The Highest Treason by Randall Garrett (1961)

Posted on January 26th, 2008

It was during his meal at the Officers’ Mess that Colonel Sebastian MacMaine heard the statement that triggered the decision in his mind.There were three other officers seated with MacMaine around one of the four-place tables in the big room. MacMaine only paid enough attention to the table conversation to be able to make the appropriate noises at the proper times. He had long since learned to do his thinking under cover of general banalities.Colonel VanDeusen was a man who would never have made Private First Class in an army that operated on a strict merit system. His thinking was muddy, and his conversation betrayed it. All he felt comfortable in talking about was just exactly what he had been taught. Slogans, banalities, and bromides. He knew his catechism, and he knew it was safe.”What I mean is, we got nothing to worry about. We all stick together, and we can do anything. As long as we don’t rock the boat, we’ll come through O.K.”

“Sure,” said Major Brock, looking up from his plate in blank-faced surprise. “I mean, who says different?”

“Guy on my research team,” said VanDeusen, plying his fork industriously. “A wise-guy second looie. One of them.”

“Oh,” said the major knowingly. “One of them.” He went back to his meal.

“What’d he say?” MacMaine asked, just to keep his oar in.

“Ahhh, nothing serious, I guess,” said VanDeusen, around a mouthful of steak. “Said we were all clogged up with paper work, makin’ reports on tests, things like that. Said, why don’t we figure out something to pop those Carrot-skins outa the sky. So I said to him, ‘Look, Lootenant,’ I said, ‘you got your job to do, I got mine. If the paper work’s pilin’ up,’ I said, ‘it’s because somebody isn’t pulling his share. And it better not be you,’ I said.” He chuckled and speared another cube of steak with his fork. “That settled him down. He’s all right, though. Young yet, you know. Soon’s he gets the hang of how the Space Force operates, he’ll be O.K.”

Since VanDeusen was the senior officer at the table, the others listened respectfully as he talked, only inserting a word now and then to show that they were listening.

MacMaine was thinking deeply about something else entirely, but VanDeusen’s influence intruded a little. MacMaine was wondering what it was that bothered him about General Tallis, the Kerothi prisoner.

The alien was pleasant enough, in spite of his position. He seemed to accept his imprisonment as one of the fortunes of war. He didn’t threaten or bluster, although he tended to maintain an air of superiority that would have been unbearable in an Earthman.

Was that the reason for his uneasiness in the general’s presence? No. MacMaine could accept the reason for that attitude; the general’s background was different from that of an Earthman, and therefore he could not be judged by Terrestrial standards. Besides, MacMaine could acknowledge to himself that Tallis was superior to the norm—not only the norm of Keroth, but that of Earth. MacMaine wasn’t sure he could have acknowledged superiority in another Earthman, in spite of the fact that he knew that there must be men who were his superiors in one way or another.

Because of his social background, he knew that he would probably form an intense and instant dislike for any Earthman who talked the way Tallis did, but he found that he actually liked the alien officer.

It came as a slight shock when the realization hit MacMaine that his liking for the general was exactly why he was uncomfortable around him. Dammit, a man isn’t supposed to like his enemy—and most especially when that enemy does and says things that one would despise in a friend.

Come to think of it, though, did he, MacMaine, actually have any friends? He looked around him, suddenly clearly conscious of the other men in the room. He searched through his memory, thinking of all his acquaintances and relatives.

It was an even greater shock to realize that he would not be more than faintly touched emotionally if any or all of them were to die at that instant. Even his parents, both of whom were now dead, were only dim figures in his memory. He had mourned them when an aircraft accident had taken both of them when he was only eleven, but he found himself wondering if it had been the loss of loved ones that had caused his emotional upset or simply the abrupt vanishing of a kind of security he had taken for granted.

And yet, he felt that the death of General Polan Tallis would leave an empty place in his life.

Colonel VanDeusen was still holding forth.

“… So I told him. I said, ‘Look, Lootenant,’ I said, ‘don’t rock the boat. You’re a kid yet, you know,’ I said. ‘You got equal rights with everybody else,’ I said, ‘but if you rock the boat, you aren’t gonna get along so well.’

“‘You just behave yourself,’ I said, ‘and pull your share of the load and do your job right and keep your nose clean, and you’ll come out all right.

“‘Time I get to be on the General Staff,’ I told him, ‘why, you’ll be takin’ over my job, maybe. That’s the way it works,’ I said.

“He’s a good kid. I mean, he’s a fresh young punk, that’s all. He’ll learn, O.K. He’ll climb right up, once he’s got the right attitude. Why, when I was——”

But MacMaine was no longer listening. It was astonishing to realize that what VanDeusen had said was perfectly true. A blockhead like VanDeusen would simply be lifted to a position of higher authority, only to be replaced by another blockhead. There would be no essential change in the status quo.

The Kerothi were winning steadily, and the people of Earth and her colonies were making no changes whatever in their way of living. The majority of people were too blind to be able to see what was happening, and the rest were afraid to admit the danger, even to themselves. It required no great understanding of strategy to see what the inevitable outcome must be.

At some point in the last few centuries, human civilization had taken the wrong path—a path that led only to oblivion.

It was at that moment that Colonel Sebastian MacMaine made his decision.

The Escape

“Are you sure you understand, Tallis?” MacMaine asked in Kerothic.

The alien general nodded emphatically. “Perfectly. Your Kerothic is not so bad that I could misunderstand your instructions. I still don’t understand why you are doing this. Oh I know the reasons you’ve given me, but I don’t completely believe them. However, I’ll go along with you. The worst that could happen would be for me to be killed, and I would sooner face death in trying to escape than in waiting for your executioners. If this is some sort of trap, some sort of weird way your race’s twisted idea of kindness has evolved to dispose of me, then I’ll accept your sentence. It’s better than starving to death or facing a firing squad.”

“Not a firing squad,” MacMaine said. “That wouldn’t be kind. An odorless, but quite deadly gas would be pumped into this cell while you slept.”

“That’s worse. When death comes, I want to face it and fight it off as long as possible, not have it sneaking up on me in my sleep. I think I’d rather starve.”

“You would,” said MacMaine. “The food that was captured with you has nearly run out, and we haven’t been able to capture any more. But rather than let you suffer, they would have killed you painlessly.” He glanced at the watch on his instrument cuff. “Almost time.”

MacMaine looked the alien over once more. Tallis was dressed in the uniform of Earth’s Space Force, and the insignia of a full general gleamed on his collar. His face and hands had been sprayed with an opaque, pink-tan film, and his hairless head was covered with a black wig. He wouldn’t pass a close inspection, but MacMaine fervently hoped that he wouldn’t need to.

Think it out, be sure you’re right, then go ahead. Sebastian MacMaine had done just that. For three months, he had worked over the details of his plan, making sure that they were as perfect as he was capable of making them. Even so, there was a great deal of risk involved, and there were too many details that required luck for MacMaine to be perfectly happy about the plan.

But time was running out. As the general’s food supply dwindled, his execution date neared, and now it was only two days away. There was no point in waiting until the last minute; it was now or never.

There were no spying TV cameras in the general’s cell, no hidden microphones to report and record what went on. No one had ever escaped from the Space Force’s prison, therefore, no one ever would.

MacMaine glanced again at his watch. It was time. He reached inside his blouse and took out a fully loaded handgun.

For an instant, the alien officer’s eyes widened, and he stiffened as if he were ready to die in an attempt to disarm the Earthman. Then he saw that MacMaine wasn’t holding it by the butt; his hand was clasped around the middle of the weapon.

“This is a chance I have to take,” MacMaine said evenly. “With this gun, you can shoot me down right here and try to escape alone. I’ve told you every detail of our course of action, and, with luck, you might make it alone.” He held out his hand, with the weapon resting on his open palm.

General Tallis eyed the Earthman for a long second. Then, without haste, he took the gun and inspected it with a professional eye.

“Do you know how to operate it?” MacMaine asked, forcing calmness into his voice.

“Yes. We’ve captured plenty of them.” Tallis thumbed the stud that allowed the magazine to slide out of the butt and into his hand. Then he checked the mechanism and the power cartridges. Finally, he replaced the magazine and put the weapon into the empty sleeve holster that MacMaine had given him.

MacMaine let his breath out slowly. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

He opened the door of the cell, and both men stepped out into the corridor. At the far end of the corridor, some thirty yards away, stood the two armed guards who kept watch over the prisoner. At that distance, it was impossible to tell that Tallis was not what he appeared to be.The guard had been changed while MacMaine was in the prisoner’s cell, and he was relying on the lax discipline of the soldiers to get him and Tallis out of the cell block. With luck, the guards would have failed to listen too closely to what they had been told by the men they replaced; with even greater luck, the previous guardsmen would have failed to be too explicit about who was in the prisoner’s cell. With no luck at all, MacMaine would be forced to shoot to kill.MacMaine walked casually up to the two men, who came to an easy attention.”I want you two men to come with me. Something odd has happened, and General Quinby and I want two witnesses as to what went on.”

“What happened, sir?” one of them asked.

“Don’t know for sure,” MacMaine said in a puzzled voice. “The general and I were talking to the prisoner, when all of a sudden he fell over. I think he’s dead. I couldn’t find a heartbeat. I want you to take a look at him so that you can testify that we didn’t shoot him or anything.”

Obediently, the two guards headed for the cell, and MacMaine fell in behind them. “You couldn’t of shot him, sir,” said the second guard confidently. “We would of heard the shot.”

“Besides,” said the other, “it don’t matter much. He was going to be gassed day after tomorrow.”

As the trio approached the cell, Tallis pulled the door open a little wider and, in doing so, contrived to put himself behind it so that his face couldn’t be seen. The young guards weren’t too awed by a full general; after all, they’d be generals themselves someday. They were much more interested in seeing the dead alien.

As the guards reached the cell door, MacMaine unholstered his pistol from his sleeve and brought it down hard on the head of the nearest youth. At the same time, Tallis stepped from behind the door and clouted the other.

Quickly, MacMaine disarmed the fallen men and dragged them into the open cell. He came out again and locked the door securely. Their guns were tossed into an empty cell nearby.

“They won’t be missed until the next change of watch, in four hours,” MacMaine said. “By then, it won’t matter, one way or another.”

Getting out of the huge building that housed the administrative offices of the Space Force was relatively easy. A lift chute brought the pair to the main floor, and, this late in the evening, there weren’t many people on that floor. The officers and men who had night duty were working on the upper floors. Several times, Tallis had to take a handkerchief from his pocket and pretend to blow his nose in order to conceal his alien features from someone who came too close, but no one appeared to notice anything out of the ordinary.

 

As they walked out boldly through the main door, fifteen minutes later, the guards merely came to attention and relaxed as a tall colonel and a somewhat shorter general strode out. The general appeared to be having a fit of sneezing, and the colonel was heard to say: “That’s quite a cold you’ve picked up, sir. Better get over to the dispensary and take an anti-coryza shot.”

“Mmmf,” said the general. “Ha-CHOO!”

Getting to the spaceport was no problem at all. MacMaine had an official car waiting, and the two sergeants in the front seat didn’t pay any attention to the general getting in the back seat because Colonel MacMaine was talking to them. “We’re ready to roll, sergeant,” he said to the driver. “General Quinby wants to go straight to the Manila, so let’s get there as fast as possible. Take-off is scheduled in ten minutes.” Then he got into the back seat himself. The one-way glass partition that separated the back seat from the front prevented either of the two men from looking back at their passengers.

Seven minutes later, the staff car was rolling unquestioned through the main gate of Waikiki Spaceport.

It was all so incredibly easy, MacMaine thought. Nobody questioned an official car. Nobody checked anything too closely. Nobody wanted to risk his lifelong security by doing or saying something that might be considered antisocial by a busy general. Besides, it never entered anyone’s mind that there could be anything wrong. If there was a war on, apparently no one had been told about it yet.

MacMaine thought, Was I ever that stubbornly blind? Not quite, I guess, or I’d never have seen what is happening. But he knew he hadn’t been too much more perceptive than those around him. Even to an intelligent man, the mask of stupidity can become a barrier to the outside world as well as a concealment from it.

The Interstellar Ship Manila was a small, fast, ten-man blaster-boat, designed to get in to the thick of a battle quickly, strike hard, and get away. Unlike the bigger, more powerful battle cruisers, she could be landed directly on any planet with less than a two-gee pull at the surface. The really big babies had to be parked in an orbit and loaded by shuttle; they’d break up of their own weight if they tried to set down on anything bigger than a good-sized planetoid. As long as their antiacceleration fields were on, they could take unimaginable thrusts along their axes, but the A-A fields were the cause of those thrusts as well as the protection against them. The ships couldn’t stand still while they were operating, so they were no protection at all against a planet’s gravity. But a blaster-boat was small enough and compact enough to take the strain.It had taken careful preparation to get the Manila ready to go just exactly when MacMaine needed it. Papers had to be forged and put into the chain of command communication at precisely the right times; others had had to be taken out and replaced with harmless near-duplicates so that the Commanding Staff wouldn’t discover the deception. He had had to build up the fictional identity of a “General Lucius Quinby” in such a way that it would take a thorough check to discover that the officer who had been put in command of the Manila was nonexistent.It was two minutes until take-off time when the staff car pulled up at the foot of the ramp that led up to the main air lock of the ISS Manila. A young-looking captain was standing nervously at the foot of it, obviously afraid that his new commander might be late for the take-off and wondering what sort of decision he would have to make if the general wasn’t there at take-off time. MacMaine could imagine his feelings.”General Quinby” developed another sneezing fit as he stepped out of the car. This was the touchiest part of MacMaine’s plan, the weakest link in the whole chain of action. For a space of perhaps a minute, the disguised Kerothi general would have to stand so close to the young captain that the crudity of his makeup job would be detectable. He had to keep that handkerchief over his face, and yet do it in such a way that it would seem natural.

As Tallis climbed out of the car, chuffing windily into the kerchief, MacMaine snapped an order to the sergeant behind the wheel. “That’s all. We’re taking off almost immediately, so get that car out of here.”

Then he walked rapidly over to the captain, who had snapped to attention. There was a definite look of relief on his face, now that he knew his commander was on time.

“All ready for take-off, captain? Everything checked out? Ammunition? Energy packs all filled to capacity? All the crew aboard? Full rations and stores stowed away?”

The captain kept his eyes on MacMaine’s face as he answered “Yes, sir; yes, sir; yes, sir,” to the rapid fire of questions. He had no time to shift his gaze to the face of his new C.O., who was snuffling his way toward the foot of the landing ramp. MacMaine kept firing questions until Tallis was halfway up the ramp.

Then he said: “Oh, by the way, captain—was the large package containing General Quinby’s personal gear brought aboard?”

“The big package? Yes, sir. About fifteen minutes ago.”

“Good,” said MacMaine. He looked up the ramp. “Are there any special orders at this time, sir?” he asked.

“No,” said Tallis, without turning. “Carry on, colonel.” He went on up to the air lock. It had taken Tallis hours of practice to say that phrase properly, but the training had been worth it.

After Tallis was well inside the air lock, MacMaine whispered to the young captain, “As you can see, the general has got a rather bad cold. He’ll want to remain in his cabin until he’s over it. See that anti-coryza shots are sent up from the dispensary as soon as we are out of the Solar System. Now, let’s go; we have less than a minute till take-off.”MacMaine went up the ramp with the captain scrambling up behind him.Tallis was just stepping into the commander’s cabin as the two men entered the air lock. MacMaine didn’t see him again until the ship was twelve minutes on her way—nearly five billion miles from Earth and still accelerating.He identified himself at the door and Tallis opened it cautiously.

“I brought your anti-coryza shot, sir,” he said. In a small ship like the Manila, the captain and the seven crew members could hear any conversation in the companionways. He stepped inside and closed the door. Then he practically collapsed on the nearest chair and had a good case of the shakes.

“So-so f-f-far, s-so good,” he said.

General Tallis grasped his shoulder with a firm hand. “Brace up, Sepastian,” he said gently in Kerothic. “You’ve done a beautiful job. I still can’t believe it, but I’ll have to admit that if this is an act it’s a beautiful one.” He gestured toward the small desk in one corner of the room and the big package that was sitting on it. “The food is all there. I’ll have to eat sparingly, but I can make it. Now, what’s the rest of the plan?”

MacMaine took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. His shakes subsided to a faint, almost imperceptible quiver. “The captain doesn’t know our destination. He was told that he would receive secret instructions from you.” His voice, he noticed thankfully, was almost normal. He reached into his uniform jacket and took out an official-looking sealed envelope. “These are the orders. We are going out to arrange a special truce with the Kerothi.”

“What?”

“That’s what it says here. You’ll have to get on the subradio and do some plain and fancy talking. Fortunately, not a man jack aboard this ship knows a word of your language, so they’ll think you’re arranging truce terms.

“They’ll be sitting ducks when your warship pulls up alongside and sends in a boarding party. By the time they realize what has happened, it will be too late.”

“You’re giving us the ship, too?” Tallis looked at him wonderingly. “And eight prisoners?”

“Nine,” said MacMaine. “I’ll hand over my sidearm to you just before your men come through the air lock.”

General Tallis sat down in the other small chair, his eyes still on the Earthman. “I can’t help but feel that this is some sort of trick, but if it is, I can’t see through it. Why are you doing this, Sepastian?”

“You may not understand this, Tallis,” MacMaine said evenly, “but I am fighting for freedom. The freedom to think.”

The Traitor

Convincing the Kerothi that he was in earnest was more difficult than MacMaine had at first supposed. He had done his best, and now, after nearly a year of captivity, Tallis had come to tell him that his offer had been accepted.

General Tallis sat across from Colonel MacMaine, smoking his cigarette absently.

“Just why are they accepting my proposition?” MacMaine asked bluntly.

“Because they can afford to,” Tallis said with a smile. “You will be watched, my sibling-by-choice. Watched every moment, for any sign of treason. Your flagship will be a small ten-man blaster-boat—one of our own. You gave us one; we’ll give you one. At the worst, we will come out even. At the best, your admittedly brilliant grasp of tactics and strategy will enable us to save thousands of Kerothi lives, to say nothing of the immense savings in time and money.”

“All I ask is a chance to prove my ability and my loyalty.”

“You’ve already proven your ability. All of the strategy problems that you have been given over the past year were actual battles that had already been fought. In eighty-seven per cent of the cases, your strategy proved to be superior to our own. In most of the others, it was just as good. In only three cases was the estimate of your losses higher than the actual losses. Actually, we’d be fools to turn you down. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose.”

“I felt the same way a year ago,” said MacMaine. “Even being watched all the time will allow me more freedom than I had on Earth—if the Board of Strategy is willing to meet my terms.”

Tallis chuckled. “They are. You’ll be the best-paid officer in the entire fleet; none of the rest of us gets a tenth of what you’ll be getting, as far as personal value is concerned. And yet, it costs us practically nothing. You drive an attractive bargain, Sepastian.”

“Is that the kind of pay you’d like to get, Tallis?” MacMaine asked with a smile.

“Why not? You’ll get your terms: full pay as a Kerothi general, with retirement on full pay after the war is over. The pick of the most beautiful—by your standards—of the Earthwomen we capture. A home on Keroth, built to your specifications, and full citizenship, including the freedom to enter into any business relationships you wish. If you keep your promises, we can keep ours and still come out ahead.”

“Good. When do we start?”

“Now,” said Tallis rising from his chair. “Put on your dress uniform, and we’ll go down to see the High Commander. We’ve got to give you a set of general’s insignia, my sibling-by-choice.”

Tallis waited while MacMaine donned the blue trousers and gold-trimmed red uniform of a Kerothi officer. When he was through, MacMaine looked at himself in the mirror. “There’s one more thing, Tallis,” he said thoughtfully.

“What’s that?”

“This hair. I think you’d better arrange to have it permanently removed, according to your custom. I can’t do anything about the color of my skin, but there’s no point in my looking like one of your wild hillmen.”

“You’re very gracious,” Tallis said. “And very wise. Our officers will certainly come closer to feeling that you are one of us.”

“I am one of you from this moment,” MacMaine said. “I never intend to see Earth again, except, perhaps, from space—when we fight the final battle of the war.”

“That may be a hard battle,” Tallis said.

“Maybe,” MacMaine said thoughtfully. “On the other hand, if my overall strategy comes out the way I think it will, that battle may never be fought at all. I think that complete and total surrender will end the war before we ever get that close to Earth.”

“I hope you’re right,” Tallis said firmly. “This war is costing far more than we had anticipated, in spite of the weakness of your—that is, of Earth.”

“Well,” MacMaine said with a slight grin, “at least you’ve been able to capture enough Earth food to keep me eating well all this time.”

Tallis’ grin was broad. “You’re right. We’re not doing too badly at that. Now, let’s go; the High Commander is waiting.”

MacMaine didn’t realize until he walked into the big room that what he was facing was not just a discussion with a high officer, but what amounted to a Court of Inquiry.The High Commander, a dome-headed, wrinkled, yellow-skinned, hard-eyed old Kerothi, was seated in the center of a long, high desk, flanked on either side by two lower-ranking generals who had the same deadly, hard look. Off to one side, almost like a jury in a jury box, sat twenty or so lesser officers, none of them ranking below the Kerothi equivalent of lieutenant-colonel.As far as MacMaine could tell, none of the officers wore the insignia of fleet officers, the spaceship-and-comet that showed that the wearer was a fighting man. These were the men of the Permanent Headquarters Staff—the military group that controlled, not only the armed forces of Keroth, but the civil government as well.”What’s this?” MacMaine hissed in a whispered aside, in English.

“Pearr up, my prrotherr,” Tallis answered softly, in the same tongue, “all is well.”

MacMaine had known, long before he had ever heard of General Polan Tallis, that the Hegemony of Keroth was governed by a military junta, and that all Kerothi were regarded as members of the armed forces. Technically, there were no civilians; they were legally members of the “unorganized reserve,” and were under military law. He had known that Kerothi society was, in its own way, as much a slave society as that of Earth, but it had the advantage over Earth in that the system did allow for advance by merit. If a man had the determination to get ahead, and the ability to cut the throat—either literally or figuratively—of the man above him in rank, he could take his place.

On a more strictly legal basis, it was possible for a common trooper to become an officer by going through the schools set up for that purpose, but, in practice, it took both pull and pressure to get into those schools.

In theory, any citizen of the Hegemony could become an officer, and any officer could become a member of the Permanent Headquarters Staff. Actually, a much greater preference was given to the children of officers. Examinations were given periodically for the purpose of recruiting new members for the elite officers’ corps, and any citizen could take the examination—once.

But the tests were heavily weighted in favor of those who were already well-versed in matters military, including what might be called the “inside jokes” of the officers’ corps. A common trooper had some chance of passing the examination; a civilian had a very minute chance. A noncommissioned officer had the best chance of passing the examination, but there were age limits which usually kept NCO’s from getting a commission. By the time a man became a noncommissioned officer, he was too old to be admitted to the officers training schools. There were allowances made for “extraordinary merit,” which allowed common troopers or upper-grade NCO’s to be commissioned in spite of the general rules, and an astute man could take advantage of those allowances.

Ability could get a man up the ladder, but it had to be a particular kind of ability.

During his sojourn as a “guest” of the Kerothi, MacMaine had made a point of exploring the history of the race. He knew perfectly well that the histories he had read were doctored, twisted, and, in general, totally unreliable in so far as presenting anything that would be called a history by an unbiased investigator.But, knowing this, MacMaine had been able to learn a great deal about the present society. Even if the “history” was worthless as such, it did tell something about the attitudes of a society that would make up such a history. And, too, he felt that, in general, the main events which had been catalogued actually occurred; the details had been blurred, and the attitudes of the people had been misrepresented, but the skeleton was essentially factual.MacMaine felt that he knew what kind of philosophy had produced the mental attitudes of the Court he now faced, and he felt he knew how to handle himself before them.Half a dozen paces in front of the great desk, the color of the floor tiling was different from that of the rest of the floor. Instead of a solid blue, it was a dead black. Tallis, who was slightly ahead of MacMaine, came to a halt as his toes touched the edge of the black area.

Uh-oh! a balk line, MacMaine thought. He stopped sharply at the same point. Both of them just stood there for a full minute while they were carefully inspected by the members of the Court.

Then the High Commander gestured with one hand, and the officer to his left leaned forward and said: “Why is this one brought before us in the uniform of an officer, bare of any insignia of rank?”

It could only be a ritual question, MacMaine decided; they must know why he was there.

“I bring him as a candidate for admission to our Ingroup,” Tallis replied formally, “and ask the indulgence of Your Superiorities therefor.”

“And who are you who ask our indulgence?”

Tallis identified himself at length—name, rank, serial number, military record, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

By the time he had finished, MacMaine was beginning to think that the recitation would go on forever. The High Commander had closed his eyes, and he looked as if he had gone to sleep.

There was more formality. Through it all, MacMaine stood at rigid attention, flexing his calf muscles occasionally to keep the blood flowing in his legs. He had no desire to disgrace himself by passing out in front of the Court.

Finally the Kerothi officer stopped asking Tallis questions and looked at the High Commander. MacMaine got the feeling that there was about to be a departure from the usual procedure.

Without opening his eyes, the High Commander said, in a brittle, rather harsh voice, “These circumstances are unprecedented.” Then he opened his eyes and looked directly at MacMaine. “Never has an animal been proposed for such an honor. In times past, such a proposal would have been mockery of this Court and this Ingroup, and a crime of such monstrous proportions as to merit Excommunication.”

MacMaine knew what that meant. The word was used literally; the condemned one was cut off from all communication by having his sensory nerves surgically severed. Madness followed quickly; psychosomatic death followed eventually, as the brain, cut off from any outside stimuli except those which could not be eliminated without death following instantly, finally became incapable of keeping the body alive. Without feedback, control was impossible, and the organism-as-a-whole slowly deteriorated until death was inevitable.

At first, the victim screamed and thrashed his limbs as the brain sent out message after message to the rest of the body, but since the brain had no way of knowing whether the messages had been received or acted upon, the victim soon went into a state comparable to that of catatonia and finally died.

If it was not the ultimate in punishment, it was a damned close approach, MacMaine thought. And he felt that the word “damned” could be used in that sense without fear of exaggeration.

“However,” the High Commander went on, gazing at the ceiling, “circumstances change. It would once have been thought vile that a machine should be allowed to do the work of a skilled man, and the thought that a machine might do the work with more precision and greater rapidity would have been almost blasphemous.”This case must be viewed in the same light. As we are replacing certain of our workers on our outer planets with Earth animals simply because they are capable of doing the work more cheaply, so we must recognize that the same interests of economy govern in this case.”A computing animal, in that sense, is in the same class as a computing machine. It would be folly to waste their abilities simply because they are not human.”There also arises the question of command. It has been represented to this court, by certain officers who have been active in investigating the candidate animal, that it would be as degrading to ask a human officer to take orders from an animal as it would be to ask him to take orders from a commoner of the Unorganized Reserve, if not more so. And, I must admit, there is, on the surface of it, some basis for this reasoning.

“But, again, we must not let ourselves be misled. Does not a spaceship pilot, in a sense, take orders from the computer that gives him his orbits and courses? In fact, do not all computers give orders, in one way or another, to those who use them?

“Why, then, should we refuse to take orders from a computing animal?”

He paused and appeared to listen to the silence in the room before going on.

“Stand at ease until the High Commander looks at you again,” Tallis said in a low aside.

This was definitely the pause for adjusting to surprise.

It seemed interminable, though it couldn’t have been longer than a minute later that the High Commander dropped his gaze from the ceiling to MacMaine. When MacMaine snapped to attention again, the others in the room became suddenly silent.

“We feel,” the hard-faced old Kerothi continued, as if there had been no break, “that, in this case, we are justified in employing the animal in question.

“However, we must make certain exceptions to our normal procedure. The candidate is not a machine, and therefore cannot be treated as a machine. Neither is it human, and therefore cannot be treated as human.

“Therefore, this is the judgment of the Court of the Ingroup:

“The animal, having shown itself to be capable of behaving, in some degree, as befits an officer—including, as we have been informed, voluntarily conforming to our custom as regards superfluous hair—it shall henceforth be considered as having the same status as an untaught child or a barbarian, insofar as social conventions are concerned, and shall be entitled to the use of the human pronoun, he.

“Further, he shall be entitled to wear the uniform he now wears, and the insignia of a General of the Fleet. He shall be entitled, as far as personal contact goes, to the privileges of that rank, and shall be addressed as such.

“He will be accorded the right of punishment of an officer of that rank, insofar as disciplining his inferiors is concerned, except that he must first secure the concurrence of his Guardian Officer, as hereinafter provided.

“He shall also be subject to punishment in the same way and for the same offenses as humans of his rank, taking into account physiological differences, except as hereinafter provided.

 

“His reward for proper service”—The High Commander listed the demands MacMaine had made—”are deemed fitting, and shall be paid, provided his duties in service are carried out as proposed.

“Obviously, however, certain restrictions must be made. General MacMaine, as he is entitled to be called, is employed solely as a Strategy Computer. His ability as such and his knowledge of the psychology of the Earth animals are, as far as we are concerned at this moment, his only useful attributes. Therefore, his command is restricted to that function. He is empowered to act only through the other officers of the Fleet as this Court may appoint; he is not to command directly.

“Further, it is ordered that he shall have a Guardian Officer, who shall accompany him at all times and shall be directly responsible for his actions.

“That officer shall be punished for any deliberate crime committed by the aforesaid General MacMaine as if he had himself committed the crime.

“Until such time as this Court may appoint another officer for the purpose, General Polan Tallis, previously identified in these proceedings, is appointed as Guardian Officer.”

The High Commander paused for a moment, then he said: “Proceed with the investment of the insignia.”

The Strategy

General Sebastian MacMaine, sometime Colonel of Earth’s Space Force, and presently a General of the Kerothi Fleet, looked at the array of stars that appeared to drift by the main viewplate of his flagship, the blaster-boat Shudos.

Behind him, General Tallis was saying, “You’ve done well, Sepastian. Better than anyone could have really expected. Three battles so far, and every one of them won by a margin far greater than anticipated. Any ideas that anyone may have had that you were not wholly working for the Kerothi cause has certainly been dispelled.”

“Thanks, Tallis.” MacMaine turned to look at the Kerothi officer. “I only hope that I can keep it up. Now that we’re ready for the big push, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if I were to lose a battle.”

“Frankly,” Tallis said, “that would depend on several things, the main one being whether or not it appeared that you had deliberately thrown the advantage to the enemy. But nobody expects you, or anyone else, to win every time. Even the most brilliant commander can make an honest mistake, and if it can be shown that it was an honest mistake, and one, furthermore, that he could not have been expected to avoid, he wouldn’t be punished for it. In your case, I’ll admit that the investigation would be a great deal more thorough than normal, and that you wouldn’t get as much of the benefit of the doubt as another officer might, but unless there is a deliberate error I doubt that anything serious would happen.”

“Do you really believe that, Tallis, or is it just wishful thinking on your part, knowing as you do that your punishment will be the same as mine if I fail?” MacMaine asked flatly.

Tallis didn’t hesitate. “If I didn’t believe it, I would ask to be relieved as your Guardian. And the moment I did that, you would be removed from command. The moment I feel that you are not acting for the best interests of Keroth, I will act—not only to protect myself, but to protect my people.”

“That’s fair enough,” MacMaine said. “But how about the others?”

“I cannot speak for my fellow officers—only for myself.” Then Tallis’ voice became cold. “Just keep your hands clean, Sepastian, and all will be well. You will not be punished for mistakes—only for crimes. If you are planning no crimes, this worry of yours is needless.”

“I ceased to worry about myself long ago,” MacMaine said coolly. “I do not fear personal death, not even by Excommunication. My sole worry is about the ultimate outcome of the war if I should fail. That, and nothing more.”

“I believe you,” Tallis said. “Let us say no more about it. Your actions are difficult for us to understand, in some ways, that’s all. No Kerothi would ever change his allegiance as you have. Nor has any Earth officer that we have captured shown any desire to do so. Oh, some of them have agreed to do almost anything we wanted them to, but these were not the intelligent ones, and even they were only doing it to save their own miserable hides.

“Still, you are an exceptional man, Sepastian, unlike any other of your race, as far as we know. Perhaps it is simply that you are the only one with enough wisdom to seek your intellectual equals rather than remain loyal to a mass of stupid animals who are fit only to be slaves.”

“It was because I foresaw their eventual enslavement that I acted as I did,” MacMaine admitted. “As I saw it, I had only two choices—to remain as I was and become a slave to the Kerothi or to put myself in your hands willingly and hope for the best. As you——”

He was interrupted by a harsh voice from a nearby speaker.

“Battle stations! Battle stations! Enemy fleet in detector range! Contact in twelve minutes!”

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