The Rule of the Door and Other Fanciful Regulations. Lloyd Biggle jr.
of it, where they were most likely to break down and why.
“When you get around to buying a car,” he said, “ask me. I can keep you from going wrong on a new one, and if it’s a used one, I can tell you if you’re getting your money’s worth.”
“I’ll remember that,” Skarn promised. “I’ve heard that you are a very good mechanic.”
“I get by.”
“With so many automobiles to work on, a good mechanic should do well.”
“Not in Centertown,” Harley said grimly. “Not unless he’s willing to go along with the crooks that own the garages.”
Skarn studied him bewilderedly. He was a muscular man of medium height. His suit was worn but freshly pressed, his dark hair neatly trimmed. The fine scar line that curved around his left cheek was noticeable but not disfiguring. He was clean-shaven. He looked respectable.
Skarn could not envision him as the man the report described.
Nor in a specimen bottle. “If you had your life to live over,” he said, “is there anything you’d do differently?”
Harley smiled wistfully. “There isn’t much that I wouldn’t do differently.”
“For example?”
“I pulled a couple of jobs when I was young. Small stuff, but I did some time. Now, whenever anything happens, the police come looking for me. Ex-con, you know. I can’t get a decent job. I shouldn’t have come back to Centertown, but my mother was here, and just coming out of the pen that way I couldn’t make a home for her anywhere else. She died four years ago and I’m still here. In a rut”
* * * *
Dork had returned to the laboratory. Skarn found him there after Harley left, glumly looking at the view of the darkened living room. “I heard,” Dork said. “He loved his mother. That is considered an overpowering virtue among these creatures.”
“Perhaps so,” Skarn said.
“Invite one of them back,” Dork urged earnestly. “Any one. We can put the Door on manual and shove him through and have done with it. This planet will be a better place, and in Old Kegor’s museum he’ll at least have some slight ornamental value. And we can go home.”
“No!” Skarn said sharply. “We must not contest the wisdom of the Great Kom.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I must think the matter out carefully. Perhaps there are no evil creatures in Centertown, and we must search elsewhere.”
Dork got to his feet and paced back and forth, his squat figure leaning forward at a tense angle, his eyes blazing angrily, his face a violent shade of blue. “All right,” he said finally. “You are in charge. But I am going to invite more of these creatures here to try the Door. You can’t deny me that.”
“No,” Skarn agreed. “I see no objection to that, as long as you invite them one at a time. You may use the reports and invite anyone you like.”
In the morning there was a confidential message for Skarn. Dork Diffack had sent in an alarming complaint on Skarn’s management of his assignment, alleging that Skarn was deliberately delaying the selection of a proper specimen and displaying a suspicious penchant for native customs. The Prime Minister demanded an explanation.
Skarn replied with a report on Dork’s treasonable suggestion that a specimen be obtained without the Door’s approval. He installed a mental lock on the master control, so Dork could not place the Door on manual operation without Skarn’s consent. For the moment Skarn’s position was secure, but he had a queasy feeling that time might be running out on him. His Imperial Majesty was not noted for his patience.
* * * *
Skarn walked to Centertown and wandered in and out of the stores, making casual purchases and attempting to engage the clerks in conversation. It puzzled him that they were, every one of them, obsessed with the weather. He could understand that a relatively primitive civilization that had not mastered weather control might regard the atmospheric conditions with awe and frustration, but he could not understand why every individual seemed to take a personal responsibility for it being the kind of day it was.
“Nice day,” they would say. Or, “It sure is nice out.” Or, “Lovely day, isn’t it?”
When Skarn attempted to direct the conversation into other channels, he was politely but firmly rebuffed. He would make his purchase and ask, “Do you know Jim Adams?”
“Who doesn’t?” the clerk would say and move on to the next customer.
“Do I know Chief White?” a shoeshine boy said. “I ain’t no criminal!”
“What do I think of the mayor?” a waitress said. “I aim to vote for him. Another cup of coffee?”
“Why—ah—yes,” Skarn said, and drank it, though it nauseated him.
The natives he had invited to his home had talked volubly with him. Those he encountered about town were friendly enough if Skarn approached them first, but their restraint baffled him. What could account for such a fundamental difference in their behavior? It was a matter for profound psychological speculation.
Skarn ate a revolting lunch at the drugstore and then cautiously descended the worn steps to the basement of the rickety city hall where police headquarters was located. Sam White was alone in the small headquarters room, chair tilted back, his feet resting comfortably on his desk.
He nodded casually and pointed at a chair. “What brings you to the law?”
“I am making a social call,” Skarn said politely.
“Make yourself comfortable. Not many people come down here unless they have something to beef about.”
“I suppose you meet more than your share of evil people,” Skarn said.
“I wouldn’t say that. I really don’t believe there is such a thing as an evil person. We get some bad ones now and then, but there isn’t a one of them who couldn’t have been straightened out if someone had taken him in hand before he got too far out of line.”
“Do you really believe that?”
The chief smiled. “‘There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it hardly behooves any of us to talk about the rest of us.’ I might have written that myself if someone hadn’t beaten me to it.”
“Do you really believe that?” Skarn persisted.
“Of course I do. Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps me going.”
“And yet you sometimes find it necessary to use violence on your prisoners.”
Chief White’s feet hit the floor with a crash. “Nobody in this department uses violence on anybody!”
“But I heard—”
“Sure, you heard. You hear that about police anywhere. That’s a crook’s last line of defense. Catch him good and the only out he can think of is to try to blame something on the police. We have to be pretty damned careful to keep them from getting away with it.”
“I see,” Skarn said meekly.
The chief returned his feet to his desk, and Skarn lit a cigarette and sent a perfect smoke ring floating across the room The chief whistled.
“You’ve got that down pat. What did I tell you?”
“Your prediction was profoundly accurate.”
“I’ll make another prediction. I think you’ll like chess. Want to learn?”
Skarn watched curiously while the chief got out the board and arranged the oddly shaped pieces. “This,” the chief said, holding up a black one, “is a knight.”