“The Cromsaggar went to war …”
It was not a war fought for reasons of territorial expansion or trade advantage, and neither was it fought at a distance from fortified positions or by warriors acting in concert or protected by armored machines or equipment, and it was a war not waged to the death because there was no intention on either side of killing an opponent who might very well be a family member or a friend. In fact, there were no sides because it was fought hand to hand between pairs of unarmed individuals, and it was a war whose sole purpose was to cause the maximum of fear, pain, and danger, but if possible, not death to the combatants. There was no threat or danger from a beaten and seriously wounded opponent and, even though they had been trying desperately to kill each other moments before, the vanquished were left where they lay, hopefully to recover from their wounds to fight and instill fear in an opponent another day.
Life was rare and precious to the Cromsaggar, rarer and more precious with every dwindling generation that passed; otherwise they would not have tried so hard to keep their race alive.
For it was only by overloading the sensorium with pain and intense muscular effort and subjecting themselves to the highest possible levels of emotional stress that endocrine systems rendered dormant by the eifects of the plague could be roused into something like normal activity, and remain so, aside from the wounds that had been sustained, for the time necessary for a successful coupling and procreation to take place.
But in spite of the terrible solution that had been found, adult deaths from the plague continued to rise and the birth rate to fall. The population contracted in numbers and territory occupied, moving to one continent so as to conserve what little was left of their civilization and resources and to be within easy fighting distance of each other. There was archeological evidence to suggest that in the beginning the Cromsaggar were not warlike, but the need to fight and often kill each other so that their race as a whole could survive made them so, and by the time Tenelphl discovered them, the practice of hand-to-hand combat among all adults had been conditioned into the race for many centuries.
“Even though the decision was taken for the best of all clinical reasons, that of saving many lives,” Thornnastor went on, “without prior knowledge of this conditioning, the effect of introducing a complete and short- duration cure for the plague could not have been foreseen. It is probable, and Chief Psychologist
O’Mara agrees with me in this, that the Cromsaggar who had been treated were aware of feeling better and stronger than they had ever felt before, and subconsciously they must have realized that it was no longer necessary for them to fight and place themselves in the greatest possible danger in order to achieve sexual arousal. But for many centuries they had been taught from an early age that single combat between members of one’s own sex invariably preceded coupling with one of the opposite, a level of conditioning with the strength of an evolutionary imperative. And so, the more their clinical condition improved the greater was their urge to fight and procreate. The many young, whose physical development had been retarded by the effects of the plague and who had suddenly come to maturity, felt the same compulsion to fight.
“But the real tragedy,” the Tralthan continued, “lay in the fact that individually and as a group they were fully cured, and stronger than any Cromsaggar had been since the coming of the plague. Previously they had been weak, diseased, and able to expend only a small fraction of the physical effort of which they were now capable. Their newfound strength reduced the personal fear of pain and death, and made it difficult to calibrate the levels of damage inflicted on and by opponents who were so strong and evenly matched. The result was that they killed each other, every single adult on Cromsag, leaving only the infants and children alive.
“Briefly and simply,” Thornnastor ended, “that is the background to the Cromsag Incident.”
The silence that followed Thornnastor’s words lengthened and deepened until the faint, bubbling sound made by the refrigerated life-support system of an SNLU in the audience seemed loud. It was like the Tarlan Silence of Remembrance after the passing of a friend, except here it was the population of a world that had died and it seemed that no person present was going to break it.
“With respect to the court,” Lioren said suddenly, “I ask that the trial be ended here and now, without further argument and waste of time. I stand accused of genocide through negligence. I am guilty without doubt or question and the responsibility and the guilt are entirely mine. I demand the death penalty.”
O’Mara rose to his feet before Lioren had finished speaking.
The Chief Psychologist said, “The defense would like to correct the accused on one very important point. Surgeon-Captain Lioren did not commit genocide. When the incident occurred it reacted quickly and correctly in the circumstances, by warning the hospital and organizing the rescue and care of the newly orphaned Cromsaggar children, this in spite of the fact that many of its own people had been so taken by surprise that they were unable to use the gas in time, and who were seriously injured in attempts to stop the fighting. During this period the Surgeon-Captain’s behavior was exemplary and, although the witnesses are not here present, their evidence was presented to and accepted by the civil court on Tarla and is on record—”
“The evidence is not disputed,” Lioren broke in impatiently. “It is not relevant.”
“As a result of this timely warning and subsequent actions,” O’Mara continued, ignoring the interruption, “the adult Cromsaggar under treatment here were separated before they could attack each other, and the young, both here and on Cromsag, were saved. Altogether thirty-seven adults and two hundred and eighty-three children, with a roughly equal distribution of sex, are alive and well. I have no doubt that, after a lengthy period of reeducation, resettlement, and specialized assistance in breaking their conditioning, Cromsag will be repopulated, and, now that the plague has been removed, its people will return to living together in peace.
“It is understandable that the accused should feel an overwhelming guilt in this matter,” the psychologist went on in a quieter voice. “Had that not been so, it would not have caused this court-martial to be convened. But it is possible that the great guilt that it feels over the Cromsag Incident, together with its urgent need to discharge that guilt and its impatience to receive punishment for the alleged crime, has caused it to exaggerate its case. As a psychologist I can understand and sympathize with its feelings, and with its attempts to escape the burden of its guilt. And I am sure that there is no need to remind the court that, among the sixty-five intelligent species who make up the Galactic Federation, not one of them practices judicial execution or physical chastisement during confinement.”
“You are correct, Major O’Mara,” the fleet commander said. “The reminder is unnecessary and time-wasting. Make your point briefly.”
The color of O’Mara’s facial skin deepened slightly, and it said, “The Cromsaggar are not extinct, and they will continue to survive as a race. Surgeon-Captain Lioren is guilty of exaggeration, but not genocide.”
All at once Lioren felt anger, despair, and a terrible fear. He kept one eye on O’Mara and directed the other three individually toward the officers of the court and forced calmness and clarity onto his mind as he said, “The exaggeration, this small inaccuracy that was intended only as a simplification of a terrible truth, is unimportant because the enormity of my guilt is beyond measure. And I should have no need to remind Major O’Mara of the punishment, the destruction of a medic’s professional future rather than life, which is meted out to any member of the staff whose carelessness or lack of observation leads to the clinical deterioration or death of a patient.
“I am guilty of negligence,” Lioren went on, wishing that the translator could reproduce the desperation in his voice, “and the defense counsel’s attempt to belittle and excuse what I have done is ridiculous. The fact that others, including the hospital personnel concerned with the trials of the medication, were also surprised by the Cromsaggar behavior is not an excuse. I should not have been surprised, because all the information was available to me, all the clues to the puzzle were there if I had correctly read the signs. I did not read them because I was blinded by pride and ambition, because a part of my mind was thinking that a rapid and total cure would enhance my professional reputation. I did not read them because I was negligent, unobservant, and mentally fastidious in refusing to listen to patients’ conversations relating to Cromsaggar sex practices which would have given a clear warning of what was to happen, and because I was impatient of superiors who were advocating caution—”
“Ambition, pride, and impatience,” O’Mara said, rising quickly to its feet, “are not crimes. And surely it is the degree of professional negligence, if any, that the court must punish, not the admittedly terrible and far-reaching effects of what is at most a minor transgression.”
“The court,” Fleet Commander Dermod said, “will not allow counsel to dictate to it, nor will it allow another such interruption of the prosecution’s closing statement. Sit down, Major. Surgeon-Captain Lioren, you may proceed.”
The guilt and the fear and the desperation were filling Lioren’s mind so that the finely reasoned arguments he had prepared were lost and forgotten. He could only speak simply of how he felt and hope that it would be enough.
