I don't know and I don't care. Tolive has just lost a prospective citizen.
A familiar figure suddenly caught his eye. It was El.
"Hi!" she said breathlessly. "Sorry I'm late."
"I didn't notice," he said coldly. "I was too busy watching that atavistic display in the park."
She grabbed his arm. "C'mon. Let's eat."
"I assure you, I'm not hungry."
"Then at least have a drink and we'll talk." She tugged on his arm.
("Might as well, Steve. I'd be interested in hearing how she's going to defend public floggings.")
Noting a restaurant sign behind him, Dalt shrugged and started for the entrance.
"Not there," El said. "They lost their sticker last week. We'll go to Logue's—it's about a quarter-way around."
El made no attempt at conversation as she led him around to the restaurant she wanted. During the walk, Dalt allowed his eyes to stray toward the park only once. Not a word was spoken between them until they were seated inside with drinks before them. Logue's modest furnishings and low lighting were offset by its extravagant employment of human waiters.
It was not until the waiter had brought Dalt his second drink that he finally broke the silence.
"You wanted me to see those floggings, didn't you," he said, holding her eyes. "That's what you meant about catching 'a little of the flavor of Tolive.' Well, I caught more than a little, I caught a bellyful!"
Maddeningly patient, El sipped her drink, then said, "Just what did you see that so offended you?"
"I saw floggings!" Dalt sputtered. "Public floggings! The kind of thing that had been abandoned on Earth long before we ever left there!"
"Would you prefer private floggings?" There was a trace of a smile about her mouth.
"I would prefer no floggings, and I don't appreciate your sense of humor. I got a look at that woman's face and she was in pain."
"You seem especially concerned over the fact that women as well as men were pilloried today."
"Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I don't like to see a woman beaten like that."
El eyed him over her glass. "There are a lot of old-fashioned things about you ... do you know that you lapse into an archaic speech pattern when you get excited?" She shook herself abruptly. "But we'll go into that another time; right now I want to explore your high-handed attitude toward women."
"Please—" Dalt began, but she pushed on.
"I happen to be as mature, as responsible, as rational as any man I know, and if I commit a crime, I want you to assume that I knew exactly what I was doing. I'd take anything less as a personal insult."
"Okay. Let's not get sidetracked on that age-old debate. The subject at hand is corporal punishment in a public place."
"Was the flogging being done for sport?" El asked. "Were people standing around and cheering?"
"The answers are 'no' and 'no'—and don't start playing Socrates with me."
El persisted. "Did the lash slice deeply into their backs? Were they bleeding? Were they screaming with pain?"
"Stop the questions! No, they weren't screaming and they weren't bleeding, but they were most definitely in pain!"
"Why was this being done to these people?"
Dalt glared at her calm face for a long moment. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because I have this feeling that you're going to be very important to IMC and I didn't want you to quietly slip away after you read the Contract."
"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!"