Short Fiction - R. A. Lafferty (i can read book club .txt) 📗

But Masters, who visited them, had a theory about it, which is that the inferior would be so polite and deferential that he would do his best to anticipate a wish or a desire, or would go to any lengths to learn the import of an unvoiced preference.”

“Is Masters one of the young pilots?”

“No, an old-timer.”

“Now you do interest me.”

“Dead quite a few years. But it is you who interest me, Marlow. I have been told to give you all the information you need about the Polite People of Pudibundia. And on the subject of the Polite People, I must also be polite. But⁠—saving your presence, and one hears of one who hears and all that⁠—what in gehenna is a captain in Homicide on the Solar Police Force going to Pudibundia about?”

“About murder. That is all I ever go anywhere about. We once had a private motto that we would go to the end of the Earth to solve a case.”

“And now you have amended your motto to ‘to the end of the Earth and beyond’?”

“We have.”

“But what have the Polite People to do with murder? Crime is unknown on Pudibundia.”

“We believe, saving their feelings, that it may not be unknown there. And what I am going to find out is this. There have been pilots for many years who have brought back stories of the Puds, and there are still a few⁠—a very few⁠—young pilots alive to tell those stories. What I am going to find out is why there are no old pilots around telling those stories.”

It wasn’t much of a trip for a tripper, six weeks. And Marlow was well received. His host also assumed the name of Marlow out of politeness. It would have been impossible to render his own name in human speech, and it would have been impossible for him to conceive of using any name except that of his guest, with its modifiers. Yet there was no confusion. Marlow was Marlow, and his host was the One-Million-Times-Lesser-Marlow.

“We could progress much faster,” said Marlow, “if we dispensed with these formalities.”

“Or assumed them as already spoken,” said the One-Million-Times-Lesser-Marlow. “For this, in private, but only in the strictest privacy, we use the deferential ball. Within it are all the formulae written minutely. You have but to pass the ball from hand to hand every time you speak, and it is as if the amenities were spoken. I will give you this for the time of your stay. I beg you never to forget to pass it from hand to hand every time you speak. Should you forget, I would not, of course, be allowed to notice it. But when you were gone, I should be forced to kill myself for the shame of it. For private reasons I wish to avoid this and therefore beseech you to be careful.”

The One-Million-Times-Lesser-Marlow (hereafter to be called OMTLM for convenience but not out of any lack of politeness) gave Marlow a deferential ball, about the size of a ping-pong ball. And so they talked.

“As a police official, I am particularly interested in the crime situation on Pud,” said Marlow. “An index of zero is⁠—well, if I could find a politer word I would use it⁠—suspicious. And as you are, as well as I can determine, the head police official here, though in politeness your office would have another name, I am hoping that you can give me information.”

“Saving your grace, and formula of a formula, what would you have me tell you about?”

“Suppose that a burglar (for politeness sake called something else) were apprehended by a policeman (likewise), what would happen?”

“Why, the policeman (not so called, and yet we must be frank) would rattle his glottis in the prescribed manner.”

“Rattle his gl⁠—I see. He would clear his throat with the appropriate sound. And then the burglar (not so called)?”

“Would be covered with shame, it is true, but not fatally. For the peace of his own soul, he would leave the site in as dignified a manner as possible.”

“With or without boodle?”

“Naturally without. One apprehended in the act is obliged to abandon his loot. That is only common politeness.”

“I see. And if the burglar (not so called) remains unapprehended? How is the loss of the goods or property recorded?”

“It goes into the coefficient of general diminution of merchandise, which is to say shrinkage, wastage or loss. At certain times and places this coefficient becomes alarmingly large. Then it is necessary to use extraordinary care; and in extreme cases a thrice-removed burglar may become so ashamed of himself that he will die.”

“That he will die of shame? Is that a euphemism?”

“Let us say that it is a euphemism of a euphemism.”

“Thrice-removed, I imagine. And what of other crimes?”

Here OMTLM rattled his glottis in a nervous manner, and Marlow hurriedly transferred his deferential ball to the other hand, having nearly forgotten it.

“There being no crime, we can hardly speak of other crimes,” said OMTLM. “But perhaps in another matter of speaking, you refer to⁠—”

“Crimes of violence,” said Marlow.

“Saving your presence, and formula of a formula, what would we have to be violent about? What possible cause?”

“The usual: greed, lust, jealousy, anger, revenge, plain perversity.”

“Here also it is possible for one to die of shame, sometimes the offender, sometimes the victim, sometimes both. A jealous person might permit both his wife and her paramour to die of shame. And the State in turn might permit him to perish likewise, unless there were circumstances to modify the degree of shame; then he might still continue to live, often in circumscribed circumstances, for a set number of years. Each case must be decided on its own merits.”

“I understand your meaning. But why build a fence around it?”

“I do not know what you mean.”

“I believe that you do. Why are the Polite People of Pudibundia so polite? Is it simply custom?”

“It is more than that,” said the polite Pud.

“Then there is a real reason for it? And can you tell it to