Mindswap

'Let's hear it,' Marvin said.

Otis sweated and swotted, and at last intoned:

'When the spaceships of Earth are on distant planets,
The soul of a man, be he slender or tall,
Desires his home, for it pulls like ten magnets,
Filling his heart as great waves fill a hall.
And the great green sensation of gratitude
Is entranced by the welcoming attitude
Of a heroic Hermit, whose modulent mood
Is to rescue the spaceman and save him withal.'

The Hermit said:

'I find thee apt: 'Tis parlous to relate
In these lean times a halting tongue may work
Quick mischief 'pon its saddened owner-lord.'

Marvin said:

'Ali come, take Marvin Flynn away, and leave
The Rest to wrangle! He would grieve
To find his body torn and wounded: therefore now
He'd like to go, whilst others stand and cheer.'

The Hermit said:

'Away then, gentlemen! Hearts high,
Feet firm in stirrups, head uplifted be …'

And so they proceeded in sing-song fashion to the Hermit's hut, where they saw, hidden away under some sheets of bark, an illegal Mindsender, of an ancient and curious design. And Marvin learned that there was method in even the direst madness. For the Hermit had been on this planet for less than a year, and already had made a considerable fortune by smuggling refugees to the less savoury labour markets of the galaxy.

It was not ethical, but as the Hermit put it:

'Call you it dastardly, then, the tricks I play
With this my engine? Sobeit! Nay, I'll not dispute
The arid-abstract trueness of your plea.
Yet think upon't; 'tis folly to refuse bad wine
When chok't with desert thirst. Not so? Then why
So harshly judge the salvor of your life?
'Tis damned ingratitude of most perversity –
To slap the hand that plucked Death's grip from thee!'

Chapter 14

A small amount of time passed. A job for Otis Dagobert had not been difficult to find. Despite his protestations to the contrary, the young man showed a small but very promising streak of sadism. Accordingly, the Hermit had Swapped him into the mind of a dental assistant on Prodenda IX. That planet, just to the left of the South Ridge stars if you come by way of Procyon, had been settled by a group of Terrans who felt strongly about fluorine, despising this chemical group as though it were the devil itself. On Prodenda IX they could live fluorine-free, with the assistance of many dental architects, as they were called.

The ganzer egg wished Marvin the best of good fortune and rolled off into the forest.

'And now,' the Hermit said, 'we come to the problem of you. It seems to me, considering your personality quite objectively, that you have a definite aptitude as a victim.'

'Me?' Marvin asked.

'Yes, you,' the Hermit replied.

'A victim?'

'Definitely a victim.'

'I'm not so sure.' Marvin replied. He stated it that way out of politeness; actually, he was quite sure the Hermit was wrong.

'Well, I'm sure,' the Hermit said. 'And I dare say I've had more experience in job placement than you.'

'I suppose you have … I notice that you are no longer speaking in verse.'

'Of course not,' the Hermit said. 'Why should I?'

'Because earlier,' Marvin said, 'you had been speaking only in verse.'

'But that was entirely different,' the Hermit said. 'I was outside then. I had to protect myself.'

'But what about now?'

'Now I am in my house and therefore quite safe. I have no need for the protective language of verse.'

'Does verse really protect you outside?' Marvin asked.

'It certainly does. I have lived on this planet for over a year, hunted by two murderous races who would kill me on sight if they could find me. And in that time I have suffered no harm whatsoever. What do you think about that?'

'Well, it's very fine, of course. But how do you know it's your language that protects you?'

'I infer it,' the Hermit said. 'It seems a reasonable enough assumption.'

'Yes, sir,' Marvin said. 'But I don't quite see the relationship between your language and your safety.'

'I'll be damned if I see it, either,' the Hermit said. 'I like to think of myself as a rational man, but the efficacy of verse is one thing that I am reluctantly forced to accept on faith. It works; what more can I say?'

'Have you ever thought of experimenting?' Marvin asked. 'I mean, speaking outside without your language of verse? You might find you don't need it.'

'So I might,' the Hermit replied. 'And if you tried walking on the ocean bottom, you might find that you didn't need air.'

'It's not really the same thing,' Marvin said.

'It's exactly the same thing,' the Hermit told him. 'All of us live by the employment of countless untested assumptions, the truth of falsehood of which we can determine only through the hazard of our lives. Since most of us value our lives more than the truth, we leave such drastic tests for the fanatics.'

'I don't try to walk on water,' Marvin said, 'because I've seen men drown.'

'And I,' the Hermit said, 'do not speak a prose language outside because I have seen too many men killed while speaking it; but I have not seen one single verse-speaker killed.'

'Well … to each his own.'

'The acceptance of indeterminacy is the beginning of wisdom,' the Hermit quoted. 'But we were talking about you and victimization. I repeat, you have an aptitude, which opens the possibility of an extremely interesting position for you.'

'I am not interested,' Marvin said. 'What else do you have available?'

'Nothing else,' the Hermit said.

By a remarkable coincidence, Marvin heard at that moment a great crashing and thundering in the underbrush outside, and deduced that it was either the Meldens or the Ganzers, or both, coming in pursuit of him.

'I accept the job,' Marvin said. 'But you're wrong.'

He had the satisfaction of the last word; but the Hermit had the satisfaction of the last deed. For, arranging his equipment and adjusting his dials, he closed the switch and sent Marvin off to his new career on the planet Celsus V.

Chapter 15

On Celsus V, the giving and receiving of gifts is a cultural imperative. To refuse a gift is unthinkable; the emotion it raises in a Celsian is comparable to the incest-dread of a Terran. Normally, this causes no trouble. Most gifts are white gifts, intended to express various shades of love, gratitude, tenderness, etc. But there are also grey gifts of warning, and black gifts of death.

Thus, a certain public official received a handsome snout ring from his constituents. It was imperiously designed for two week's wear. It was a splendid object, and it had only one flaw. It ticked.

A creature of another race might have flung it into the nearest ditch. But no Celsian in his right mind would do that. He wouldn't even have the ring examined. Celsians live by the motto: DO not look a gift in the teeth. Besides, if word of his suspicion leaked out, it would cause an irreparable public scandal.

He had to wear that damned ring for two weeks.

But the damn thing was ticking.

The official, whose name was Marduk Kras, pondered the problem. He thought about his constituents, and various ways he had helped them, and various other ways he had failed them. The ring was a warning, that much was clear. It was at best a warning – a grey gift. At worst, it was a black gift – a small bomb of popular design, which would blow his head off after the elapse of several anxiety-ridden days.

Marduk was not suicidal; he knew that he could not wear that damned ring. But he also knew that he had to wear that damned ring. Thus, he found himself facing a classic Celsian dilemma.