Justice

by J. F. Hutton

As Urs stood facing the System Policy Board, his young face mirrored an incredible confidence which gave no hint of the tormenting uncertainty within him. Few of the billions watching on life-view screens suspected the effort it cost him to remain outwardly poised and self-reliant.

For this was no departmental board, judging small matters of discipline. This was the big one. Much more than the welfare of one individual was involved in any matter that came before it. It was the ultimate court. And it was motivated by one principle—absolute justice.

Before he had been summoned, Urs had spent a half hour with the director of the Time Traveler’s Bureau. They hadn’t talked much, after the director’s opening words of reassurance.

“Urs, all of us know we’re doing the best we can under difficult conditions. We’ve managed to keep our problems to ourselves, so far. Now that’s over. We’re not blaming you. It could have happened to any of us. We’ll just have to consider it a bad break, and hope for the best.”

Now the director and dozens of Urs’ colleagues were watching, in silent anxiety. They were sweating it out with him, reminding themselves that any one of them could just as well be on trial instead.

The white-haired chairman of the Policy Board stirred in his recliner. “Third Level Time Explorer Urs, you are charged with breaking System Policy Rule number 86, Subhead C, of the General Code of Time Travel: ‘No visitor to a previous time shall in any way allow the knowledge or techniques of the future to become a part of that preceding culture.’

“You learned this rule in the first week of your preliminary training. It has been periodically reviewed in your refresher courses since. And you received special indoctrination before each of your trips.”

Standing tall and straight in his sky-blue uniform, Urs could only nod.

The five other members of the Board steadily regarded the young man before them. Their gazes held neither censure nor sympathy. They were of the same stamp as the chairman—pale, professional weighers of evidence.

The chairman continued, “Specifically, you entered a primitive society on the planet Earth in a region known as Great Britain. Your project was to gather data for a culture-graph, in conformity with the continuing study of a pattern which originated in that area and subsequently profoundly affected Earth and her satellites.

“An experienced Time Traveler, you had the customary indoctrination—costume, mores, language, comprehension levels, and so on. Your equipment was made in accordance with careful specifications in the duplicating shops.”

Urs spoke for the first time. To his surprise, his voice came out strong and clear. “May I request, sir, that the record show that one item of equipment was wrongly made? The wand. Instead of the crude metal of the time I visited, it was made of our alloy, impregnium.”

“That fact has been noted,” the chairman said gravely. He glanced around at his colleagues. “There was an acknowledged error in the shops. The situation has been corrected.”

“Thank you.”

You never argued with the System Policy Board. You thought very carefully before you even asked a question. Mostly, you just listened respectfully, even when they were methodically destroying you. For the Board was incorruptible. It was as nearly infallible as a human institution could be. It represented something man had sought for ages—completely impartial justice.

There was a kind of inevitability in such trials which—tedious though some of them were—never failed to attract enthralled watchers all over the galaxy. And none had ever watched more tensely than the silent men in blue uniforms before the big life screen at the Time Traveler’s Bureau.

The chairman’s old eyes lingered on Urs. “You are held responsible here only for your actions in the region called Great Britain. The error you mentioned, however, is pertinent to this inquiry. We have carefully examined your personal experience tapes. They reveal you were aware of the mistake in the metal in time to take corrective action before the rule was broken. This you failed to do.”

In spite of his effort at self-control, Urs trembled. He suddenly wanted to drown out those slow, logical phrases, to shout, “When did any of you ever travel in time? You sit here in the splendor of your logic—mental and physical light-years away from the event. You can’t conceive how crude and disorganized those days were. Do you think it’s easy to enter a world like that? It takes all the skill and care and self-discipline you can command. And no man who ever lived could exercise the control the manuals call for.

“If you only knew what really goes on in time exploration! You think you do. You read the manuals, you examine the rules of policy, you see the personal experience tapes we turn in. But did you know that most of the time we manage to doctor those tapes, to protect ourselves?

“Ah, if you only knew....”

Wearing light armor, Urs had been riding on a lonely trail. In that time, in that place, it was a risky business—even for an Explorer. And his luck ran out. Brigands caught up with him, charging on their wiry, tangle-haired horses.

Urs whacked his own mount and tried to outrun them. Screeching, they chased him over gullies and ravines, through dense scrub and under oaks that threatened to sweep him out of the saddle. But gradually, they gained on him.

For you can study the riding of horses. You can practice faithfully on tire test models. But you’ll never learn how difficult it really is till you have a living, snorting beast lunging unpredictably between your legs.

Inevitably, Urs fell off his horse. With the shouts of the brigands loud in his ears, with arrows plunking into the sod around him, he dived down a steep, grassy slope. Then he jumped up and ran, twisting and dodging among trees and rocks. In one hand he carried the shining wand that in England in those days was called a “sword.”

Three of the robbers had left their horses to chase him on foot. The other three circled around to head him off. Halfway down the hill, Urs lost his footing and slid again. Flailing his arms, he fell against a great boulder. His wand, carried forward by his weight, plunged into the rock.

At the moment, Urs was too busy dodging the arrows and regaining his balance to realize what that meant. The men pounced on him. One held his arms, while another caught him around the neck from behind.

The third man gave a great startled cry. Eyes wide, bristly face twitching, he pointed one skinny arm at the rock. His companions looked, gasped, and let go of Urs. They stood transfixed, showing all the signs of men half-scared to death.

The other three, hearing the first exultant shouts, had dismounted and were hurrying up. They saw the rock, with the sword buried in it nearly to the hilt. They stopped dead, turned pale, and began to tremble.

Urs was understandably mystified by this abrupt change of pace. Staring at the rock, he became aware of what had happened. Had it been made of the proper crude Earth metal, his wand could never have penetrated it. For the first time he realized that the shops had sent him off with an impregnium sword.

The only way out of the situation was to jerk the weapon loose, then press the time-stud embedded under the skin of his waist. But one of his attackers, half-hysterical, was drawing his bow. Those brawny arms looked strong enough to send an arrow to the moon. The wand dropped out of Urs’ mind. His fingers flew to the stud that would snatch him out of this world and safely back to his own.

He vanished, leaving six badly frightened Englishmen blinking at the rock and the sword so impossibly fixed in it.

The chairman paused, looked courteously at Urs. The charge had been specified. Now was the time for Urs to speak, if he had anything to say.

Urs swallowed the dryness in his throat. “Sir, the facts you describe are correct.”

There was a stir among the watching men at the Time Traveler’s Bureau. At millions of other locations, people in front of life screens nodded to one another. What else could he have said?

Urs looked at the calm, intelligent faces before him. Now, if ever, was the time for his outburst. But he couldn’t bring himself to speak. He moistened his lips and kept silent.

The chairman nodded. “The Board will call a witness.”

A security man opened a side door of the chamber. A tall red-headed man in a sky-blue uniform stepped hesitantly forward. He walked slowly across the floor and stood beside Urs.

“This is Third Level Time Explorer Renar.”

Urs nodded dumbly. He and Renar were fellow-workers. They had parted at the Time Traveler’s Bureau not an hour before. And from the look on his face, Renar was as surprised to be here as Urs was to see him.

“Time Explorer Renar,” the chairman said, “please tell us the kind of work you are doing now.”

Nervously, but with more assurance as he warmed up, Renar explained that he had been working on the culture pattern of Great Britain. The studies that he, Urs and others were making would dove-tail into a master graph.

“And what time were you studying, with relation to Urs’ last trip?”

Renar scratched his head. “Roughly twenty years later.”

“Thank you. Now will you tell us exactly what happened on your last trip.”

Renar hesitated, his homely face screwed up concernedly. “Well,” he began—and stopped.

There was the faintest lessening of the sternness in the chairman’s face. It could not have been called a smile, nor even the beginning of one. But it matched the shade of sympathetic understanding in his voice. “Renar, may I remind you I already know what happened. I want Urs and the others to hear it.”

“Yes, sir.” Renar still looked troubled. “You must understand that time travel does not always work out according to the rules. Things happen—”

“That,” the chairman said, “is the reason for this trial. Now please describe your arrival in primitive Great Britain.”

“Well, sir, when I made my last trip, there was some slight error in calculating the physical plane of my appearance. When I came out in that previous time I was not on dry land, but under water.”

Not one of the Board members smiled. But there were chuckles in front of millions of life screens.

“I wasn’t far under the surface. But you can understand I was startled and confused. I thrashed around, trying to get to air. One arm broke through the surface of the lake I was in. To my great surprise, something was immediately dropped into it. Instinctively, I grabbed hold and pulled. But the object wasn’t attached to anything.

“On the contrary, its extra weight added to mine caused me to start sinking. I struggled a few seconds longer. Then I gave up, pressed my waist stud, and returned to the present.”

“And the object?”

“I held on to it. It’s in my room at the Time Traveler’s Bureau. I—uh—”

“Yes,” the chairman said calmly, “you were troubled about reporting it. Because it meant something had gone wrong. Somewhere along the line, the rules had been violated.”

“Yes, sir,” Renar said, a little despairingly.

Urs spoke. “Honorable Chairman, may I say that every man connected with Time Travel is loyal and conscientious. We all try to adhere strictly to the code. It was not Renar’s fault that this unforeseen emergency arose.”

“Thank you, Urs.” The chairman raised a hand. A Security man approached and held something out. “Renar, is this what you caught hold of in the water?”

Renar nodded. Urs gasped. It was the shining impregnium wand he had left in the rock!

Back in the Time Traveler’s Bureau, the men looked at each other and started to talk excitedly.

The Board members leaned forward in their recliners for a closer inspection of the sword. Urs and Renar exchanged a quick, hopeful glance.

“You, Urs, allowed this wand to become a part of that ancient culture. It remained there for twenty years or so. The people of that time did not know how it was made, nor did they discover any of our techniques from it. It has now been removed from that time.

“We are now faced with a matter of interpretation of Policy Rule number 86, Subhead C, which does not consider the subsequent removal of a knowledge or technique inadvertently left in the past. I shall call another witness.”

Urs and Renar turned. A short, precise man in a rust-colored uniform came out of the side door and marched up beside them.

“Morrey,” the chairman said, “will you please describe your work?”

“Sir,” Morrey said in a businesslike voice, “I am an historical synthesist. I take the reports of the Time Explorers and fit them together into culture graphs. I analyze and interpret the data that comes in, and I make recommendations for further time explorations, as needed.”

“Thank you. Now will you please tell Explorers Urs and Renar about the dominant personality in Great Britain during the period between their respective visits?”

“Gladly, sir.” Morrey turned slightly toward the two. “We are not entirely certain, yet, how much is fact and how much legend, for the story of this man reached far forward in history. But we do know that he became famous because he was the only man who could pull the wand—which they called a ‘sword’—from the rock in which it was embedded. He kept it. Because of properties which we take for granted, the sword had a strange and wonderful appeal to the imaginations of his time. In their superstitious way, those people attributed magical qualities to it, and to the one who carried it.

“That man became a king. He was one of the strongest forces for good, for order, and for justice that civilization there had seen. The man was a giant, in mind and stature. He had a tremendous impact on his time. As I said before, he became a legendary figure. His story retained the power to thrill people for centuries afterward.

“We are not sure how much this man knew or suspected about the wand. We are still studying that. But it is clear from the way he disposed of it when he lay dying, that he may have had some insight into its source. He sent one of his men, who bore the quaint name of ‘Bedivere’ to return it to a mythical ‘Lady of the Lake.’ Bedivere, of course, saw Renar’s hand rising from the water at precisely the correct moment, and placed the sword in it.”

The chairman was silent a few moments after Morrey finished. “And what did they call this man?”

“King Arthur.”

The old man nodded. “Third Level Time Explorer Urs, have you anything further to say?”

Urs gulped. “No, sir.”

“Then the Board finds that you have violated the letter of the General Code of Time Travel.”

In the lounge of the Bureau, the waiting men blanched and looked at one another in shock.

“However,” the chairman of the System Policy Board went on, “the Board also finds that you have not violated the spirit in which the Code was drafted. Neither, in spite of his irregular experience, did Explorer Renar.

“A just decision must take both of these factors into proper account. Thanks to the accident that befell Renar, and to the character of this ancient man, King Arthur, we pronounce you free to return to your work with your record unblemished.”

In the Time Traveler’s Bureau, men shouted and pounded one another on the back. People smiled, in front of their life screens all over the galaxy. “Justice,” they said to one another.

Urs bowed respectfully to the Board, then turned and clasped Renar’s hand.

They walked back to the Bureau together.

“I owe you a drink,” Urs said.

“I’ll take it gladly,” Renar replied. “You knew you were going to appear before the Board. They called me without warning. And that, my friend, is a strain I hope you never go through.”

“Well, the decision helps us all.” Urs extended the impregnium wand. “We’ll keep this in the hall, as a reminder. What was it Morrey said they called it?”

Renar scratched his red head. “It was a strange name. Oh, yes. Excalibur.”