"The IMC contract? I read that and there's nothing—"
"Not that one. The Tolive Contract."
"I don't understand," Dalt said with a quick shake of his head.
"I didn't think you would. I mean," she added quickly, "that Dr. Webst was very excited about something this morning and I figured he never gave you your copy or explained anything about it."
"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 alclass="underline" 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?"