"William Tenn - Party Of The Two Parts" - читать интересную книгу автора (William Tenn)

Stellar Corporal Pah-Chi-Luh stared at me. "YouЧyou mean..."
"I mean that if a crime was committed, L'payr has been legally arrested and can therefore be taken back to Gtet. We will then hear no more from him ever and we will also be rid of that bunch of pseudopod-clacking Gtetan shysters. That will leave us with only one problemЧOsborne Blatch. Once L'payr is gone and we have this terrestrial to ourselves, I think we can handle himЧone way or another. But first and foremost, Corporal Pah-Chi-Luh, a crimeЧsome crimeЧhas to have been commitнted by L'payr during his sojourn on Earth. Set up your bed in the law library."
Shortly afterward, Pah-Chi-Luh left for Earth.
Now please, Hoy, no moralistic comments! You know as well as I do that this sort of thing has been done before, here and there, in Outlying Patrol Offices. I don't like it any more than you, but I was faced with a major emergency. Besides, there was no doubt but that this L'payr, amoeboid master criminal, had had punishment deferred far too long. In fact, one might say that morally I was completely and absolutely in the right.
Pah-Chi-Luh returned to Earth, as I've said, this time disguised as an editorial assistant. He got a job in the publishing house that had brought out the biology textнbook. The original photographs were still in the files of that establishment. By pickнing his man carefully and making a good many mind-stimulating comments, the stellar corporal finally inspired one of the technical editors to examine the photoнgraphs and have the material on which they were printed analyzed.
The material was fahrtuch, a synthetic textile much in use on Gtet and not due to be developed by humanity for at least three centuries.
In no time at all, almost every woman in America was wearing lingerie made of farhtuch, the novelty fabric of the year. And since L'payr was ultimately responsible for this illegal technological spurt, we at last had him where we wanted him!
He was very sporting about it, Hoy.
"The end of a long road for me, Sergeant. I congratulate you. Crime does not pay. Lawbreakers always lose. Law-enforcers always win."
I went off to prepare the extradition forms, without a care in the galaxy. There was Blatch, of course, but he was a mere human. And by this time, having gotten involved in all kinds of questionable dealings myself, I was determined to make quick work of him. After all, one might as well get blasted for a skreek as a launt!
But when I returned to escort the Gtetan to his fellow-amoeboids, I almost fell through the surface of Pluto. Where there had been one L'payr, there were now two! Smaller L'payrs, of courseЧhalf the size of the original, to be exactЧbut L'payrs unmistakable.
In the interval, he had reproduced!
How? That gargle the Earthman had demanded, Hoy. It had been L'payr's idea all along, his last bit of insurance. Once the Earthman had received the gargle, he had smuggled it to L'payr, who had hidden it in his cell, intending to use it as a last resort.
That gargle, Hoy, was salt water! Saline solution, eh?
So there I was. The Gtetans informed me that their laws covered such possibiliнties, but much help their laws were to me.
"A crime has been committed, pornography has been sold," the spokesman reiterнated. "We demand our prisoner. Both of him!"
"Pursuant to Galactic Statutes 6,009,371 through 6,106,514," Osborne Blatch inнsisted, "I demand immediate release, restitution to the extent of two billion Galactic Megawhars, a complete and writtenЧ"
And.
"It's probably true that our ancestor, L'payr, committed all sorts of indiscretions," lisped the two young amoeboids in the cell next to Osborne Blatch, "but what does that have to do with us? L'payr paid for his crimes by dying in childbirth. We are very young and very, very innocent. Surely the big old galaxy doesn't believe in punishing little children for the sins of their parents!"
What would you have done?
I shipped the whole mess off to Patrol HeadquartersЧthe Gtetan extradition party and their mess of judicial citations, Osborne Blatch and his umbrella, the biology textbook, the original bundle of pornographic pictures, and last but not at all least, twoЧcount 'em, twoЧdewy young amoeboids. Call them L'payr sub-one and L payr sub-two. Do anything you like with them when they get there, but please don't tell me what it is!
And if you can figure out a solution with the aid of some of the more ancient and wiser heads at headquarters, and figure it out before the Old One ruptures a gloccis-tomorph, Pah-Chi-Luh and I will be pathetically, eternally grateful.
If notЧwell, we're standing by here at Outlying Patrol Office 1001625 with bags packed. There's a lot to be said for the Black Hole in Cygnus.
Personally, Hoy, I'd say that the whole trouble is caused by creatures who insist on odd and colorful methods of continuing their race, instead of doing it sanely and decently by means of spore-pod explosion!

Afterword

So I wrote a story about a seven-sexed creature. And it was damned complicated. So I wondered how complicated a story about a one-sexed creature might be.
So I wrote it.
Besides, I wanted to see what I could do with pornography for a one-sexed creature.
But, if I'm going to be perfectly honest, there was something else. Long after Ted Sturнgeon had represented me, I had become involved with a literary agent who began embezнzling money from me. (God knows, I had damn little to embezzle. But he, ingenious man, managed it.) As Ike Asimov put it, "Why should an agent pay his client ninety percent and keep only ten percent for himself? Isn't it more logical for him to keep ninety percent and pay out the ten percent? Anyone can write, after all, but how many people can sell?"
I looked up an old army buddy of mine, Milt Amgott, who had just sent me a card announcing that he was opening a law office with his partner, Phil Kassel. I told him that I had no money to pay him, but that was exactly why I needed him. He said that was okay, he'd represent me. And he got me everything I was owed from the agent.
The agent was so impressed that he retained Amgott as his lawyer. And so did his wife when she divorced him. And so, eventually, did a lot of other science fiction and mystery writers.
Meanwhile, I learned a lot about the law by hanging out with Milt Amgott and Phil Kassel. I got wistful about using some of that knowledge in a story. One day I used itЧin a story about the legalities of amoeboid pornography.

Written 1953 / Published 1954