After three years, another couple was moved in with them. This was not because the prison officials felt sorry for them and wanted them to have more companionship. The prisons were getting crowded. The first week, Simon and Chworktap were delighted. They had somebody else to talk to, and this helped their own relationship. Then the couple, who quarreled between themselves a lot, got on their nerves. Besides, Sinwang and Chooprut could talk only about sports, hunting, fishing, and the new styles. And Sinwang could stand the close proximity of a dog as little as Chworktap could stand a bird’s.
At the end of five years, another family was moved in with them. This relieved the tension for a while even if it did make conditions more crowded. The newcomers were a man, his wife, and three children, eight, five, and one. Boodmed and Shasha were college professors and so should have been interesting to talk to. But Boodmed was an instructor in electronics and interested in nothing but engineering and sex. Shasha was a medical doctor. Like her husband, she was interested only in her profession and sex and read nothing but medical journals and the Goolgeas equivalent of Reader’s Digest. Their children were almost completely undisciplined, which meant they irritated everybody. Also, the lack of privacy interfered with everybody’s sexual lives.
It was a mess.
Simon was the most fortunate prisoner. He had found that what had been a liability was now an asset. He could retreat within himself and talk to his ancestors. His favorites were Ooloogoo, a subhuman who lived circa 2,000,000 B.C; Christopher Smart, the mad 18th-century poet; Li Po, the 8th-century Chinese poet; Heraclitus and Diogenes, ancient Greek philosophers; Nell Gwyn, Charles II’s mistress; Pierre l’Ivrogne, a 16th-century French barber who had an inexhaustible store of dirty jokes; Botticelli, the 14th-15th-century Italian painter; and Apelles, the 4th-century B.C. Greek painter.
Botticelli was delighted when he saw, through Simon’s eyes, Chworktap. “She looks exactly like the woman who posed for my Birth of Venus,” he said. “What was her name? Well, anyway, she was a good model and an excellent piece of tail. But this Chworktap is her twin, except she’s taller, prettier, and has a better build.”
Apelles was the greatest painter of antiquity. He was also the man who’d painted Aphrodite Anadyomene, the goddess of love rising from the waves. This had been lost in early times, but Botticelli based his painting on Apelles’ from a description of it.
Simon introduced the two, and they got along well at first, even if Apelles looked down somewhat on Botticelli. Apelles was convinced that no barbaric Italian could ever equal a Greek in the arts. Then, one day, Simon projected a mental picture of Botticelli’s painting inside his head so Apelles could see it. Apelles went into a rage and shouted that Botticelli’s painting wasn’t at all like his, the original. The barbarian had parodied his masterpiece and had not even done a good parody. The conception was atrocious, the design was all wrong, the colors were botched, and so on.
Both painters retired to their cells to sulk.
Simon felt bad about the quarrel, but he did learn one thing from it. If he wished to get rid of any ancestors for a while, he needed only to incite an argument. This was especially easy to do with his parents.
When he’d been a child, his father and mother had had little to do with him. He was raised by a succession of governesses, most of whom hadn’t lasted long because his mother suspected his father of seducing all of them. She was one hundred percent correct. As a result, Simon had no permanent mother-father figures. He was an orphan with parents. And when he’d grown up and made a name for himself as a musician, he was even more rejected by them. They thought a banjo-player was the lowest form of life on the planet. Now, however, they were angered when he talked to the other ancestors instead of to them. And one was angry whenever the other got some of his attention.
What they were really after was a takeover of his body so they could live fully. Like the Shaltoon ancestors, they screamed for equal time.
Once he’d caught on to the technique, he had little trouble. Whenever one of his parents managed to break through his resistance and began yelling at him, he would open the door for the other.
“Go back! I was here first!” his mother, or his father, would scream.
“Up yours, you lecherous old goat!”
Or, “Bug off, you fat sow!”
“I was here first! Besides, I’m his mother!”
“Some mother! When did you ever do anything but throw things at him!”
And so on.
If the quarrel flagged, Simon would insert a remark to start the battle over again.
Eventually, the two would flounce off the stage and figuratively slam the doors of their cells behind them. Simon enjoyed this. He was paying them back for all the miserable times they’d given him.
The trouble with the technique was that it gave him a terrible headache. All those simmering angry cells in his body drove his blood pressure up.
Maybe, he thought, that explained migraine headaches. They were caused by ancestors pissed off at each other.
Simon talked with hundreds of kings and generals, but found most of them repulsive. Of the philosophers, Heraclitus and Diogenes were the only ones who offered anything worthwhile.
Heraclitus had said, “You can’t step in the same river twice,” and “The way up and the way down are the same,” and “Character determines destiny.” These three lines were more valuable than any hundred massive volumes by Plato, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, and Grubwitz.
Diogenes was the man who lived in a barrel. Alexander the Great, after conquering the known world, had come humbly to Diogenes and asked him if there was anything he could do for him.
“Yes, you can step to one side,” Diogenes had said. “You’re between me and the sunlight.”
However, the rest of their “wisdom” was mostly superstitious bunk.
The day for Simon’s trial arrived at the end of his fifth year in custody. Chworktap was supposed to have been tried the same day. But a court clerk had made an error in her records, and so her trial didn’t come up until a year later.
Bamhegruu, the old and sour but brilliant prosecuting attorney, made the charges. The Earthman had allowed his pets to become alcoholics, even though he had known they were dumb animals who couldn’t protect themselves. He was guilty of accessory cruelty and must suffer the full punishment of the law.
Simon’s lawyer was the young and brilliant Repnosymar. He presented Simon’s case, since Simon wasn’t allowed to say a word. The law was that a defendant couldn’t testify personally. He was too emotionally involved to be a reliable witness, and he would lie to save his own neck.
Repnosymar made a long, witty, tearful, and passionate speech. It could, however, have been reduced to about three sentences and probably should have been. Even Simon found himself nodding now and then.
This was its essence. Animals, and even certain machines, had a degree of free will. His client, the Space Wanderer, firmly believed in not interfering with free will. So he had allowed others to offer the beasts booze which they could reject or accept. Besides, domestic animals must be bored much of the time. Otherwise, why would they sleep so much when nothing interesting was going on? Simon had permitted his pets to be anesthetized with alcohol so they could sleep more and so escape boredom. And it must be admitted that when the animals were drinking they seemed to be enjoying themselves.