Sarkanger

Richard Gregor and Frank Arnold sat in the offices of the AAA Ace Interplanetary Decontamination Corporation filling in the long slow time between customers. Gregor, tall, thin, and lachrymose, was playing a complicated game of solitaire. Arnold, short and plump, with thinning canary yellow hair and china blue eyes, was watching an old Fred Astaire movie on a small TV.

Then, miracle of miracles, a customer walked in.

He was a Sarkanger, a weasel-headed alien from Sarkan II. He was dressed in a white lounge suit and carried an expensive briefcase.

"I have a planet that needs exterminating," the Sarkanger said.

"You've come to the right place," Arnold said. "What seems to be the matter?"

"It's the Meegs," the Sarkanger told him. "We tolerated them as long as they stayed in their burrows. But now they are attacking our saunicus and something must be done."

"What are these Meegs?" Gregor asked.

"They are small, ugly creatures of low intelligence with long claws and matted fur."

"And what is saunicus?"

"The saunicus is a leafy green vegetable not unlike your terrestrial cabbage. It is the sole diet of the Sarkangers."

"And now the Meegs are eating your vegetables?"

"Not eating them. Mutilating them. Wantonly destroying them."

"For what reason?"

"Who can understand why a Meeg does anything?"

"True enough," Arnold said, laughing. "Yes sir, that's certainly true! Well, sir, I think we can help you. There's really only one problem."

Gregor gave his partner a look of alarm.

"The question is," Arnold said, "whether we can fit you into our schedule."

He opened his appointment book. The pages were crowded with names and dates which Arnold had written in hoping for just such a chance as this.

"That's a bit of luck," he said. "We have an open slot this weekend. All we need do is arrange the fee and be on our way. I have our standard contract form right here."

"I have brought my own," the Sarkanger said, taking a document from his briefcase and giving it to Arnold. "You will notice that a very substantial fee is already filled in."

"Why yes," Arnold said, signing with a flourish, "I did notice that."

Gregor studied the paper. "You've also doubled the penalty clause in case of failure to complete our work."

"That's why I made the fee so substantial," the Sarkanger said. "We need results now, before the end of the planting season."

Gregor didn't like it. But his partner gave him a hard look compounded of unpaid bills and overdue bank loans. With reluctance Gregor scribbled his signature.

Four days later their ship popped out of subspace in the vicinity of the red dwarf star Sarkan. A few hours later they had landed on Sarkan II, home of the Sarkangers and their pests, the Meegs.

There was no one to greet them at Sarkan's largest city, Sulkers. The entire population had gone to the satellite Ulvis Minor for a vacation, at considerable expense despite mass bookings, to wait in gaily colored cabanas until their planet was cleansed.

The partners toured Sulkers and were unimpressed by the mud wall architecture. They set up their base camp outside of the city, on the edge of a saunicus field. Just as the Sarkanger had told them, many of the cabbages had been rended, ripped, slashed, filleted, and generally messed about.

They would begin exterminating in the morning. Arnold had discovered that Meegs were susceptible to papayin, an enzyme of the papaya plant. Exposed to concentrations as low as twenty parts in a million, Meegs went into a coma from which they could be revived only by the immediate application of cold compresses. It was not a bad way to go when you consider the many less pleasant ways the galaxy has for killing people. They had brought a sufficient supply of canned, fresh, frozen, and desiccated papayas to wipe out several planetfuls of Meegs.

They set up tents and deck chairs, built a campfire, and watched Sarkan's red dwarf sun sink into a sculptured frieze of sunset clouds.

They had just finished a dinner of reconstituted chili and beans when they heard a rustling sound in the bushes nearby. A small creature stepped out cautiously. It was about the size and shape of a cat, with thick orange-brown fur.

Gregor said to Arnold, "Do you think that might be a Meeg?"

The creature said, "Of course I am a Meeg. And you gentlemen are the AAA Ace Decontamination Service?"

"That is correct," Gregor said.

"Wonderful! Then you've come about the Sarkangers!"

"Not exactly," Arnold said.

"You mean you didn't get our letter? I knew we should have sent it spacemail special delivery… But why are you here?"

"This is a little embarrassing," Gregor said. "We didn't know you Meegs spoke English."

"Not all of us do," the Meeg said. "But I happen to be a graduate of your Cornell University."

"Look," Gregor said, "the fact is, a Sarkanger came to our office a few days ago and paid us to rid his planet of vermin."

"Vermin?" the Meeg said. "What was he referring to?"

"You," Arnold said.

"Me? Us? Vermin? A Sarkanger called us that? I know we've had our disagreements, but that's carrying matters a bit too far. And he paid you to kill us? And you took his money?"

"Frankly," Arnold said, "we had expected Meegs to be more rudimentary. More verminlike, if you know what I mean."

"But this is preposterous!" the Meeg cried. "They are the vermin! We are civilized!"

"I'm not so sure about that," Gregor said. "What about the way you tear apart saunicus?"

"You should not comment ignorantly on the religious practices of an alien people."

"What's religious about rending cabbage?" Arnold demanded.

"It's not the act itself," the Meeg explained. "It's the meaning attached to it. Ever since Meeg Gh'tan, known as the Great Feline, discovered supreme enlightenment in the simple act of shredding cabbage, we his followers reenact the rite every year."

"But you tear apart the Sarkangers' cabbages," Gregor pointed out. "Why not tear apart your own?"

"The Sarkangers refuse to let us cultivate the saunicus because of some silly religion they have. Of course we'd prefer to tear apart our own cabbages. Wouldn't anyone?"

"The Sarkangers didn't mention that," Arnold said.

"Puts matters in a different light, doesn't it?"

"It doesn't change the fact that we have a contract with the Sarkangers."

"A contract for murder!"

"I understand how you feel," Arnold said, "and I do sympathize. But you see, if we don't fulfill our contract, it will mean bankruptcy for us. That's a kind of death, too, you know."

"Suppose," the Meeg said, "we Meegs were to offer you a new contract?"

"We have a prior agreement with the Sarkangers," Gregor said. "It wouldn't be legal."

"It would be perfectly legal in any Meeg court," the Meeg said. "A basic principle of Meeg jurisprudence is that no contract with a Sarkanger is binding."

"My partner and I will have to think about it," Arnold said. "It's a difficult position."

"I appreciate that," the Meeg said. "I'll give you a change to think it over. Just remember that the Sarkangers deserve to be exterminated and that you'll make a handsome profit as well as earning the undying gratitude of a race of intelligent and not, I think, unlikable cats."

After the Meeg had left, Gregor said, "Let's just get out of here. This is not a very nice business."

"We can't just up and leave," Arnold said. "Non-fulfillment of contract is a serious matter. We're going to have to exterminate one race or the other."

"I won't do it," Gregor said.

"You don't seem to understand our extremely precarious legal position," Arnold told him. "The courts will crucify us if we don't wipe out the Meegs as we promised. But if we exterminate the Sarkangers we could at least claim an honest mistake."

"It's morally complicated," Gregor said. "I don't like problems like that."

"It gets even more complicated," a voice said behind them.

Arnold jumped as though touched by an electric wire. Gregor went into a state of frozen immobility.

"I'm over here," the voice said.

They looked around. There was nobody there. Only a large saunicus cabbage on the ground all by itself at the edge of their camp. Somehow this saunicus looked more intelligent than most of the ones they had seen. But could it have spoken?

"Yes, yes," said the saunicus. "I spoke to you. Telepathically, of course, since vegetables — in whose family I am proud to consider myself a member — have no organs of articulation."

"But vegetables can't telepathize," Arnold said. "They have no brains or other organs to telepathize with. Excuse me, I don't mean to be offensive."

"We don't need organs," the saunicus said. "Don't you know that all matter with a sufficiently complex degree of organization possesses intelligence? Communication is the inevitable concomitant of intelligence. Only the higher vegetables such as myself can telepathize. Saunicus intelligence is being studied at your Harvard University. We have even applied for observer status at your United Planets. Under the circumstances, I think we should have a say in this matter of who gets exterminated."

"True, it's only fair," Gregor said. "After all, it's you the Meegs and the Sarkangers are fighting over."

"To be more precise," the saunicus said, "they are fighting over which race will have the exclusive right to rend, tear, and mutilate us. Or do I state the case unfairly?"

"No, that seems to sum it up," Gregor said. "Which one do you vote for?"

"As you might expect, I am in favor of neither. Both those races are contemptible vermin. I vote for an entirely different solution."

"I was afraid of that," Arnold said. "What did you have in mind?"

"Simple enough. Sign a contract with me to rid my planet of both Meegs and Sarkangers."

"Oh, no," Gregor said.

"We are, after all, much the earliest inhabitants of this planet. We arrived not long after the lichens, before animal life had even developed. We are peaceful, indigenous, and threatened by barbarous newcomers. It seems to me that your moral duty is clear."

Arnold sighed. "Morality is all very well. But there are practical considerations, too."

"I am aware of that," the saunicus said. "Aside from your satisfaction for doing a good job, we would be prepared to sign a contract and pay you double what the others have offered."

"Look," Arnold said, "it's difficult for me to believe that a vegetable has a bank account."

"Intelligence, no matter what form it comes in, can always get money. Working through our holding company, Saunicus Entertainment Modalities, we publish books and tapes and compile data bases on a variety of subjects. We impart our knowledge telepathically to Terran authors whom we hire at a flat rate per page. Our gardening section is especially profitable: only a vegetable can be a true expert on growing plants. I think you will find our Dun & Bradstreet rating more than adequate."

The saunicus went to a distant part of the field to give the partners a chance to talk it over. When he was fifty yards away — outside of telepathic range — Arnold said, "I didn't much like that cabbage. He seemed too smart for his own good, if you know what I mean."

"Yeah, it was like he was trying to prove something," Gregor said. "But the Meeg — didn't you sense something untrustworthy about him?"

Arnold nodded. "And the Sarkanger who began all this — he seemed like a thoroughly unscrupulous character."

Gregor said, "It's difficult to decide which race to exterminate on such short acquaintance. I wish we knew them a little better."

"Let's just exterminate somebody, anybody," Arnold said, "and get finished with this job. But which?"

"We'll flip a coin. Then no one can accuse us of being prejudiced."

"But there are three parties to choose from."

"So we draw straws. I just don't know what else to do."

Just at that moment a tremendous clap of thunder came rolling off the nearby mountains. The sky, previously a light azure, now turned dark and ominous. Massive, quick-moving cumulus bubbled and frothed across the horizon. From the vast vault of the heavens there came a tremendous voice:

"I can stand for this no longer!"

"Oh my God," Gregor said, "we've offended somebody!"

"To whom are we speaking?" Arnold said, looking up at the sky.

"I am the voice of this planet which you know as Sarkan."

"I never knew planets could talk," Gregor mumbled under his breath. But the being or whoever it was picked it up at once.

"In general," the voice said, "we planets do not bother communicating with the tiny creatures who crawl across our surfaces. We are content with our own thoughts, and with the company of our own kind. The occasional comet brings us news of distant places, and that's enough for us. We try to ignore the nonsense that goes on on our surfaces. But sometimes it gets to be too much. These murderous Sarkangers, Meegs, and saunicus which inhabit me are simply too vile to be tolerated any longer. I am about to take an appropriate and long overdue action."

"What are you going to do?" Arnold asked.

"I shall flood myself to a mean depth of ten meters, thus disposing of Sarkangers, Meegs, and saunicus. A few innocent species will also suffer, but what the hell, that's the way it goes. You two have one hour to get out of here. After that, I can't be held responsible for your safety."

The partners packed up quickly and returned to their spaceship.

"Thanks for the warning," Gregor said just before they took off.

"It's not out of any fondness for you," the planet replied. "As far as I'm concerned you're vermin just like the others. But you're vermin from another planet. If word ever got out that I wiped you out, others of your species would come with their atom bombs and laser cannons and destroy me as a rogue planet. So get out of here while I'm still in a good mood."

Several hours later, in orbit above Sarkan, Arnold and Gregor watched scenes of fantastic destruction take place before their eyes.

When it was over, Gregor set a course for home.

"I suppose," he said to Arnold, "that this is the end of AAA Ace. We've forfeited our contract. The Sarkanger's lawyers will nail us."

Arnold looked up. He had been studying the contract. "No," he said, "Oddly enough, I think we're in the clear. Read that last paragraph."

Gregor read it and scratched his head. "I see what you mean. But do you think it'll hold up in court?"

"Sure it will. Floods are always considered Acts of God. And if we don't tell and the planet doesn't tell, who's ever going to know different?"

1986