. I tried to think it out, and I get nowhere. But you've got to believe me, Morgan. I'm lost, I'm in it. If I can't get help, I don't know where it's going to end. I'll tell you where it's going to end, said Morgan. It's going to end in a hospital. A mental hospital? They'll lock you up and they'll lose the key somewhere. He pulled himself another cup of coffee and siped it, scalding hot. And that, he harded. We beat that. The place was dark and almost empty. Overhead, a rotary fan switched patiently. The man, across from Morgan, ran a hand through his dark hair. There must be some other way, he said. There has to be. Alright, let's start from the beginning again, Morgan said. Maybe we can pin something down a little better. You say your name is Parks, right? The man nodded. Jefferson held man Parks, if that helps any. Held man was my mother's maiden name. Alright, and you got into town on Friday, right? Parks nodded. Fine, now go through the whole story again. What happened first? The man thought for a minute. As I said, first there was a fall, about 20 feet. I didn't break any bones, but I was shaken up and limping. The fall was near the highway going to the George Washington Bridge. I got over to the highway and tried to flag down a ride. How did you feel? I mean, was there anything strange that you noticed? Strange, Parks eyed widened. I was speechless. At first I hadn't noticed too much. I was concerned with the fall, and whether I was hurt or not. I didn't really think about much else until I hobbled up to the highway and saw those cars coming. Then, I could hardly believe my eyes. I thought I was crazy. But a car stopped and asked me if I was going into the city, and I knew I wasn't crazy. Bongan's mouth took a grim line. You understood the language? Oh yes, I don't see how I could have, but I did. We talked all the way into New York, nothing very important, but we understood each other. His pitch had an odd sound, but... Bongan nodded. I know, I noticed. What did you do when you got to New York? Well, obviously, I needed money, I had gold coin, there had been no way of knowing if it would be useful, but I'd taken it on chance. I tried to use it at the newsstand first, and the man wouldn't touch it. Asked me if I thought I was in a US treasury or something. When he saw that I was serious, he sent me to a moneylender, a hawk shop I think he called it. So, I found a place. Let me see the coins. Parks dropped two small gold discs on the table. They were perfectly smooth and perfectly round, tapered by wear to a thin, blunt edge. There was no design on them and no printing. Bongan looked up at the man sharply. What did you get for these? Parks shrugged. Too little, I suspect, $2 for the small one, 5 for the larger. You should have gone to a bank. I know that now, I didn't then. Naturally, I assume that with everything else so similar, principles of business would also be similar. Bongan sighed and leaned back in his chair. Well, then what? Parks poured some more coffee. His face was very pale, Bongan thought, and his hands trembled as he raised the cup to his lips. Fright? Maybe, hard to tell. The man put down the cup and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. First, I went to the mayor's office. He said, I kept trying to think what anyone at home would do in my place. That seemed a good bet. I asked a policeman where it was, and then I went there. But you didn't get to see him. No, I saw a secretary. She said the mayor's was in conference, and that I would have to have an appointment. She let me speak to another man, one of the mayor's assistants. And you told him? No, I wanted to see the mayor's himself. I thought that was the best thing to do. I waited for a couple of hours until another assistant came along and told me flatly that the mayor's wouldn't see me unless I stated my business first. He drew in a deep breath. So I stated it, and then I was gently but firmly ushered back into the suite again. They didn't believe you, said Morgan. Not for a minute, they laughed in my face. Morgan nodded. I'm beginning to get the pattern. So what did you do next? Next I tried the police. I got the same treatment there, and only they weren't so gentle. They wouldn't listen either. They muttered something about cranks and their crazy notions, and when they asked me where I lived, they thought I was, what did I call it, a wise guy, told me to get out and not come back with any more wild stories. I see, said Morgan. Jefferson Parks finished his last bite of pie and pushed the plate away. By then I didn't know quite what to do. I've been prepared for almost anything excepting this. It was frightening. I tried to rationalize it, and then I quit trying. It wasn't that I attracted attention, or anything like that, quite the contrary. Nobody even looked at me, unless I said something to them. I began to look for things that were different, things that I could show them, and say, see, this proves that I'm telling the truth. Look at it. He looked up helplessly. And what did you find? Nothing. Oh, little things, insignificant little things, your calendars for instance. And naturally, I couldn't understand your frame of reference, and the coinage, your stamp, your coins, we don't. And cigarettes, we don't have any such thing as tobacco. The man gave a short laugh. And your house dogs, we have little animals that look more like rabbits than poodles. But there was nothing any more significant than that. Nothing. Except yourself, Morgan said. Ah yes, I thought that over carefully. I looked for differences, obvious ones. I couldn't find any. You can see that just looking at me. So I searched for more subtle things, skin texture, fingerprints, bone structure, body proportion. I still couldn't find anything. Then I went to a doctor. Morgan's eyebrows lifted. Good, he said. Parks shrugged, tiredly. Not really. He examined me. He practically took me apart. I carefully refrained from saying anything about who I was or where I came from. Parks said I wanted a complete physical examination and let him go to it. He was thorough. And when he finished, he patted me on the back and said, Parks, you've got nothing to worry about. You're as fine, strapping as peacemen of a healthy human being as I've ever seen. And that was that. Parks laughed bitterly. I guess I was supposed to be happy with the verdict, and instead I was ready to knock him down. It was idiotic. It defied reason. It was infuriating. Morgan nodded sourly. Because you're not a human being, he said. That's right. I'm not a human being at all. How did it happen to pick this planet or this sun? Morgan asked curiously. There must have been a million others to choose from. Parks unbuttoned his collar and rubbed his double chin unhappily. I didn't make the choice. Neither did anyone else. Travel by warp is a little different from the travel by the rocket fiction writers make so much of. With a rocket vehicle, you pick your destination, make your calculations and off you go. The warp is blind flying, strictly blind. We send an unmanned scanner ahead. It probes around more or less hit or miss until it locates something, somewhere that looks habitable. When it spots a likely looking place, we keep a tight beam on it and send it through a manned scout. He grins sourly. Like me. If it looks good to the scout, he signals back and I leave the warp anchored for a sort of permanent gateway until we can get a transport beam built. But we can't control the directional and dimensional scope of the warp. There are an infinity of ways it can go until we have a guide beam transmitting from the other side. Then we can just scan a segment of space with the warp and the scanner picks up the beam. He shook his head, weirdly. Well knew at it Morgan, we have only tried a few dozen runs, we are not too far ahead of you in technology. We have been using rocket vehicles just like yours for over a century. That's fine for a solar system, but it's not much good for the stars. When the warp principle was discovered, it looked like the answer, but something went wrong. The scanner picked up this planet and I was coming through, and then something blew. Next thing I knew I was falling. When I tried to make contact again, the scanner was gone. And you found things here the same as back home, said Morgan. The same. Your planet and mine are practically twins. Similar cities, similar technology, everything. The people are the same, with precisely the same anatomy and physiology, the same sort of laws, the same institutions, even compatible languages. Can't you see the importance of it? This planet is on the other side of the universe from mine, with the first intelligent life we have yet encountered anywhere. But when I try to tell your people that I am a native of another star system, they won't believe me. Why should they? Asked Morgan. You looked like a human being. You talk like one. You eat like one. You act like one. What you're asking them to believe is utterly incredible. But it's through. Morgan shrugged. So it's through. I won't argue with you, but as I asked before, even if I did believe you, what do you expect me to do about it? Why pick me? Of all the people you have seen? There was a desperate light in Park's eyes. I was tired, tired of being laughed at, tired of having people looking at me as though I'd lost my wits when I tried to tell them the truth. You were here, you were alone, so I started talking, and then I found out you wrote stories. He looked up eagerly. I've got to get back Morgan somehow. My life is there, my family, and think what it would mean to both of our worlds. That with another intelligent race, combine our knowledge, our technologies, and we could explore the galaxy. He leaned forward, his thin face intense. I need money, and I need help. I know some of the mathematics of the warp principle, know some of the design, some of the power, and wiring principles. You have engineers here, technologists, physicists, they could fill in what I don't know and build a guide beam. But they won't do it if they don't believe me. Your government won't listen to me, they won't appropriate any money. Of course they won't. They've got a war or two in their hands, they have public welfare and atomic bombs and rockets to the moon to sink their money into. Morgan stared at the man. But what can I do? You can write, that's what you can do. You can tell the world about me, you can tell exactly what has happened. I know how public interest can be aroused in my world, it must be the same in yours. Morgan didn't move. He just stared. How many people have you talked to? He asked. A dozen, a hundred, maybe a thousand. And how many believed you? None. You mean nobody would believe you? Not one so, until I talked to you. And then Morgan was laughing, laughing bitterly, tears rolling down his cheeks. And I'm the one man who couldn't help you if my life depended on it. He gasped. You believe me? Morgan nodded sadly. I believe you, yes. I think your warp brought you through to a parallel universe of your own planet, not to another star, but I think you're telling the truth. Then you can help me. I'm afraid not. Why not? Because I'd be worse than no help at all. Jefferson Parks gripped the table, his knuckles white. Why? He cried hoarsely. If you believe me, why can't you help me? Morgan pointed to the magazine lying on the table. I write, yes, he said sadly. Ever read stories like this before? Parks picked up the magazine, glanced at the bright cover. I barely looked at it. You should look more closely. I have a story in this issue. The readers thought it was very interesting. Morgan grinned. Go ahead, look at it. The stranger from the stars leafed through the magazine, stopped at the page that carried Roger's Morgan's name. His eyes caught the first paragraph and he turned white. He set the magazine down with a trembling hand. I see, he said, and the life was gone out of his voice. He spread the pages viciously, read the lines again. The paragraph said, just suppose, said Martin, that I did believe you, just for argument. He glanced up at the man across the table. Where do we go from here? End of Circus by Alan Edward Norse, recording by Daniele, October 2008. The coffin cure by Alan Edward Norse. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by James Christopher, JxChristopheratYahoo.com. The Coffin Cure by Alan Edward Norse. When the discovery was announced, it was Dr. Chauncey Patrick Coffin who announced it. He had, of course, arranged with uncanny skill to take most of the credit for himself. If it turned out to be greater than he had hoped, so much the better. His presentation was scheduled for the last night of the American College of Clinical Practitioners annual meeting, and Coffin had fully intended it to be a bombshell. It was. Its explosion exceeded even Dr. Coffin's wilder expectations, which took quite a bit of doing. In the end, he had waded through more newspaper reporters than medical doctors as he left the hall that night. It was a heady evening for Chauncey Patrick Coffin, MD. Certain others were not so delighted with Coffin's bombshell. It's idiocy, young Dr. Philip Dawson wailed in the laboratory conference room the next morning. Blind, screaming, idiocy. You've gone out of your mind, that's all there is to it. Can't you see what you've done? Aside from selling your colleagues down the river, that is? He clenched the reprint of Coffin's address in his hand and brandished it like a broadsword. Report on a vaccine for the treatment and cure of the common cold by C.P. Coffin et al. That's what it says, et al. My idea in the first place. Jack and I both pounding our heads on the wall for eight solid months, and now you sneaking into publication a full year before we have any business publishing a word about it. Really, Philip, Dr. Chauncey Coffin ran a pudgy hand through his snowy hair. How ungrateful! I thought for sure you'd be delighted. An excellent presentation, I must say. Terse, succinct, unequivocal. He raised his hand. But generously unequivocal, you understand. You should have heard the ovation. They nearly went wild. In the look on Underwood's face, worth waiting twenty years for. And the reporters, snapped Philip, don't forget the reporters. He whirled on a small dark man sitting quietly in the corner. How about that, Jake? Did you see the morning papers? This thief not only steals our work, he splashes it all over the countryside in red ink. Dr. Jacob Miles coughed apologetically. What Philip diso stormed up about is the prematurity of it all, he said to Coffin. After all, we've hardly had an acceptable period of clinical trial. Nonsense, said Coffin-Glarey and Philip. Underwood and his men were ready to publish their discovery within another six weeks. Where would we be then? How much clinical testing do you want? Philip, you had the worst cold of your life when you took the vaccine. Have you had any sense? No, of course not, said Philip, previously. Jacob, how about you? Any sniffles? Oh, no. No colds. Well, what about those six hundred students from the university? Did I misread the reports on them? No, ninety-eight percent cured of active symptoms within twenty-four hours. Not a single recurrence. The results were just short of miraculous. Jake hesitated. Of course. It's only been a month. Month, year, century, look at them. Six hundred of the world's most luxuriant colds, and now not even a sniffle. The chubby doctor sank down behind his desk, his ready-faced beaming. Come now, gentlemen. Be reasonable. Think positively. There's work to be done. A great deal of work. There'll be one thing me in Washington, I imagine. Press conference in twenty minutes. Drug houses to consult with. How dare we stand in the path of progress? We've won the greatest medical triumph of all times. The conquering of the common cold will go down in history. And he was perfectly right on one point, at least. They did go down in history. The public response to the vaccine was little less than monumental. Of all the ailments at a torment in mankind through history and none was ever more universal, more tenacious, more uniformly miserable than the common cold, it was a respecter of no barriers, boundaries or classes. Ambassadors and chambermaids sniffled and sneeze in drippy nose unanimity. The powers in the Kremlin sniffed and blew in web genuine tears on drafty days, while senatorial debates on earth-shaking issues paused reverently upon the unplugging of a nose, the clearing of a rhinoretic throat. Other illnesses brought disability, even death in their wake. The common cold merely brought torment to the millions as it implacably resisted the most superhuman of efforts to curb it. Until that chill rainy November day when the tidings broke to the world in four-inch banner headlines, coffin nails lid on common cold. No more coffin, states co-finder of cure. All sniked, single shot to save sneezers. In medical circles it was called the coffin multi-centric upper respiratory virus inhibiting vaccine, but the papers could never stand for such high-stounding names, and called it simply the coffin cure. Below the banner heads, world-renowned feature writers expounded in reverent terms the story of the Leviathan struggle of Dr. Chauncey Patrick Coffin, et al., in solving this riddle of the ages, how, after years of failure they ultimately succeeded in culturing the causative agent of the common cold, identifying it not as a single virus or group of viruses, but as a multi-centric virus complex invading the soft mucus linings of the nose, throat, and eyes, capable of altering its basic molecular structure at any time to resist efforts of the body from within, or the physician from without to attack and dispel it. How the hypothesis was set forth by Dr. Philip Dawson that the virus could be destroyed only by an antibody which could freeze the virus complex in one form long enough for normal body defenses to dispose of the offending invader, the exhausting search for such a crippling agent, and the final crowning success after injecting untold gallons of cold virus material into the hides of a group of cooperative and forbearing dogs, a species which never suffered from colds and hints endured the whole business with an air of affection at boredom. And finally, the testing. First Coffin himself, who was suffering a particularly horrendous case of the affliction he sought to cure. His assistants Philip Dawson and Jacob Miles, then a multitude of students from the university, carefully chosen for the severity of their symptoms, the longevity of their colds, their tendency to acquire them on little or no provocation, and their utter inability to get rid of them with any known medical program. They were a sorry spectacle, those students filing through the Coffin laboratory for three days in October, wheezing like steam shovels, snorting and sneezing and sniffling and blowing, coughing and squeaking, mute appeals glowing in their bloodshot eyes. The researchers dispensed the materials, a single shot in the right arm, a sensitivity control in the left. With growing delight they watched as the results came in, the sneezing stopped, the sniffling ceased. A great silence settled over the campus, in the classrooms and the library, in classic halls. Dr. Coffin's voice returned, rather to the regret of his fellow workers, and he began bouncing about the laboratory like a small boy at a fair. Students by the dozen tromped in for check-ups with noses dry and eyes bright. In a matter of days there was no doubt left that the goal had been reached. But we have to be sure, Philip Dawson had cried cautiously. This was only a pilot test. We need mass testing now on an entire community. We should go to the West Coast and run studies there. They have a different breed of cold out there I hear. We'll have to see how long the immunity lasts. Make sure there are no unexpected side-effects. And muttering to himself, he failed to work with pad and pencil, calculating the program to be undertaken before publication. But there were rumors, under what it's Stanford, they said, had already completed his test and was preparing a paper for publication in a matter of months. Surely with such dramatic results on the pilot test something could be put into print. It would be tragic to lose the race for the sake of a little unnecessary caution. Peter Dawson was adamant, but he was a voice crying in the wilderness. Only Patrick Coffin was boss. Within a week even Coffin was wondering if he had bitten off just a trifle too much. They had expected that demand for the vaccine would be great. But even the grisly memory of early days of the Salk vaccine had not prepared them for the mobs of sneezing, wheezing, red-eyed people, bombarding them for the first fruits. Clear-eyed young men from the Government Bureau pushed through crowds of local townspeople lining the streets outside the Coffin Laboratory, standing in pouring rain to raise insistent placards. Seventeen pharmaceutical houses descended like vultures with production plans, cost estimates, colorful graphs demonstrating proposed yield and distribution programs. Coffin was flown to Washington, where conferences labored far into the night as demands pounded their doors like a tidal wave. One laboratory promised the vaccine in ten days, another set a week. The first actually appeared in three weeks in two days. To be soaked up in the space of three hours by the thirsty sponge of cold-weary humanity. Express planes were dispatched to Europe, Asia to Africa, with the precious cargo. A million needles pierced a million hides, and with a huge convulsive sneeze mankind stepped forth into a new era. There were abstainers, of course. There always are. It doesn't make any difference how much you talk, Eddie Dawson cried hoarsely, shaking her blonde curls. I don't want any cold shots. You're being totally unreasonable, Philip said, glowering at his wife in annoyance. She wasn't the sweet young thing he had married, not this evening. Her eyes were puffy, her nose red and dripping. You've had this cold for two solid months now and there just isn't any sense to it. It's making you miserable. You can't eat. You can't breathe. You can't sleep. I don't want any cold shots, she repeated stubbornly. But why not? Just one little needle. You'd hardly feel it. But I don't like needles, she cried bursting into tears. Why don't you leave me alone? Go take your dusty old needles and stick them into people who want them. Oh, Ellie. I don't care. I don't like needles, she wailed, burying her face in his shirt. He held her close, making comforting little noises. It was no use, he reflected, sadly. Science just wasn't Ellie's long suit. She didn't know a cold vaccine from a case of smallpox, and no appeal to logical common sense could surmount her irrational fear of hypodermics. All right. Nobody's going to make you do anything you don't want to do, he said. And, anyway, think of the poor tissue manufacturers, she sniffled, wiping her nose with a pink facial tissue. All their little children starving to death. Say, you have got a cold, said Philip Sniffing. You've got on enough perfume to fell on ox. He wiped away tears and grinned at her. Come on now, fix your face. Dinner at the Driftwood? I hear they have marvelous lamb chops. It was a mellow evening. The lamb chops were delectable. The tastiest lamb chops he had ever eaten, he thought, even being blessed with as good a cook as Ellie for a spouse. He dripped in blue continuously, but refused to go home until they had taken in a movie and stopped by to dance awhile. I hardly ever get to see you any more, she said. Oh, because of that dusty bed-a-sign you're giving people. It was true, of course, the work at the lab was endless. They danced, but came home early nevertheless. Philip needed all the sleep he could get. He woke once during the night to a parade of sneezes from his wife, and rolled over frowning sleepily to himself. It was ignominious in a way, his own wife refusing the fruit of all those months of work. And cold or no cold, she surely was using a wail of a lot of perfume. He awoke suddenly, began to stretch, and set bolt upright in bed, staring wildly about the room. Pale morning sunlight drifted in the window. Downstairs he heard Ellie stirring in the kitchen. For a moment he thought he was suffocating. He leaped out of bed, stared at the vanity table across the room. Somebody spilled the whole damn bottle. The heavy, sick, sweet miasma hung like a cloud around him, drenching the room. With every breath it grew thicker. He searched the table top frantically, but there were no empty bottles. His head began to spin from the sickening nephalbium. He blinked in confusion, his hand trembling as he lit a cigarette. No need to panic, he thought. She probably knocked the bottle over when she was dressing. He took a deep puff and burst into a proxism of coughing as acrid fumes burned down his throat to his lungs. Ellie! He rushed into the hall, still coughing. The match-smell had given way to the harsh cost-extensive burning weeds. He stared at a cigarette in horror and threw it into the sink. The smell grew worse. He threw up in the hall closet, expecting smoke to come billowing out. Ellie! Somebody's burning down the house. Whatever are you talking about, Ellie's voice came from the stairwell. It's just the toast I burned, silly. He rushed down the stairs two at a time, and nearly gagged as he reached the bottom. The smell of hot, rancid grease struck him like a solid wall. It was intermingled with an oily smell of boiled and parboiled coffee, overpowering in its intensity. By the time he reached the kitchen he was holding his nose, tears pouring from his eyes. Ellie! What are you doing in here? She stared at him. I'm baking breakfast. But don't you smell it? Smell what? said Ellie. On the stove the automatic percolator was making small, promising noises. In the frying pan four sunny-side eggs were sizzling. Half a dozen strips of bacon drained on a paper towel on the sideboard. It couldn't have looked more innocent. Cautiously Philip released his nose, sniffed. The stench nearly choked him. Do you mean you don't smell anything strange? I didn't smell anything, period, said Ellie defensively. The coffee, the bacon. Come here a minute. She reaped of bacon, of coffee, of burnt toast, but mostly of perfume. Did you put on any fresh perfume this morning? Before breakfast? Don't be ridiculous. Not even a drop, Philip was turning very white. Not a drop. He shook his head. Now wait a minute. This must all be in my mind. I'm just imagining things, that's all. Working too hard, hysterical reaction. In a minute it'll all go away. He poured a cup of coffee, added cream and sugar. But he couldn't get it close enough to taste it. It smelled as if it had been boiling three weeks in a rancid pot. It was a smell of coffee, all right, but a smell that was fiendishly distorted, overpoweringly, nauseatingly magnified. It pervaded the room and burned his throat and brought tears gushing to his eyes. Slowly, realization began to dawn. He spilled the coffee as he set the cup down. The perfume, the coffee, the cigarette. My hat, he choked, get me my hat. I've got to get to the laboratory. It got worse all the way downtown. He fought down ways of nausea as a smell of damp running earth rose from his front yard in a gray cloud. The neighbor's dog dashed out to greet him, exuding the great grandfather of all doggy odors. As Philip waited for the bus, every passing car fell the air with noxious fumes gagging him, doubling him up with coughing as he dabbed his streaming eyes. Nobody else seemed to notice anything wrong at all. The bus ride was a nightmare. It was a damp rainy day. The inside of the bus smelled like the men's locker room after a big game. A bleary-eyed man with a three-day stubble on his chin flopped down on the seat next to him. And Philip reeled back with a jolt to the job he had held in his student days, cleaning vats in the brewery. It's a great morning, bleary eyes breathed at him. Huh, Doc? He blanched. To top it, the man had had a breakfast of salami. In the seat ahead, a fat man held a dead cigar clamped in his mouth like a rank growth. Philip's stomach began rolling. He sank his face into his hand, trying unobtrusively to clamp his nostrils. With a groan of deliverance he lurched off the bus at the laboratory gate. He met Jake Miles coming up the steps. Jake looked pale. Too pale. Morning, Philip said weakly. Nice day. Looks like the sun might come through. Yeah, said Jake. Nice day. You, uh, feel all right this morning? Fine, fine. Philip tossed his head in the closet, opened the incubator in his culture tubes trying to look busy. He slammed the door after one whiff and gripped the edge of the work table with white knuckles. Why? Oh, nothing. Thought you looked a little peeked was all. They stared at each other in silence. Then, as though by signal, their eyes turned to the office at the end of the lab. Coughing coming yet? Jake nodded. He's in there. He's got the door locked. I think he's going to have to open it, said Philip. A gray-faced doctor Coughing unlocked the door, backed quickly towards the wall. The room reeked of kitchen deodorant. Stay right where you are, Coughing's sweet. Don't come a step closer. I can't see you now. I'm busy. I've got work that has to be done. You're telling me, growled Philip. He motioned Jake into the office and locked the door carefully. Then he turned to Coughing. When did it start for you? Coughing was trembling. Right after supper last night. I thought I was going to suffocate. Got up and walked the streets all night. My God, what a stench! Jake? Dr. Miles shook his head. Sometime this morning. I don't know when. I woke up with it. That's when it hit me, said Philip. But I don't understand, Coughing howled. Nobody else seems to notice anything. Yet, said Philip, we were the first three to take the coffin cure, remember? You, me, and Jake, two months ago. His forehead was beaded with sweat. He stared at the two men in growing horror. But what about the others? He whispered. I think, said Philip, that we'd better find something spectacular to do in a mighty big hurry. That's what I think. Jake Miles said, the most important thing right now is security. We mustn't let a word get out, not until we're absolutely certain. But what's happened? Coughing cried. Those foul smells everywhere. You, Philip, you had a cigarette this morning. I could smell it clear over here, and it's bringing tears to my eyes. And if I didn't know better, I'd swear neither of you would have had a bath in a week. Every odor in town has suddenly turned foul. Magnified, you mean, said Jake. Perfume still smells sweet. There's just too much of it. The same with cinnamon. I tried it. Cried for half an hour. But it still smelled like cinnamon. No, I don't think the smells have changed any. But what then? Our noses have changed, obviously. It paced the floor in excitement. Look at our dogs. They've never had colds, and they practically live by their noses. Other animals, all dependent on their sense of smell for survival. And none of them ever have anything even vaguely reminiscent of a common cold. The multi-centric virus, it's primates only. And it reaches its fullest parasitic powers in man alone. Coughing shook his head miserably. But why this awful stench all of a sudden? I haven't had a cold in weeks. Of course not. That's just what I'm trying to say, Jake cried. Look, why do we have any sense of smell at all? Because we have tiny olfactory nerve endings buried in the mucous membrane of our noses and throats. But we have always had the virus living there, too. Colds or no-colds throughout our entire lifetime. It's always been there, anchored in the same cells, parasitizing the same sensitive tissues that carry out olfactory nerve endings, numbing them and crippling them, making them practically useless as sensory organs. No wonder we never smelled anything before. Those poor little nerve endings never had a chance. Until we came along in our shining armor and destroyed the virus, said Philip. Oh, we didn't destroy it. We merely stripped it of every slippery protective mechanism against normal body defensive. Jake perched on the edge of a desk, his dark face intense. These two months since we had our shots have witnessed a battle to the death between our bodies and the virus. With the help of the vaccine, our bodies have won, that's all. Stripped away the last vestiges of an invader that has been almost a part of our normal physiology since the beginning of time. And now, for the first time, those cripple little nerve endings are just beginning to function. God, help us, coffin-grown. You think it'll get worse? And worse? And still worse, said Jake. I wonder, said Philip slowly, what the anthropologist will say. What do you mean? Maybe it was just a single mutation somewhere back there. Just a tiny change of self-structure and metabolism that left one line of primates vulnerable to an invader no other would harbor. Where else would man have begun to flower and blossom intellectually, grow to depend so much on his brain instead of his brawn that he could rise above all others? What better reason than because somewhere along the line in the world of fang and claw he suddenly lost his sense of smell? They stared at each other. Well, he's got it back again now, coffin-wailed, and he's not going to like it a bit. No, he surely isn't, Jake agreed. He's going to start looking very quickly for someone to blame, I think. They both looked at coffin. Now don't be ridiculous, boys, said coffin-turning white. We're all in this together. Philip, it was your idea in the first place. You said so yourself. You can't leave me now. The telephone jangled. They heard the frightened voice of the secretary clear across the room. Dr. Coffin, there was a student on the line just a moment ago. He said he was coming up to see you. Now he said. Not later. I'm busy, coffin-sputtered. I can't see anyone, and I can't take any calls. But he's already on his way out, the girl burst out. He was saying something about tearing you apart with his bare hands. Coffin slammed down the receiver. His face was the color of lead. They'll crucify me, he saw. Jake, Philip, you've got to help me. Philip sighed and unlocked the door. Send the girl down to the freezer and have her bring up all the live cold virus she can find. Get us some inoculated monkeys and a few dozen dogs. He turned to Coffin. And stop sniveling. You're the big publicity man around here. You're going to handle the screaming masses whether you like it or not. What are you going to do? I haven't the faintest idea, said Philip, but whatever I do is going to cost you your shirt. We're going to find out how to catch cold again if we have to die. It was an admirable struggle and a futile one. They sprayed their noses and throats with enough pure culture of virulent live virus to have condemned an ordinary man to a lifetime of sneezing, watery-eyed misery. They didn't develop a sniffle among them. They mixed six different strains of virus and gargled the extract, spraying themselves in every inoculated monkey they could get their hands on with the vile-smelling stuff. Not a sneeze. They injected it hypodermically, interderminally, subcutaneously, intramuscularly, and intravenously. They drank it. They bathed in the stuff. But they didn't catch cold. Maybe it's the wrong approach, Jake said one morning. Our body defenses are keyed up to the top performance right now. Maybe if we break them down we can get somewhere. They plunged down that alley with grim abandon. They starved themselves. They forced themselves to stay awake for days on end until exhaustion forced their eyes closed in spite of all they could do. They carefully devised vitamin-free, protein-free, mineral-free diets that tasted like library paste and smelled worse. They wore wet clothes and sopping shoes to work, turned off the heat, and threw windows open to the raw-weather air. Then they resprayed themselves with the live cold virus and waited reverently for the sneezing to begin. It didn't. They stared at each other and gathered in gloom. They never felt better in their lives. Except for the smells, of course. They had hoped that they might presently get used to them. They didn't. Every day it grew a little worse. They began smelling smells they never dreamed existed. Noxious smells, cloying smells, smells that drove them gagging to the sinks. Their nose plugs were rapidly losing their effectiveness. Mealtimes were nightmarish ordeals. They lost weight with alarming speed. But they didn't catch cold. I think you should all be locked up, Ellie Dawson said severely as she dragged her husband blue-faced and shivering out of an icy shower one bitter morning. You've lost your wits. You need to be protected against yourselves. That's what you need. You don't understand, Philip moaned. We've got to catch cold. Why, Ellie snapped angrily? Suppose you don't. What's going to happen? We had three hundred students march on the laboratory today, Philip said patiently. The smells were driving them crazy, they said. They couldn't even bear to be close to their best friends. They wanted something done about it, or else they wanted blood. Tomorrow we'll have them back and three hundred more. And they were just the pilot study. What's going to happen when fifteen million people find their noses going bad on them? He shuddered. Have you seen the papers? People are already going around sniffing like bloodhounds. And now we're finding out what a thorough job we did. We can't crack it, Ellie. We can't even get a toehold. Those antibodies are just doing too good a job. Well, maybe you can find some uncle bodies to take care of them, Ellie offered vaguely. Look, don't make bad jokes. I'm not making jokes. All I want is a husband back who doesn't complain about how everything smells and eats the dinners I cook, and doesn't stand around in cold showers at six in the morning. I know it's miserable, he said helplessly, but I don't know how to stop it. He found Jake and Coffin in tight-lipped conference when he reached the lab. I can't do it anymore, Coffin was saying. I've begged them for time. I've threatened them. I promise them everything but my upper plate. I can't face them again. I just can't. We only have a few days left, Jake said grimly. If we don't come up with something, we're goners. Philip's jaw suddenly sagged as he stared at them. You know what I think, he said suddenly. I think we've been prize idiots. We've gotten so rattled we haven't used our heads. All the time it's been sitting there blinking at us. What are you talking about? snapped Jake. Uncle bodies, said Philip. Oh, great God. No, I'm serious. Your eyes were very bright. How many of those students do you think you can corral to help us? Coffin gulped. Six hundred. They're out there in the street right now, howling for a lynching. All right. I want them in here. And I want some monkeys. Monkeys with colds. The worse colds, the better. Do you have any idea what you're doing? Asked Jake. None in the least, said Philip happily, except that it's never been done before. But maybe it's time we tried following our noses for a while. The tidal wave began to break two days later. Maybe a few people here, a dozen there, but enough to confirm the direst newspaper predictions. The boomerang was completing its circle. At the laboratory the doors were kept barred, the telephone disconnected. Within there was a bustle of feverish, if odorous, activity. For the three researchers, the olfactory acuity had reached agonizing proportions. Even the small gas mask Philip had devised could no longer shield him from the constant barrage of violent odors. But the work went on in spite of the smell. Clothes of monkeys arrived at the lab, cold-ridden monkeys, sneezing, coughing, weeping, wheezing monkeys by the dozen. Culture trays bulged with tubes overflowed the incubators and work tables. Each day, 600 angry students paraded through the lab, arms exposed, mouths open, grumbling, but cooperating. At the end of the first week half the monkeys were cured of their colds and were quite unable to catch them back. The other half had new colds and couldn't get rid of them. Philip observed this fact with a grim satisfaction and went about the laboratory mumbling to himself. Two days later he burst forth jubilantly, lugging a sad-looking puppy under his arm. It was like no other puppy in the world. This puppy was sneezing and sniffling with a perfect howler of a cold. The day came when they injected a tiny droplet of milky fluid beneath the skin of Philip's arm, and then got the virus spray and gave his nose and throat a liberal application. Then they sat back and waited. They were still waiting three days later. It was a great idea, Jake said gloomily, flipping a bulging notebook closed with funnality. It just didn't work, was all. Philip nodded. Both men had grown thin with pouches under their eyes. Jake's right I began to twitch uncontrollably whenever anybody came within three yards of him. We can't go on like this, you know. The people are going wild. Where's Coffin? He collapsed three days ago, nervous prostration. He kept having dreams about hangings. Philip sighed. Well, I suppose we'd better just face it. Nice knowing you, Jake. Pity it had to be this way. It was a great try, old man. A great try. Ah, yes, nothing like going down in a blaze of— Philip stopped dead, his eyes widening. His nose began to twitch. He took a gasp, a larger gasp, as a long dead reflex came sleepily to life, shook its head, reared back. Philip sneezed. He sneezed for ten minutes without a pause, until he lay on the floor blue-faced and gasping for air. He caught a hold of Jake, wringing his hand as tears gushed from his eyes. He gave his nose an enormous blow, and headed shakily for the telephone. It was a simple enough principle, he said later to Ellie as she spread mustard on his chest and poured more warm water into his foot-bath. The cure itself depended upon it. The agitated antibody reaction. We had the antibody against the virus all right. What we had to find was some kind of antibody against the antibody. He sneezed violently, and poured in nose drops with a happy grin. Will they be able to make it fast enough? Just about fast enough for people to get good and eager to catch cold again, said Philip. There's only one little hitch. Ellie Dawson took the stakes from the grill and set them still sizzling on the dinner-table. Hitch? Philip nodded as he chewed the steak with a pretense of enthusiasm. It tasted like slightly damp K-ration. The stuff we'd made does a real good job. Just a little too good. He wiped his nose and reached for a fresh tissue. I may be wrong, but I think I've got this cold for keeps, he said sadly. Unless I can find an antibody against the antibody against the antibody. End of The Coughing Cure by Alan Edward Norse Recording by James Christopher, JX Christopher at yahoo.com Letter of the Low This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Daniele Letter of the Low By Alan Edward Norse The place was dark and damp, and smelled like moldy leaves. Meyerhoff followed a huge, well-like, alterian guard down the slippery flagstones of the corridor, sniffing the dead, musty air with his taste. He drew his carefully tailored Terran-style jacket closer about his shoulders, shivering as his eyes avoided the black, yawning cell-holes they were passing. His foot slipped on the slimy flags from time to time, and finally he paused to wipe the caked mud from his trusel leg. How much farther is it? He shouted angrily. The guard waved a heavy paw vaguely into the blackness ahead. Right suddenly, the corridor took a sharp bend, and the alterian stopped, producing a huge keering from some obscure fold of his hairy heart. I still don't see any reason for Lord the First. He grumbled in a wounded tone. We have treated him like a brother. One of the huge sealed doors clicked open. Meyerhoff peered into the blackness, catching a vaguely human outline against the back wall. Herring, he called sharply, there was a startled gasp from within, and a skinny, narrowed little man suddenly appeared in the guard's light, like a grotesque, twisted ghost out of the blackness. White blue eyes regarded Meyerhoff from beneath an even black eyebrows, and then the little man's face broke into a crafty grin. Paul, so I sent you a new look-o-can on it. He executed a deep, awkward bow, motioning Meyerhoff into the dark cubicle. Not much will offer you, he said slyly, but it's the best I can do under the circumstances. Meyerhoff scowled and turned abruptly to the guard. We'll have some privacy now, if you please. Interpreter ruling, I'll leave us the light. The guard grumbled and started for the door. It's about time you showed up, cried the little man in the cell. Great day, lucky to have sent you, pal. Why have been in here for years? Look, Zagla, the name is Meyerhoff, am I not your pal? Meyerhoff snapped. I have been here for two weeks, three days, and approximately four hours. You're getting as bad as your gentle cast when it comes to banning the fruits around. He peered through the dim light at the gond face of the prisoner. Zagla's face was dark with a weak speared, and his bloodshot eyes belied the cocky grin on his lips. His clothes were smeared and southern, streaked with great splotches of mud and moss. Meyerhoff's face softened a little. Harry Zagla's in a jam again. He said, You look as if they treated you like a brother. The little man snorted. Face overgrown teddy bears don't know what brotherhood means, nor humanity either. Bread and water, I've been getting nothing more, and then, only if they feel like bringing it down. He sank, whirling down on the rock bench along the wall. I thought you'd never get here. I sent an appeal to the Terran consulate the first day I was arrested. What happened? I mean, all they had to do was get a man over here, get the extradition papers signed, and provide transportation off the planet for me. Why so much time? I've been sitting here rotting. He broke off in mid-sentence and stared at Meyerhoff. You brought the papers didn't you? I mean, we can live now. Meyerhoff stared at the little man with a mix shoe of pity and disgust. You are a priceless fool. He said finally. Did you know that? Zagla sighs widened. What do you mean, fool? So I spent a couple of weeks in this nail-monet trap. The deal was worth it. I've got three million credits sitting in Terran consulate on after the 5th. Just waiting for me to walk in and pick them up. Three million credits? Do you hear? That's enough to set me up for life. Meyerhoff knotted grimly. If you live long enough to walk in and pick them up, that is... What do you mean, if? Meyerhoff sank down beside the man. His voice attends whisper in the musty cell. I mean that right now you are practically dead. You may not know it, but you are. You walk into a newly-opened planet with your smart little pack of bricks. Walk in here with a shaky passport and no permit. With no knowledge of the natives of Scythe II, paragraphs of inaccuracies in the explorer's guide, and even that you are not content to come in and sell something legitimate. Something the natives might conceivable be able to use. Now, nothing so simple for you. You have to put your usual high-pressure stuff. And this time, buddy, you're paying the piper. You mean I'm not being extradited? Meyerhoff's grin, unpleasantly. I mean, precisely that. You have committed a crime here, a major crime. The altarens are sore about it. And the Terran Consulate isn't willing to sell all the treading possibilities here down the river just to get you out of a mess. You're going to send trial, and these natives are out to get you. Personally, I think they're going to get you. Zechler stood up shakily. You can't believe anything the natives say, he said uneasily. They are pathological liars. Why? You should see what they are trying to sell me. You've never seen such a pack of liars as these quitters. He glanced up at Meyerhoff. They'll probably drop a little fine on me and let me go. A little fine of one Terran neck. Meyerhoff grinned nestly. You have committed the most heinous crime these creatures can imagine. And they're going to get you for it, if it's the last thing they do. I'm afraid, my friend, that your calm men's ways are over. Zechler fished in the other man's pocket, extracted a cigarette, and lighted it with trembling fingers. It's bad? Then? He said finally. It's bad, alright? Some shadow of the sly, effing green crept over the little calm man's face. Well, at any rate, I'm glad they sent you over, he said weakly. Something like a good lawyer to handle a trial. Lawyer? Not me. Oh no, sorry, but no, thanks. Meyerhoff chuckled. I'm your advisor, oh boy, nothing else. I'm here to keep you from watching things upstead worse for the trading commissions that's owed. I wouldn't get tangled up in a mess with those quitters for anything. He shook his head. You're your own lawyer, Mr. Super Saiyan's man? It's all your show. And you better get your head out of the sand. Are you going to lose a case like it's not been lost before? Meyerhoff washed the man's face and shook his head. In a way, he thought, it was a pity to see such a change in a rosy cheeked, dapper, cockshoe-lit man who had took his way gleebly in and out of more gems that Meyerhoff could count. Trading brought scalpers. It was almost inevitable that where rich and unexploded trading round was uncovered, it would first fall prey to the fast-trading boys. They spread out from Terra with the first wave of exploration. The slick, fast-talking conman who could work knew territories unfettered by the illegal restrictions that soon closed down the more established planets. The first man in, where they reached out, and through some curious quirk of the terrestrial mind, they knew they could count on Terran protection, however crooked and underhand their methods, but occasionally a situation arose where the civilization and social practice of the alien victims made it unwise to tamper with them. Althea I had been recognized at once by the Trading Commission as a commercial prize of tremendous value, but early reports had warned of the danger of wildcat trading on the little musty jungle-like planet with its shaggy, tree-eyed inhabitants, warned specifically against the confidence tactics so frequently used, but there was always somebody, my half-reflective sourly, who just didn't get a word. Zeckler's paths nervously on his cigarette, his narrow face, a study in troubled concentration. But I didn't do anything, he exploded finally. So I pulled an old con game, so what? Why should they get so excited? So I clipped a few thousand credits, pulled a little fast business. He shrugged eloquently, spreading his hands. Everybody's doing it, they do it to each other without batting an eye. You should see these quitters operate on each other. Why, my little scheme was penised by comparison. My half pulled a pipe from his pocket and began stuffing the bowl with infinite patience. And precisely, what sort of con game was it? He asked quietly, Zeckler shrugged again. The simplest, tiredest, modest old racket had ever made a quick nickle. Remember the old Terran gag about the broken bridge? The same thing. Only these quitters didn't want breeze. They wanted land, this girlie slimy swamp they called farmland. So I gave them what they wanted, I just sold them some land. My half nodded firstly. You shooted it, a hundred square kilos at a swipe. Only you sold the same hundred square kilos to a thousand different natives. Suddenly he threw back his hand and rolled. Of all the things you shouldn't have done. But what's a chunk of land? My half shook his head hopelessly. If you hadn't been so greedy, you'd have found out what a chunk of land was to these natives before you started peddling it. You'd have found out other things about them too. You'd have learned that in spite of all the pumbling and fussing and squabbling them not so tough. You'd have found out that they're machuples and that two out of five of them get thrown out of the mother's pouch before they're old enough to survive. You'd have realized that they have to start fighting for individual rights almost as soon as they're born. Anything goes as long as it benefits them as individuals. My half grinned at the little man's horrified face. You've never had of that hachie and you've never had of other things too. You've probably never had that there are just too many alterions here for the food the planet can supply. And that diet is so finicky that they just can't live or anything that doesn't grow here. Inconsolently, land is the key factor in their economy, not money, nothing but land. To get land it's every man for himself and the loser stars and their entire legal and monetary system revolves on that principle. They've built up the most confusing and impossible system of butter and trade imaginable aimed at individual survival with land as the value behind the credit. That explains the lying, of course the liars. With an economy like that, they've completely missed the concept of truth. Pathological? You bet they are pathological. Only a fool would tell the truth when his life depends on this being a better liar than the next guy. Truth is a time-honored tradition with their entire legal system built around it. Zeckler has noted. But how could they possibly have a legal system? I mean, if they don't recognize the truth when it slaps them in the face, my half shrugged. As we understand legal systems, I suppose they don't have one. They have only the hazes idea what truth represents, and they've shrugged off their idea as impossible and useless. He chuckled maliciously. So you went out and found a chunk of ground in the uplands and sold it to the dozen separate cell-centered half-stabbered natives? Encroachment on a private property is a legal grounds for murder on this planet, and twelve of them descended on the same chunk of land at the same time. Oh, Ahmed with title deeds. My off-sides, you've got twelve mad Arterians in your hair, you've got a mad planet in your hair, and in the meantime, Terra's most valuable uranium source in five centuries is threatening to cut off supply unless they see your plus platter liberally all the way from here to the equator. Zeckler was visibly shaken. Look, he said weakly. So I wasn't smart, what am I going to do? I mean, are you going to sit quietly by and let them butcher me? How could I defend myself in a legal stop like this? My off-smiled Cooley. You're going to get your sly little corn man praying to work, you know, I think? He said softly. By interplanetary rules, they have to give you a trial in terrain leg-of-form, judge, jury, court-procedure, or the forder-all, they think it's a big joke. After all, what could a judicial oath mean to them? But they agreed. Only thing is, they're going to hang you if the die's crying. So you better get those stunted little wits of yours clicking, and if you try to implicate me even a little bit, I'll be out of there so fast you won't know what happens. With that, my half walked to the door. He jerked it inward sharply and spilled two gas over on their faces. Privacy? He grunted and started back up the slippery corridor. It certainly looked like a courtroom at any rate. In the front of the long, damn stone room was a bench, with a seat behind it, and a small straight chair to the right. To the left was a stand with 12 chairs, larger chairs, with a railing running along the front. The rest of the room was filled almost to the door with seats facing the bench. Zekler followed the shaggy head guard into the room, nodding approvingly. Not such a bad arrangement, he said. They must have gotten the idea fast. My half wiped perspiration from his forehead and shot the little con man as stony glance. At least you've got a courtroom, a judge, and a jury for this mess. Beyond that, he shrugged eloquently. I can't make any promises. In the back of the room, a door burst open with a bang. Loud harsh voices were heard, as half a dozen of the huge alterians attempted to push through the door at once. Zekler clamped on the headset to his translator unit, and washed the hubbub in the ant room with growing alarm. Finally, the question of precedent seemed to be settled, and a group of the alterians filled in in order of stature, stalking a grossed room in flowing black robes, pergnosed faces glowering with self-importance. They descended upon the jury box, grunting and scrubbing with each other for the first row seats, and the judge took his place with obvious satisfaction behind the heavy wooden bench. Finally, the prosecuting attorney appeared, flanked by two clerks who took their places beside him. The prosecutor hired Zekler with cold malevolence, then turned and delivered a sly wink at the judge. In a moment, the room was a hubbub as it filled with a huge, bumbling, bare-like creatures jostling each other and fighting for seats, growling and complaining. Two small fights broke out in the rear, but were quickly subdued by the group of gen-dumps guarding the entrance. Finally, the judge glared down at Zekler with all three eyes, and pounded the bench top with a wooden mallet until the roar of activity subsided. The jury men wriggled uncomfortably in their seats, exchanging winks and finally turned their attention to the front of the court. We are reading the case of the people of Alter I. The judge's voice rolled out, against one hairy Zekler. He paused for a long, impressing moment. Terran, the courtroom immediately burst into an angry growl, until the judge pounded the bench five or six times more. This creature is held by accused of the following crimes. The judge bellowed, conspiracy to overthrow the government of Alter I, brutal murder of 17 low abiding citizens of the village of Kazan at the third hour before dawn in the second period of his arrival. The secretion of the temple of our beloved oldest servant, Queen of the Harvest, conspiracy with lesser gods to cause the unprecedented droughts in the damnati section of our fair globe, obscene exposure of his harsh marks in a public square, full separate and distinct charge of jailbreak and bribery. The judge pounded the bench for order. The espionage with a cursed scum of Alter II, in preparation for interplanetary invasion. The little common's jail sacked lower and lower, the color draining from his face. He turned wide-eyed to my half, then back to the judge. The chairman of the jury, say the judge succinctly, will read the verdict. The little native in the front of the jury box popped up like a puppet on a string. The defendant found guilty on our counts. He said, The defendant is guilty. The court will pronounce sentence. Now, wait a minute. Zeckler was on his feet, wide-eyed. What kind of railroad job? The judge blinked disappointedly at Paul Myhoff. Not yet. He asked, unhappily. No. Myhoff's hands twitched nervously. Not yet, Your Honor. Later, Your Honor. The trial comes first. The judge looked as if his candy had been stolen. But you say that you should call for the verdict. Later, you have to have the trial before you can have the verdict. The alterions shrugged indifferently. Now, later, he muttered. Have the prosecutor call his first witness? Said Myhoff. Zeckler leaned over, his face ashen. These charges, he whispered. They're insane. Of course they are. Myhoff whispered back. But what am I going to do? Sit tight. Let them settings are. But those lies, they're liars the whole pack of them. He broke off as the prosecutor rode an aim. The shaggy brute who took the sand was wearing a bright purple hat, which sat recklessly over one ear. He grinned the alterion equivalent of a hungry grin at the prosecutor. Then, he cleared his throat and started. The sterile riffraff. The oath, muttered the judge. We've got to have the oath. The prosecutor nodded and four natives moved forward, carrying huge inscribed mammals' labs to the front of the court. One by one, the chunks were reverently piled in a heap to the witness' feet. The witness placed a huge, hairy paw on the cairn, and the prosecutor said, Do you swear to tell the truth? The whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So happy. He paused to squint at the paper in his hand and finished on a puzzled note. Goddess. The witness removed the paw from the rock pile long enough to scratch his ear. Then he replaced it and replied, Of course, in an endured turn. Then, tell this court what you have seen of the activities of this abominable wretch. The witness settled back into the chair, fixing one eye on Zechler's face, another on the prosecutor, and closing the third as if in meditation. I think it happened on the fourth night of the seventh crossing of Altar II, made the goddess cast a drought upon it. Or was it the seventh night of the fourth crossing? He grinned apologetically at the judge. When I was making my way back through town, toward my blessed land plot, minding my own business, your honor, after weeks of bargaining for the crop I was harvesting. Suddenly, from the shadow of the building, this creature, he waved the paw on Zechler. Stopped me in my tracks with a vicious cry. He had a weapon I had never seen before, and before I could find my voice, he forced me back against the wall. I could see by the cruel glint in his eyes that there was no warmth, no sympathy in his heart, that I was objection. Zechler squealed plaintively, jumping to his feet. This witness can't even remember what night he's talking about. The judge looked startled, then he poured fervently she drew his bundle of notes. Overruled, he said abruptly. Continue, please. The witness glowed at Zechler. As I was saying before this lautish interruption, he muttered, I could see that I was face to face with the most desperate of criminal types, even for tyrants. Now, the shape of his head, the flabbiness of his ears, I was petrified with fear. And then, helpless as I was, these two lacked abomination began to shower me with threats of evil to my blessed home. Dark threats of posing in my land, unless I would tell him where he could find the resting place of our blessed goddess. I never saw him before in my life. Zechler moaned to Myhof. Listen to him. Why should I care whether a goddess? Myhof gave him a stony look. The goddess runs things around here. She makes it rain. If it doesn't rain, somebody's insulted her. It's very simple. But how can I fight a simony like that? I doubt if you can fight it. But they can't prove a word of it. He looked at a jury who were listening and raptured to the second witness on the stand. This one was testify in regarding the botchrous lauter of 18, or was it 23? Oh yes, 23. Women and children in the suburban village of Kazan. The pogrom, it seemed, had been accomplished by an energy weapon which ate great capping holes in the sides of buildings. A third witness took the stand, continuing the drone as the room grew hotter and mugger. Zechler grew paler and paler, his eyes turning glassy as the testimony piled up. But it's not true. He whispered to Myhof. Of course it isn't. Can't you understand? These people have no regard for the truth. It's stupid to them, silly. A mark of low intelligence. The only thing in the world they have any respect for is a liar, picker, and more skilful than they are. Zechler jacked around abruptly as he heard his name bellowed out. Does the defendant have anything to say before the jury delivers the verdict? Do I have? Zechler was across the room in a flash. His pale cheeks, suddenly taking on a feverish glow. He sat down gingerly on the witness chair. Facing the judge, his eyes bright with fear and excitement. Yo, yo, honor. I have a statement to make which will have the most important bearing on this case. You must listen with the greatest care. He glanced quickly at Myhof and back to the judge. Yo, honor, he said in a hushed voice. You are in the gravest of danger, all of you. Your lives, your very land, is at stake. The judge blinked and shuffled through his notes hurriedly as a murmur arose in the court. Our land? Your lives, your land, everything you hold dear. Zechler said quickly, licking his lips nervously. You must try to understand me. He glanced apprehensively over his shoulder. Now, because I may not live long enough to repeat what I am going to tell you. The murmur quieted down, all ears raining in their heads and to hear his words. These charges, he continued. All of them, they are perfectly true. At least, they seem to be perfectly true. But in every instance, I was working with heart and soul risking my life for the welfare of your beautiful planet. There was a loud hiss from the back of the court. Zechler frowned and rubbed his hands together. It was my misfortune, he said, to go to the wrong planet when I first came to Alter from my homeland on Terra. I landed on Alter II, a grave mistake, but as it turned out, a very fortunate error. Because in attempting to arrange trading in that frightful place, I made certain contacts. His voice trembled and sank lower. I learned the horrible thing which is about to happen to this planet at the hands of those barbarians. The conspiracy is theirs, not mine. They have bribed your goddess, flattered her and lied to her, coerced her all powerful goodness to their own evil interests, preparing for the day when they could persuade her to cast your land into the fury furnace of ten-year drought. Somebody in the middle of the court burst out laughing. One by one, the natives nudged one another and booed and guffawed until the resin tide of the racket browned out Zechler's word. The defendant is obviously lying, wrote the prosecutor of the Pandemon. Any fool knows that the goddess can't be bribed. How could she be a goddess if she could? Zechler grew paler. But perhaps they were very clever and how could I flatter her when she knows, beyond doubt, that she's the most exquisitely radiant creature in the universe? And you dare to insult her, drag her name in the dirt? The hisses grew louder, more belligerent, cries of... Butcherim! And... Scordy's powers rose from the courtroom. The judge begged for silence, his eyes angry. Unless the defendant wishes to take up more of our precious time with these ridiculous lies, the jury. Wait, your honor, I request a short recess before I present my final plea. Recess? A few moments to collect my thoughts, to arrange my case. The judge settled back with the disgusted snarl. Do I have to? He asked my huff, my huff nodded. The judge shrugged, pointing over his shoulder to the entrance. You can go in there. He said, somehow, Zechler managed to stumble from the witness stand amid riotous booze and hisses and tottered into the entrance. Zechler puffed hungrily on a cigarette and looked up at my huff with haunted eyes. It doesn't look so good! He muttered. My huff eyes were worried, too. For some reason, he felt a surge of pity and admiration for the haggard conman. It was the night anticipated. He admitted glumly. That was a good try, but you just don't know enough about them and their coldness. He sat down weirdly. I don't see what you can do. They want your blood and they're going to have it. They just won't believe you, no matter how big a lie you tell. Zechler sat in silence for a moment. This lying business, he said finally. Exactly. How does it work? The biggest, most convincing liar wins. It's as simple as that. It doesn't matter how I planish a whopper you tell. Unless, of course, they're made up their minds that you just naturally aren't as big a liar as they are. And it looks like that's just what I've done. It wouldn't make any difference to them what you say, unless somehow you could make them believe it. Zechler frowned. And how do they recalde the biggest liar? I mean, how do they feel toward him? My huff shift uneasily. It's hard to say. It's been my experience that they respect him highly. Maybe even fear him a little. After all, the most convincing liar always wins in any transaction, so he gets more land, more food, more power. Yes, I think the biggest liar could go where he pleads without any interference. Zechler was on his feet. His eyes suddenly brightened with excitement. Wait a minute, he said tensely. To tell them a lie that they'd have to believe, a lie they simply couldn't help but believe, he turned on my huff, his hands trembling. Do they think the way we do? I mean, with logic, cause and effect, examining evidence and drawing conclusions, even setting evidence, would they have to draw the same conclusions that we have to draw? My huff blinked. Well, yes. Oh yes, they're perfectly logical. Zechler's eyes flashed and a huge grin broke out on his shallow face. His thin body fairly shook. He started hopping up and down on one foot, staring idiotically into space. If I could hardly think, he muttered. Somebody, um, somewhere, something I read. Whatever are you talking about? It was Greek, I think. My huff stared at him. Oh, come now. Have you gone off your rucka completely? You've got a problem on your hands, man. No, no, I've got a problem in the back. Zechler's cheeks flushed. Let's go back in there. I think I've got an answer. The courtroom quieted the moment they opened the door and the judge banged the gavel for silence. As soon as Zechler had taken his seat on the witness's sand, the judge turned to the head juryman. Now then, he said with happy finality, the jury, hold on, just one minute more. The judge stared down at Zechler as if he were a bug on a rock. Oh, yes, you have something else to say. Well, go ahead and say it. Zechler looked sharply around the hashed room. You want to convict me? He said softly. In the worst sort of way, isn't that right? I swung toward him. The judge broke into nevel green. That's right. But you can't really convict me until you've considered carefully any statement I make in my own defense. Isn't that right? The judge looked uncomfortable. If you got something to say, go ahead and say it. I've got just one statement to make, short and sweet. But you better listen to it and think out carefully before you decide that you really want to convict me. He paused and glanced lightly at the judge. You don't think much of those who tell the truth, it seems. Well, put this statement in your record then. His voice was loud and clear in the still room. All earthmen are absolutely incapable of telling the truth. Puzzled frowns appeared on the jury's face. 102 exchanged startled glances and the room was still as death. The judge stared at him and then at Meyerhoff, then back. But you, he stammered. You, he stopped in mid-sentence. His jaw sagging. One of the jurymen let out a little squeak and fainted dead away. It took, all in all, about 10 seconds for the statement to soak in. And then pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom. Really? said Harry Zeckler, lovely. It was so obvious. I'm amazed that it didn't occur to me first thing. He settled himself down comfortably in the control cabin of the interplanetary rocket and green at the outline of at the fourth, looming larger in the view screen. Poor Meyerhoff stared solely at the controls. His lips compressed angrily. You might at least have told me what you were planning. And take the chance of being overheard? Don't be silly. It had to come as a bomb shell. I had to establish myself as a liar, the prize liar of them all. But I had to tell the sort of lie that they simply could not cope with, something that would throw them into such utter confusion that they wouldn't dare convict me. He grinned impishly at Meyerhoff. This paradox of a pymidus decretan, it really stopped them cold. They knew I was an Earthman, which meant that my statement that Earthman were liars was a lie, which meant that maybe I wasn't a liar, in which case, oh, it was tailor-made. It sure was. Meyerhoff's voice was snarled. Well, it made me out a liar in a class they couldn't approach, didn't it? My half-face was purple with anger. Oh, indeed it did. And it put all Earthmen in exactly the same class, too. So, what's honor among thieves? I got half, didn't I? Meyerhoff turned on him fiercely. Oh, you got off just fine. You scared the living daylights out of them. And, in an eon of lying, they've never had run up against a short circuit like that. You've also completely botched any help of other setting up a trade alliance with Arta the First. And that includes Uranium, too. Smart people don't gamble with lordy dice. You scared them so badly they don't want anything to do with us? Zeckler screamed broden, and he leaned back luxuriously. Ah, well, after all, the trading alliance was your outlook, wasn't it? What a pity! He clucked his tongue soundly. Me? I've got a fortune in credit sitting back at the consulate waiting for me. Enough to keep me on silk for quite a while. I might say, I think I'll just take a nice long vacation. Meyerhoff turned to him, and a twinkle of malignant glee appeared in his eyes. Yes, I think you will. I'm quite sure of it, in fact. Won't cause you a sand either. Eh? Meyerhoff grinned unpleasantly. He brushed an imaginary lint fleck from his label, and looked up at Zeckler's lily. That, ah, jury trial? The Arterians weren't any too happy to oblige. They wanted to execute you outright. Thought that trial was awfully silly, until they got their money back, of course. Not too much, just three million credits? Zeckler went white. But that money was in banking custody! Is that right, my goodness? You don't suppose they could have lost those papers, do you? Meyerhoff grinned at the little con man. And, incidentally, you're under arrest, you know? A choking sound came from Zeckler's throat. Arrest? Oh, yes, didn't I tell you? Conspiring to undermine the authority of the Terran Trading Commission. Serious charge, you know? Yes, I think we'll take a nice long vacation together. Straight back to Terra. And there, I think you'll face a jury trial. Zeckler spluttered. There's no evidence! You've got nothing on me! What kind of frame are you trying to pull? A lovely frame. Airtight. A frame from the bottom up, and your right square in the middle. And this time, Meyerhoff tapped a cigarette on his thumb with happy finality. This time, I don't think you'll get off. End of Letter of the Low by Alan Edward North. Coming by Daniele. October 2008.