"Eric Frank Russell - Basic Right" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

"Yes, for the reason that you had twenty Terrans with you. They know the law even if you don't.
Why didn't you beam a warning?"
"Because," said Zalumar, enjoying himself, "we are above your laws. Henceforth they are abolished
so far as we are concerned."
"Is that so?" gave back the other. "Well, you're going to learn different mighty soon."
"On the contrary," retorted Zalumar, "it is you who will learn, we who shall teach." With that he
returned to his cabin, smiled to himself, fiddled around with a thick file of papers. Three hours later he
was called to the lock door by a crewman. He went there, looked down upon the same uniformed
quartette as before.
Their spokesman said, blankly and unemotionally, "I'm ordered to apologize to you for questioning
your right to land without warning. I am also instructed to inform you that certain persons whom you wish
to see are now on their way here."
Acknowledging this with a sniff of disdain, Zalumar went back to his desk. A multijet plane screamed
far overhead and he ignored it. Doubtless some of the crew were leaning out the locks and nervily
watching lest something long, black, and lethal drop upon them from the sky. But he couldn't be bothered
himself. He had these Terrans weighed up—they just wouldn't dare. He was dead right, too. They didn't
dare. The shrill sound died over the horizon and nothing happened.
Some time later Fox appeared with two other I.S.P. members named McKenzie and Vitelli. They
conducted a bunch of twelve civilians into the cabin. The dozen newcomers lined up against a wall,
studied the Raidan commander with frank curiosity but no visible enmity.
Fox explained, "These, sire, are twelve of Terra's elected leaders. There are thirty more scattered
around, some in far places. I regret that it is not possible to trace and bring them here today."
"No matter." Zalumar lay hack in his chair and surveyed the dozen with suitable contempt. They did
not fidget under his gaze nor show any signs of uneasiness. They merely gazed back steadily, eye for eye,
like a group of impassive lizards. It occurred to him that it was well-nigh impossible to discern what they
were thinking. Oh, well, the time-honored tactic was to start by kicking them right in the teeth.
"Let's get something straight," harshed Zalumar at the twelve. "So far as we are concerned, you are
animals. Lower animals. Cows. My cows. When I order you to produce milk you will strain to produce
it. When I order you to moo you will promptly moo, all together, in concert with the other thirty who are
absent."
Nobody said anything, nobody got hot under the collar, nobody appeared to care a solitary damn.
"If any one of you fails to obey orders or shows lack of alacrity in doing so, he will be jerked out of
mundane existence and replaced with a good, trustworthy, and melodious mooer." Silence.
"Any questions?" he invited, feeling a little irritated by their bland acceptance of racial inferiority. A
scowl, just a frightened half-concealed scowl from any one of them would have given him much inward
pleasure and enabled him to taste the full, fruity flavor of conquest. As it was, they made victory seem
appallingly insipid; a triumph that was no triumph at all because there had been nothing to beat down.
They didn't so much as give him the satisfaction of meeting their queries with a few devastating
retorts, of crushing them with responses calculated to emphasize their individual and collective stupidity.
Still in line against the wall, they posed silently, without questions, and waited for his next order. Looking
at them, he got the weird feeling that if he'd suddenly bawled, "Moo!" they'd have all mooed together, at
the tops of their voices—and in some mysterious, elusive way the laugh would be on him.
Snatching up the intercom phone, he called Captain Arnikoi and when that worthy arrived, said,
"Take these twelve simpletons to the registry on Cruiser Seven. Have them thoroughly recorded from
toenails to hair. Extract from them all the details you can get concerning thirty others who have yet to
arrive. We shall want to know who the culprit is if one of them fails to turn up." "As you order, sire," said
Amikoj.
"That's not all," continued Zalumar. "When you've finished I want you to select the least cretinous
specimen and return him to this ship. He will be retained here. It will be his duty to summon the others
whenever I require them."