A Judge from Lahathia

by Rhema Sayers

Part 1 appears in this issue.

conclusion

“All right. I’m coming.” I held the gun in my right upper hand where it fitted into my palm and was hidden beneath the scarf I carried. As I moved into the hallway, a Casdi stood and screamed, “Kill it!”

They began firing at me. Some of the bullets hit me, but I ignored them. I moved my multitude of legs and feet as fast as I could and I smashed the Casdis against the walls, firing the gun as I went. Those walls turned purple with Casdi blood and internal organs. Legs and other appendages were scraped off the smashed bodies and lay discarded on the floor.

The leader had moved very quickly and was racing down the corridor ahead of me. I eliminated one more of his group and moved into high speed. I caught him about halfway to the next T intersection. He was delicious.

I doubt that any of the crew or passengers saw how I dealt with the leader of the Casdis. But I still had to tell the truth despite fearing that the truth would be too much for my new friends and they would desert me.

I returned to the lounge and found all of my friends staring at the carnage in the corridor.

“I’m terribly sorry that you had to see that,” I said. “ I can clean it up if it’s too much for the crew.”

Alison and Sandra came forward. “You have been shot!” they exclaimed almost in unison. “We need to get you down to the infirmary now.”

“No,” I replied. “I am going to my cabin and I am going to clean myself. Then I will go to the infirmary.” Moving carefully past them, I continued on to my cabin. I could hear Allison complaining behind me about the necessity of getting me to the clinic. Sandra asked, “And how are you going to make him go?”

After a long shower — the ship had wonderful cabins for my species — I noticed some pain in the various wounds, so I headed for the clinic.

Allison, Tom, Sandra, and most of my friends were waiting for me outside the clinic. Allison came running toward me, calling for an antigrav gurney. I was trying to tell her that I could slither perfectly well when I realized how tired I was. She ignored my feeble protests anyway. They pushed and pulled and managed to get most of me on the gurney and off we went to an exam room. The gurney failed under my weight just as they were transferring me to a bed.

The clinic was huge, occupying a large portion of the ship. It had environments for at least fifty species. My only requirement was space. I was the largest sentient on board. They had a room that fulfilled the requirements, though barely. I continued to feel exhausted and then, in the middle of the examination, I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I was still in the exam room, but I was in a very comfortable bed and felt wonderful. I lifted my head to look around and saw Allison and Tom and Sandra on my other side. They were all asleep. It occurred to me that they had been with me for however long I had slept. They were such loyal friends.

I tried to call to them but my voice was hoarse and I made more of a croak than any type of speech.

But Sandra heard. She stood up and came around the bed, laying her hand on my leading edge. “Cadith, you nearly died because you lost so much blood. Are all Lahathians as stubborn as you are?”

She was smiling. I smiled back at her, a facial expression that makes most sentient species run away. But she grinned wider. “You cannot scare me. But you were so close to dying, my friend. That was so brave of you to attack them like that.”

“I didn’t really think their puny weapons could hurt me, ” I said. “I guess they weren’t so puny.”

Allison and Tom appeared beside Sandra. “Looking better, Cadith. You were a wee bit peaked when you showed up at the clinic,” Tom said.

“Peaked?” I asked.

“That’s pronounced peak-ed. Means you didn’t look so good.”

“Oh.”

“By the way, the ship’s security officers have been looking for the Casdi leader that you were chasing. They can’t find him anywhere.” His eyes were twinkling.

I sighed. Here it came. The repulsion, the rejection. I looked down at my hands. “Umm. I’m afraid I got a bit carried away. I ate him.”

The three of them stared at me for a minute, and then they all burst out laughing.

Sandra said, “I told you so. You each owe me a dinner on Beorrh.”

Tom was laughing so hard, he had to sit down.

Allison patted my leading edge and chortled. “Good for you, Cadith!”

I was totally nonplussed. “Aren’t you all disgusted by my eating another sentient?”

“I’m not sure I’d call that one sentient.” said Sandra. Allison nodded.

Tom was looking at me with his head cocked, the way I sometimes saw Scrappy’s head positioned. “Did you really think we’d run off, screaming in horror over the fact that you made a snack of a particularly loathsome creature?” He shook his head. “And I thought we were getting to understand each other.” His tone was sorrowful, but he was grinning.

“But what did they want with you? Why you?” asked Allison.

“Because I have been selected as the neutral judge. I will only vote if there’s a difference in the opinions on the fairness of the elections. And the other four are split two to two on their alliances with the Casdis.”

The humans contemplated this. “And being an honest judge, you would go whichever way you had to,” added Sandra.

I nodded.

Allison suddenly threw her head back and laughed wildly. “I just realized what you meant by ‘clean it up’ in the corridor. Oh, my! You would have had a veritable feast out there.”

I couldn’t help it. I began to laugh as well.

I learned so much from my human friends. I learned that while they are relatively fragile creatures, they are the toughest aliens we have ever met. And they have a sense of humor, albeit one with a dark side. Casdis, for instance, wouldn’t know a joke if it bit them on the ankle. And they wouldn’t understand it if it was explained to them.

I was able to fulfill my duties as poll watcher during the elections, the week after we arrived on Beorrh. I sat at a bank of monitors, watching the voting. We weren’t really concerned about the voters so much. Unless of course they showed up at multiple voting venues to cast multiple votes. We caught a number of people of all species trying to get more than one ballot in.

But our major concern was the group of beings who collected the ballots. There were equal numbers of humans, Zabids, and Casdis doing the collecting even though the humans outnumbered the Casdis and the Zabids four to one. As I understood it, that was one of the stumbling blocks in the discussions on how the elections were to be held. Also, if my memory is correct, it was the Casdis who insisted that the collectors had to be split among the three species equally.

So I paid special attention to the Casdis who were gathering the ballots and placing them in the boxes for later counting. Yet I could not see any evidence of tampering with the ballots or of adding extra ballots.

Not until the eighth hour and shortly before the polls closed, did I see what they were doing.

Paper is a precious commodity on Beorrh. The recyclable trash that is usually used to make it has not accumulated on this world. When someone suggested cutting down trees to make the pulp to make the paper, he had to leave town before they cut his fingers and toes off. That hasn’t been done since sentient plants were discovered on a world out on the Fringe of the galaxy.

Since paper is valuable, the ballots were small. People of all species had to use vision assists in order to read the print. The Casdi ballot collectors would take the ballet from the voter and slide another one, two, or three ballots underneath the real ballot from their feathers. Then all of the ballots, one real and one to three fake, would drop into the box to be counted.

The only reason I saw the trick was that the ballot collector had dyed his feathers a bright blue. The ballots were a pale orange. The difference caught my attention.

I pushed the alarm button and the election was halted. Monitors of all species, including Casdis, placed the ballot collectors under arrest. I watched, fascinated. Humans were yelling, Casdis were screeching, and Zabids were hoping up and down, so upset that their voices had gone into frequencies that neither I nor any human could hear.

Then I realized that I had to intervene. I activated my com, and my voice was carried to all the monitors. “The Casdi by the large window with the blue feathers and the red comb.”

They rushed it. I saw the jaws moving. “He’s got the ballots in his mouth!” I yelled. At this point, I was almost as excited as the Zabids.

They pushed him down and forced his beak open, trying to avoid his teeth. He was doing his best to bite them. A wad of paper was pulled out.

The wad did indeed prove to be fake ballots, all marked for Casdi candidates.

The rest of the Casdi ballot collectors were examined. Thirty of them were found to have fake ballots secreted somewhere on their bodies.

The election was declared compromised and rescheduled for the next day.

Later, I was sliding back to my hotel, deep in thought. These humans were such a strange bunch. Tough, pragmatic, capable of great kindness and sacrifice, capable of great cruelty and viciousness. And yet so infinitely gullible in some ways. And they were con men as well. I doubted that I would ever understand them.

Shadows detached themselves from an alley and surrounded me. Casdis.

I stopped and faced them. Talk about gullible! Now how was I going to get rid of this bunch? There were fifteen of them.

Their leader, a creature with whitish feathers, many missing, giving him a very ragged appearance, stood directly in front of me and began haranguing me, screeching and wailing. I ate him.

Then I turned my attention to the rest. When I open my mouth to its widest, I probably look terrifying. Many ran. A few stabbed me with knives. One shot me. I ate all the attackers. One small Casdi fell to its knees as I was about to engulf him and pleaded, “Please don’t eat me. Please.”

I, of course, let him go.

When I reached the hotel, I called Allison and she came and bound up my wounds. And started on a harangue of her own about how I shouldn’t be out in the city by myself.

She eventually wound down. Tom and Sandra and Adam arrived, and we ended up having a small celebration. In other words the humans became inebriated and I became happy.

The next morning, Sandra showed up with a large truck. I slithered onto it and we were off to the polls. That day went well. There was no cheating that could be detected. Not many Casdis showed up to vote. A few came in and took their places as ballot collectors, seemingly half-angry and half-embarrassed.

I joined my human friends that evening, and we watched the election returns. Humans and Zabids were elected to almost all of the positions. A Pflan was elected as Secretary of the Treasury, since they are incredibly good at numbers, and she was running the treasury anyway.

Only one Casdi was elected. He had given a speech the night before that had been well televised. It was emotional and sounded sincere. Besides, he was running unopposed.

The next day I stood in the concourse at the spaceport, awaiting boarding of my transport home. I was alone. No one had come to wish me farewell. Feeling very down, I lay along the corridor leading to my gate. I’m afraid I had turned an ugly grey color. A couple of beings stopped to see if I was all right. One even stopped to check for a pulse.

I laid my head on my baggage. Apparently I fell asleep, because suddenly I was surrounded by humans and Codies and several Pflan and Zabids. There were even a couple of Casdis and a Phssst. I felt feet on my back and found Scrappy standing on my head.

Very carefully, I lifted my head and stared around.

“I didn’t think anyone was coming to see me off,” I said, sounding whiney even to myself.

“Perish the thought!” said Allison. “You saved our democracy. Thanks to you, we have had a fair and honest election. And we have a future.”

They started to sing an old song of thanks. I started to cry.

“I shall miss you all so much, ” I said, still teary-eyed, when they had finished.

Sandra stepped up and hugged me. Or at least she hugged a part of my neck. They had brought gifts. She tied a new scarf, a brilliant green, around my neck. Actually it took three of them to do it. They got Scrappy down at the same time.

Then Sandra brought out her luggage. “And you won’t be alone on your way home. Gil and I are going with you. At least to Lahathia. I’ll be going home from there.”

Gil told me he had a contract with a firm on Lahathia and would be there for several months. I was ecstatic.

* * *

Gil and Sandra and I have met several other humans and friendly beings on board. I have been trying to catch up a little on the cases I will have to judge when I get home. But it seems every time I bring up the trials on my computer, someone is having a party and I’m invited. I certainly cannot endanger inter-species relations by refusing, now can I?