The Project Gutenberg eBook of Justice
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Title: Justice
Author: J. F. Hutton
Illustrator: Mel Hunter
Release date: November 24, 2025 [eBook #77317]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: King-Size Publications, Inc, 1956
Credits: Tom Trussel
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUSTICE ***
Justice
by J. F. Hutton
Urs’ sword was not designed for a Briton’s pleasure. But to a kingly
man Time has no boundary.
_There are historical figures so resplendent in their legendary
permanence that no one age can truly claim them. Their deeds ring out
across history, for youth must eternally respond to a clarion call
which Time’s tyranny will never silence. Give ear, then, as J. F.
Hutton evokes from the past a marvel as mysterious as the time travel
paradox at the core of this amazing story_.
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.”
Transcriber’s Note:
This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, March 1956 (Vol. 5,
No. 2.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.
Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this
version.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUSTICE ***
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