Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  The "Heads" side of the great coin bore a front view of the blind goddess of justice, with her scales. The "Tails" side had a rear view of the same lady.

  It was rather crudely done, but time was short. "It'll have to do," the general chuckled, as the plane bore him back to Jerusalem.

  * * * * *

  When the appointed day came, the United Nations conference room in Jerusalem was jammed with Israeli and Arab officials, and with a pack of correspondents who had magically appeared.

  General O'Reilly had decided against asking each side to put its agreement into writing. A true gentleman's agreement shouldn't be written, he concluded. He merely asked the leaders for each side if they agreed to abide by the fall of the coin. Solemnly, both assented.

  Courteously, the Israelis had allowed the Arabs to call while the coin was still in the air. There was silence as General O'Reilly flipped it high up towards the ceiling.

  "Tails!" cried the Arab leader.

  The spinning coin glittered, falling onto the green baize table. The general looked at it. The goddess had her back turned.

  "It is tails," he announced, and the Arab delegation broke into happy shouts.

  And, astonishingly, that was that. The leading Tel-Aviv newspaper summed up Israeli feeling when it wrote in an editorial: "Certainly there were many heavy hearts in our country when the coin fell against us. But let us show the world that we are true sportsmen. We risked, and we lost. Let this be the end of it."

  Work began on the dams at last, without interference or protest. Not a word was ever written on paper, but it was the only agreement between the two countries that was scrupulously kept by both sides.

  It was, of course, a wonderful story. The name of Terence O'Reilly swam suddenly into the headlines, and his wife began keeping a scrapbook of all the clippings. One among them was destined to be more potent in world affairs than all the rest. It was a "profile" of General O'Reilly published in a great American magazine, and it was notable for two things.

  To begin with, it was the author of this profile who first gave the coin the name by which it soon became so famous--the "Golden Judge."

  But it also contained a casual, seemingly insignificant remark by General O'Reilly. When the interviewer had asked how he happened to think of the coin-tossing idea, the general had grinned. "Why not?" he said. "Aren't the Irish the gamblingest people on earth?"

  And it was this innocent sentence, hardly noticed at the time, that started the "Golden Judge" on its fantastic career, and kept it from being a mere nine-day wonder.

  For a Chinese Communist diplomat in Berne, Switzerland, happened to see it and, one night at a dinner party, he said mockingly: "This stupid American general in Jerusalem is obviously ignorant of the world. Otherwise, he would realize that no nation on earth loves gambling so much as the Chinese. Anyone who knows the Orient will tell you this."

  This made good cocktail party talk, a thing desperately needed in Berne, and eventually reached the ears of an Associated Press correspondent. He filed a paragraph on it for a box story and, in the inevitable way of the press, a reporter in Jerusalem asked General O'Reilly for his comment.

  "Well," he said, "I've heard the Chinese are great gamblers indeed, although whether more so than the Irish I beg leave to doubt."

  Then his eyes twinkled. "Why don't they prove it? Why don't they toss a coin, say, for Quemoy and Matsu? The danged little places aren't worth a nickel to either side, and well they both know it. But they'll neither of them back down a hair, for losing face. I say, if they think they're the greatest gamblers on earth, let 'em prove it!"

  This sped into print, caused a world-wide stir, and brought General O'Reilly a sizzling reprimand from the Department of the Army. He was not REPEAT NOT to express opinions about the value of allied territory.

  He read the reprimand ruefully, reminded himself that another great Irish failing was too much talk--and said good-by to any hopes for a third star.

  * * * * *

  But this was before the black headlines from Formosa. With popping eyes, General O'Reilly read that the Chinese Nationalist Foreign Minister had taken up the challenge. He offered to toss a coin with the Chinese Communists for Quemoy and Matsu!

  "I'll be jiggered!" the general breathed. "They'll fight about everything else, but be damned if they'll admit the Irish are bigger gamblers than the Chinese! Now let's see what the Commies say."

  Peking was silent for two weeks. Then, in a broadcast from Radio Peking, Chou En-Lai made his reply.

  He agreed--but with conditions. He insisted on a neutral commission to supervise the toss, half Communist members, half non-Communist. World observers, weary of neutral commissions that never achieved anything, interpreted this as a delaying tactic and agreed the whole thing would fall through.

  "This is further proof," the Nationalist Foreign Minister commented with icy scorn, "that the Communists are no longer real Chinese. For any Chinese worthy of the name would not be afraid to risk the fall of the coin."

  But Marx had not quite liquidated the gambling fever that runs strong in the blood of any Chinese, be he ever so Communist.

  Stung, Chou En-Lai retorted: "We agree! Let the coin decide!"

  It was agreed that Prime Minister Nehru of India, as a neutral, should supervise the matter, and that New Delhi would be the scene of the actual tossing. And Nehru thought it fitting to invite General O'Reilly, as the father of the whole thing, to bring the same "Golden Judge" to India, to be used again.

  The general came gladly, but declined to make the toss himself. "My country is too closely involved in this matter," he explained, "and there might be talk if an American made the toss."

  He suggested Nehru himself do it, and the Prime Minister agreed.

  The actual tossing was done in the great governmental palace, and Communist China won. Chiang Kai Shek's delegate bowed impassively and said coolly that his government yielded without question to the goddess of chance.

  That night the Indian Prime Minister was host to a glittering official banquet to celebrate the ending of the "offshore island" crisis.

  "And we must lift our glasses," he said eloquently after dinner, "to the man who discovered this eminently sane method of settling quarrels--a method so sensible, so fair that it is difficult to believe that in all the world's long search for peace, it has not been discovered before. I give you General O'Reilly!"

  The general rose to loud applause. He expressed his thanks modestly, and disclaimed any merit except that of pure luck. Then he held up the "Golden Judge" itself, with a gleam in his eye.

  "I hope," he said, "that this coin will have still more work to do. Surely there are still disputed places in the world, where justice lies on both sides, where only 'face-saving' prevents a settlement. And surely it is better to resort to this coin than to force and war and bitter arguments that drag on year after year."

  "Hear! Hear!" Nehru cried, leading the applause. General O'Reilly stood smiling until it died away.

  "Places like Kashmir," he said clearly.

  There was a gasp of laughter, quickly hushed. Nehru's face was pale with anger; he was famous for his temper. And everyone knew how India and Pakistan had quarreled for years over Kashmir, and that all the efforts of the United Nations had come to nothing so far.

  "I was delighted to hear Prime Minister Nehru say," General O'Reilly went on calmly, "how much he approved this method of settling old disputes. And I should be very glad to help--with this." Smiling, he tossed the Golden Judge in the air and caught it again.

  Nehru could keep silent no longer. Like a skilled Oriental debater, he struck back indirectly. "We thank General O'Reilly," he said acidly, "for his kind offer, but perhaps it should be first used by his own people, the Irish, of whose gambling prowess he is so proud. Surely no bitterness has lasted longer than that between the Republic of Ireland and the 'Six Lost Counties' of Northern Ireland. Let the Irish use the Golden Judge themselves before they counsel it for others!" />
  But General O'Reilly was unruffled. "I'm an American, myself," he said, smiling, "although proud indeed of my Irish blood. And the Irish Irish will have to speak for themselves, although I venture to say you'll find them a sporting people indeed. But that's not quite the point, is it? 'Twas you yourself, sir, who praised the Golden Judge so highly. And you've seen today what fine sportsmen the Chinese are. The point is, are the Indians a sporting people?"

  "Of course we're a sporting people!" Nehru glared.

  "Then I take it you'd be willing, assuming Pakistan agrees, of course, but I'm told they're a very sporting people, to--" The general tossed the coin again, absent-mindedly.

  "All right!" Nehru grated. "If they agree, so do we!"

  * * * * *

  It took a month before Pakistan could agree, and all the arrangements be made for the Toss on Kashmir. But in that month, the world had other things to think about. Chiang Kai Shek accepted his gambling loss without a murmur and removed his troops from Quemoy and Matsu, the American Seventh Fleet helping, the Communists not interfering. All civilians on the islands who wished to go to Formosa were taken there.

  Washington said little officially, but in the corridors of the Pentagon, Congress and the White House, the sighs of relief reached gale force. General O'Reilly received a confidential and personal message from the Army Chief of Staff that made him pink with pleasure.

  "May get that third star after all," he told his wife that night. "And not too long to wait, maybe."

  But, above all, the month was filled with clamor from Ireland. Her Majesty's Government in Whitehall had immediately issued a communiqué which took a glacial view of the "puerile" proposal to toss for Northern Ireland. It was the timing of this communiqué, rather than its contents, that proved a tactical error. It had come too quickly, and Irishmen, both north and south, resented it.

  As a Belfast newspaper wrote tartly: "Irishmen on both sides of the line are quite able to decide such matters for themselves, without the motherly interference of London."

  Dublin agreed in principle to toss, but the wrangling over conditions and exceptions boiled up into the greatest inter-Irish quarreling of twenty years. It was still raging when General O'Reilly flew into the Vale of Kashmir with a broad smile and the Golden Judge.

  Again the great coin glittered high in the air while none other than Nehru himself called out, tensely: "Heads!"

  It fell "Tails."

  "So be it!" Nehru said calmly, shaking hands with the Governor-General of Pakistan.

  "Well, general," Nehru said, turning to O'Reilly with a smile, "are you satisfied now? I think we've proved we're a sporting people. So have the Chinese, and the Jews and the Arabs. But what about your own folk, the Irish? From what I read, their sporting qualities seem to be highly overrated. I'd say they'd never gamble but on a sure thing."

  The general's face went red at the insult, and so, a day later, did the collective face of all Irishmen, North and South. For a while there was aghast silence from the Emerald Isle, a silence sullen and embarrassed. And then a great rumbling roar of indignation.

  "Mr. Speaker!" cried a member of the Dail in Dublin. "Are the Irish people, who honor great gamblers only a little less than great poets, to be outdone by dark-skinned heathen? Mr. Speaker, I say no!"

  The following morning, the government of Eire formally offered to toss for the Six Lost Counties and, if the coin fell contrary, to say no more about them forever. Belfast agreed that same afternoon, and the whole island went wild with excitement. Hardly any Irishman failed to place some kind of side bet on the outcome, and stakes were laid that day that would be spoken of with prideful awe for generations to come.

  The remark of a Limerick drayman was widely quoted. "There's not a man of us here," he commented in the course of a game of darts at the Sword and Shamrock, "but would toss a coin for his grandmother's head, and well ye know it. So after all the blatherin' and yowrin', why not have a go for the Six Counties, and let the coin decide it now and foriver, once and for all, win or lose?"

  The British Government surrendered with grace, and offered to play host to the toss in London, as a neutral place. They soon learned, with burning ears, that the last place on earth any Irishman considered neutral was London.

  As a matter of course, General O'Reilly was invited to preside, using the Golden Judge. Like most Irishmen in America, he had long sung of and sighed for the Auld Sod, while carefully avoiding going there, even for a visit.

  He now realized his error. He was received as one of Ireland's most glorious sons. He was set upon by thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of proud O'Reillys--there were O'Reillys from the bogs and O'Reillys from the great houses, O'Reillys in tophats and O'Reillys in tam o' shanter. He was assured, and came near believing it, that in both looks and wisdom, he was the spitting image of the Great O'Reilly, one of the many last rightful Kings of Ireland. A minstrel composed a lay about him, "The Golden Judge of Ireland"; he was smothered in shamrock, and could have swum in the gifts of potheen. Secretly he much preferred Scotch whisky to Irish, but the swarming O'Reillys made the disposal of the potheen no very great problem.

  * * * * *

  The actual toss took place in a small railroad station, hastily cleaned up, on the railway line between Dublin and Belfast. Impartial surveyors had certified it as being exactly astraddle the frontier.

  Amid a deathlike hush, with a high sense of history in his heart, General O'Reilly flipped the Golden Judge high in the air.

  Eire won. The Six Counties were no longer lost, and there was little enough work done in Ireland for a fortnight. Eire instantly and magnanimously granted to her new north all the points that had been fought over so bitterly for so many years. For the northerners, to their surprise, life went on exactly as before, except for different postage stamps, and a changed heading on their income-tax returns, which were considerably lower. For the first time in many years, there were no brickbats thrown if a man felt the need, on a summer night, to sing "God Save the Queen."

  General O'Reilly flew away from Ireland with a mist in his eyes and a great glow in his heart. In a shaven second, he had achieved the thing for which long and gallant generations of earlier O'Reillys had fought bloodily and in vain. For a fleeting moment, he wondered if his nervous right hand that day had shown any subconscious partisanship, but rejected the thing as impossible. If the toss for the Six Counties was, in a way, the crowning peak of General O'Reilly's career, it was by no means the end of it. Both he and his coin were fast becoming settled tradition. He continued his normal military career, but with the tacit understanding he would have a few days' leave of absence whenever the Golden Judge was needed.

  He took it to Stockholm for the toss that settled the old and bitter fishing controversy between Britain and Iceland. Britain won.

  He took it to Cairo, where Britain and Greece tossed for Cyprus. Greece won, and at once offered Britain all the bases she wanted there, and granted special extraterritorial status to all British colonels, knights' widows and former governors of the Punjab living in retirement on the island.

  He got his third star just before he flew down to Rio de Janiero for the toss that finally settled the nagging quarrel between Britain and Argentina as to who owned the Falkland Islands. Britain won.

  He took it to The Hague in Holland for the toss about the Saar. The Saar had remained a European sore point despite a series of Franco-German "settlements" which never seemed to settle anything. Germany won the toss, and immediately, of her own free will, granted the French equal commercial rights.

  The Saar toss had two odd results. The first was purely personal for General O'Reilly, but he never forgot it. One day, driving through The Hague, his official car passed a huge dignified building, which his chauffeur explained was the World Court. With a strange feeling, the general noticed a solemn old man in black, staring bleakly out the window. He realized suddenly it was probably a judge, and that the golden coin in his pocket had turned this cos
tly mechanism into an anachronism. Nobody used the World Court any more now.

  The other result of the Saar toss was, from the viewpoint of world jurisprudence, far more important. It transformed the Golden Judge from a mere tradition into an established legal institution, in this manner:

  France and Germany had been unable to agree whether the Saar was really tossable--a term that soon entered dictionaries--and had appealed to the United Nations to decide. A temporary or ad hoc United Nations commission had been named to settle this point and, after due deliberation, had pronounced the Saar tossable.

  Technically, this "Saar Commission" should have then dissolved itself. Instead, in the way of parliamentary institutions, it lingered on and soon became the accepted body to decide on tossability. And, illogically, it was forever afterwards still called the "Saar Commission."

  Whenever, anywhere in the world, some international dispute reached stalemate, it became commonplace for some delegate to rise and say: "Mr. Chairman, I move the question be referred to the Saar Commission."

  In due course, the Saar Commission would then give its solemn judgment as to whether or not the dispute should be put to the arbitrament of the Golden Judge. If so, General O'Reilly would board a plane, and be off.

  Once the Saar Commission had its say, no nation ever dared refuse to put a dispute to the hazard of the coin. Whereas nations yawned at being called "warmongers" or "imperialists" or "aggressors" or "international bandits," none could stand being called "bad sportsmen" or "poor losers." So many nations had accepted the verdict of the Golden Judge, that it became increasingly more difficult, not to say impossible, for a given nation to admit it was less sporting than the others.

  * * * * *

  However, not all disputes were held tossable, to the disappointment of some people who had too quickly believed the Golden Judge would bring immediate Utopia, the end of all quarreling forever. Gradually the Saar Commission evolved certain criteria: