The Eel

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  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction April 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  the eel

  BY MIRIAM ALLEN DeFORD

  Illustrated by DILLON

  _The punishment had to fit more than just the crime--it had to suit every world in the Galaxy!_

  * * * * *

  He was intimately and unfavorably known everywhere in the Galaxy, butwith special virulence on eight planets in three different solarsystems. He was eagerly sought on each; they all wanted to try him andpunish him--in each case, by their own laws and customs. This had beengoing on for 26 terrestrial years, which means from minus ten to plus280 in some of the others. The only place that didn't want him wasEarth, his native planet, where he was too smart to operate--but, ofcourse, the Galactic Police were looking for him there too, to deliverhim to the authorities of the other planets in accordance with theInterplanetary Constitution.

  For all of those years, The Eel (which was his Earth monicker;elsewhere, he was known by names indicating equally squirmy and slimylife-forms) had been gayly going his way, known under a dozendifferent aliases, turning up suddenly here, there, everywhere,committing his gigantic depredations, and disappearing as quickly andsilently when his latest enterprise had succeeded. He specialized inenormous, unprecedented thefts. It was said that he despised stealinganything under the value of 100 million terrestrial units, and most ofhis thefts were much larger than that.

  He had no recognizable _modus operandi_, changing his methods witheach new crime. He never left a clue. But, in bravado, he signed hisname to every job: his monicker flattered him, and after eachmalefaction the victim--usually a government agency, a giantcorporation, or one of the clan enterprises of the smallerplanets--would receive a message consisting merely of the impudentdepiction of a large wriggling eel.

  They got him at last, of course. The Galactic Police, like theprehistoric Royal Canadian Mounted, have the reputation of alwayscatching their man. (Sometimes they don't catch him till he's dead,but they catch him.) It took them 26 years, and it was a hard job, forThe Eel always worked alone and never talked afterward.

  They did it by the herculean labor of investigating the source of thefortune of every inhabitant of Earth, since all that was known wasthat The Eel was a terrestrial. Every computer in the Federationworked overtime analyzing the data fed into it. It wasn't entirely athankless task, for, as a by-product, a lot of embezzlers, tax evadersand lesser robbers were turned up.

  In the end, it narrowed down to one man who owned more than he couldaccount for having. Even so, they almost lost him, for his takingswere cached away under so many pseudonyms that it took several monthsjust to establish that they all belonged to the same person. When thatwas settled, the police swooped. The Eel surrendered quietly; the onething he had been surest of was never being apprehended, and he was sodumfounded he was unable to put up any resistance.

  And then came the still greater question: which of the planets was tohave him?

  * * * * *

  Xystil said it had the first right because his theft there had beenthe largest--a sum so huge, it could be expressed only by an algebraicindex. Artha's argument was that his first recorded crime had been onthat planet. Medoris wanted him because its only penalty for anyfelony is an immediate and rather horrible death, and that wouldguarantee getting rid of The Eel forever.

  Ceres put in a claim on the ground that it was the only planet or moonin the Sol System in which he had operated, and since he was aterrestrial, it was a matter for local jurisdiction. Eb pleaded thatit was the newest and poorest member of the Galactic Federation, andshould have been protected in its inexperience against histhievishness.

  Ha-Almirath argued that it had earned his custody because it was itsChief Ruler who had suggested to the police the method which hadresulted in his arrest. Vavinour countered that it should be thechosen recipient, since the theft there had included desecration ofthe High Temple.

  Little Agsk, which was only a probationary Galactic Associate,modestly said that if it were given The Eel, its prompt and exemplarypunishment might qualify it for full membership, and it would begrateful for the chance.

  A special meeting of the Galactic Council had to be called for thesole purpose of deciding who got The Eel.

  Representatives of all the claimant planets made theirrepresentations. Each told in eloquent detail why his planet and hisalone was entitled to custody of the arch-criminal, and what theywould do to him when--not if--they got him. After they had all beenheard, the councilors went into executive session, with press andpublic barred. An indiscreet councilor (it was O-Al of Phlagon ofAltair, if you want to know) leaked later some of the ratherindecorous proceedings.

  The Earth councilor, he reported, had been granted a voice but novote, since Earth was not an interested party as to the crime, butonly as to the criminal. Every possible system of arbitration had beendiscussed--chronological, numerical in respect to the size of thetheft, legalistic in respect to whether the culprit would be availableto hand on to another victim when the first had got through punishinghim.

  In the welter of claims and counterclaims, one harassed councilorwearily suggested a lottery. Another in desperation recommendedhanding The Eel a list of prospective punishments on each of the eightplanets and observing which one seemed to inspire him with mostdread--which would then be the one selected. One even proposedpoisoning him and announcing his sudden collapse and death.

  The sessions went on day and night; the exhausted councilors separatedfor brief periods of sleep, then went at it again. A hung jury wasunthinkable; something had to be decided. The news outlets of theentire Galaxy were beginning to issue sarcastic editorials aboutprocrastination and coddling criminals, with hints about bribery andcorruption, and remarks that perhaps what was needed was a fewimpeachments and a new general election.

  So at last, in utter despair, they awarded The Eel to Agsk, as a sortof bonus and incentive. Whichever planet they named, the other sevenwere going to scream to high heaven, and Agsk was least likely to beable to retaliate against any expressions of indignation.

  * * * * *

  Agskians, as everyone knows, are fairly humanoid beings, primitivesfrom the outer edge of the Galaxy. They were like college freshmeninvited to a senior fraternity. This was their Big Chance to MakeGood.

  The Eel, taciturn as ever, was delivered to a delegation of six ofthem sent to meet him in one of their lumbering spaceships, a lowcountergrav machine such as Earth had outgrown several millenniabefore. They were so afraid of losing him that they put a metal beltaround him with six chains attached to it, and fastened all six ofthemselves to him. Once on Agsk, he was placed in a specially madestone pit, surrounded by guards, and fed through the only opening.

  In preparation for the influx of visitors to the trial, an anticipatedgreater assembly of off-planeters than little Agsk had ever seen, theyevacuated their capital city temporarily, resettling all its citizensexcept those needed to serve and care for the guests, and remodeledthe biggest houses for the accommodation of those who had peculiarspace, shape, or other requirements.

  Never since the Galactic Federation was founded had so many beings,human, humanoid, semi-humanoid and non-humanoid, gathered at the sametime on any one member-planet. Every newstape, tridimens, audio andall other varieties of information services--even including the drumamplifiers of Medoris and t
he ray-variants of Eb--applied for and weregranted a place in the courtroom. This, because no other edifice waslarge enough, was an immense stone amphitheater usually devoted torather curious games with animals; since it rains on Agsk only for twospecified hours on every one of their days, no roof was needed. Atevery seat, there was a translatophone, with interpreters ready inplastic cages to translate the Intergalactic in which the trial wasconducted into even the clicks and hisses of Jorg and the eye-flashesof Omonro.

  And in the midst of all this, the cause and purpose of it all, sat thelegendary Eel.

  Seen at last, he was hardly an impressive figure. Time had been goingon and The Eel was in his fifties, bald and a trifle paunchy. He wascompletely ordinary in appearance, a circumstance which had, ofcourse, enabled him to pass unobserved on so many planets; he lookedlike a salesman or a minor official, and had indeed been so taken bythe unnoticing inhabitants of innumerable planets.

  People had wondered, when word came of some new outrage by thismaster-thief, if perhaps he had disguised himself as a resident of thescene of each