Is it the fourth day? The fifth? How should one measure eternities? My legs are gone, my right arm, my remaining ear and nostril. I am blind. No teeth remain in my jaws. The waste products of my body drip down from a gash like that of a woman. But I can hear, for they dare not touch my inner ear lest they damage the brain and bring death.
They: I mean the interminable Beves and Kules my isolated brain conjures. I am not wholly sane at the moment. I can digest the nutrient Earth-export liquid they trickle down my blistered throat, however. I believe it is a confection of milk and honey, but I cannot taste it and my lung rattles horribly when I laugh. I can speak in a certain manner, though my tongue hangs stretched on a hook beside me: one grunt through the scorched larynx means "yes," two "no."
"Will you step down, Envoy?" I recognize Kule's despairing voice.
I make three coughs, needing more information.
"We cannot continue without killing you."
I do not answer. It is their problem.
"Step down temporarily, then, while I explain your status."
To this much I accede. I am lifted down. I feel the comfort of warm water. I am floating, no hard surfaces attacking my vulnerability except for the strap that supports my head. I listen.
"You have surmounted the four stages of duress," he says. Four? It could as easily have been four hundred. Nothing can benefit me now but the fulfillment of my mission.
"Very few applicants achieve this level," Kule continues. "Perhaps only two or three in each category, each year. Since your category is political, you are now qualified to join the governing council of Waterloo—the only alien ever to achieve this distinction. You have proved yourself by your steadfastness, and you have divested yourself of material considerations that might have biased a lesser individual. Thus you now have the potential for true objectivity, and can be a fitting ruler. Are you willing to assume this position?
At last it is falling into place! The torture gantlet is a ladder to prominence, not with respect to competitors but to the society itself. The more the subject can take, the greater his reward. And Kule is correct: of course I can no longer be bribed by any of the physical pleasures. I have no nose for perfume, no taste buds for food, no eyes for beauty, no phallus for sex. Money? What could it buy for me?
I am indeed objective.
"You can, however, continue the process into death. This is the one respectable form of self-termination, and it carries no onus for the torturer. This will earn you an honored place in our ancestral hierarchy, though you come from afar. Children will recite your name and deed, men will pray to your memory for courage, women will squirt their milk on your monument—"
I grunt twice. I am not intrigued by this type of deification. It sounds messy.
"On the other hand, as a member of the council you will have considerable authority. All your needs will be attended to by un-statused cowards such as myself who will also translate your directives for implementation, and—"
I grunt, suddenly interested.
"Oh yes," Kule says deferentially. "Approval of a treaty with Earth would be your prerogative, so long as the terms do not conflict with the interests of other members."
Victory! No wonder Kule was unable to make the treaty. He lacked the authority. He has never undertaken the appropriate torture. Just as the torturers must earn their positions by being hoist by their own petard, so must all other officers in this society. Cowards and weaklings can't.
I grunt once, accepting the offer. I have earned it.
But Kule does not desist. "One other matter now in your province, Councilman. There is another visitor from Earth—"
Another envoy! I am displeased. The Service should have had more faith in me.
"A female of your species," Kule explains. "She says you are to be wedded—"
Gloria! She has followed me! She must love me very much indeed.
"Shall I conduct her to your presence?"
I think about it. I realize that Gloria's action is foolish. I have no tolerance for foolishness. I am, for the first time in my life, truly objective, and I see things exactly as they are. I have no need of a companion, particularly not a willful one. Power is sufficient for me. I grunt twice.
"She refuses to leave without seeing you," Kule says. I am not certain whether this is an immediate reply or a resumption of dialogue at a later time. Time is a difficult and unimportant factor now. "We do not approve of force in such situations. She must be dissuaded voluntarily if you do not wish to meet her. Would you prefer to have us offer her the token treatment?"
Token torture! An excellent suggestion.
"And if she still does not agree to leave?"
I grunt again. Let her experience the enlightenment of total amputation in that case. Should she somehow hold out until she achieves my exalted state, she may be passingly worthy company. Meanwhile, I can't be bothered.
In fact, in my supreme objectivity I wonder whether any of the untempered individuals of Earth are worthy of consideration. Why should I authorize a treaty they haven't earned merely because their haphazardly selected government desires it? I am a Councilman of Waterloo, having at least proved my superiority absolutely. It is beneath me to deal with them. Better to make sure that no treaty is consummated.
It occurs to me that Earth could have been the planet where the Loos were repulsed by savages centuries ago. Full circle, poetic justice.
I turn my attention to more important concerns. We Loos are not really expert at torture, I realize. Our program is unimaginative. When the subject knows exactly what to expect, in what order, he can prepare himself for it. The familiar is not sufficiently frightening, it does not undermine the will to resist. There are psychological aspects that could and should be utilized. I must work them out and make appropriate recommendations. And exposure: cold, thirst, hunger, sleeplessness, strong lights (prior to blinding), abrasive and continuous sound. Feed the client quantities of liquor, then tie off his privates. Rub his own excrement into his wounds. And the exotic techniques must be properly exploited, such as the Chinese Water Torture, or the Persian Boats....
Gloria! I shall arrange to have the boat torture demonstrated on her since it doesn't matter if she dies. How convenient! I'll convey to her that it is a test of her love for me and see how long she holds out.
Oh, there is so much to do! I have to educate this planet, now that I have the position and objectivity to do so.
I have heard it said that power tends to corrupt. I wonder whether, conversely, misery tends to ennoble?
Yes—yes it does! I can offer no finer example of that truth than myself.
SMALL MOUTH, BAD TASTE
Sphere, in England, had published some of my novels, and their editor Anthony Cheetham asked me for a story for their Science Against Man anthology. There was something about his first name I liked, so in 1969 I wrote "Small Mouth" for that volume, and Dave Kyle had the bad taste to quote a paragraph from it for a volume he published. No, I don't know what paragraph; I never saw Kyle's volume, since this was a transaction called to my attention later by a reader. What got me was the audacity of it; Kyle simply informed my agent that he had all the authorization he needed, without telling him what he was using, so my agent learned of it only after I did. No, I didn't make a big fuss; I would have given permission for the use of the material had anyone bothered to ask. But editors are human, and human beings, as this story shows, are fallible.
"Man is a small-mouthed animal," Miss Concher said as the truck stopped. "He was less successful in the jungle than were the apes, and became carnivorous to fill his belly. Since he could no longer use those recessed teeth effectively for hunting, he had to make do with his forelimbs. Which in turn forced him to assume the bipedal stance, and he didn't even have a tail to brace against." She nodded sagely. "We can be sure that the first stone-thrower was not without sin; he was without food, and desperate. Tell me what you see."