[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine February 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Antimony IX divers can't be seen, of course ... but don't
have anything in mind when one of them is around you!
The man ahead of me had a dragon in his baggage. So the Lamavic boys
confiscated it. Lamavic--Livestock, Animal, Mineral and Vegetable,
International Customs--does not like to find dragons curled up in a
thermos. And since this antipathy was a two-way exchange, the Lamavic
inspectors at Philadelphia International were singed and heated all
ways by the time they got to me. I knew them well.
"Mr. Sol Jones?"
"That's right," I said, watching the would-be dragon smuggler being
marched away. A very amateur job. I could have told him. There are only
two ways to smuggle a dragon nowadays.
"Any livestock to declare, Mr. Jones?"
"I have no livestock on my person or in my baggage, nor am I
accompanied by any material prohibited article," I said carefully, for
I saw they were recording.
The little pink, bald inspector with a charred collar looked at his
colleague.
"Anything known?"
His colleague looked down at me from six feet of splendid physique,
smiled unpleasantly, and flipped the big black record book.
"'Sol Jones,'" he read, "'Lamavic four-star offender. Galactic
registration: six to tenth power: 763918. Five foot ten inches, Earth
scale. Blue eyes, hair variable and usually nondescript brown, ear
lobes and cranial....' You're not disputing identity, Mr. Jones?"
"Oh, no. That's me."
"I see. 'Irrevocable Galactic citizenship for services to family
of Supreme President Xgol in matter of asteroid fungus, subsequent
Senatorial amnesty confirmed, previous sentences therefore omitted.
Lamavic offenses thereafter include no indictable evidence but total
twenty-four minor fines for introducing prohibited livestock onto
various planets. Suspected complicity in Lamavic cases One through
Seventy-six as follows: mobile sands, crystal thinkers, recording
turtle, operatic fish, giant mastodon.' Mr. Jones, you seem to have
given us trouble before."
"Before what?"
"Before this--er--"
"That," I said, "is an Unconstitutional remark. I am giving no trouble.
I have made a full declaration. I demand the rights of a Galactic
citizen."
He apologized, as he had to. This merely made both inspectors angry,
but they were going to search me anyway. I knew that. Certainly I am a
smuggler, and I had in fact a little present for my girl Florence--a
wedding present, I hoped--but they would never find it. This time I
really had them fooled, and I intended to extract maximum pleasure from
watching their labors.
* * * * *
I saw the Lamavic records once. The next leading offender has only
two stars and he's out on Ceres in the penal colony. My four stars
denote that I disapprove of all these rules prohibiting the carrying
of livestock from one planet to another. Other people extend the
Galactic Empire; I extend my Galactic credit. You want an amusing
extraterrestrial pet to while away the two-hour work week, I can
provide one. Of course, this pet business was overdone in the early
days when any space-hopper could bring little foreign monsters back to
the wife and kiddies. Any weird thing could come in and did.
"You are aware, Mr. Jones, that you have declared that you are not
trying to bring in any prohibited life-form, whether animal, mineral,
vegetable, or any or all of these?"
"I am," I said.
"You are further aware of the penalties for a false declaration?"
"In my case, I believe I could count on thirty years' invigorating work
on a penal planet."
"You could, Mr. Jones. You certainly could."
"Well, I've made my declaration."
"Will you step this way?"
Very polite in Philadelphia Spaceport. I followed the inspectors into
the screening cubicles. There was a nasty looking device in the corner.
"I thought those things were illegal," I said.
"Unfortunately, Mr. Jones, you are, as you know, quite right. We may
not employ a telepath instrument on any unconvicted person."
They looked sorry, but I wasn't. A telepath would have told them
immediately where I had Florence's pet, and all about it. I smiled at
them. They paid no attention, took my passport and began turning up the
Lamavic manual on Antimony IX, Livestock of, Prohibited Forms. I had
just come from there and so had Florence's little diver, which I had
brought as a happy surprise. I sat down. The two inspectors looked as
if they were going to say something, then continued flipping pages of
their manual.
"Here it is--Antimony IX."
One of them read out the prohibitions and the other tried to watch me
and the reflex counter behind me at the same time--a crude instrument
which should be used, in my professional view, only to determine a
person's capacities for playing poker with success.
"Ants-water, babblers, bunces, candelabra plants, catchem-fellers,
Cythia Majoris, divers, dunces, dimple-images, drakes, dunking dogs,
dogs-savage, dogs-water, dogs-not-otherwise-provided-for, unspec.,
elephants-miniature, fish-any...."
They went on. Antimony IX is teeming with life and almost every
specimen is prohibited on other planets. We had passed the divers,
anyway. I smiled and gave the reflex counter a strong jerk just as the
smaller inspector was saying "Mammoths." They looked at me in silence.
"Funny man," one said, and they went on reading.
"Okay," the large inspector said at last. "We'll examine him for
everything."
* * * * *
For the next three hours, they took blood specimens to see if I had
microscopic livestock hidden there, they X-rayed me and my baggage,
fluoroscoped everything again, put the baggage through an irritator
life-indexer, investigated my orifices in detail with a variety of
instruments, took skin scrapings in case I was wearing a false layer,
and the only thing they found was my dark glasses.
"Why don't you wear modern contact lenses?"
"It's none of your business," I said, "but these old-style spectacles
have liquid lenses."
There was a flurry and they sent away for analysis a small drop from
one of the lenses. There were no signs of prohibited life in the liquid.
"I could have told you that," I said. "It's dicyanin, a vegetable
extract. Diminishes the glare."
I put the glasses on my nose and hooked on the earpieces. The effect
was medieval, but I could see the little diver now. I could also see
disturbing evidence of the inspectors' mental condition. A useful
little device invented by Dr. W. J. Kilner (1847-1920) for the study of
the human aura in sickness and health. After a little practice, which
I was not going to allow the Lamavic inspectors, the retina became
sufficiently sensitive to see the micro-wave aura when you looked
through the dicyanin screen. As was true of most of these psi pioneers
at that time, nothing was done to further Kilner's work when he died.
I noticed, without surprise, that the inspectors had a mental field of
very limited extent and that the little diver had survived the journey
nicely.
"Can I go now?" I asked.
"This time, Mr. Jones."
When I left, the repair staff was building a new inspection barrier
to replace the parts the dragon had got. Such an amateur performance!
Leave smuggling to professionals and we'd have Lamavic disbanded from
boredom in ten years. I nearly slipped on the fine silica dioxide which
had fused in the air when the dragon got annoyed. Nasty, dangerous pets.
The one for Florence was the only contraband I was carrying this
trip, which was purely pleasure. She was waiting for me in her
apartment, tall, golden, luscious, and all mine. She thought I was in
import-export, which in a sense was true.
"I've missed you so much, Sol," she said, twining herself on me and the
couch like a Venusian water-nymph. "Did you bring me a present?"