you have heard, no fewer than thirty people in this hall
have enjoyed the fruits of Rimerley’s butcherynew
limbs, new eyes, new vital organs!
“It is being pleaded that they did no more than offer
euthanasia to the hopelessly sick, a practice tolerated
here and on most inhabited planets. This is not true.
How do we know?
“You may have heard that the Corps base is under or-
ders to close, ostensibly as a symbol of protest against
non-interference with ZRP’s.” He twisted his mouth
around the words, and knew the irony was not lost on
his hearers. “You may have seen this as an idealistic ges-
ture, since Cyclops can ill afford to lose the revenue
from the base. Or you may equally have wondered what
possessed Alura Quist to issue her ultimatum.
“She issued it because Rimerley offered her a bribe: a
new lease of life. He knew we were within sight of his
secret; he thought to provide us with a distraction that
would make our half-formed suspicions seem not worth
the trouble of investigation. And the bait he dangled be-
fore Quist was the body, complete and healthy, of a
young girl named Soraya: a source of new organs to re-
place her failing ones.
“That girl is aliveby a miracleand in our hands.
And she has told how, perfectly well, she was caused to
appear to her friends as the victim of a fatal disease, a
suitable subject for the ministrations of the Receivers of
the Sick. She was not ill at all; she was not offered an
easy death under the pretence that she was sick and in-
curableshe was simply shipped to Cyclops like an ani-
mal to the slaughter.”
Langenschmidt paused. “People of Cyclops, it is no
part of the Corps’s duty to tell you what you should do.
But I have worked on your planet for many years, and
come to know you at least a little. I am sure you will
knowwha.t you should do.”
He turned to look at the pale, trembling conference
delegates. “And as for you,” he said, “I hardly need say
that you have seen a Zarathustra Refugee Planet ‘inter-
fered with’. Think it over. Andgo home.”
For long moments, no one moved. Then, as if in a
dream, the old man from ZRP One, Omar Haust, stood
up and approached Quist. He looked at her as though at
something disgusting found under a stone. Pursed his
lips. Spat full in her face.
Langenschmidt snapped his helmet back over his head
and gave the signal to his men. They left their stations
and went to take hold of the men and women named in
the long criminal indictment. Some passive and hopeless,
some struggling and yelling hysterically, they were led
away.
Last of all, with Langenschmidt at her heels, Qnist was
taken to endure the execration of her planet’s people as
she was marched towards the waiting spaceship.
XXI
“Made up your mind about non-interference?” Lan-
genschmidt said to Maddalena with a tone of false jocu-
larity.
There was no attempt to match it in her reply-
depressed, abstracted.
“Gus, that isn’t fair. Cyclops isn’t a typical civilised
planet, and come to that Heirndall and Rimerley aren’t
typical Cyclopeans.”
“Granted.” He looked down from the wall-length
window of his villa towards the base, now back in full
operation after the cancellation of the evacuation. “On
the other hand, they do seem to be typical of those who
get power, get influence, get wealth simply because they
desire them so greedily. Truly civilised people don’t crave
power. They havewhat would one call it?empathy,
perhaps, which holds them back.”
“There’s another and much older word,” Maddalena
said.
“Which is?”
“Conscience.” Maddalena stirred as though unable to
find a comfortable position on the luxuriously padded
seat she was using. “But look at it another way, Gus. It’s
also empathy which makes me curse when I remember
all the poor sick and crippled people I saw on Thir-
teenin twenty solid years, remember. You’ve never had
an on-planet assignment lasting longer then weeks or
months. We ought to fix a limitwe ought to say if
these people don’t show signs of progress within such a