The Blue Marble Gambit

by Boson, Jupiter

  I could hear the faint whine of a maser, and just over it voices.

  "I'm sure it will hold," said Trina.

  "Of course it will."

  "It couldn't p-p-possibly fail."

  "Not a ch-ch- chance."

  A long creaking sound, followed by a short crackling sound, then, "Zot!"

  Then the dull thump of bodies colliding, followed by, "Oh, double Zot."

  Oops! I sprang into action, cranking the handle to zip downward. At first I was afraid I wouldn't be able to catch up, but I accelerated until I closed in. Trina and I had stabilized in free fall, and her eyes widened as she saw me closing in. "Wow!" she blurted. I held a finger to my lips, and winked.

  She stared, and then, of all things, winked back. I noticed that I looked even more goofy in freefall than I had supposed.

  I reached out and grabbed my leg.

  My head - my other head - spun. My eyes were very big. I was disappointed - I had hoped I would look a bit more calm and cool.

  I hauled Trina and myself aboard the sled, lowered them gently, gave my little speech, and squirted on up, back to the future.

  "Whew!" I said.

  "Are we saved?" Trina asked.

  "Ruined, ruined, completely ruined," Dr. Ought was gasping. His huge machine was sparking and smoking. He informed us, in terms that would have made Trina blush if she wasn't busy memorizing them for her own use, that an amount of irreplaceable materials equivalent to thirteen years of Earth's GNP had just gone up in time-displaced smoke.

  "Now we are," I said to Trina, ignoring Dr. Ought. It was just as well, with me, if time travel was theoretically possible but on a practical level impossible. "Though you could have warned me I was coming. I nearly scared me to death, and you saw it all."

  "You told me to keep quiet!"

  "True," I shrugged. Now I identified more with that me, rather than earlier me. But weren't they - we - the same?

  "Give up. Stop it," Ned advised, as my head started to hurt.

  The Admiral burst through a door. "Hurry up! We're late!"

  "For what?"

  "For court, Court, you idiot!"

  The Galactic Court held session in a moon-sized ship which rode celestial circuit, dispensing justice where needed, or in the alternative, wherever it felt like it. As Galactic procedural rules dictated, the Galactic Court ship was now in Earth's system, the home of the soon-to-be-dispossessed. Admiral Fairchile's Bigger Than Yours, moored next door, most decidedly wasn't. It was a minnow beside a whale.

  The Galactic Courtroom itself was a gigantic cavern. The ceiling was lost high above in a half-mile of darkness. The walls seemed miles away; the chamber was designed to accommodate hundreds of thousands of members of all species, since the fate of worlds would sometimes be decided here. There were huge tanks for liquid breathers, and giant cells for methane-biochems.

  The Courtroom was mostly empty, but nevertheless held a few thousand aliens, most of them trial junkies of a thoroughly alarming appearance. A contingent of Boffs was present, to glory in the final defeat of the primates. They hated everyone, but kept a special black place in their green hearts for humans. They hated Etzans too, though not quite as much.

  The Chief Judge sat behind a high ebony bar, all three of his stalk-mounted heads gazing at us coolly. Another Orlyx! The last I'd met had wanted my skull. Bailiffs, attendants, and other personnel roamed about, of various shapes and sizes and layouts and planforms, as if Darwin had run amok. Of course, in a very real sense he had done exactly that.

  The Chief Judge gaveled the session to order. "This the matter of In Re Earth," his central head intoned. "At issue is the valid ownership of the third planet of this system. The humans filed a claim some time ago. That claim is now challenged by the Etzans, who claim on the basis of newly-discovered evidence to have a pre-existing claim. Are the Etzans present?"

  "We are," said an Etzan at an opposing table. Although only two of these tables were now occupied, there were many of them, for Galactic Court affairs could be extremely complex.

  "Humans?"

  I glanced at the Admiral. The Admiral glanced at me. We both glanced at Trina. She looked at the Admiral. Finally both of them stared at me. Where was humanity's lawyer? He was permanently stationed on board the Galactic Court ship, and so should have been safe from the Etzans - even they would only go so far. But he should have been here.

  Late, the Admiral mouthed, tapping the time-strip on his finger. He shrugged, and pointed at me. Very urgently.

  I shook my head. He pointed at me again, with a distinct air of implied violence.

  "Humans?" repeated the Judge.

  The Admiral's eyes were threatening to bug from his face. I didn't want to see that, not at all.

  "Here," I announced.

  The Orlyx gazed at me with a disdain that I found entirely too reminiscent of the last, head-poker-playing Orlyx I'd met, then turned all three heads, one at a time, to face the Etzan.

  "Proceed with your presentation."

  It was short and bitter. The Etzan smoothly outlined the story of their crew finding and claiming Earth some ten thousand years before, but then being lost in a space accident. The wreckage of the survey ship had only recently been found, perfectly preserved in the vacuum of space, its records intact. No doubt the unlamentable Hurg and Urg had expired in mid-argument.

  "Our position is fully documented by this vid." The Etzan played the clip, showing a millennia-old scene which I had already seen twice before, once in the flesh. That same wooly mammoth staggered across my view, one more time.

  As his finale, the Etzan produced the still-sealed sample canister, and demonstrated that its codings matched those of the canister in the vid. He deposited it with the Clerk, a wet slimy mass built around one central large blue eye.

  Two of the Chief Judge's heads turned away, to some menial paperwork. One, bored, regarded me. "The Etzans have a solid claim. Do you wish to be heard?"

  "Most certainly!" I said.

  "There is no point, you realize," the Judge advised. "It is over. Earth should now be called Etz. You would be wasting Our time, and We do not like That.

  "Nevertheless, a few minutes, please."

  "Perhaps you did not hear Me. We don't like having Our time wasted. At all." Crimson mandibles shivered in irritation.

  "I won't take long."

  The lone head sighed, glanced at its compatriots, and turned back to me. "No," it said simply.

  "Excuse me?"

  "No," it repeated in a hiss.

  I seemed to be unfamiliar with this legal maxim. "No?"

  "No! Nugatory! Nix! Nay! Denied! See ya! Disallowed!"

  A small rustling cheer rose from the Boff section. Tentacles slapped together enthusiastically. Another rose from the Etzan stands. Though the Etzans and the Boffs were sworn enemies their mutual hatred of humans could bring them together.

  The Etzan began packing up his things, pausing only to make a rude four-handed gesture at us.

  Ned whispered something to me, and I leapt onto our table. "I demand," I screamed, "Analysis! I invoke - Urtok!"

  A hush swept the room. Mandibles stopped chittering. Antennae ceased buzzing. Wings stilled. Gills flapped closed. Mouth-holes froze.

  "Analysis? Urtok?" echoed a hundred alien tongues, filter levers, mouth pushers, air modulators, and clappers.

  "Analysis," I repeated. "Urtok!" The audience stewed, which was a most unpleasant image. The Boffs began to boo and hiss.

  This was enough to get two of the Judge's heads turned towards me; the third was still fascinated by paperwork.

  "Most irregular," chittered the Chief Judge. "But since ownership of the primate's primary planet is at stake, we may be lenient. Though only up to a point. You may invoke Urtok. You understand what it means, yes?"

  "Of course," stage-whispered Ned.

  "Of course," I repeated, while throwing the mental image of a huge question mark at Ned. He whispered a vague response about certain unpleas
ant consequences, in certain circumstances.

  Before I could pursue this fascinating conversational thread, the Chief Justice nodded, thricely, and spoke. "Very Well. Since you are willing to stake your life, I will allow the Analysis. Bailiff, on my order, please dispatch the human immediately, by any means you prefer."

  The Boffs and Etzans cheered politely. Any primate death was a good one.

  The Bailiff, a large saurian with a mouthful of railroad spikes, smiled ferociously as he shuffled behind me. That made his preferred means painfully clear.

  "Ned!" I screamed inside my head. "What have we done?"

  Ned appeared, now a professor, all in tweed. "You did it, actually. You see, the only way to get the Judge to consider our position was for you to back it up with your life. You know that Orlyxes love to gamble; this makes it more interesting for him. That's what Urtok means-"

  "Ned! You- "

  "Now now. The measure was adopted to prevent empty posturing by lawyers. Apparently, more advanced civilizations tend to become ever more besotted with lawyers, until everybody is so busy suing everybody that nothing else can be done. Several major civilizations sank away under the weight of it all. Urtok has effectively curbed this, although there is some dispute whether this is because it has made lawyers behave, or simply weeded out the troublesome ones. But you - we - have nothing to worry about, if you did everything right."

  I could smell unwashed lizard behind me. Maybe it was washed lizard, but it smelled unwashed. "If. If. If there are no contaminants. If the analysis works. If. I don't like that word in this context, Ned!" I called him a few names, and asked if he couldn't have come up with something else.

  "Probably," he said. "But this was the surest bet."

  "Clerk," the Judge was ordering, "proceed with the Analysis!"

  "Most Honorous One," said the Etzan, "I protest! I-"

  "You are willing also to invoke Urtok?"

  "Er, no," the Etzan immediately replied.

  "The Analysis shall proceed."

  A slimy tendril of the Clerk fed the canister into a wide slot in the base of the Chief Judge's bench. Inside, Ned explained, lay a sophisticated computer that would perform an atom by atom analysis of the Sacred Clod within. It had to match the claimed planet for the claim to be valid.

  It was over in seconds, which Ned said was an unusually long time. The results appeared on the screen before the Judge. Mandibles chittered on first one, then another, then all three heads. Then the heads themselves began to bob up and down, like mutant mobile apples.

  "Most irregular," muttered all the heads, slightly out of phase, so they sounded like echoes. The first head, then the second, and in turn the third looked up, in a rather disquieting ripple of xenobiology.

  The Etzan looked calmly bored. I wiped sweat from my forehead. The Bailiff crept closer behind me; I could feel hot lizard breath on my neck. I hope he bites you first, Ned, I subvocalized.

  "Error!" thundered all the Chief Judge's heads, in perfect three-part harmony. "The offered Sacred Clod is not of Earth! Claim of Etz denied! Ownership remains with the primates!"

  The Etzan was on his feet, arms thrashing. "Impossible! We demand Re-Analysis! The vid proves our claim!"

  All the Judge's heads shook. "Denied. The Clod is not of Earth!"

  In the Boff bleachers, as I now thought of them, tentacles were flapping. This looked oddly similar to the Etzan area, where thousands of arms were angrily waving.

  The Etzan lawyer was objecting. "It is so! The vid! The canister! All is in order!"

  All three Orlyx heads turned on the Etzan. "The Clod is not of Earth! The Clod has been identified!"

  Uh oh, I thought.

  "If not Earth, then where is it from?" the Etzan asked, barely able to keep a respectful tone.

  "The Clod," the Judge replied, "is in fact from Boff."

  A huge asparagus in the gallery leapt to its thousand finger-feet. Not much of a leap, really, but impressive in its own way. The Boff screamed into a translator pickup. "Impossible. No Etzans have ever defiled Boff with their presence!"

  Two of the Chief Judge's heads turned dispassionately towards the Boff. "Nevertheless, here it is, and there you are," the Judge intoned solemnly. This was one of the sacred legal maxims of the Galactic Court. The Judge raised a gavel and slammed it down with a chitinous crack.

  "Case dismissed!"

  "Not so fast," said the oily Etzan, quieting his followers with four raised arms. "We wish to maintain the action. With one amendment: we now wish to claim Boff."

  "Impossible," screamed the Boff, the razor scythes flicking out, fully extended.

  "Hardly," countered the Etzan. "The time code on the canister is undisputed, correct, Your Most Truly Magnificent Honor?"

  "Correct," the Judge agreed.

  "And of course all that is legally required for a claim is a valid sample, proof of a visit, and proof that no sentients existed there at the time of the claim. It is also undisputed that the Boffs, though close, had not yet achieved space flight and so were not sentient at the date on the canister. Correct?"

  "Correct," the Judge agreed in a muffled tone. His tone was muffled because all around him an armored shelter was erecting. Tiny slits, closed with clearsteel, remained for him to peer through.

  The Etzan continued. "Ten thousand years ago, the Boffs had not claimed their own planet. They could not, for they had not yet developed the ability to leave it."

  This sank in.

  "Interessssting," mused the Chief Judge in three overlapping voices.

  "Infidel!" screamed the Boff, suddenly charging, moving faster than any vegetable has a right to. "Die, scum!" Yellow-white blades flicked and snicked; a mass of other Boffs followed close behind. The Etzan contingent began scrambling madly for the oddly rounded tools on their bony hips.

  I grabbed Trina and ran for the door. We dove into the outer chamber as the first thumps and alien screams started to sound.

  "I think we did it," Trina panted.

  "I think so too," I agreed. A loud blast shook the floor.

  "What now?" A window exploded outward.

  I smiled an evil grin. "Well, I was on my way to Eros when all this happened."

  She acted shocked. "Eros? The Planet of Sin?" The whine of energy weapons interrupted wet chopping sounds, and were in turn interrupted by more wet chopping sounds. A few screams nicely seasoned the grisly auditory buffet.

  "That's the one. Non-stop, twenty-nine hours a day."

  "I've never been there."

  The Admiral tumbled into the dust, helped along by another blast from within the Court. There were more pleasantly shrill alien screams.

  "It's never too late," I gallantly suggested to Trina.

  Her eyes said no no, but her lips said, "Yes yes."

  The Admiral slowly rose to his feet, brushing himself off. He looked from one of us to the other, and back again. More thumps and screams and roars and chops and blasts sounded from the courtroom.

  "Say it," I said.

  He smiled. The diamond tooth glittered.

  "Say it," I warned, advancing. My musky scent preceded me, I knew. I fanned my leopard cloak to help it along.

  Admiral Uncle backed away. Trina began to circle around him.

  He looked at her. "Et tu, Trina?"

  "Et me," she agreed.

  "Oh, alright. Court ... Dismissed."

  "Thank you."

  I held out my arm and Trina took it. There was no sunset to walk into and so we settled for a slightly dimmer patch of the ship's lights. A bulkhead in front of us blew and three Etzans, an Orlyx, and two Boffs landed in a fighting mess, wrapped in such a tangle that the scene looked like a surrealist painting painted by a surrealist painting.

  It seemed like the right thing to do, so we ran.

  --The End --

 

 

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