"That's right," said Pembun soberly. "I guess you can take him alive, all right. Prob'ly could 'ave taken all seven after the accident, if your patrolmen 'adn' shot so quick."
"Those were city patrolmen," said Pemberton acidly, with a flush on his cheekbones, "not Security men. Their conduct was perfectly in order. When they arrived on the scene of the accident, and saw three men attempting to aid four others whose bodies were torn open, exposing the alien shapes underneath, they instantly fired on the whole group. Those were their orders; that was what they had been trained to do in any such event. They would have been right, even if one of the Rithians had not escaped into the crowd."
Pembun shook his head, smiling. "I'm not so good at paradoxes," he said. "They jus' mix me up."
"There is no paradox, Mr. Pembun," said Spangler gently. "A fully equipped Security crew can take chances with an unknown force which a municipal patrol cannot. A patrolman, discovering an alien on this planet, must kill first and investigate afterwards—because an alien spy or saboteur, by definition, has unknown potentialities. Planning centuries in advance, as we must, we obviously can't foresee every possible variant of a basic situation; but we can and do lay down directives which will serve our best interests in the vast majority of cases. And we can't, Mr. Pembun, we cannot allow crucial decisions to be made on the spot by non-executive personnel."
Colonel Cassina cleared his throat impatiently. "Shall we get on?"
"Just one moment. Mr. Pembun, I want to make this point clear to you if I can. Interpretation is the dry rot of law. One interpretation, and the law is modified; two, the law is distorted—three hundred million, and there is no law at all, there is pure anarchy. In a small system, of course—a single planet, for example—there are only a few intermediate stages between planning and execution. But when you consider that we're dealing here with an empire of two hundred sixty planets, an aggregate of more than eight hundred billion people, you'll realize that directives must be rigid and policy unified. In an emergency, the lower-echelon official who acts according to his own personal interpretation may be right or wrong. The similar official who follows a rigid policy, prepared to meet the widest possible variety of actual situations, will be right—in ninety-nine point nine out of a hundred cases. We take the long view; we can't afford to do otherwise."
Pembun nodded seriously. He said, "We 'ad the same trouble at 'ome—on a smaller scale, of course. Right after we declared our independence, we formed a federation with the two other planets in our system, Novaya Zemlya and Reunion. It seemed like a good idea—you know, for mutual defense and so on. But we found out to keep that big a gover'ment running we 'ad to stiffen it up something dreadful, an' some'ow or other it didn' seem to be as cheap to run as three diff'rent gover'ments, either. So we split up ag'in."
Spangler kept his urbane expression with difficulty. Colonel Cassina's neck was brick red, and Dr. Baustian, Captain Wei and Miss Timoney were staring at Pembun in frank amazement. The others looked embarrassed.
Really, it was a waste of time to take any pains with a barbarian like this. Try to explain the philosophy behind the workings of the greatest empire in history, and all Pembun got out of it was a childish analogy to the history of his own pipsqueak solar system!
He regarded the little man through narrowed lids. Come to think of it, was Pembun really as simple as he appeared, or was he snickering to himself behind that stolid yellow-brown face?
He had said several things which could only be explained by the worst of bad taste or the sheerest blind ignorance. After Spangler's reference to Manhaven's "gaining its independence"—surely a polite way of putting it, since Manhaven had seceded from the Empire only on Earth's sufferance, at a time when she was occupied elsewhere—Pembun had said, "After we declared our independence—"
Carelessness, or deliberate, subtly pointed insult?
Was Pembun saying, "There are two hundred sixty planets and eight hundred billion people in your Empire, all right—but there used to be a lot more, and a century from now there'll be a lot less."
Insufferable little planet-crawler…
Colonel Cassina said, "Mr. Pembun, do I understand you to suggest that we too should split up as you put it? That the Empire should be liquidated?"
Cassina snorted and sputtered. Pemberton's face was white with indignation. It was remarkable, Spangler thought with one corner of his mind, how easily Pembun was able to rub them all the wrong way. If it could possibly be arranged, future conferences would be held without him.
"Gentlemen," he said, raising his voice a trifle, "shall we continue?"
After they had left, Spangler sat alone in his inner office, absently toying with the buttons that controlled the big information screen opposite his desk. He switched on one organizational chart after another, without seeing any of them.
Pembun had behaved himself, in a manner of speaking, after that clash with Cassina. But the things he had said had become not merely irritating, but disquieting.
It had started with the usual complaint from Pemberton, speaking for the mayor. Like almost every planetary and local government department except Security, the city administration wanted to know when the Rithian would be captured and the planetwide blockade ended.
Spangler had assured him that the Rithian could not possibly remain concealed for more than a week at the utmost.
And then Pembun had remarked, "Excuse me, Commissioner, but I b'lieve it would be safer if you said two months."
"Why, Mr. Pembun?"
"Well, because Rithi got to 'ave a lot of beryllium salts in their food. The way I see it, this one Rithi wouldn' 'ave more than six or eight weeks' supply with 'im. After that, you can either tie up all the supplies of beryllium salts, so 'e 'as to surrender or starve, or jus' watch the chemical supply 'ouses an' arrest anybody 'oo buys them. Either way, you got 'im. Might take a little more than two months. Say two and a 'alf or three."
"Mr. Pembun," Spangler said with icy patience, "that's an admirable plan, but we're not going to need it. The house checks will get our Rithian before a week is up."
"Clear everybody out of a building, an' wawk them all past one of those fluoroscopes?"
"That's it," Spangler told him. "One area at a time, working inward from the outskirts of the city to the center."
"Uh-mm," said Pembun. "Only thing is, the Rithi got no bones."
Spangler raised his brows and glanced at Dr. Baustian. "Is that correct, doctor?"
"Well, yes, so I understand," said the physiologist tolerantly, but I assume that would be indication enough—if the fluoroscope showed a very small cartilage and no bones at all?"
Laughter rippled around the table.
"Not," said Pembun, "if 'e swallowed a skel'ton."
Cassina said something rude in an explosive voice. Spangler, incredulous amusement bubbling up inside him, stared at Pembun. "Swallowed a skeleton?"
"Uh-mm. You people wouldn' know 'bout it, I guess, becawse you 'aven' done any trading with the Rithi—scientific trading least of awl—but the Rithi got…" He hesitated. "Our name for it is mudabs boyd; I guess in Standard that would be 'protean insides.' "
"Protean!" from Dr. Baustian.
"Yes, sir. Their outside shape is fixed, almos' as much as ours, or they wouldn' need any disguises to look like a man; but the insides is pretty near all protean flesh—make it into a stomach, or a bowel, or a bladder, or w'atever they want. They could swallow a yuman skel'ton, all right—it wouldn' inconvenience them at awl. An' they could imitate the rest of a man's insides well enough to fool you. They could make it move natural, too. That means they wouldn' need any braces or anything, jus' a plastic shell for a disguise.