One Step From Earth

"That's the whole idea. Modern penology. Society no longer kills or punishes for trespassing its laws. The criminal is redeemed. Some cannot be. They are the ones who would have been hanged, burned, flayed, broken, electrocuted, beheaded, racked, speared, or otherwise executed in more barbarous times. Now they are simply dismissed from civilized society to enjoy the company of their peers. Could anything be more just? The condemned are sent here on a one-way journey. Away from the society they have offended, no longer a burden on it as they would be in a prison. A minimal contribution from all the worlds using this service supplies food and clothing and operating costs. Dismissed and forgotten for there is no escape. We are on a clouded and primitive world, forever facing the unseen sun, surrounded by nothing but swamps. That is the all of it. Some survive, some die quickly. There is room for a hundred times our number without crowding. We eat, we sleep, we kill each other. Our only joint effort is the operation of stills at the swamp's edge. The local fruit is inedible, but it ferments. And alcohol is alcohol. Since you are a newcomer I will give you one drink of hospitality and welcome you into our drinking band. We've had too many deaths of late, and more wood is needed."

"No. I won't join your convict alcoholics. I'm different, I was sent here by mistake. Not like you."

Old Rurry smiled and, with a swiftness that denied his years, produced a shining blade that he pricked into Jomfri's throat.

"Learn this rule quickly. Never ask a man why he is here nor mention it to him. It is a messy form of suicide. I will tell you, because I am not ashamed. I was a chemist. I knew all the formulas. I made tasteless poison and killed my wife and eighty-three of her family. That makes eighty-four. Few here can match that number." He slid the knife back into his sleeve, and Jomfri backed away, rubbing the red mark on his neck.

"You're armed," he said, shocked.

"This is a world, not a prison. We do our best. Through the years bits of metal have accumulated, weapons have been manufactured. This knife must be generations old. The myth has it that it was made from an iron meteorite. All things are possible. I killed its former owner by thrusting a sharpened length of wire through his eardrum and into his brain."

"I do feel like that drink now. Thank you for offering. Very kind." Jomfri worked hard to give no offense. The old man started down the hill with Jomfri trailing after. The building they went to was like all the others.

"Very good," Jomfri said, choking over a beaker of the acid and acrid drink.

"Filthy stuff," Old Rurry told him. "I could improve it. Add natural flavoring. But the others won't let me. They know my record."

Jomfri took a deeper drink. He knew the record, too. When he finished the beaker his head was fuzzy and his stomach sickened. He felt no better. He knew that if he had to stay on Fangnis he would be one of the men who died swiftly. This life was worse than no life.

"Sick! You said they would see me if I were sick," he shouted, jumping to his feet. Old Rurry ignored him, and he was drunk enough to clutch the man by his clothing. None of the others paid particular attention until the wicked length of blade appeared again. Jomfri let go and staggered backward, his eyes on the foot of steel. "I want you to cut me with your knife," he said.

Old Rurry stopped and thought; he had never received an invitation from a prospective victim before. "Cut you where?" He scanned the other for a suitable spot.

"Where?" Where indeed. What part of one's body do you invite violence upon? What member that you have borne a lifetime do you discard? "A finger…" he suggested hesitantly.

"Two fingers — or none," Old Rurry told him, a natural merchant of destruction.

"Here then." Jomfri dropped into the chair and spread his hands before him. "Two, the littlest." He clenched his fists with the little fingers on the table edge. They were too far apart. He crossed his wrists so that the two little fingers hooked over the wooden edge, side by side. "Both at once. Can you do that?"

"Of course. Right at the second joint."

Old Rurry hummed happily to himself, noticing that the entire room was watching him now. He pretended to examine the edge of his blade while the newcomer looked up at him with watery rabbit's eyes. Fast, with out warning, the knife came down and bit deep into the wood. The fingers flew, blood spurted, the newcomer shrieked. Everyone laughed uproariously as he ran out the door still screaming.

"Good Old Rurry," someone shouted, and he permitted himself a smile while he picked up one of the fingers from the floor.

"I'm hurt — now you must help me!" Jomfri shouted as he staggered up the hill in the endless noon. I did not think it would feel like this. I'll bleed to death. I need your aid. It hurts so."