The Highest Treason Read online

  Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  Transcriber's Note: This e-text was produced from Analog ScienceFact & Fiction, January, 1961. Extensive research did not uncoverany evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  _The highest treason of all is not so easy to define--and be it notedcarefully that the true traitor in this case was not singular, but veryplural ..._

  THE HIGHEST ... TREASON

  By

  RANDALL GARRETT

  Illustrated by Gardner

  _The Prisoner_

  The two rooms were not luxurious, but MacMaine hadn't expected thatthey would be. The walls were a flat metallic gray, unadorned andwindowless. The ceilings and floors were simply continuations of thewalls, except for the glow-plates overhead. One room held a smallcabinet for his personal possessions, a wide, reasonably soft bed, asmall but adequate desk, and, in one corner, a cubicle that containedthe necessary sanitary plumbing facilities.

  The other room held a couch, two big easy-chairs, a low table, somebookshelves, a squat refrigerator containing food and drink for hisoccasional snacks--his regular meals were brought in hot from the mainkitchen--and a closet that contained his clothing--the insignialessuniforms of a Kerothi officer.

  No, thought Sebastian MacMaine, it was not luxurious, but neither didit look like the prison cell it was.

  There was comfort here, and even the illusion of privacy, althoughthere were TV pickups in the walls, placed so that no movement ineither room would go unnoticed. The switch which cut off the soft whitelight from the glow plates did not cut off the infrared radiation whichenabled his hosts to watch him while he slept. Every sound was heardand recorded.

  But none of that bothered MacMaine. On the contrary, he was glad of it.He wanted the Kerothi to know that he had no intention of escaping orhatching any plot against them.

  He had long since decided that, if things continued as they had, Earthwould lose the war with Keroth, and Sebastian MacMaine had no desirewhatever to be on the losing side of the greatest war ever fought. Theproblem now was to convince the Kerothi that he fully intended to fightwith them, to give them the full benefit of his ability as a militarystrategist, to do his best to win every battle for Keroth.

  And that was going to be the most difficult task of all.

  A telltale glow of red blinked rapidly over the door, and a soft chimepinged in time with it.

  MacMaine smiled inwardly, although not a trace of it showed on hisbroad-jawed, blocky face. To give him the illusion that he was a guestrather than a prisoner, the Kerothi had installed an announcer at thedoor and invariably used it. Not once had any one of them ever simplywalked in on him.

  "Come in," MacMaine said.

  He was seated in one of the easy-chairs in his "living room," smoking acigarette and reading a book on the history of Keroth, but he put thebook down on the low table as a tall Kerothi came in through thedoorway.

  MacMaine allowed himself a smile of honest pleasure. To most Earthmen,"all the Carrot-skins look alike," and, MacMaine admitted honestly tohimself, he hadn't yet trained himself completely to look beyond thestrangenesses that made the Kerothi different from Earthmen and see thedetails that made them different from each other. But this was oneKerothi that MacMaine would never mistake for any other.

  "Tallis!" He stood up and extended both hands in the Kerothi fashion.The other did the same, and they clasped hands for a moment. "How areyour guts?" he added in Kerothic.

  "They function smoothly, my sibling-by-choice," answered Space GeneralPolan Tallis. "And your own?"

  "Smoothly, indeed. It's been far too long a time since we havetouched."

  The Kerothi stepped back a pace and looked the Earthman up and down."You look healthy enough--for a prisoner. You're treated well, then?"

  "Well enough. Sit down, my sibling-by-choice." MacMaine waved towardthe couch nearby. The general sat down and looked around the apartment.

  "Well, well. You're getting preferential treatment, all right. This isas good as you could expect as a battleship commander. Maybe you'rebeing trained for the job."

  MacMaine laughed, allowing the touch of sardonicism that he felt to beheard in the laughter. "I might have hoped so once, Tallis. But I'mafraid I have simply come out even. I have traded nothing for nothing."

  General Tallis reached into the pocket of his uniform jacket and tookout the thin aluminum case that held the Kerothi equivalent ofcigarettes. He took one out, put it between his lips, and lit it withthe hotpoint that was built into the case.

  MacMaine took an Earth cigarette out of the package on the table andallowed Tallis to light it for him. The pause and the silence, MacMaineknew, were for a purpose. He waited. Tallis had something to say, buthe was allowing the Earthman to "adjust to surprise." It was one of thefine points of Kerothi etiquette.

  * * * * *

  A sudden silence on the part of one participant in a conversation,under these particular circumstances, meant that something unusual wascoming up, and the other person was supposed to take the opportunity tobrace himself for shock.

  It could mean anything. In the Kerothi Space Forces, a superiorinformed a junior officer of the junior's forthcoming promotion by justsuch tactics. But the same tactics were used when informing a person ofthe death of a loved one.

  In fact, MacMaine was well aware that such a period of silence was _derigueur_ in a Kerothi court, just before sentence was pronounced, aswell as a preliminary to a proposal of marriage by a Kerothi male tothe _light of his love.

  MacMaine could do nothing but wait. It would be indelicate to speakuntil Tallis felt that he was ready for the surprise.

  It was not, however, indelicate to watch Tallis' face closely; it wasexpected. Theoretically, one was supposed to be able to discern, atleast, whether the news was good or bad.

  With Tallis, it was impossible to tell, and MacMaine knew it would beuseless to read the man's expression. But he watched, nonetheless.

  In one way, Tallis' face was typically Kerothi. The orange-pigmentedskin and the bright, grass-green eyes were common to all Kerothi. Theplanet Keroth, like Earth, had evolved several different "races" ofhumanoid, but, unlike Earth, the distinction was not one of color.

  MacMaine took a drag off his cigarette and forced himself to keep hismind off whatever it was that Tallis might be about to say. He wasalready prepared for a death sentence--even a death sentence bytorture. Now, he felt, he could not be shocked. And, rather than buildup the tension within himself to an unbearable degree, he thought aboutTallis rather than about himself.

  Tallis, like the rest of the Kerothi, was unbelievably humanoid. Therewere internal differences in the placement of organs, and differencesin the functions of those organs. For instance, it took two separateorgans to perform the same function that the liver performed inEarthmen, and the kidneys were completely absent, that function beingperformed by special tissues in the lower colon, which meant that theKerothi were more efficient with water-saving than Earthmen, since thewaste products were excreted as relatively dry solids through anall-purpose cloaca.

  But, externally, a Kerothi would need only a touch of plastic surgeryand some makeup to pass as an Earthman in a stage play. Close up, ofcourse, the job would be much more difficult--as difficult as a Negrotrying to disguise himself as a Swede or _vice versa__.

  But Tallis was--

  * * * * *

  "I would have a word," Tallis said, shattering MacMaine's carefullyneutral train of thought. It was a standard opening for breaking thepause of adjustment, but it presaged good news rather than bad.

  "I await your word," MacMain
e said. Even after all this time, he stillfelt vaguely proud of his ability to handle the subtle idioms ofKerothic.

  "I think," Tallis said carefully, "that you may be offered a commissionin the Kerothi Space Forces."

  Sebastian MacMaine let out his breath slowly, and only then realizedthat he had been holding it. "I am grateful, my sibling-by-choice," hesaid.

  General Tallis tapped his cigarette ash into a large blue ceramicashtray. MacMaine could smell the acrid smoke from the alien plantmatter that burned in the Kerothi cigarette--a chopped-up inner barkfrom a Kerothi tree. MacMaine could no more smoke a Kerothi cigarettethan Tallis could smoke tobacco, but the two were remarkably similar intheir effects.

  The "surprise" had been delivered. Now, as was proper, Tallis wouldmove adroitly all around the subject until he was ready to return to itagain.

  "You have been with us ... how long, Sepastian?" he asked.

  "Two and a third _Kronet_."

  Tallis nodded. "Nearly a year of your time."

  MacMaine smiled. Tallis was as proud of his knowledge of Earthterminology as MacMaine was proud of his mastery of Kerothic.

  "Lacking three weeks," MacMaine said.

  "What? Three ... oh, yes. Well. A long time," said Tallis._"The Board of Strategy asked me to tell you," Tallis continued. "Afterall, my recommendation was partially responsible for the decision." Hepaused for a moment, but it was merely a conversational hesitation, nota formal hiatus.

  "It was a hard decision, Sepastian--you must realize that. We have beenat war with your race for ten years now. We have taken thousands ofEarthmen as prisoners, and many of them have agreed to co-operate withus. But, with one single exception, these prisoners have been the moraldregs of your civilization. They have been men who had no pride ofrace, no pride of society, no pride of self. They have been weak,self-centered, small-minded, cowards who had no thought for Earth andEarthmen, but only for themselves.

  "Not," he said hurriedly, "that all of them are that way--or even themajority. Most of them have the minds of warriors, although, I mustsay, not _strong__ warriors."

  That last, MacMaine knew, was a polite concession. The Kerothi had norespect for Earthmen. And MacMaine could hardly blame them. For threelong centuries, the people of Earth had had nothing to do but indulgethemselves in the pleasures of material wealth. It was a wonder thatany of them had any moral fiber left.

  "But none of those who had any strength agreed to work with us," Talliswent on. "With one exception. You."

  "Am I weak, then?" MacMaine asked.

  General Tallis shook his head in a peculiarly humanlike gesture. "No.No, you are not. And that is what has made us pause for three years."His grass-green eyes looked candidly into MacMaine's own. "You aren'tthe type of person who betrays his own kind. It looks like a trap.After a whole year, the Board of Strategy still isn't sure that thereis no trap."

  Tallis stopped, leaned forward, and ground out the stub of hiscigarette in the blue ashtray. Then his eyes again sought MacMaine's.

  "If it were not for what I, personally, know about you, the Board ofStrategy would not even consider your proposition."

  "I take it, then, that they have considered it?" MacMaine asked with agrin.

  "As I said, Sepastian," Tallis said, "you have won your case. Afteralmost a year of your time, your decision has been justified."

  MacMaine lost his grin. "I am grateful, Tallis," he said gravely. "Ithink you must realize that it was a difficult decision to make."

  His thoughts went back, across long months of time and longerlight-years of space, to the day when that decision had been made.