Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction July and August 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
THE ETHICAL ENGINEER
That mores is strictly a matter of local custom cannot bedenied. But that ethics is pure opinion also...? Maybe thereare times for murder, and theft and slavery....
BY HARRY HARRISON
Illustrated by John Schoenherr
All chance, direction which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reasons spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
Alexander Pope
Essay on Man
I
Jason dinAlt looked unhappily at the two stretchers as they werecarried by. "Are they at it again?" he asked.
Brucco nodded, the scowl permanently ingrained now on his hawklikeface. "We have only one thing to be thankful for. That is—so far atleast—they haven't used any weapons on each other."
Jason looked down unbelievingly at the shredded clothing, crushedflesh and broken bones. "The absence of weapons doesn't appear to makemuch difference when two Pyrrans start fighting. It seems impossiblethat this damage could be administered bare-handed."
"Well it was. Even you should know that much about Pyrrus by now. Wetake our fighting very seriously. But they never think how much morework it makes for me. Now I have to patch these two idiots up and tryto find room for them in the ward." He stalked away, irritated andannoyed as always. Jason usually laughed at the doctor's irasciblestate, but not today.
Today, and for some days past, he had found himself living with apersistent feeling of irritation, that had arrived at the same time ashis discovery that it is far easier to fight a war than to administera peace. The battle at the perimeter still continued, since the massedmalevolence of the Pyrran life forms were not going to call a trucesimply because the two warring groups of humans had done so. There wasbattle on the perimeter and a continual feeling of unrest inside thecity. So far there had been very little traffic between the cityPyrrans and those living outside the walls, and what contact there hadbeen usually led to the kind of violence he had just witnessed. Theonly minor note of hope in this concert of discord was the fact thatno one had died—as yet—in any of these fearsome hand-to-handconflicts. In spite of the apparent deadliness of the encounters allof the Pyrrans seemed to understand that, despite past hatreds, theywere all really on the same side. A distant rumble from the cloudedsky broke through his thoughts.
"There is a ship on the radar," Meta said, coming out of theground-control office and squinting up at the overcast. "I wonder ifit is that ecology expedition that Brucco arranged—or the cargo shipfrom Ondion?"
"We'll find out in a few minutes," Jason