“I do not need a scientist to tell me the difference between right and wrong,” Hitchcock stated stubbornly.
Reese nodded pleasantly. “I expected you’d say that,” he admitted. “But you’re wrong. Until you know the consequences of an act, you cannot tell whether or not it is moral. And there are times—such as now—when a layman such as yourself does not understand the forces involved. When that happens, you cannot predict the consequences of an act.. Therefore, you cannot decide whether it is right or wrong.”
“You’re wrong!” Hitchcock insisted. “The end never justifies the means! Never!”
Reese didn’t deny it. He said, reasonably, “On the other hand, there are times when no other test applies—when all the possible courses of action look equally bad. And even when you can do something which seems absolutely right, you still have to think of the consequences. If the consequences are bad, the act itself must be bad. Or suppose there is a... a morally imperative goal which you can achieve only by doing things which any moral code would condemn.”
Hitchcock was incredulous. “Such a thing could not happen,” he objected.
“I am talking,” Reese said firmly, “about now. About the situation here. That is the problem we have been dealing with here, ever since this outpost was built—whether to help them—give them comfort and security—and destroy for all time their hope of ever becoming more than animals —or whether we should let nature take its course—allow many to die, and many more to suffer, so that some day their descendants can stand before us as equals.”
He shrugged expressively. “We can do only one thing. We must balance the wrong which we know we are doing against the goal we are morally obliged to support. We must go ahead and... and try not to let our consciences upset us too much.”
“If you must rationalize a thing,” Hitchcock stated, “it’s wrong. Good does not come from evil!”
Reese shrugged helplessly. “We must do what we think is right,” he said practically. “And if our judgments are different from someone else’s, we must follow our own. We—”
He broke off as the door opened. Two Floppers came in, wheeling a stretcher. Each one had a big red cross dyed in the fur on its chest.
Reese pointed at Hitchcock. “That man is sick.”
The Floppers advanced, their resilient feet rustling softly on the floor. Hitchcock, taken aback by Reese’s abrupt statement, thumbed his chest. “Me?” he wondered incredulously.
The floppers came up, one on each side of him. They grabbed his arms close to the shoulder. Hitchcock yipped with surprise, turned his head, and found the solicitous, repulsive face of a flopper only inches from his own.
With a strangled, terrified cry, he lunged from the chair. The floppers kept him from falling headlong on the floor. Wild-eyed, he struggled to get loose from them, but they held on. He kicked at them desperately. They dragged him backwards. His feet flailed the air.
“Make them let me go!” he begged. “Make these filthy monsters let me go!”
Reese sat back and relaxed. He was sorry he had to do this to the man, but it did somehow give him a pleasant feeling.
It wasn’t, after all, as if Hitchcock was a really good man,
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he apologized. “They’ve been taught to take a sick man to the clinic. I couldn’t stop them now if I wanted to.” He spread his hands helplessly. “As I’ve said before, they’re rather stupid.”
One of the floppers moved behind Hitchcock and held both his arms. The other flopper took an ampule from the pouch on its harness. Hitchcock stared at the shiny needle with the fascination of sheer terror. “Don’t let him!” he screamed. “Don’t let him! It’s murder!”
The flopper peeled Hitchcock’s sleeve up and stabbed the needle into the fleshy part of his arm. Hitchcock uttered a faltering cry, shuddered, and sagged.
“Oh, it’s only a mild sedative,” Reese assured him cheerfully. “We wouldn’t dare trust them with anything stronger. But you shouldn’t have struggled so much.”
Hitchcock hung laxly in the flopper’s arms. His eyes had a glassy look. The floppers wrapped a blanket tightly around him. His mouth moved as if he was trying to speak, but no Words came out.
“The ship is going to leave without you,” Ben Reese said. “I’m sorry about that, because I don’t think I’m going to enjoy your company for the next year. We’ll tell them... I t
He was very apologetic about the whole thing.
Hitchcock was making apoplectic noises now. “Outrage! Criminal! I’ll have the law on you!” For a man of firm moral fiber, some of his comments were remarkably unprintable.
Ben Reese shrugged. “I’m afraid there isn’t any law here,” he apologized. “We didn’t need any, till you came along. I ... I’m sorry we have to do this to you, but—well, we can’t let you go back to Earth. You’d agitate to have our charter revoked and... and then you’d organize this gigantic interstellar aid program, and destroy the floppers’ only hope of ever being anything more than animals. We... we just can’t let you do that.”
By this time, Hitchcock was wrapped in the blanket like a mummy. Gently, the floppers lifted him and laid him in the cradlelike stretcher. “You won’t get away with this!” he threatened wrathfully.
The floppers fumbled deftly with the straps, securing him. Their digitless hands were remarkably dexterous. All Hitchcock could move was his head and his mouth.
“Oh, we’ll have to let you go next year, of course,” Reese admitted. He wasn’t disturbed by the thought. “But that is a whole year away. We’ll have plenty of time to prepare the public for you. If we give them the whole truth now, I rather doubt they’ll be much impressed with your partial truths later on. I’ll send instructions about that to our business office on Lambda. Just to announce that the floppers are beginning to evolve should be a good start, and—”
He smiled. He felt wonderful. Perhaps treating Hitchcock this way was lousy and unethical, but even Hitchcock himself would have to admit that—when everything was considered—it was definitely a moral act.
The floppers began to wheel Hitchcock out of the room. Hitchcock was raving.
“You can’t do this to me!” he protested. “You can’t!”
“Really?” Ben Reese wondered innocently. He knew it was cruel, but the temptation was too strong.
“Really, Mr. Hitchcock,” he said, “I must have proof.”
Slowly, the procession marched past the bier of the Dead One, who was nameless because he was dead, and who had been their leader. Each one, as he came to the bier, crouched low in obeisance, then moved on. The shaman stood over the bier, his pelt stained green to signify that he personified the Dead One. He acknowledged each obeisance by raising his arms.
Shokk-elorrisch stood beside the bier, and he also acknowledged the obeisances, for he was the new leader in the Dead One’s stead. Already, he held the tool-stone in his hand, and he chanted the four harsh syllables: “My eyes shall find the path for your feet; my hand shall feed you and my pelt shall warm you; I am all of you; I give you my self.”