He sat down in the chair opposite the Vimp cage* easing his sore arm. “Look at it this way,” he said. “Wherever colonists or invaders have gone, into new places, new countries, what have they done? Have they adapted themselves to their new environment? Have they tried to ‘go native,’ to actually be like the people they found? Have they tried to fall into native economic patterns, culture patterns? They have not. China, Africa, the Americas, India — wherever they’ve gone, it’s been the same old story. They’ve tried to change the environment to suit themselves. They’ve tried to make it like the one back home. The temperature, the habits, theculture. The last thing men would dream of would be to alter their culture patterns

  to match an alien environment. And if they found things, where they were, to be unchangeable, hostile, unalterably foreign, they’ve always, always turned around and come home.”

  “But the Vimps!” snapped Martin impatiently. “I don’t see what this has to do with —”

  “Everything,” said Barney flatly. “The Vimps are from another planet. They’re intelligent, all right, and they have a culture, too — a rather nasty culture, it seems. With men, the basicculture is founded on peace and familial love — the ancient sign of the raised right hand, saying, ‘I have no weapons.’ Basically, man seeks to live in peace undisturbed, and takes that peace with him to alien lands, and where those lands are too hostile, he has ultimately come home beaten.

  “Still, another world, a Vimp world, might have a culture on a different basis. A basis impossible for men to tolerate. Not based on peace at all, you see. Based on hate. Pure, rich, ripe, unadulterated hate.”

  Martin’s eyes widened. “You mean—”

  “I mean they hate each other and everything else. Hate is their life-force, the foundation of their moral values. They live, eat, sleep, and die with hate in their every thought. The idea of kindness and love is foreign to them, unbelievable, frightening, alien. They came here without the barest inkling of the abstract concept of love, and they expected to find hate here, too. And what they found was fearful to them, hateful, hostile — a culture based on love and peace. But they saw, or somehow felt, that men were capable, under certain circumstances, of hatefulness, and that was all the Vimps needed. They just had to change things a little, was all. All they wanted was to be hated!”

  “Well, they’re getting what they want!” snarled Hugo Martin. “I hate them, I hope to tell you. Lord! How I hate them. I hate them so much —”

  “And you seem to draw them, don’t you? You have them all over your house, you hate them so much. They don’t want anything to do with mystics, or monks — they torment cats and dogs within an inch of their lives, but they’d never, never bother a cow! They come to you because you provide just the hate-filled environment they must have. Don’t you see the implications, man? If you hate them, they’ll stay around. Multiply. Thrive.” He looked up at the large man slyly. “But if you love them—•”

  Hugo Martin’s heavy jaw quivered, something akin to tears appearing in his stricken eyes. “Barney,” he choked weakly. “Now, wait a minute, Barney, you can't be right —” He glanced fearfully at the Vimp glaring at him through the bars. “Anything but that, Barney — I — I couldn’t ma%e myself —”

  “You’ll just have to love them,” said Barney firmly.

  Two frustrated tears formed in Hugo Martin’s eyes, rolled down his fat cheeks. He started toward the cage, dragging his feet like a child, then stopped. “But — but what can I do?” he wailed. “It’s like loving a centipede, or something. It’s — it’s sacrilegious—” He extended a hand, tentatively, toward the bars, drew it back with a jerk when the Vimp snarled. “Oh, Barney, I cant —”

  “Look,” said Barney, grinning. “I’ll show you.” He pulled on a pair of heavy leather gloves. Then he walked over to the cage, where the Vimp was eyeing him angrily. Barney extended a chunk of bread through the bars. “Come on, Vimp. Nice little Vimp.” His voice was soft and soothing.

  The Vimp snatched the bread and bit him viciously on the hand. Barney felt the anger rise, but he grinned tightly and reached in to pet the creature on the head. “Sweet little Vimp,” he cooed. “Nice little Vimp—”

  The Vimp bit him again, harder. Then it backed away, hissing, a baffled look in its eyes. It began growling in the back of its throat, baring its teeth.

  “Such a cute little fellow, too,” said Barney, gritting his teeth. “We’re going to be such goodfriends! Come on, little fellow, let me pet you.”

  The Vimp was thoroughly alarmed now. Its little black eyes blazed with fear as it struggled to push backward through the bars.

  “Let him go,” said Barney softly. “Open the trap and let him out.” Martin clenched his big fist, walking slowly to the trap. “Gently,” said Barney. “Whatever you do, dont lose your temper”

  Martin opened the trap gingerly. “Nice little Vimp,” he rumbled tearfully. “Come on out, you dirty little —”

  Barney coughed gently. Then he said, “Go on home, now, little fellow. Run along and tell all your friends how pleasant and happy things are going to be from now on —”

  The Vimp hissed and snarled, then suddenly bolted. Through the window he went, pausing only to hurl back one hair-curling Vimp invective as he disappeared over the sill.

  Barney heaved a deep sigh, and grinned at Hugo Martin. “There,” he said,

  “It won’t work,” wailed Martin. “We never should have let it go. It’ll just be back to torment us again!”

  “Not if we love it, it won’t.” Barney grinned happily. “All it takes to drive it away is a peaceful, serene atmosphere. That’s hard to manage, with Vimps around — but people have got to manage it. It’s the only way.” Hugo Martin looked at him entreatingly. “You don’t know what you’re asking for, Barney. Peaceful, serene atmosphere — people couldn’t manage that even before the Vimps came. And nobody can be nice to a Vimp. People just won’t do it.”

  “Oh, yes they will,” said Barney softly, “if they want to get rid of them bad enough —”

  The word went out on the radios that afternoon, hit the evening papers, and exploded throughout the country. The incredible word, the ridiculous word — and people stopped swearing at Vimps to listen, and laugh derisively, and went back to swearing at Vimps. And a few enterprising individuals tried it, and found, miraculously, that it worked. One by one the Vimps began leaving, snarling, bolting like three-legged lightning out of house after house. The news spread fast. People stopped their work, their bickering and fighting, and slapping of Vimps, and saw, wonderingly, how it worked. Over town and country and village they tried it, and it worked, like a balm over the land. Finally one afternoon the radio reported that a silvery ring had appeared in a farmer’s south pasture, and that Vimps by the pack and drove, hundreds and thousands of Vimps were drooping down. Barney and Flora Holder were there, along with the crowd, a curious crowd, filled with curious emotions, not knowing for sure exactly how they felt. But they were loving the Vimps with all the compassionate love they could muster. For very dear life they were loving the Vimps.

  Flora snuggled closer to Barney and smiled happily up at him. “It’s been almost fun watching them go.”

  Barney grinned. “It has been a tranquil couple of weeks,” he admitted.

  Flora looked up at him, her eyes moist. “I’m— I know it sounds silly, but I’m almost sorry to see them go. We — Barney, can’t we pretend there are still a couple around?”

  The dwindling crowd of fuzzy brown creatures disappeared one by one down the silvery ring, hunching their backs at the crowd, curling their upper lips and baring their teeth in angry snarls, hissing, scurrying, pulling each other’s hair, screeching. Finally the last one stood on the edge of the ring, spat eloquently and malignantly on the ground before him, and hopped in. The ring shimmered and vanished.

  As though waking from an enchanted spell, the crowd released a long sigh, and the people looked about, seeing each other for the first time, an aura of puzzled contentment rising like a wave. Barney started up the ridge toward the car, Flora’s hand tight in his. He smiled down at her. “I don’t know about the other people,” he said softly. “But as far as I’m concerned, the Vimps never left.”

  The Letter of The Law

  by

  Alan E. Nourse

  The place was dark and damp, and smelled like moldy leaves. Meyerhoff followed the huge, bear-like Altairian guard down the slippery flagstones of the corridor, sniffing the dead, musty air with distaste. He drew his carefully tailored Terran-styled jacket closer about his shoulders, shivering as his eyes avoided the black, yawning cell-holes they were passing. His foot slipped on the slimy flags from time to time, and finally he paused to wipe the caked mud from his trouser leg. "How much farther is it?" he shouted angrily.

  The guard waved a heavy paw vaguely into the blackness ahead. Quite suddenly the corridor took a sharp bend, and the Altairian stopped, producing a huge key ring from some obscure fold of his hairy hide. "I still don't see any reason for all the fuss," he grumbled in a wounded tone. "We've treated him like a brother."

  One of the huge steel doors clicked open. Meyerhoff peered into the blackness, catching a vaguely human outline against the back wall. "Harry?" he called sharply.

  There was a startled gasp from within, and a skinny, gnarled little man suddenly appeared in the guard's light, like a grotesque, twisted ghost out of the blackness. Wide blue eyes regarded Meyerhoff from beneath uneven black eyebrows, and then the little man's face broke into a crafty grin. "Paul! So they sent you! I knew I could count on it!" He executed a deep, awkward bow, motioning Meyerhoff into the dark cubicle. "Not much to offer you," he said slyly, "but it's the best I can do under the circumstances."

  Meyerhoff scowled, and turned abruptly to the guard. "We'll have some privacy now, if you please. Interplanetary ruling. And leave us the light."

  The guard grumbled, and started for the door. "It's about time you showed up!" cried the little man in the cell. "Great day! Lucky they sent you, pal. Why, I've been in here for years—"

  "Look, Zeckler, the name is Meyerhoff, and I'm not your pal," Meyerhoff snapped. "And you've been here for two weeks, three days, and approximately four hours. You're getting as bad as your gentle guards when it comes to bandying the truth around." He peered through the dim light at the gaunt face of the prisoner. Zeckler's face was dark with a week's beard, and his bloodshot eyes belied the cocky grin on his lips. His clothes were smeared and sodden, streaked with great splotches of mud and moss. Meyerhoff's face softened a little. "So Harry Zeckler's in a jam again," he said. "You look as if they'd treated you like a brother."

  The little man snorted. "These overgrown teddy-bears don't know what brotherhood means, nor humanity, either. Bread and water I've been getting, nothing more, and then only if they feel like bringing it down." He sank wearily down on the rock bench along the wall. "I thought you'd never get here! I sent an appeal to the Terran Consulate the first day I was arrested. What happened? I mean, all they had to do was get a man over here, get the extradition papers signed, and provide transportation off the planet for me. Why so much time? I've been sitting here rotting—" He broke off in mid-sentence and stared at Meyerhoff. "You brought the papers, didn't you? I mean, we can leave now?"

  Meyerhoff stared at the little man with a mixture of pity and disgust. "You are a prize fool," he said finally. "Did you know that?"

  Zeckler's eyes widened. "What do you mean, fool? So I spend a couple of weeks in this pneumonia trap. The deal was worth it! I've got three million credits sitting in the Terran Consulate on Altair V, just waiting for me to walk in and pick them up. Three million credits—do you hear? That's enough to set me up for life!"

  Meyerhoff nodded grimly. "If you live long enough to walk in and pick them up, that is."

  "What do you mean, if?"

  Meyerhoff sank down beside the man, his voice a tense whisper in the musty cell. "I mean that right now you are practically dead. You may not know it, but you are. You walk into a newly opened planet with your smart little bag of tricks, walk in here with a shaky passport and no permit, with no knowledge of the natives outside of two paragraphs of inaccuracies in the Explorer's Guide, and even then you're not content to come in and sell something legitimate, something the natives might conceivably be able to use. No, nothing so simple for you. You have to pull your usual high-pressure stuff. And this time, buddy, you're paying the piper."

  "You mean I'm not being extradited?"

  Meyerhoff grinned unpleasantly. "I mean precisely that. You've committed a crime here—a major crime. The Altairians are sore about it. And the Terran Consulate isn't willing to sell all the trading possibilities here down the river just to get you out of a mess. You're going to stand trial—and these natives are out to get you. Personally, I think they're going to get you."

  Zeckler stood up shakily. "You can't believe anything the natives say," he said uneasily. "They're pathological liars. Why, you should see what they tried to sell me! You've never seen such a pack of liars as these critters." He glanced up at Meyerhoff. "They'll probably drop a little fine on me and let me go."

  "A little fine of one Terran neck." Meyerhoff grinned nastily. "You've committed the most heinous crime these creatures can imagine, and they're going to get you for it if it's the last thing they do. I'm afraid, my friend, that your con-man days are over."

  Zeckler fished in the other man's pocket, extracted a cigarette, and lighted it with trembling fingers. "It's bad, then," he said finally.

  "It's bad, all right."

  Some shadow of the sly, elfin grin crept over the little con-man's face. "Well, at any rate, I'm glad they sent you over," he said weakly. "Nothing like a good lawyer to handle a trial."

  "Lawyer? Not me! Oh, no. Sorry, but no thanks." Meyerhoff chuckled. "I'm your advisor, old boy. Nothing else. I'm here to keep you from botching things up still worse for the Trading Commission, that's all. I wouldn't get tangled up in a mess with those creatures for anything!" He shook his head. "You're your own lawyer, Mr. Super-salesman. It's all your show. And you'd better get your head out of the sand, or you're going to lose a case like it's never been lost before!"

  **********

  Meyerhoff watched the man's pale face, and shook his head. In a way, he thought, it was a pity to see such a change in the rosy-cheeked, dapper, cocksure little man who had talked his way glibly in and out of more jams than Meyerhoff could count. Trading brought scalpers; it was almost inevitable that where rich and unexploited trading ground was uncovered, it would first fall prey to the fast-trading boys. They spread out from Terra with the first wave of exploration—the slick, fast-talking con-men who could work new territories unfettered by the legal restrictions that soon closed down the more established planets. The first men in were the richest out, and through some curious quirk of the Terrestrial mind, they knew they could count on Terran protection, however crooked and underhand their methods.

  But occasionally a situation arose where the civilization and social practices of the alien victims made it unwise to tamper with them. Altair I had been recognized at once by the Trading Commission as a commercial prize of tremendous value, but early reports had warned of the danger of wildcat trading on the little, musty, jungle-like planet with its shaggy, three-eyed inhabitants—warned specifically against the confidence tactics so frequently used—but there was always somebody, Meyerhoff reflected sourly, who just didn't get the word.

  Zeckler puffed nervously on his cigarette, his narrow face a study in troubled concentration. "But I didn't do anything!" he exploded finally. "So I pulled an old con game. So what? Why should they get so excited? So I clipped a few thousand credits, pulled a little fast business." He shrugged eloquently, spreading his hands. "Everybody's doing it. They do it to each other without batting an eye. You should see these critters operate on each other. Why, my little scheme was peanuts by comparison."

  Meyerhoff pulled a pipe from his pocket, and began stuffing the bowl with infinite patience. "And precisely what sort of con game was it?" he asked quietly.

  Zeckler shrugged again. "The simplest, tiredest, moldiest old racket that ever made a quick nickel. Remember the old Terran gag about the Brooklyn Bridge? The same thing. Only these critters didn't want bridges. They wanted land—this gooey, slimy swamp they call 'farm land.' So I gave them what they wanted. I just sold them some land."

  Meyerhoff nodded fiercely. "You sure did. A hundred square kilos at a swipe. Only you sold the same hundred square kilos to a dozen different natives." Suddenly he threw back his hands and roared. "Of all the things you shouldn't have done—"

  "But what's a chunk of land?"

  Meyerhoff shook his head hopelessly. "If you hadn't been so greedy, you'd have found out what a chunk of land was to these natives before you started peddling it. You'd have found out other things about them, too. You'd have learned that in spite of all their bumbling and fussing and squabbling they're not so dull. You'd have found out that they're marsupials, and that two out of five of them get thrown out of their mother's pouch before they're old enough to survive. You'd have realized that they have to start fighting for individual rights almost as soon as they're born. Anything goes, as long as it benefits them as individuals."

  Meyerhoff grinned at the little man's horrified face. "Never heard of that, had you? And you've never heard of other things, too. You've probably never heard that there are just too many Altairians here for the food their planet can supply, and their diet is so finicky that they just can't live on anything that doesn't grow here. And consequently, land is the key factor in their economy, not money; nothing but land. To get land, it's every man for himself, and the loser starves, and their entire legal and monetary system revolves on that principle. They've built up the most confusing and impossible system of barter and trade imaginable, aimed at individual survival, with land as the value behind the credit. That explains the lying—of course they're liars, with an economy like that. They've completely missed the concept of truth. Pathological? You bet they're pathological! Only a fool would tell the truth when his life depended on his being a better liar than the next guy! Lying is the time-honored tradition, with their entire legal system built around it."