It was, therefore, with a warm feeling of a job well done that I returned to my headquarters on Pluto in response to Pah-Chi-Luh’s summons.
Needless to say, this feeling quickly changed to the most over-powering dismay. After getting the background from the over-wrought corporal, I interviewed the Gtetan extradition force. They had been in touch with their home office and were threatening a major galactic scandal if the Patrol’s arrest of L’payr were not upheld and L’payr remanded to their custody.
“Are the most sacred and intimate details of our sex life to be shamelessly flaunted from one end of the Universe to the other?” I was asked angrily. “Pornography is pornography—a crime is a crime. The intent was there—the overt act was there. We demand our prisoner.”
“How can you have pornography without titillation?” L’payr wanted to know. “If a Chumblostian sells a Gtetan a quantity of krrgllwss—which they use as food and we use as building material—does the shipment have to be paid for under the nutritive or structural tariffs? The structural tariffs obtain, as you well know, Sergeant. I demand immediate release!”
But the most unpleasant surprise of all awaited me with Blatch. The terrestrial was sitting in his cell, sucking the curved handle of his umbrella.
“Under the code governing the treatment of all races on Secretly Supervised Status,” he began as soon as he saw me, “and I refer not only to the Rigellian-Sagittarian Convention, but to the statutes of the third cosmic cycle and the Supreme Council decisions in the cases of Khwomo vs. Khwomo and Farziplok vs. Antares XII, I demand return to my accustomed habitat on Earth, the payment of damages according to the schedule developed by the Nobri Commission in the latest Vivadin controversy. I also demand satisfaction in terms of—”
“You seem to have acquired a good deal of knowledge of interstellar law,” I commented slowly.
“Oh, I have, Sergeant—I have. Mr. L’payr was most helpful in acquainting me with my rights. It seems that I am entitled to all sorts of recompenses—or, at least, that I can claim entitlement. You have a very interesting galactic culture, Sergeant. Many, many people on Earth would be fascinated to learn about it. But I am quite prepared to spare you the embarrassment which such publicity would cause you. I am certain that two reasonable individuals like ourselves can come to terms.”
When I charged L’payr with violating galactic secrecy, he spread his cytoplasm in an elaborate ameboid shrug.
“I told him nothing on Earth, Sergeant. Whatever information this terrestrial has received—and I will admit that it would have been damaging and highly illegal—was entirely in the jurisdiction of your headquarters office. Besides, having been wrongfully accused of an ugly and unthinkable crime, I surely had the right to prepare my defense by discussing the matter with the only witness to the deed. I might go further and point out that, since Mr. Blatch and myself are in a sense co-defendants, there could be no valid objection to a pooling of our legal knowledge.”
Back in my office, I brought Corporal Pah-Chi-Luh up to date.
“It’s like a morass,” he complained. “The more you struggle to get out, the deeper you fall in it! And this terrestrial! The Plutonian natives who’ve been guarding him have been driven almost crazy. He asks questions about everything—what’s this, what’s that, how does it work. Or it’s not hot enough for him, the air doesn’t smell right, his food is uninteresting. His throat has developed an odd tickle, he wants a gargle, he needs a—”
“Give him everything he wants, but within reason,” I said. “If this creature dies on us, you and I will be lucky to draw no more than a punishment tour in the Black Hole in Cygnus. But as for the rest of it—look here, Corporal, I find myself in agreement with the extradition party from Gtet. A crime has to have been committed.”
Stellar Corporal Pah-Chi-Luh stared at me. “You—you mean …”
“I mean that if a crime was committed, L’payr has been legally arrested and can therefore be taken back to Gtet. We will then hear no more from him ever and we will also be rid of that bunch of pseudopod-clacking Gtetan shysters. That will leave us with only one problem—Osborne Blatch. Once L’payr is gone and we have this terrestrial to ourselves, I think we can handle him—one way or another. But first and foremost, Corporal Pah-Chi-Luh, a crime—some crime—has to have been committed by L’payr during his sojourn on Earth. Set up your bed in the law library.”
Shortly afterward, Pah-Chi-Luh left for Earth.
Now please, Hoy, no moralistic comments! You know as well as I do that this sort of thing has been done before, here and there, in Outlying Patrol Offices. I don’t like it any more than you, but I was faced with a major emergency. Besides, there was no doubt but that this L’payr, ameboid master criminal, had had punishment deferred far too long. In fact, one might say that morally I was completely and absolutely in the right.
Pah-Chi-Luh returned to Earth, as I’ve said, this time disguised as an editorial assistant. He got a job in the publishing house that had brought out the biology textbook. The original photographs were still in the files of that establishment. By picking his man carefully and making a good many mind-stimulating comments, the stellar corporal finally inspired one of the technical editors to examine the photographs and have the material on which they were printed analyzed.
The material was frab, a synthetic textile much in use of Gtet and not due to be developed by humanity for at least three centuries.
In no time at all, almost every woman in America was wearing lingerie made of frab, the novelty fabric of the year. And since L’payr was ultimately responsible for this illegal technological spurt, we at last had him where we wanted him!
He was very sporting about it, Hoy.
“The end of a long road for me, Sergeant,” he said resignedly. “I congratulate you. Crime does not pay. Lawbreakers always lose.”
“Right,” I agreed. “About time you learned that.”
I went off to prepare the extradition forms, without a care in the Galaxy. There was Blatch, of course, but he was only a human. And by this time, having gotten involved in all kinds of questionable dealings myself, I was determined to make quick work of him. After all, one might as well get blasted for a skreek as a launt!
But when I returned to escort the Gtetan to his fellow-ameboids, I almost fell through the surface of Pluto. Where there had been one L’payr, there were now two! Smaller L’payrs, of course—half the size of the original, to be exact—but L’payrs unmistakably.
In the interval, he had reproduced!
How? That gargle the Earthman had demanded, Hoy. It had been L’payr’s idea all along, his last bit of insurance. Once the Earthman had received the gargle, he had smuggled it to L’payr, who had hidden it in his cell, intending to use it as a last resort.
That gargle, Hoy, was salt water!
So there I was. The Gtetans informed me that their laws covered such possibilities, but much help their laws were to me.