MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE THRID
BY MURRAY LEINSTER
The Thrid were the wisest creatures in
space—they even said so themselves!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I
The real trouble was that Jorgenson saw things as a business man does.But also, and contradictorily, he saw them as right and just, or aswrong and intolerable. As a business man, he should have kept his mindon business and never bothered about Ganti. As a believer in right andwrong, it would have been wiser for him to have stayed off the planetThriddar altogether. Thriddar was no place for him, anyhow you look atit. On this particular morning it was especially the wrong place forhim to be trying to live and do business.
He woke up thinking of Ganti, and in consequence he was in a bad moodright away. Most humans couldn't take the sort of thing that went on onThriddar. Most of them wanted to use missile weapons—which the Thriddid not use—to change the local social system. Most humans got offThriddar—fast! And boiling mad.
Jorgenson had stood it longer than most because in spite of theirconvictions he liked the Thrid. Their minds did do outside loops, andcome up with intolerable convictions. But they were intelligent enough.They had steam-power and even steam-driven atmosphere fliers, but theydidn't have missile weapons and they did have a social system thathumans simply couldn't accept—even though it applied only to Thrid.The ordinary Thrid, with whom Jorgenson did business, weren't badpeople. It was the officials who made him grind his teeth. And thoughit was his business only to run the trading post of the Rim StarsTrading Corporation, sometimes he got fed up.
This morning was especially beyond the limit. There was a new GrandPanjandrum—the term was Jorgenson's own for the supreme ruler overall the Thrid—and when Jorgenson finished his breakfast a high Thridofficial waited in the trading-post compound. Around him clusteredother Thrid, wearing the formal headgear that said they were Witnessesto an official act.
Jorgenson went out, scowling, and exchanged the customary ceremonialgreetings. Then the high official beamed at him and extracted a scrollfrom his voluminous garments. Jorgenson saw the glint of gold and wassuspicious at once. The words of a current Grand Panjandrum were alwayswritten in gold. If they didn't get written in gold they didn't getwritten at all; but it was too bad if anybody ignored any of them.
The high official unrolled the scroll. The Thrid around him, wearingWitness hats, became utterly silent. The high official made a soundequivalent to clearing his throat. The stillness became death-like.
"On this day," intoned the high official, while the Witnesseslistened reverently, "on this day did Glen-U the Never-Mistaken, ashave been his predecessors throughout the ages;—on this day did theNever-Mistaken Glen-U speak and say and observe a truth in the presenceof the governors and the rulers of the universe."
Jorgenson reflected sourly that the governors and the rulers of theuniverse were whoever happened to be within hearing of the GrandPanjandrum. They were not imposing. They were scared. Everybody isalways scared under an absolute ruler, but the Grand Panjandrum wasworse than that. He couldn't make a mistake. Whatever he said had tobe true, because he said it, and sometimes it had drastic results.