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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77317 ***
+
+
+
+
+                                Justice
+
+                            by J. F. Hutton
+
+
+  Urs’ sword was not designed for a Briton’s pleasure. But to a kingly
+  man Time has no boundary.
+
+  _There are historical figures so resplendent in their legendary
+  permanence that no one age can truly claim them. Their deeds ring out
+  across history, for youth must eternally respond to a clarion call
+  which Time’s tyranny will never silence. Give ear, then, as J. F.
+  Hutton evokes from the past a marvel as mysterious as the time travel
+  paradox at the core of this amazing story_.
+
+
+
+
+As Urs stood facing the System Policy Board, his young face mirrored an
+incredible confidence which gave no hint of the tormenting uncertainty
+within him. Few of the billions watching on life-view screens suspected
+the effort it cost him to remain outwardly poised and self-reliant.
+
+For this was no departmental board, judging small matters of
+discipline. This was the big one. Much more than the welfare of one
+individual was involved in any matter that came before it. It was the
+ultimate court. And it was motivated by one principle--absolute justice.
+
+Before he had been summoned, Urs had spent a half hour with the
+director of the Time Traveler’s Bureau. They hadn’t talked much, after
+the director’s opening words of reassurance.
+
+“Urs, all of us know we’re doing the best we can under difficult
+conditions. We’ve managed to keep our problems to ourselves, so far.
+Now that’s over. We’re not blaming you. It could have happened to any
+of us. We’ll just have to consider it a bad break, and hope for the
+best.”
+
+Now the director and dozens of Urs’ colleagues were watching, in silent
+anxiety. They were sweating it out with him, reminding themselves that
+any one of them could just as well be on trial instead.
+
+The white-haired chairman of the Policy Board stirred in his recliner.
+“Third Level Time Explorer Urs, you are charged with breaking System
+Policy Rule number 86, Subhead C, of the General Code of Time Travel:
+‘No visitor to a previous time shall in any way allow the knowledge or
+techniques of the future to become a part of that preceding culture.’
+
+“You learned this rule in the first week of your preliminary training.
+It has been periodically reviewed in your refresher courses since. And
+you received special indoctrination before each of your trips.”
+
+Standing tall and straight in his sky-blue uniform, Urs could only nod.
+
+The five other members of the Board steadily regarded the young man
+before them. Their gazes held neither censure nor sympathy. They were
+of the same stamp as the chairman--pale, professional weighers of
+evidence.
+
+The chairman continued, “Specifically, you entered a primitive
+society on the planet Earth in a region known as Great Britain. Your
+project was to gather data for a culture-graph, in conformity with
+the continuing study of a pattern which originated in that area and
+subsequently profoundly affected Earth and her satellites.
+
+“An experienced Time Traveler, you had the customary
+indoctrination--costume, mores, language, comprehension levels, and so
+on. Your equipment was made in accordance with careful specifications
+in the duplicating shops.”
+
+Urs spoke for the first time. To his surprise, his voice came out
+strong and clear. “May I request, sir, that the record show that one
+item of equipment was wrongly made? The wand. Instead of the crude
+metal of the time I visited, it was made of our alloy, impregnium.”
+
+“That fact has been noted,” the chairman said gravely. He glanced
+around at his colleagues. “There was an acknowledged error in the
+shops. The situation has been corrected.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+You never argued with the System Policy Board. You thought very
+carefully before you even asked a question. Mostly, you just listened
+respectfully, even when they were methodically destroying you. For
+the Board was incorruptible. It was as nearly infallible as a human
+institution could be. It represented something man had sought for
+ages--completely impartial justice.
+
+There was a kind of inevitability in such trials which--tedious though
+some of them were--never failed to attract enthralled watchers all over
+the galaxy. And none had ever watched more tensely than the silent
+men in blue uniforms before the big life screen at the Time Traveler’s
+Bureau.
+
+The chairman’s old eyes lingered on Urs. “You are held responsible here
+only for your actions in the region called Great Britain. The error you
+mentioned, however, is pertinent to this inquiry. We have carefully
+examined your personal experience tapes. They reveal you were aware of
+the mistake in the metal in time to take corrective action before the
+rule was broken. This you failed to do.”
+
+In spite of his effort at self-control, Urs trembled. He suddenly
+wanted to drown out those slow, logical phrases, to shout, “When did
+any of you ever travel in time? You sit here in the splendor of your
+logic--mental and physical light-years away from the event. You can’t
+conceive how crude and disorganized those days were. Do you think
+it’s easy to enter a world like that? It takes all the skill and care
+and self-discipline you can command. And no man who ever lived could
+exercise the control the manuals call for.
+
+“If you only knew what really goes on in time exploration! You
+_think_ you do. You read the manuals, you examine the rules of
+policy, you see the personal experience tapes we turn in. But did you
+know that most of the time we manage to doctor those tapes, to protect
+ourselves?
+
+“Ah, if you only knew....”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Wearing light armor, Urs had been riding on a lonely trail. In that
+time, in that place, it was a risky business--even for an Explorer. And
+his luck ran out. Brigands caught up with him, charging on their wiry,
+tangle-haired horses.
+
+Urs whacked his own mount and tried to outrun them. Screeching, they
+chased him over gullies and ravines, through dense scrub and under oaks
+that threatened to sweep him out of the saddle. But gradually, they
+gained on him.
+
+For you can study the riding of horses. You can practice faithfully on
+tire test models. But you’ll never learn how difficult it really is
+till you have a living, snorting beast lunging unpredictably between
+your legs.
+
+Inevitably, Urs fell off his horse. With the shouts of the brigands
+loud in his ears, with arrows plunking into the sod around him, he
+dived down a steep, grassy slope. Then he jumped up and ran, twisting
+and dodging among trees and rocks. In one hand he carried the shining
+wand that in England in those days was called a “sword.”
+
+Three of the robbers had left their horses to chase him on foot. The
+other three circled around to head him off. Halfway down the hill, Urs
+lost his footing and slid again. Flailing his arms, he fell against a
+great boulder. His wand, carried forward by his weight, plunged into
+the rock.
+
+At the moment, Urs was too busy dodging the arrows and regaining his
+balance to realize what that meant. The men pounced on him. One held
+his arms, while another caught him around the neck from behind.
+
+The third man gave a great startled cry. Eyes wide, bristly face
+twitching, he pointed one skinny arm at the rock. His companions
+looked, gasped, and let go of Urs. They stood transfixed, showing all
+the signs of men half-scared to death.
+
+The other three, hearing the first exultant shouts, had dismounted and
+were hurrying up. They saw the rock, with the sword buried in it nearly
+to the hilt. They stopped dead, turned pale, and began to tremble.
+
+Urs was understandably mystified by this abrupt change of pace. Staring
+at the rock, he became aware of what had happened. Had it been made of
+the proper crude Earth metal, his wand could never have penetrated it.
+For the first time he realized that the shops had sent him off with an
+impregnium sword.
+
+The only way out of the situation was to jerk the weapon loose, then
+press the time-stud embedded under the skin of his waist. But one of
+his attackers, half-hysterical, was drawing his bow. Those brawny arms
+looked strong enough to send an arrow to the moon. The wand dropped out
+of Urs’ mind. His fingers flew to the stud that would snatch him out of
+this world and safely back to his own.
+
+He vanished, leaving six badly frightened Englishmen blinking at the
+rock and the sword so impossibly fixed in it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The chairman paused, looked courteously at Urs. The charge had been
+specified. Now was the time for Urs to speak, if he had anything to say.
+
+Urs swallowed the dryness in his throat. “Sir, the facts you describe
+are correct.”
+
+There was a stir among the watching men at the Time Traveler’s Bureau.
+At millions of other locations, people in front of life screens nodded
+to one another. What else could he have said?
+
+Urs looked at the calm, intelligent faces before him. Now, if ever, was
+the time for his outburst. But he couldn’t bring himself to speak. He
+moistened his lips and kept silent.
+
+The chairman nodded. “The Board will call a witness.”
+
+A security man opened a side door of the chamber. A tall red-headed
+man in a sky-blue uniform stepped hesitantly forward. He walked slowly
+across the floor and stood beside Urs.
+
+“This is Third Level Time Explorer Renar.”
+
+Urs nodded dumbly. He and Renar were fellow-workers. They had parted at
+the Time Traveler’s Bureau not an hour before. And from the look on his
+face, Renar was as surprised to be here as Urs was to see him.
+
+“Time Explorer Renar,” the chairman said, “please tell us the kind of
+work you are doing now.”
+
+Nervously, but with more assurance as he warmed up, Renar explained
+that he had been working on the culture pattern of Great Britain. The
+studies that he, Urs and others were making would dove-tail into a
+master graph.
+
+“And what time were you studying, with relation to Urs’ last trip?”
+
+Renar scratched his head. “Roughly twenty years later.”
+
+“Thank you. Now will you tell us exactly what happened on your last
+trip.”
+
+Renar hesitated, his homely face screwed up concernedly. “Well,” he
+began--and stopped.
+
+There was the faintest lessening of the sternness in the chairman’s
+face. It could not have been called a smile, nor even the beginning
+of one. But it matched the shade of sympathetic understanding in his
+voice. “Renar, may I remind you I already know what happened. I want
+Urs and the others to hear it.”
+
+“Yes, sir.” Renar still looked troubled. “You must understand that time
+travel does not always work out according to the rules. Things happen--”
+
+“That,” the chairman said, “is the reason for this trial. Now please
+describe your arrival in primitive Great Britain.”
+
+“Well, sir, when I made my last trip, there was some slight error in
+calculating the physical plane of my appearance. When I came out in
+that previous time I was not on dry land, but under water.”
+
+Not one of the Board members smiled. But there were chuckles in front
+of millions of life screens.
+
+“I wasn’t far under the surface. But you can understand I was startled
+and confused. I thrashed around, trying to get to air. One arm broke
+through the surface of the lake I was in. To my great surprise,
+something was immediately dropped into it. Instinctively, I grabbed
+hold and pulled. But the object wasn’t attached to anything.
+
+“On the contrary, its extra weight added to mine caused me to start
+sinking. I struggled a few seconds longer. Then I gave up, pressed my
+waist stud, and returned to the present.”
+
+“And the object?”
+
+“I held on to it. It’s in my room at the Time Traveler’s Bureau.
+I--uh--”
+
+
+“Yes,” the chairman said calmly, “you were troubled about reporting it.
+Because it meant something had gone wrong. Somewhere along the line,
+the rules had been violated.”
+
+“Yes, sir,” Renar said, a little despairingly.
+
+Urs spoke. “Honorable Chairman, may I say that every man connected with
+Time Travel is loyal and conscientious. We all try to adhere strictly
+to the code. It was not Renar’s fault that this unforeseen emergency
+arose.”
+
+“Thank you, Urs.” The chairman raised a hand. A Security man approached
+and held something out. “Renar, is this what you caught hold of in the
+water?”
+
+Renar nodded. Urs gasped. It was the shining impregnium wand he had
+left in the rock!
+
+Back in the Time Traveler’s Bureau, the men looked at each other and
+started to talk excitedly.
+
+The Board members leaned forward in their recliners for a closer
+inspection of the sword. Urs and Renar exchanged a quick, hopeful
+glance.
+
+“You, Urs, allowed this wand to become a part of that ancient culture.
+It remained there for twenty years or so. The people of that time did
+not know how it was made, nor did they discover any of our techniques
+from it. It has now been removed from that time.
+
+“We are now faced with a matter of interpretation of Policy Rule number
+86, Subhead C, which does not consider the subsequent removal of a
+knowledge or technique inadvertently left in the past. I shall call
+another witness.”
+
+Urs and Renar turned. A short, precise man in a rust-colored uniform
+came out of the side door and marched up beside them.
+
+“Morrey,” the chairman said, “will you please describe your work?”
+
+“Sir,” Morrey said in a businesslike voice, “I am an historical
+synthesist. I take the reports of the Time Explorers and fit them
+together into culture graphs. I analyze and interpret the data that
+comes in, and I make recommendations for further time explorations, as
+needed.”
+
+“Thank you. Now will you please tell Explorers Urs and Renar about the
+dominant personality in Great Britain during the period between their
+respective visits?”
+
+“Gladly, sir.” Morrey turned slightly toward the two. “We are not
+entirely certain, yet, how much is fact and how much legend, for the
+story of this man reached far forward in history. But we do know
+that he became famous because he was the only man who could pull the
+wand--which they called a ‘sword’--from the rock in which it was
+embedded. He kept it. Because of properties which we take for granted,
+the sword had a strange and wonderful appeal to the imaginations of
+his time. In their superstitious way, those people attributed magical
+qualities to it, and to the one who carried it.
+
+“That man became a king. He was one of the strongest forces for good,
+for order, and for justice that civilization there had seen. The
+man was a giant, in mind and stature. He had a tremendous impact on
+his time. As I said before, he became a legendary figure. His story
+retained the power to thrill people for centuries afterward.
+
+“We are not sure how much this man knew or suspected about the wand.
+We are still studying that. But it is clear from the way he disposed
+of it when he lay dying, that he may have had some insight into its
+source. He sent one of his men, who bore the quaint name of ‘Bedivere’
+to return it to a mythical ‘Lady of the Lake.’ Bedivere, of course, saw
+Renar’s hand rising from the water at precisely the correct moment, and
+placed the sword in it.”
+
+The chairman was silent a few moments after Morrey finished. “And what
+did they call this man?”
+
+“King Arthur.”
+
+The old man nodded. “Third Level Time Explorer Urs, have you anything
+further to say?”
+
+Urs gulped. “No, sir.”
+
+“Then the Board finds that you have violated the letter of the General
+Code of Time Travel.”
+
+In the lounge of the Bureau, the waiting men blanched and looked at one
+another in shock.
+
+“However,” the chairman of the System Policy Board went on, “the Board
+also finds that you have not violated the spirit in which the Code was
+drafted. Neither, in spite of his irregular experience, did Explorer
+Renar.
+
+“A just decision must take both of these factors into proper account.
+Thanks to the accident that befell Renar, and to the character of this
+ancient man, King Arthur, we pronounce you free to return to your work
+with your record unblemished.”
+
+In the Time Traveler’s Bureau, men shouted and pounded one another on
+the back. People smiled, in front of their life screens all over the
+galaxy. “Justice,” they said to one another.
+
+Urs bowed respectfully to the Board, then turned and clasped Renar’s
+hand.
+
+They walked back to the Bureau together.
+
+“I owe you a drink,” Urs said.
+
+“I’ll take it gladly,” Renar replied. “You knew you were going to
+appear before the Board. They called me without warning. And that, my
+friend, is a strain I hope you never go through.”
+
+“Well, the decision helps us all.” Urs extended the impregnium wand.
+“We’ll keep this in the hall, as a reminder. What was it Morrey said
+they called it?”
+
+Renar scratched his red head. “It was a strange name. Oh, yes.
+Excalibur.”
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note:
+
+
+  This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, March 1956 (Vol. 5,
+No. 2.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed.
+  Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this
+version.
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77317 ***