“Let’s try mushkies,” Jackson suggested.
“By all means, let’s!” Erum replied, with a coarse boom of laughter. “If only one could—eh!” He dug Jackson in the ribs with a sly elbow.
“Hm, yes,” Jackson replied coldly. “Perhaps you could tell me what, exactly, a mushkie is?”
“Of course. As it happens, there is no such thing,” Erum replied. “Not in the singular, at any rate. One mushkie would be a logical fallacy, don’t you see?”
“I’ll take your word for it. What are mushkies?”
“Well, primarily, they’re the object of elikation. Secondarily, they are half-sized wooden sandals which are used to stimulate erotic fantasies among the Kutor religionists.”
“Now we’re getting someplace!” Jackson cried.
“Only if your tastes happen to run that way,” Erum answered with discernible coldness.
“I meant in terms of understanding the question on the form—”
“Of course, excuse me,” Erum said. “But you see, the question asks if you have ever elikated mushkies forsically. And that makes all the difference.”
“Does it really?”
“Of course! The modification changes the entire meaning.”
“I was afraid that it would,” Jackson said. “I don’t suppose you could explain what forsically means?”
“I certainly can!” Erum said. “Our conversation now could—with a slight assist from the deme imagination—be termed a ‘forsically designed talk.’”
“Ah,” said Jackson.
“Quite so,” said Erum. “Forsically is a mode, a manner. It means ‘spiritually-forward-leading-by-way-of-fortuitous-friendship.’”
“That’s a little more like it,” Jackson said. “In that case, when one elikates mushkies forsically—”
“I’m terribly afraid you’re on the wrong track,” Erum said. “The definition I gave you applies only to conversations. It is something rather different when one speaks of mushkies.”
“What does it mean then?”
“Well, it means—or rather it expresses—an advanced and intensified case of mushkie elikidation, but with a definite nmogmetic bias. I consider it a rather unfortunate phraseology, personally.”
“How would you put it?”
“I’d lay it on the line and to hell with the fancy talk,” Erum said toughly. “I’d come right out and say: ‘Have you now or at any other time dunfiglers voc in illegal, immoral, or insirtis circumstances, with or without the aid and/or consent of a brachniian? If so, state when and why. If not, state neugris kris and why not.’”
“That’s how you’d put it, huh?” Jackson said.
“Sure, I would,” Erum said defiantly. “These forms are for adults, aren’t they? So why not come right out and call a spigler a spey? Everybody dunfiglers voc some of the time, and so what? No one’s feelings are ever hurt by it, for heaven’s sake. I mean, after all, it simply involves oneself and a twisted old piece of wood, so why should anyone care?”
“Wood?” Jackson echoed.
“Yes, wood. A commonplace, dirty old piece of wood. Or at least that’s all it would be if people didn’t get their feelings so ridiculously involved.”
“What do they do with the wood?” Jackson asked quickly.
“Do with it? Nothing much, when you come right down to it. But the religious aura is simply too much for our so-called intellectuals. They are unable, in my opinion, to isolate the simple primordial fact—wood—from the cultural volturneiss which surrounds it at festerhiss, and to some extent at uuis, too.”
“That’s how intellectuals are,” Jackson said. “But you can isolate it, and you find—”
“I find it’s really nothing to get excited about. I really mean that. I mean to say that a cathedral, viewed correctly, is no more than a pile of rocks, and a forest is just an assembly of atoms. Why should we see this case differently? I mean, really, you could elikate mushkies forsically without even using wood! What do you think of that?”
“I’m impressed,” Jackson said.
“Don’t get me wrong! I’m not saying it would be easy, or natural, or even right. But still, you damned well could! Why, you could substitute cormed grayti and still come out all right!” Erum paused and chuckled. “You’d look foolish, but you’d still come out all right.”
“Very interesting,” Jackson said.
“I’m afraid I became a bit vehement,” Erum said, wiping his forehead. “Was I talking very loudly? Do you think perhaps I was overheard?”
“Of course not. I found it all very interesting. I must leave just now, Mr. Erum, but I’ll be back tomorrow to fill out that form and buy the property.”
“I’ll hold it for you,” Erum said, rising and shaking Jackson’s hand warmly. “And I want to thank you. It isn’t often that I have the opportunity for this kind of frank no-holds-barred conversation.”
“I found it very instructive,” Jackson said. He left Erum’s office and walked slowly back to his ship. He was disturbed, upset, and annoyed. Linguistic incomprehension irked him, no matter how comprehensible it might be. He should have been able to figure out, somehow, how one went about elikating mushkies forsically.
Never mind, he told himself. You’ll work it out tonight, Jackson baby, and then you’ll go back in there and cannonball through them forms. So don’t get het up over it, man.
He’d work it out. He damned well had to work it out, as he had to own a piece of property.
That was the second part of his job.
Earth had come a long way since the bad old days of naked, aggressive warfare. According to the history books, a ruler back in those ancient times could simply send out his troops to seize whatever the ruler wanted. And if any of the folks at home had the temerity to ask why he wanted it, the ruler could have them beheaded or locked up in a dungeon or sewn up in a sack and thrown into the sea. And he wouldn’t even feel guilty about doing any of those things because he invariably believed that he was right and they were wrong.
This policy, technically called the droit de seigneur, was one of the most remarkable features of the laissez-faire capitalism which the ancients knew.
But, down the slow passage of centuries, cultural processes were inexorably at work. A new ethic came into the world; and slowly but surely, a sense of fair play and justice was bred into the human race. Rulers came to be chosen by ballot and were responsive to the desires of the electorate. Conceptions of Justice, Mercy, and Pity came to the forefront of men’s minds, ameliorating the old law of tooth and talon and amending the savage bestiality of the ancient time of unreconstruction.
The old days were gone for ever. Today, no ruler could simply take; the voters would never stand for it.
Nowadays one had to have an excuse for taking.
Like for example a Terran citizen who happened to own property all legal and aboveboard on an alien planet, and who urgently needed and requested Terran military assistance in order to protect himself, his home, his means of a legitimate livelihood ...