Time and the Riddle: Thirty-One Zen Stories (44 page)

But we must not abandon this small tribute without noting that when Milty's will was read, it disposed of no more than a few thousand dollars and a handful of things that were beloved of him. Such was the nature of the man who earned millions only to give them away. Naturally, there are those who claim that since reading a book in his very early youth, titled
How to Avoid Probate
, Milty was never subsequently without it—that is, without this precious volume—and that eventually he memorized all of its contents and could quote chapter and verse at will.

But where is there a great man who has not suffered the barbs of envy and hatred? Slander is the burden the great must carry, and Milton Boil carried it as silently and patiently as any man.

On the modest headstone that graces his final resting place, an epitaph written by Milty himself is carved:

“He found them tall and left them small.”

To which our generation, standing erect and proud under our three-foot ceilings, can only add a grateful amen.

18
Cato the Martian

T
hey spoke only one language on Mars—which was one of the reasons why Earth languages fascinated them so. Mrs. Erdig had made the study of English her own hobby. English was rather popular, but lately more and more Martians were turning to Chinese; before that, it had been Russian. But Mrs. Erdig held that no other language had the variety of inflection, subtlety and meaning that English possessed.

For example, the word
righteousness
. She mentioned it to her husband tonight.

“I'm telling you, I just cannot understand it,” she said. “I mean it eludes me just as I feel I can grasp it. And you know how inadequate one feels with an Earth word that is too elusive.”

“I don't know how it is,” Mr. Erdig replied absently. His own specialty among Earth languages was Latin—recorded only via the infrequent Vatican broadcasts—and this tells a good deal about what sort of Martian he was. Perhaps a thousand Martians specialized in Latin; certainly no more.

“Inadequate. It's obvious,” his wife repeated.

“Oh? Why?”

“You know. I wish you wouldn't make yourself so obtuse. One expects to feel superior to those savages in there on the third planet. It's provoking to have a word in their language elude you.”

“What word?” Mr. Erdig asked.

“You weren't listening at all.
Righteousness.”

“Well, my own English is nothing to crow about, but I seem to remember what
right
means.”

“And
righteous
means something else entirely, and it makes no sense whatsoever.”

“Have you tried Lqynn's dictionary?” Mr. Erdig asked, his thoughts still wrapped around his own problems.

“Lqynn is a fool!”

“Of course, my dear. You might get through to Judge Grylyg on the Intertator. He is considered an expert on English verbs.”

“Oh, you don't even hear me,” she cried in despair. “Even you would know that
righteous
is not a verb. I feel like I am talking to the wall.”

Mr. Erdig sat up—its equivalent, for his seven limbs were jointed very differently from a human's—and apologized to his wife. Actually he loved her and respected her. “Terribly sorry,” he said. “Really, my dear. It's just that there are so many things these days. I get lost in my thoughts—and depressed too.”

“I know. I know,” she said with immediate tenderness. “There are so many things. I know how it all weighs on you.”

“A burden I never asked for.”

“I know,” she nodded. “How well I know.”

“Yes, there are Martians and Martians,” Mr. Erdig sighed wearily. “I know some who schemed and bribed and used every trick in the book to get onto the Planetary Council. I didn't. I never wanted it, never thought of it.”

“Of course,” his wife agreed.

“I even thought of refusing—”

“How could you?” his wife agreed sympathetically. “How could you? No one has ever refused. We would have been pariahs. The children would never hold up their heads again. And it is an honor, darling—an honor second to none. You are a young man, two hundred and eighty years old, young and in your prime. I know what a burden it is. You must try to carry that burden as lightly as possible and not fight everything you don't agree with.”

“Not what I don't agree with,” Mr. Erdig said slowly but distinctly, “not at all. What is wrong.”

“Can you be sure something is wrong?”

“This time. Yes, I am sure.”

“Cato again, I suppose,” Mrs. Erdig nodded. “The old fool! Why don't they see through him! Why don't they see what a pompous idiot he is!”

“I suppose some do. But he appears to reflect the prevailing sentiment.”

“Yes? Well, it seems to me,” said Mr. Erdig, “that he created a good deal of what you call the prevailing sentiment. He rose to speak again yesterday, cleared his throat, and cried out, ‘Earth must be destroyed!' Just as he has every session these past thirty years. And this time—mind you, my dear—this time he had the gall to repeat it in Latin:
‘Earth esse delendam.'
Soon, he will believe that he
is
Cato.”

“I think that is a great tribute to you,” Mrs. Erdig told him calmly. “After all, you are the foremost Latin scholar on Mars. You were the first to call him Cato the Censor—and the name stuck. Now everyone calls him Cato. I shouldn't be surprised if they have all forgotten his real name. You can be proud of your influence.”

“That isn't the point at all,” Mr. Erdig sighed.

“I only meant to cheer you a bit.”

“I know, my dear. I shouldn't be annoyed with you. But the point is that each day they smile less and listen to him even more intently. I can remember quite well when he first began his campaign against Earth, the amused smiles, the clucking and shaking of heads. A good many of us were of the opinion that he was out of his mind, that he needed medical treatment. Then, bit by bit, the attitude changed. Now, they listen seriously—and they agree. Do you know that he plans to put it to a vote tomorrow?”

“Well, if he does, he does, and the Council will do what is right. So the best thing for you to do is to get a good night's sleep. Come along with me.”

Mr. Erdig rose to follow her. They were in bed, when she said, “I do wish you had chosen English, my dear. Why should
righteous
be so utterly confusing?”

Most of the Planetary Council of Mars were already present when Mr. Erdig arrived and took his place. As he made his way among the other representatives, he could not fail to notice a certain coolness, a certain restraint in the greetings that followed him. Mrs. Erdig would have held that he was being over-sensitive and that he always had been too sensitive for his own peace of mind; but Mr. Erdig himself labored under no illusions. He prided himself upon his psychological awareness of the Council's mood. All things considered, he was already certain that today was Cato's day.

As he took his place, his friend, Mr. Kyegg, nodded and confirmed his gloomy view of things. “I see you are thinking along the same lines, Erdig,” Mr. Kyegg said.

“Yes.”

“Well—
que serait, serait,”
Mr. Kyegg sighed. “What will be, will be. French. Language spoken by only a handful of people on the European continent, but very elegant.”

“I know that France is on the European continent,” Mr. Erdig observed stiffly.

“Of course. Well, old Fllari persuaded me to take lessons with him. Poor chap needs money.”

Mr. Erdig realized that his irritation with Kyegg was increasing, and without cause. Kyegg was a very decent fellow whom Mr. Erdig had known for better than two hundred years. It would be childish to allow a general state of irritation to separate him from any one of the narrowing circle he could still call his friends.

At moments of stress, like this one, Mr. Erdig would lie back in his seat and gaze at the Council ceiling. It had a soothing effect. Like most Martians, Mr. Erdig had a keen and well-developed sense of aesthetics, and he never tired of the beauties of Martian buildings and landscapes. Indeed, the creation of beauty and the appreciation of beauty were preoccupations of Martian society. Even Mr. Erdig would not have denied the Martian superiority in that direction.

The ceiling of the Council Chamber reproduced the Martian skies at night. Deep, velvety blue-purple, it was as full of stars as a tree in bloom is of blossoms. The silver starlight lit the Council Chamber.

“How beautiful and wise are the things we create and live with!” Mr. Erdig reflected. “How good to be a Martian!” He could afford pity for the poor devils of the third planet. Why couldn't others?

He awoke out of his reverie to the chimes that called the session to order. Now the seats were all filled.

“This is it,” said Mr. Erdig's friend, Mr. Kyegg. “Not an empty seat in the house.”

The minutes of the previous meeting were read.

“He'll recognize Cato first,” Mr. Kyegg nodded.

“That doesn't take much foresight,” Mr. Erdig replied sourly, pointing to Cato. Already Cato's arm (or limb or tentacle, depending on your point of view) was up.

The chairman bowed and recognized him.

Cato the Censor had concluded his speeches in the Roman Senate with the injunction that Carthage must be destroyed. Cato the Martian did him one better; he began and finished with the injunction that Earth must be destroyed.

“Earth must be destroyed,” Cato the Martian began, and then paused for the ripple of applause to die down.

“Why do I go on, year after year, with what once seemed to so many to be a heartless and bloodthirsty plea? I assure you that the first time my lips formed that phrase, my heart was sick and my bowels turned over in disgust. I am a Martian like all of you; like all of you, I view murder as the ultimate evil, force as the mark of the beast.”

“Think—all of you, think of what it cost me to create that phrase and to speak it for the first time in this chamber, so many years ago! Think of how you would have felt! Was it easy then—or any time in all the years since then? Is the role of a
patriot
ever easy? Yes, I use a word Earth taught us
—patriot
A word most meaningful to us now.”

“Le patriotisme est le demier refuge d'un gredin,”
Mr. Kyegg observed caustically. “French. A pithy language.”

“English, as a matter of fact,” Mr. Erdig corrected him.
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel
. Samuel Johnson, I believe. Literary dean and wit in London, two centuries ago.” Mr. Erdig felt unpleasant enough to put Mr. Kyegg in his place. “London,” he went on, “largest city in England, which is an island a few miles from the European continent.”

“Oh, yes,” Mr. Kyegg nodded weakly.

“—not only because I love Mars,” Cato was saying, “but because I love the entire essence and meaning of life. It is almost half a century since we picked up the first radio signals from the planet Earth. We on Mars had never known the meaning of
war;
it took Earth to teach us that. We had never known what it meant to kill, to destroy, to torture. Indeed, when we first began to analyze and understand the various languages of Earth, we doubted our own senses, our own analytical abilities. We heard, but at first we refused to believe what we heard. We refused to believe that there could be an entire race of intelligent beings whose existence was dedicated to assault, to murder and thievery and brutality beyond the imagination of Martians—”

“Never changes a word,” muttered Mr. Erdig. “Same speech over and over.”

“He's learned to deliver it very well, don't you think?” Mr. Kyegg said.

“—we would not believe!” Cato cried. “Who could believe such things? We are a race of love and mercy. We tried to rationalize, to explain, to excuse—but when our receivers picked up the first television signals, well, we could no longer rationalize, explain or excuse. What our ears might have doubted, our eyes proved. What our sensibilities refused, fact forced upon us. I don't have to remind you or review what we saw in the course of fifteen Earth years of television transmission. Murder—murder—murder—and violence! Murder and violent death to a point where one could only conclude that this is a dream, the being and the vision of Earth! Man against man, nation against nation, mother against child—and always violence and death—”

“He said he wasn't going to review it,” Mr. Erdig murmured.

“It's rather nice to know every word of a speech,” said Mr. Kyegg. “Then you don't have to listen with any attention.”

But the members of the council were listening with attention as Cato cried.

“And
war!
The word itself did not exist in our language until we heard it from Earth. War without end—large wars and small wars, until half of their world is a graveyard and their very atmosphere is soaked with hatred!”

“That's a rather nice turn of phrase for Cato, don't you think?” Mr. Kyegg asked his associate. Mr. Erdig did not even deign to answer.

“And then,” Cato continued, his voice low and ominous now, “we watched them explode their first atom bomb. On their television, we watched this monstrous weapon exploded again and again as they poisoned their atmosphere and girded themselves for a new war. Ah, well do I remember how calm the philosophers were when this happened. ‘Leave them alone,' said our philosophers, ‘now they will de stroy themselves.' Would they? By all that Mars means to every Martian, I will not put my faith in the philosophers!”

“He means you,” said Mr. Kyegg to Mr. Erdig.

“Philosophers!” Cato repeated in contempt. “I know one of them well indeed. In derision, he dubbed me Cato—thinking to parade his Latin scholarship before me. Well, I accept the name. As Cato, I say, Earth must be destroyed! Not because of what Earth has done and continues to do to itself—I agree that is their affair—but because of what, as every Martian now knows, Earth will inevitably do to us. We watched them send up their first satellites; we did nothing as they sent their missiles probing into space; and now—now—as our astronomers confirm—they have sent an unmanned rocket to the moon!”