The Rule of the Door and Other Fanciful Regulations. Lloyd Biggle jr.
health.
Skarn lit a cigarette, and Dork winced in the flash of light “Do you have a specimen ready?” he demanded.
“No,” Skarn said. “Do you have one?”
“I heard about what you’ve been doing. I made a full report, and I have a reply. You are relieved of your assignment and ordered to report to the Mother Planet immediately.”
Skarn smiled. “And you are to complete the assignment, I suppose.”
“On personal orders from His Imperial Majesty.”
“Following the Rule of the Door explicitly, I suppose.”
Dork’s laughter was hideous. “The Great Kom is beyond caring. As for His Imperial Majesty, when he wants a specimen he wants it. He doesn’t expect the Rules to be followed; he only wants to be told that they were followed. Your stupidity in the handling of this assignment has been a disgrace, Skarn Skukarn. I very much doubt that you will be permitted to fulfill your span of living.”
“Would you mind telling me how you plan to obtain a specimen?”
“I’ll invite the specimens you’ve already selected. Three of them, since you’ve sent the other away.”
“The Door won’t accept them. I doubt that it will accept any resident of Centertown.”
“The Door will accept them. I’ll operate it on manual and send all three of them through and get away from this cursed planet.”
“I have the master control on mental lock. I won’t release it to you.”
“You’ll release it” Dork said grimly. “There are worse penalties than death, you know.”
“Yes,” Skarn murmured. “Life.”
There’d been a lovely young wife whom he loved, and an exalted minister who took her from him, and after that—emptiness. Glim after glim replete with a nonsensical sifting of trivialities. Having nothing else to live for, he’d lived for his work and risen to the top of his profession because he could perform his sifting tirelessly, with no distractions except his memories. It had always been life that he feared—not death. He tried to imagine how it must be for these natives, who left their life spans to chance instead of making them a matter of law.
Condemned to a life without purpose, he had at least maintained his integrity. “These natives are friends of mine,” he said. “Skarn Skukarn does not betray a friend.”
“I will ask for new equipment,” Dork said.
“When I make known the reason for your request, it will be refused.”
Dork laughed harshly. “How will you make it known? His Imperial Majesty has not ordered your recall to ask your advice.”
Suddenly he leaped to his feet. “What was that?” His hands closed on Skarn’s arm. “Did you hear it? Someone is downstairs.”
Skarn activated the viewer and flooded the living room with invisible light.
“We have a visitor,” Dork hissed. “Skarn—we’re being robbed!”
A shabby figure fumbled awkwardly through the darkness, clumsily feeling its way around the furniture. A handkerchief covered the face below the eyes.
“He’s heard about our Door,” Skarn said. “He probably thinks we keep riches behind it.”
Dork cackled gleefully. “Our task is finished. The Door will certainly accept a specimen that approaches it to commit an evil act.”
“His evil act may have a noble purpose,” Skarn said.
The intruder blundered across the room, lunged into one of the closets, emerged a moment later and felt his way along the wall toward the Door. Dork sucked his breath noisily and released it in a spasm of profanity when the Door failed to move.
“Set the Door on manual,” he snarled. “I’ll push him through. No one knows he’s here. No one will miss him. We can get off this damnable world immediately.”
“The Rule of the Door—”
“Damn the Rule! Do you know this native? Do you claim him for a friend?”
“No,” Skarn admitted. “I don’t know him.”
“Set the Door on manual,” Dork ordered. The sneering authority in his voice made Skarn cringe. Dork swaggered away, and Skarn sank back wearily.
Truly, the Great Kom had acted with awesome foresight in devising such a Door. Perhaps it was never meant to open. Who could say, after all, that the Imperial Majesty of that ancient time had actually obtained an intelligent specimen? Perhaps in his immortal wisdom the Great Kom had deliberately devised a plan to prevent that. And now this—this circumventing of the Door. It was a terrible thing.
Let Dork do his worst, but Skarn would not release the Door to him. He could not.
In the room below, the intruder was assaulting the Door with his shoulder. The lights came on Dork entered the room, hands raised in mock fear of the thief s clumsy weapon.
“Certainly I’ll open it for you,” he said. “Come and help me push.”
Dork moved toward the door, paused, half-turned to say something.
Suddenly the Door swished open. Dork was sucked through in an instant, and as the startled thief leaped after him the Door slammed in his face. He beat upon it angrily.
Skarn jerked to his feet, fists clenched, his mind paralyzed with shock. He tried to envision what was happening, knowing that while he thought about it, it had already happened—the body of Dork Diffack whipped at many times the speed of light from relay station to relay station across space and sealed into a specimen bottle at the Royal Museum, to the colossal consternation of the attendants. They would recognize him immediately, of course, but it would be too late.
Skarn bowed humbly to the memory of the Great Kom. Perhaps the Door had been attuned to the characteristics of one people only, the inhabitants of Dork’s planet Huzz, discovered back in those remote times when the ships of the Empire were first creeping outward from the Mother Planet. Or perhaps not. But manifestly, the Door had been designed so that only a creature like Dork would be accepted, a creature devoid of love and friendship and kindness, an evil creature surprised in a sinister plot against another intelligent being. The wisdom of the Great Kom was absolute.
Skarn acted quickly. He dared not return to the Mother Planet; but he liked these natives. He admired the freedom they enjoyed and the curious blend of good and bad in their characters. He had many years to live as the natives measured time. He had the allowance of precious metals furnished to him for his assignment He had the house. He had—yes, in Centertown he had friends.
He opened a panel in the wall and closed the switch that sent the transmitter hurtling back through space. In succession the relay stations would fold in on each other and all return to the Mother Planet. The enraged Imperial Majesty might send an expedition after Skarn, but it didn’t matter. Only Dork knew where Skarn had located on this planet and Dork’s knowledge was safe for an eternity. So was Skarn.
He went to the telephone and called Sam White. “I have been reflecting upon that game which you call chess. I believe the next time I can defeat you. Is it too late to try tonight?”
“Hell, no!” White said. “Come on over.”
“Shortly,” Skarn said. “I have a small matter to attend to here.”
The removal of the mechanism had released the door, and the thief was bewilderedly staring into the central closet. Skarn paralyzed him with a nerve gun, took the threatening revolver and released him. The young eyes that stared at him over the handkerchief were terrified.
“What happened to that guy? That closet—it’s empty!”
“Of course it’s empty,” Skarn said. “That’s why the