The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire

grice vs. volyen

In his role of Defender of the Public, Spascock tried to get this trial held in a small out-of-the-way court; as a possible agent of Sirius (Am I or am I not one? he has been groaning through sleepless nights) he has, because of the pressure from his Peers (all of them groaning, Am I! Am I not?), insisted on the main court of Volyen.

This is a large chamber, made sombre to impose respect, if not awe. Each wall is devoted to a different theme. The limbs of our sacred body' – namely Volyenadna and Volyendesta, and Planets PE 70 (Maken) and PE 71 (Slovin) – each have their wall. Volyenadna, for instance, is represented by snowstorms and ice, as well as by happy miners led by Calder. Over all arches a ceiling painted to show benevolent scenes of Volyen personified as Donor, Provider, Adviser, with its 'limbs' in grateful postures. But Maken and Slovin, having just thrown off the 'yoke' of Volyen, sent delegations to paint over their respective walls, which was done hastily, leaving an unfinished, ugly effect. They also sprayed paint over the smiling faces of 'Volyen' on the ceiling.

In this disturbing setting did the Trial start today.

Grice's Peers were raised up on a high box platform on one side. Taken together, they seemed even more in the ribald, reckless mood that often characterizes citizenry in periods just before a crisis, and were dressed fancifully and made an impression of jovial cynicism. When they were examined one by one, it was evident that not all were affected. Notably, a sensible and likeable young woman was making attempts to take it all responsibly. Near them hovered Incent, trying to impress upon them with urgent looks and smiles that the occasion was serious. He was there officially as Grice's Aide. Near him lurked Krolgul, who, when his presence was objected to by the unfortunate Spascock, simply donned the robes of a court official, in a manner that insisted on Spascock's ridiculousness, while he directed towards the unfortunate man the single, almost tender query, 'Spy?'

Grice, with Stil, was on the Prosecutor's dais.

A hundred or so citizens were in the public seats.

In the position of Judge was Spascock, who declared the Trial open in a perfunctory way, after a heavy-lidded, sarcastic inspection of the sullied ceiling and the two roughly painted-out walls of Volyen's former .'limbs.'

'Excuse me,' demanded Grice, 'but where is the Defendant?' For on the Defending side of the court was an empty platform and some empty chairs.

'Since it has proved impossible to decide who or what Volyen is...' drawled Spascock, and allowed himself a smile as Krolgul pointed up at the ceiling, where Volyen's faces had all been splodged out with white paint.

'Volyen is what has made promises to its citizens, in its Constitution,' said Grice.

'That's it' – 'That's right,' came from the public benches, and the energy of this caused an increase of attention in everybody. As for the Peers, they surveyed their audience sombrely; they had come 'for a laugh.' One or two were heard to mutter, 'Well, if it's going to be serious, what a drag. I'm off.' And so on.

But they stayed, seemingly because of the influence of the young woman, whose position among them was then and there formalized by their electing her Chief Peer.

'Well, then, get on with it, Grice,' said Spascock. 'What is your first Indictment?'

'I accuse Volyen of not providing me – representing for the purpose of this Trial all Volyen's citizens – with real information as to our basic nature, thus enabling us to avoid certain traps into which we are likely to fall and...'

But I am enclosing herewith a copy of the Indictment.

Grice read this out – a not inconsiderable document, as you will agree – in a firm, strong voice, raising bis eyes at key words to look at his Peers, who were silent, stilled by the prospect of a serious instead of a hilarious occasion.

The Chief Peer, Arithamea by name, had assumed a maternal look on her election, and now sat with a look of just-controlled exasperation.

Spascock inquired at last: 'And that is your first Accusation, is it? Very well, where are your witnesses?'

At this Grice made a signal to Incent, who made another towards offstage, as it were, and an attendant wheeled in a trolley laden with about a hundred and fifty books.

'These are my witnesses.'

A long gloomy silence. From his throne Spascock looked down at the heap of books, the Peers seemed incredulous, and the public benches let out a deep sigh.

'You are proposing that we should read all these books?' inquired Spascock, with the feeble sarcasm obligatory at such moments in Volyen's legal life.

'Not at all; I shall summarize.'

Groans from one end of the court to the other.

'Order, order,' admonished Spascock.

'In a few words,' said Grice. 'It is perfecdy possible to do so. This is not a recondite or abstruse subject... Shall I continue? Very well. The human animal, so recendy evolved from a condition of living in groups, groups within herds, packs, flocks, troops, and clans, cannot exist now without them, and can be observed seeking out and joining groups of every conceivable kind because he – '

'And she,' enjoined the Chief Peer.

' – and she have to be in a group. When the young animal – sorry, person – leaves the family group, he, she, has to seek another. But has not been told that this is what he, she, will do. She has not been informed, "You will thrash about looking for a group, because without one you will be uncomfortable, because you are denying millions of V-years of evolution. You will do this blindly, and you will not have been informed that once in the group, you can no more refuse the ideas that the group will spin to make a whole than a fish can refuse to obey the movements of its shoal or a bird the patterns made by the flock it is part of." This person is completely unarmoured, without protection against being swallowed whole by some set of ideas that need have no relevance to any real information that moves or drives the society. This person -'

Arithamea inquired, making it clear that she was only in search of exactness: 'Just a minute, dear, but are you saying that young people like company of their own age?'

'Yes, if you want to put it like that,' said Grice, for his part showing he thought that she was falling below an expected level.

'But everyone knows that, don't they, love?' said she, and started to knit.

'If everyone knows it, then everyone does not take it the necessary step further,' said Grice firmly to her, raising his eyebrows at the flashing needles and directing urgent glances to the Judge. Spascock leaned forward, in turn raised his eyebrows, and remarked:

'Leader of the Peers, you really must not knit in this court; I am sorry.'

'If you say so, Judge,' said she equably, packing away vast quantities of wool, needles, and so forth in a hold-all, a process that engaged the eyes and attention of everyone in the court. 'But it helps to keep my mind comfortable.'

'But not ours,' said Spascock. 'Do you mind my remarking that this is a serious occasion?'

'Since you're Judge, you can say what you like, I suppose,' she said. 'But what I want to know is this – I mean, to put it in your kind of language, what I need is some clarification. And I am sure I speak for all of us – ' Here she looked around and found that at least four of her Peers had dropped off, and others looked somnolent. 'Wake up,' she said.

'Yes, wake up,' said Spascock, and the Peers roused themselves.

Incent came close to them to say, 'Do you realize how important this is? This particular point? Do you understand how vital?'

Said the Chief Peer, 'When I left home my mother said to me, "Now, take care, and don't get into bad company." Is that what all those tomes of yours are saying? Excuse me asking like that, I don't want to upset you at all,' said she to Grice.

'Well, it's the gist of it, but the point is, were you told that you were a group animal and would have to absorb, whether you liked it or not, all the ideas of your group?'

'In so many words?' she inquired. 'As it happened, I did meet up with some boys and girls, particularly boys of course' – here she offered and accepted tolerant smiles from everyone on the Peers' dais – 'but I didn't go along with their ideas for long. They weren't up to much.'

'Madam, how fortunate you are,' remarked Spascock sombrely, and his tones made everyone in the court look up at him, where he sat isolated on his throne.

There was a long silence, into which was hissed, or breathed, the syllable spies... But when we all looked towards Krolgul, the ventriloquist, he was standing there leaning sardonically against a wall, the folds of his black court dress hanging like limp wings. Spies... everyone was murmuring or thinking, and the hiss of it was in the air.

Spies are the subject of every other article, broadcast, broadsheet, popular song. Suddenly, the populations (not only of Volyen, but of the two 'limbs' still remaining) look at Volyen's administrators and wonder what can have been the nature of that psychological epidemic that suborned, so it sometimes seems, a whole ruling class.

Arithamea, tactfully not looking at the Judge, remarked: 'I am sure a lot of people in this country are wondering how they came to do the things they did...'

'Precisely,' said Grice sharply, causing everyone to look at him. 'Exactly. Why? But if we, and others like us, had been told when we were at school, as part of our education, that our need to find acceptance within a group would make us helpless against its ideas – '

'Helpless, is it?' inquired another Peer, a solid young man dressed in a variety of red-and-green sportsgear and a funny hat. 'Helpless? Some are and some are not.'

'It's a quesdon of people's characters,' said the young woman. 'People with some basic decency and common sense can stand firm against wrong notions.'

And both Grice and Spascock let out at the same moment a groan, so desperate, so sad, that everyone again turned to look.

On reflex, Spascock hastily pulled out a pipe and lit it. So did Grice. The good citizens of Volyen do not know that their publicity experts (usually Krolgul) advised so many to smoke pipes as a sign of integrity and moral balance, and most people in the court looked amazed. Particularly since not merely the Judge and the Chief Accuser, but others were pulling out pipes. Among the public on their benches, among the court officials in their gloomy robes, and even among the Peers everywhere could be seen anxious and even trembling lips closing around the stems of pipes, and clouds of sweet moist smoke dimmed the air. Spascock and Grice both leaned forward to examine these unknown accomplices of theirs. On their faces could be read, Don't tell me that you are another...

'If you can smoke a pipe, then I shall knit,' said the Chief Peer, and pulled out her bundle again.

'No, no, certainly not. You are quite right. Smoking absolutely forbidden!' And in a moment pipes were vanishing, hastily extinguished, all over the court.

Meanwhile, Stil, who had been sitting near Grice, cor-recdy upright, arms folded, every inch of him under control, his face expressing first incredulity, then shock, now remarked:

'If the courts on Volyen are so undisciplined, then what may we expect of ordinary people?'

'And who are you, dear?' inquired the Chief Peer, who had not put away her knitting, which lay on her lap.

'This is the Prosecution's Chief Witness for Indictment Two,' said Spascock.

'Yes, I know that, but who is he?'

'I am from Motz.'

'And where's that? Yes we've heard of it, but it would be nice to know -'

He's a Sirian spy was in the air – but of course Krolgul maintained a smiling correctness.

'Are you a Sirian, love?' inquired the woman amiably, just as if there were not talk of lynchings from one end of Volyen to the other.

'Yes, I am proud to call myself a Sirian.'

'He is a Sirian as someone from Volyenadna is a Volyen,' said Grice.

'Or someone from Maken and Slovin,' said Incent passionately, not intending to evoke the sardonic laugh that swept the court. Everyone looked at the despoiled walls and the ceiling. A gale of laughter.

Stil said, 'I am unable to see what is so humorous about the successful patriotic and revolutionary uprisings of downtrodden colonies.'

'No, no, you are quite right, love,' said the Chief Peer soothingly. 'Don't mind us.'

'Look, are you going to conduct this Trial properly or are you not, Spascock?' inquired Grice.

'If you can call it a Trial,' said Spascock. 'Right. Well, go on, then.'

'I have already made my point.'

'Not to my noticing,' said Arithamea, and her associates agreed in chorus. 'Just run over it again, will you? I don't seem to have got the point.'

'Of course you've got the point,' said Grice. 'It's obvious, isn't it? We now know a great deal about the mechanisms that govern us, that make us dance like puppets. Some of the most powerful mechanisms are those that we can roughly describe as comprising the functioning of groups.'

Here he indicated the piles of red, green, blue, yellow books on the trolley below his little plinth. 'There is no disagreement, not real disagreement, about these mechanisms. We know, within a certain group, the percentage of those who will not be able to disagree or dissent from the majority opinion of the group; we know the percentage of those who will carry out the orders of the leaders of the group, no matter how savage and how brutal; we know that such groups will fall into such-and-such patterns; we know they will divide and subdivide in certain ways. We know they have lives that are organic'

'Like Empires, for instance,' Incent could not stop himself from adding helpfully, and Krolgul again caused the word spy to appear in the minds of everyone.

'And who are you?' asked Arithamea. 'No, I mean, where are you from?'

'He's a Sirian spy, of course,' remarked one of the Peers. 'They all are. They are everywhere.'

'Oh come on, get on with it,' said someone loudly from the public benches.

'Well, then, this is the point,' Grice went on, trying to recover his momentum. 'If we are governed by mechanisms, and we are, then we should be taught them. In school. At the age when one is taught how the body functions or how the state is run. We should be taught to understand these mechanisms so that we are not controlled by them.'

'Just a minute, love,' said Arithamea. 'I know you mean well; I really do see what you are getting at. But don't tell me you believe that if you say to some young thing, all ready to take off for independence, and of course knowing much better than her elders – '

'Or his elders; fair's fair,' said the colourful Peer beside her.

'His or her elders... you can't say to such as them, Keep a cool head and watch the mechanisms. That's the one thing they aren't capable of.' 'That's right, she's right,' from the public benches.

'I'll clear the court,' threatened Spascock.

Silence.

Spascock: 'Is your point made, then, Grice?'

'I don't agree with her. She's negative. She's pessimistic. Volyen can't jettison its responsibilities like that! Besides, Volyen has promised in the Constitution to -'

'Have you read Tatz and Palooza on Group Mechanisms?' inquired Krolgul.

'No, should I have?'

'They are in total disagreement with Quinck and Swaller,' said Krolgul. 'For instance, in the percentages of possible resistance to authority.'

'Well,' said Grice hotly, 'I'm handicapped, aren't I? I've been in captivity on Motz, and I was in no position even to know if all the relevant literature was there. But it seems to me that this is evidence enough...' indicating the tomes.

'I'm just pointing out that the consensus is not a hundred percent,' said Krolgul.

'Look, Judge,' said Arithamea, 'are you going to run this Trial, or are you not? This one here having his say as far as I can see is only an usher.'

'Yes, yes, sorry,' said Spascock. And to Grice: 'Would you be kind enough to frame your request in adequate words?'

'Yes. I want this court to condemn Volyen utterly, root and branch, for failing to instruct its young in the rules that its own psychologists and anthropologists have extracted from research and study; for failing to arm its youth with information that would enable it – the youth – to resist being swept away into any system of ideas that happens to be available. I want this court to say, clearly and loudly, that at least three generations of Volyen youth, and may I say at this point that I am one of the victims' – boos, cheers, hisses – 'have been left unprotected because of the failure to provide knowledge that is readily available to any specialist in the field of group function. That Volyen has allowed, nay, connived at, a situation whereby its specialists acquire more and more expertise about groups, the primary unit of society, but where this information is never allowed to affect the actual institutions of society, which continue to be archaic, clumsy if not lethal, ridiculously inappropriate machineries. Our left hand does not know what our right hand does. On the one hand, ever-increasing facts, information, discovery. On the other, the lumbering stupidities of our culture. I want Volyen condemned.'

A long silence. The citizens were, in fact, impressed. But the trouble was, in every mind was just one thought: It does look as if Sirius is about to invade – not that we shall let them get away with it – and we've got other things on our minds...

Spascock turned to the Peers. 'Well, do you want to

retire?'

Arithamea consulted with her associates, those that were awake.

'No, Judge.'

'Well, then, do you agree to call Volyen guilty, or not?'

Again she consulted – for no longer than it is taking me to write this sentence.

'Fair enough, Judge. Guilty. Of course, I'm taking Governor Grice's word for it that those books are what he says.'

'Tatz and Palooza,' murmured Krolgul.

'Oh, you keep out of it,' she said. 'I don't like the look of you at all. Volyen's guilty. Of course it is. We should have been told all that kind of thing. I'll be doing a bit of reading on my own account, now that I've had my attention drawn to it all. Yes. Guilty.'

Spascock: 'I hereby pronounce Volyen guilty on Indictment One. This is an intermediate judgment, which will come into force if and when the Select Committee has defined "Volyen." If and when Volyen is defined as an entity that can be sentenced, Volyen will duly be sentenced. Right. That's that. We shall now adjourn until tomorrow. We shall then take Indictment Two.'

And Spascock went striding out, evidendy in the last stages of emotional attrition. Grice and a gloomy and reluctant Stil went off together. Stil was heard to say, 'If you can make this kind of criticism of your government, then how is this a tyranny? Explain, please.' Incent was nearly captured by Krolgul, but came with me. Anyway, as will be obvious by now, Krolgul's work on this planet is done: total collapse and demoralization is his – Shammat's – meat and drink. Incent is coming out of the ordeal strengthened, and that is a good augury for the condition of Volyen during the Sirian occupation and the subsequent Sirian collapse. If he goes on like this, I propose leaving him here. If he can avoid getting strung up somewhere, I think he would be a beneficial influence.

It is now the end of the second day. When we assembled this morning, at least half of the Peers had not turned up; the Trial had not provided them with the entertainment they had expected. But a large number of a different kind of Volyens had arrived, hoping to take their places, hoping, indeed, for any kind of seat in the court. Word had gone about that attempts at serious criticism of Volyen's structure were being made. When the new Peers were accommodated there were strong contrasts between them and those of the festive ones who remained. Among them all sat the Chief Peer, at ease and ready.

As Spascock took his place with his attendants and sat down, Arithamea stood up and said, 'Excuse me, Judge.'

'What is it?'

'I have been awake all night,' she said, not without dramatic effect.

'And so have a good many of us, I dare say,' said Spascock, his pale and worried face attempting a smile.

A general silence. For the news today is that Sirian spaceships are poised to strike.

'No, I don't mean what you mean, Judge. Not that I am not bothered as much as the next person... But there is this business of the mechanisms of groups we were having us out yesterday.'

'Oh, no,' said Incent, his gracefully dramatic presence as it were infinitely at her service. 'Oh, no, Chief Peer, that was a perfectly sound decision of yours yesterday. And it might have wonderful long-term results here in Volyen.'

She looked him up and down. 'Where else could it have a result? If it has results on Volyen, that's enough for me.' Here a storm of cheers, boos, and general emotion. The mobs were out everywhere, and were asking every other person first, Were you born on Volyen? and then, finding that practically no one was, Are you a Volyen? and then, as the definitions of Volyen proliferated, simply beating up anyone they didn't like the look of. 'And I don't want to add to all this mob stuff either,' she announced. 'Really, I don't know what has got into us all. I used to think of us on Volyen as fair and sensible people.' Such was the force of this strong and competent presence that the crowd quietened and even looked ashamed. 'No, it's this, Judge. I have been reading about the structure of groups all night, and it is obvious that yesterday I was authority in the group – because this is a group of Peers, isn't it? Right. I was a bit high-handed, it seems to me now. And I have to give notice that there's not going to be any nonsense about making snap decisions today in this court. We are all going to take our time about our decisions – '

'You're bossing us again, aren't you?' said one wag, a man from yesterday in bright colours, with a large button on his chest that read, 'Volyen Rules: OK?'

'Well, if so, today I am within my rights. The rules allow for any member of the Peers, leader or not, to insist on a proper withdrawal to privacy.'

Suddenly there was a stir on the Peers' bench. The half dozen or so that remained from yesterday were standing up and leaving. 'Sorry,' they were saying, and 'All this is too much,' and 'We thought we were in for a bit of a laugh really,' and went.

'Substitutes for the Peers,' said Spascock, and in a moment the overcrowded public benches were providing serious-looking, responsible people.

And so, except for the Chief Peer, the citizens on the Peers' platform were different ones today from yesterday.

'May we begin?' inquired Spascock, his voice trembling with his attempts at the obligatory sarcasm.

'Yes, I think it's all right now, Judge,' said Arithamea.

'Good. Then, with your permission, we shall start.'

Grice stood up. He was as gloomy, dramatic, pale as Spascock. They are so obviously two of a kind, and could be used as an illustration of the type produced at the end of Empires.

Beside Grice, the admirable, the incomparable Stil seemed a living illustration of the subject of today's exchanges.

Grice said, 'I wish to put my Chief Witness on the stand.'

'Just a minute, Grice; what's your Indictment?'

'We all know what it is, Judge,' said Arithamea. 'It's written out on these programmes we've got. It's about us treating ourselves too well.'

'Will you be good enough to let me conduct this Trial?' half screamed Spascock.

'Sorry.'

'She has a point,' said Grice.

Again these two thin, nervous, wan, quivering individuals confronted each other, each with the look of being about to attack the other, but at the same time showing every sign of the tenderest protective concern for the other, as if for himself.

'Yes, I dare say,' said Spascock, 'but it's not in order, and I simply cannot – '

'But if you could stretch a point. This Second Indictment will take half a day to read.'

'I simply don't understand how no one is prepared to let me, the Judge, conduct this case in my own court. But if you insist...'

‘It's not a question of insisting, but just listen to...’

Outside, the sounds of running, shouting mobs.

'Well, I suppose so, but it's really very – '

'Irregular, I know, but...' Grice modoned to Stil, who moved to the witness plinth and stood there waiting. There was another long silence. Volyen had not actually understood that they were about to be invaded by Motz: 'Sirius' was still their word for what threatened. But what a contrast between this being and themselves, between this Motzan and anyone at this time in Volyen.

There he stood, this immensely strong man, all muscle and contained energy, with the exact and measured movements of those who use themselves to their limits. Stil is not taller than a Volyen. He is not any more intelligent. Not better endowed genetically. But as they looked at him, the Volyens let out a long sigh, and could be seen glancing at one another in disparagement.

Spy – released into the air by the ever-hovering Krolgul – could not survive; it was as if the atmosphere rejected it.

'I am not a spy,' said Stil, in his sturdy, slow way. 'I was invited here by this court, to assist in this Trial.'

'All spies say that kind of thing,' suggested Krolgul, and here Incent said, 'Stop it, Shammat!' He had not meant to say 'Shammat' but did, and then stood by it, for he turned himself around and confronted Krolgul, who lounged there, laughing in his hollow-cheeked, self-dramatizing way.

'Fascist,' said Krolgul.

Incent did not collapse.

The Chief Peer said, her tolerance clearly leaking away, 'Judge, do let's get on. I'm sure this gendeman means well, but that kind of talk used to get me irritated even when I was a girl.'

'The Chief Peer is quite right,' said Spascock. 'Do let's get a move on.'

'I want you to tell the story of your life, Stil,' said Grice, and Stil did so. False modesty is not a convention among the Motzans, and his narrative, neither embellished nor played down, was impressive. If he seemed to forget something, Grice would interrupt: 'But, Stil, you told me that when you were alone at that time, with no family, you earned your living digging up those plants and -'

'No, that was the second time I found myself alone. The first time, I found work stripping fish of its skin for use in the family of a fish merchant.'

'What did you use the skin for?'

'For? What do you use it for?'

'We don't,' said Grice.

'We don't need to use rubbish like that,' came from the public benches.

'Rubbish?' said Stil, and took off a thick, sinuous belt, stuck full of knives, implements, needles, pouches. 'Fish skin,' he said.

'Very well. And when you could not find a family?'

'I earned my living thieving for a time, since I had to eat, and then I took to the moors and I dug up edible plants which I sold in the settlements. I lived like that for three M-years.'

'And you were ten years old then?'

'Yes.'

'And you were keeping your two siblings, a brother and a sister, and you all lived in a cave near a settlement where the two smaller children could get work as fish cleaners?'

'Yes.'

'And then, as soon as your brother and sister were old enough, you three went off to an empty part of Motz and started your own settlement, chaining marshes and digging dikes, and soon others came and joined you.'

'Yes.'

'Would you be good enough to tell the court what skills you have?'

Stil stood thinking for a moment before starting on a recital that lasted some minutes, beginning: 'I understand all the processes to do with the catching, cleaning, curing of fish and its products, I can drain poor, sour land and clean it, I can plant and grow trees, and I can...' It ended with, 'I know how to administer a settlement, and to use all the technical devices associated with that. Some of them we captured from you.'

A long silence.

Spascock: 'I gather that your point, Grice, is that Volyen, your motherland, has not provided you with an education as comprehensive as Stil's?'

'Exactly.'

'I think his point is, Judge, that hardship has made Stil into what we see – and very admirable it is too,' said the Chief Peer.

At this point there was a light hand-clapping from the public benches, and Spascock, scandalized, shouted: 'This is not a public theatre!'

'I've never seen anything like him,' went on Arithamea. 'I'm sure we none of us have. But are you really complaining, Governor Grice, that Volyen hasn't treated you badly, half starved you, all that kind of thing?'

'Not exactly,' said Grice, though his point was in fact not far from that. 'All I know is this. I am fit for only one thing – if that. Governing a colony. Provided I have enough underlings to do the dirty work. Oh, I can't understand the technical devices used in administration. And all my life I have been soft, self-indulgent, weak. I cannot stand up to the slightest setback or hardship. I could not survive a day without the comforts and convenience I've known all my life. Compared with Stil here, compared with a Motzan, I am nothing.'

Here we all examined Grice, we examined Spascock. Certainly there was nothing much there to admire. Meanwhile, the Motzan stood silent, his arms folded, looking ahead of him. A soldier, standing at ease: that was what he suggested, with his broad, healthy face, his great neck, his arms, his legs exposed under the short tunic in the Motzan fashion. Arithamea went on:

'I want to ask the witness a question.'

'Certainly, if he agrees,' said Spascock.

Stil nodded.

'How many Motzans died as children under such treatment?'

Stil looked uncomfortable for the first time. 'A good many died. But we are talking of the past. You will remember, we developed a hostile planet from nothing, and it is only recently that – '

'But many died?'

'Yes.'

'Not all have survived to tell the tale?' 'No.'

'Are all the people of your planet as well equipped and strong and able as you?'

'Yes, I would say we all are,' said Stil unexpectedly, for we had expected him in his honesty to admit less than that. But because of his honesty, we knew it was true. 'Yes, we are all able to turn our hands to anything that comes up. We aren't afraid of hardship. We can eat anything.'

'You all of you rise when your sun rises, and you work all day, you live on two small meals in the day, you drink very little intoxicating liquor, you sleep no more than three or four hours in the night.'

Stil nodded. 'That is so.'

At this point an earnest, worried-looking man who had taken the place of the disappointed reveller on the seat next to Arithamea said, 'It seems to me that what this Indictment is demanding is impossible.'

'Not at all,' said Grice. 'It's perfectly obvious. It is generally known, everyone knows, that a population who are pampered, softened, allowed to go to flesh, become fit for nothing and degenerate. This is a law of nature. We observe it all the time, in plants, animals – and in people, though there seems to have arisen a convendon with us on Volyen that people are exempt from these laws, and – '

'May I ask a question?' said the worried man.

'May he ask a question, Chief Peer?' asked Spascock.

'I didn't know I had to give him permission.'

'He is being sarcastic,' said Incent protectively, hovering about the group of Peers. 'Take no notice.'

'But we have to take notice of the Judge, dear, even if his manners aren't up to mine.'

'Thank you, Chief Peer,' said Spascock.

'This is my question, then. You say in your Second Indictment, which is what we are considering today, that Empires are like animal organisms: they have a curve of development and ultimately decay. All Empires show this. While they develop they are vigorous, admire simple virtues and capacities, teach their children discipline and how to devote themselves to duty. On the ascending curve they produce people like this Stil here, who are healthy and not neurotic, who admire forcefulness and determination and responsibility. But when they decline, they are like... like we are on Volyen. We are lazy and even proud of it. We teach our children that they are entided to anything, without working for it. We are self-indulgent. We spend our time eating and drinking and sleeping. We dress as the fancy takes us. A lot of us take drugs and intoxicants.'

'Speak for yourself,' came from the public benches.

'If I am not speaking for most of us, where have I been living all my life?' said the worried man. 'But the point is, if this is an organic process, and if an Empire, like a group, like a person, like an animal, has a time of growth, of flourishing, and then a descent, then how can you expect Volyen, which is this organism, to change its own laws? You haven't explained that. How? At what point should "Volyen," whatever that may be, and I'm told even this court hasn't made up its mind on the point, have said: "Now, I am not going to let myself get decadent and soft, I'm going to contradict all the laws that I know operate"?' Silence again.

'Well, Grice, that seems to be a reasonable question,' said Spascock.

'Why do we have to take for granted that it can't be done? Pessimism again. Just like us, that is – pessimism and negativism.'

'I agree with that,' said Stil suddenly, 'if I am entitled to say anything, as a witness. When we say we are going to do a thing, we do it. It's a question of will.'

'Yes, but you are on the ascending curve, love,' said Arithamea soothingly, 'while we're going down. Judge, are we supposed to say that Volyen is guilty, or not guilty, of arresting some inevitable force or law of growth? Because I am with my fellow Peer here.'

'Grice?' demanded Spascock.

'How is it that I've never heard Volyen, in the person of public body, teacher, court, President – not once has Volyen ever said to its citizens: "We were energetic, self- disciplined, and dutiful; now we are softened and fit for nothing"?'

'I'm surprised at you, Governor Grice,' said Krolgul. 'How is it that you are not mentioning that while Volyen had all these noble qualities, Volyen was also conquering and grabbing and lulling and imprisoning and taking over any little planet that took your fancy?'

'It is not my present point,' said Grice, suffering.

'Well, love,' inquired the Chief Peer of Stil, 'do you Motzans conquer and steal and imprison and kill?'

He was silent, and then said: 'No, no, I am sure not.'

But he knew the Motzan fleets were poised waiting all around Volyen. He was more than uncomfortable, this Stil. He was suffering an assault on his entire emotional and intellectual apparatus. It had occurred to him for the very first time that the Virtue of Sirius was not to be embodied in one word and left undefined.

Krolgul said: 'When Sirius invades, it will be the Motzan fleets who invade first.' He said this quite lighdy, even laughing. The information was too new, too raw to assimilate; and everyone looked doubtfully at this court official who was so saturnine and threatening, even though he was laughing.

'Do let's get on,' said Spascock again. 'You want a verdict passed, I take it, that "Volyen" should have instructed us that these amenities we have been taking for granted all our lives, our civilization, everything we have been proud of, our leisured lives, our ease, our plenty, all this was quite simply decadence and would lead inevitably to our defeat by stronger and more vigorous peoples?'

He was looking straight at Grice, with a grim, self-critical, angry smile.

And Grice was looking at him, similarly. 'Well, what do you think, Spascock?'

'Well, yes... speaking personally,' he said in a hurried, low voice, and then loudly: 'Very well, Peers, that's it. Will you retire and consider your verdict.'

The group of Peers looked at one another, consulted in low voices.

The court was in that restless, almost irritated atmosphere that says people feel a thing has run its course. And when the Chief Peer announced, 'We are going to retire to consider our verdict,' there was even a groan.

Spascock: 'I've already said this isn't a theatre.'

'As good as one,' shouted someone from the public benches. And there was laughter as they all got up and jostled out, in a rough, raucous, jeering mood that contrasted with the sober demeanour of the retiring Peers.

The people who came in from the street to the Trial went through three different moods. First, they hoped to be able to release in laughter, because of the clumsy and ridiculous processes of the law, their rage and frustration at everything that was happening around them in Volyen. Then, finding something different, and that the Peers after the first day were prepared to be serious, they became attentive. Then, as they could be heard complaining on their way out, 'But there's nothing to take hold of, one way or the other,' and so they again became derisive, ready to mock anything or anyone in authority. At any rate, they left all together and as one, and from then on the public benches were empty.

Spascock was looking in a hollow, appalled, incredulous way at Grice, who was ruffling sheaves of papers as if some truth that lay hidden there was escaping him.

'Grice,' hissed Spascock, 'you can't possibly want to go on with this... this...'

'Farce,' offered Krolgul in a helpful way.

'Certainly I do,' said Grice.

'Can't you see you are bringing the legal processes of Volyen into disrepute?'

'No, no, no,' cried Incent, 'on the contrary, he's asking questions that have to be asked!' And now he hovered about Grice, his big black eyes fervently offering total support.

'Yes, but not here,' moaned Spascock.

'It's all logical, said Grice. 'Tell me one thing I've said that isn't logical.'

At this word, Incent did glance in doubt towards me, remembering how often I've told him that when that word appears in a situation, it is time to be on your guard. I shook my head at him, and Incent sank onto a near chair, his head in his hands.

Krolgul smiled at me. It is interesting that at such moments this old enemy of ours seems to regard himself almost as an ally.

'I see that number Three of the Indictment is a total condemnation, root and branch, of the entire Volyen system of education?' remarked Spascock.

'I suppose it amounts to that,' agreed Grice. 'You could perhaps tell them to bring in the relevant books?'

'Your next batch of witnesses, I suppose? But we haven't finished with your Second Indictment.'

The two bickered on in the amiable, grumbling way that characterizes their relationship, until a group of serious, even suffering people entered the court. These were the Peers, and it was evident that their deliberations had united them: the way they stood so close, as if in support of one another, told us that any one of them could speak for the rest. But it was still Arithamea who spoke up, without stepping forward or separating herself from them.

'Judge,' she said. 'The little bit of talking we've done has made one thing clear: this is a very serious matter.'

'Oh, is it?' groaned Spascock. 'That's what you've decided, is it?'

'Yes, love, it is. And we want to criticize the conduct of this court from the start. It hasn't been treated seriously enough.'

'Wha-a-at?' creaked Spascock. And to Grice: 'You, as Accuser, are you complaining about the conduct of this case?'

'I'm glad,' said Grice histrionically, 'that my Peers recognize the importance of what I am saying.'

'I didn't say we went all the way with you, Governor Grice. No, what we think is this. There's sense in what you say. We all think that – don't we?' And here she was supported, as she looked around at the others, by nods, smiles, and even touches and squeezes. 'Yes. We do. We are shocked, Judge, because we haven't been told things we ought to know. And we are grateful to Governor Grice for bringing them up. But there's something we can't quite put our finger on, in a manner of speaking...' And here she smiled in her helpful, motherly way around the court. 'What we can't come to grips with is that, at the same time, there's something not right. How can we put it...?'

'It's either right, or wrong,' said Grice, standing up to them like a man before the firing squad, his whole being at stake. 'Either good, or bad.'

'Either with me or against me,' suggested Krolgul.

'Logic,' moaned poor Incent, who still huddled, stricken, on his seat.

'Well, there you are, love, that's it. There's something silly about it, but we can't put our finger on what. Because when we sit and think and remember what the Governor here said, we decide he's right. And then one of us says, But there's something silly, for all that...'

Grice, with a gesture of long-suffering, turned away, as if from her, the Peers, the Judge – everyone.

'And so, what we ask is this, that you adjourn the court long enough for us to read these books, and then we'll give our verdict.'

'My good woman, you can't possibly be serious!'

'Why not, Judge? Were these books brought into the court as evidence or were they not?'

'Logic,' breathed Krolgul, smiling.

'Because if they were, and we have to make up our minds on evidence, we have the right to – '

'Oh, yes, yes, yes, very well,' said Spascock. 'Have the Peers taken to a private room, supply them with the books, feed them, and all that kind of thing.'

'Thank you, Judge.'

'Oh, don't mendon it. We all have all the time in the world. You did actually hear the news this morning?' And he glared down at Arithamea.

'If you are saying that perhaps, at a time of National

Emergency, such a case should have been put off to happier days, then we go along with that, but since you allowed the case to be brought, then you must allow it to be finished.'

'Logic. Since – then,' remarked Krolgul, laughing.

'Ergo,' said Spascock. 'And,' he muttered, as if to himself, in real misery, 'I suppose it has served its purpose.'

'Which is?' demanded Grice, confronting him, full on.

'Which is to make this poor planet of ours look even more totally and absolutely and ridiculously hopeless than it does already. Or hasn't it occurred to you, Grice, that there are certain quarters who lose no opportunity to – Oh, what's the use! Case adjourned until these twenty or so assorted Peers have read – what is it? one hundred and fifty, at least – erudite volumes.'

He swept out. The Peers left, followed by three court attendants trundling the trolley of books.

So ended the last court case to be heard on Volyen, the last under the old dispensation.