Title: A Bad Day for Vermin
Author: Laumer, Keith
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "A Bad Day for Vermin" ***


                         A BAD DAY FOR VERMIN

                            BY KEITH LAUMER

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                 Galaxy Science Fiction February 1964.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]



                   They came In friendship and love.
                They couldn't help the way they looked!


Judge Carter Gates of the Third Circuit Court finished his chicken
salad on whole wheat, thoughtfully crumpled the waxed paper bag and
turned to drop it in the waste basket behind his chair--and sat
transfixed.

Through his second-floor office window, he saw a forty-foot
flower-petal shape of pale turquoise settling gently between the
well-tended petunia beds on the courthouse lawn. On the upper, or stem
end of the vessel, a translucent pink panel popped up and a slender,
graceful form not unlike a large violet caterpillar undulated into
view.

Judge Gates whirled to the telephone. Half an hour later, he put it to
the officials gathered with him in a tight group on the lawn.

"Boys, this thing is intelligent; any fool can see that. It's putting
together what my boy assures me is some kind of talking machine, and
any minute now it's going to start communicating. It's been twenty
minutes since I notified Washington on this thing. It won't be long
before somebody back there decides this is top secret and slaps a
freeze on us here that will make the Manhattan Project look like a
publicity campaign. Now, I say this is the biggest thing that ever
happened to Plum County--but if we don't aim to be put right out of the
picture, we'd better move fast."

"What you got in mind, Jedge?"

"I propose we hold an open hearing right here in the courthouse,
the minute that thing gets its gear to working. We'll put it on the
air--Tom Clembers from the radio station's already stringing wires,
I see. Too bad we've got no TV equipment, but Jody Hurd has a movie
camera. We'll put Willow Grove on the map bigger'n Cape Canaveral ever
was."

"We're with you on that, Carter!"

Ten minutes after the melodious voice of the Fianna's translator had
requested escort to the village headman, the visitor was looking over
the crowded courtroom with an expression reminiscent of a St. Bernard
puppy hoping for a romp. The rustle of feet and throat-clearing
subsided and the speaker began:

"People of the Green World, happy the cycle--"

Heads turned at the clump of feet coming down the side aisle; a
heavy-torsoed man of middle age, bald, wearing a khaki shirt and
trousers and rimless glasses and with a dark leather holster slapping
his hip at each step, cleared the end of the front row of seats,
planted himself, feet apart, yanked a heavy nickel-plated .44 revolver
from the holster, took aim and fired five shots into the body of the
Fianna at a range of ten feet.

The violet form whipped convulsively, writhed from the bench to the
floor with a sound like a wet fire hose being dropped, uttered a
gasping twitter, and lay still. The gunman turned, dropped the pistol,
threw up his hands, and called:

"Sheriff Hoskins, I'm puttin' myself in yer pertective custody."

       *       *       *       *       *

There was a moment of stunned silence; then a rush of spectators for
the alien. The sheriff's three-hundred-and-nine-pound bulk bellied
through the shouting mob to take up a stand before the khaki-clad man.

"I always knew you was a mean one, Cecil Stump," he said, unlimbering
handcuffs, "ever since I seen you makin' up them ground-glass baits for
Joe Potter's dog. But I never thought I'd see you turn to cold-blooded
murder." He waved at the bystanders. "Clear a path through here; I'm
takin' my prisoner over to the jail."

"Jest a dad-blamed minute, Sheriff." Stump's face was pale, his
glasses were gone and one khaki shoulder strap dangled--but what was
almost a grin twisted one meaty cheek. He hid his hands behind his
back, leaned away from the cuffs. "I don't like that word 'prisoner'.
I ast you fer pertection. And better look out who you go throwin' that
word 'murder' off at, too. I ain't murdered nobody."

The sheriff blinked, turned to roar, "How's the victim, Doc?"

A small gray head rose from bending over the limp form of the Fianna.
"Deader'n a mackerel, Sheriff."

"I guess that's it. Let's go, Cecil."

"What's the charge?"

"First degree murder."

"Who'd I murder?"

"Why, you killed this here ... this stranger."

"That ain't no stranger. That's a varmint. Murder's got to do with
killin' humerns, way I understand it. You goin' to tell me that thing's
humern?"

Ten people shouted at once:

"--human as I am!"

"--intelligent being!"

"--tell me you can simply kill--"

"--must be some kind of law--"

The sheriff raised his hands, his jowls drawn down in a scowl. "What
about it, Judge Gates? Any law against Cecil Stump killing the ...
uh...?"

The judge thrust out his lower lip. "Well, let's see," he began.
"Technically--"

"Good Lord!" someone blurted. "You mean the laws on murder don't define
what constitutes--I mean, what--"

"What a humern is?" Stump snorted. "Whatever it says, it sure-bob don't
include no purple worms. That's a varmint, pure and simple. Ain't no
different killin' it than any other critter."

"Then, by God, we'll get him for malicious damage," a man called. "Or
hunting without a license--out of season!"

"--carrying concealed weapons!"

Stump went for his hip pocket, fumbled out a fat, shapeless wallet,
extracted a thumbed rectangle of folded paper, offered it.

"I'm a licensed exterminator. Got a permit to carry the gun, too.
I ain't broken no law." He grinned openly now. "Jest doin' my job,
Sheriff. And at no charge to the county."

       *       *       *       *       *

A smaller man with bristly red hair flared his nostrils at Stump.
"You blood-thirsty idiot!" He raised a fist and shook it. "We'll be
a national disgrace--worse than Little Rock! Lynching's too good for
you!"

"Hold on there, Weinstein," the sheriff cut in. "Let's not go gettin'
no lynch talk started."

"Lynch, is it!" Cecil Stump bellowed, his face suddenly red. "Why, I
done a favor for every man here! Now you listen to me! What is that
thing over there?" He jerked a blunt thumb toward the judicial bench.
"It's some kind of critter from Mars or someplace--you know that as
well as me! And what's it here for? It ain't for the good of the likes
of you and me, I can tell you that. It's them or us. And this time, by
God, we got in the first lick!"

"Why you ... you ... hate-monger!"

"Now, hold on right there. I'm as liberal-minded as the next feller.
Hell, I like a nigger--and I can't hardly tell a Jew from a white man.
But when it comes to takin' in a damned purple worm and callin' it
humern--that's where I draw the line."

Sheriff Hoskins pushed between Stump and the surging front rank of the
crowd. "Stay back there! I want you to disperse, peaceably, and let the
law handle this."

"I reckon I'll push off now, Sheriff," Stump hitched up his belt.
"I figgered you might have to calm 'em down right at first, but
now they've had a chance to think it over and see I ain't broken
no law, ain't none of these law-abiding folks going to do anything
illegal--like tryin' to get rough with a licensed exterminator just
doin' his job." He stooped, retrieved his gun.

"Here, I'll take that," Sheriff Hoskins said. "You can consider your
gun license canceled--and your exterminatin' license, too."

Stump grinned again, handed the revolver over.

"Sure. I'm cooperative, Sheriff. Anything you say. Send it around to my
place when you're done with it." He pushed his way through the crowd to
the corridor door.

"The rest of you stay put!" a portly man with a head of bushy white
hair pushed his way through to the bench. "I'm calling an emergency
Town Meeting to order here and now!"

       *       *       *       *       *

He banged the gavel on the scarred bench top, glanced down at the body
of the dead alien, now covered by a flag.

"Gentlemen, we've got to take fast action. If the wire services get
hold of this before we've gone on record, Willow Grove'll be a blighted
area."

"Look here, Willard," Judge Gates called, rising. "This--this mob isn't
competent to take legal action."

"Never mind what's legal, Judge. Sure, this calls for Federal
legislation--maybe a Constitutional amendment--but in the meantime,
we're going to redefine what constitutes a person within the
incorporated limits of Willow Grove!"

"That's the least we can do," a thin-faced woman snapped, glaring at
Judge Gates. "Do you think we're going to set here and condone this
outrage?"

"Nonsense!" Gates shouted. "I don't like what happened any better than
you do--but a person--well, a person's got two arms and two legs and--"

"Shape's got nothing to do with it," the chairman cut in. "Bears walk
on two legs! Dave Zawocky lost his in the war. Monkeys have hands."

"Any intelligent creature--" the woman started.

"Nope, that won't do, either; my unfortunate cousin's boy Melvin was
born an imbecile, poor lad. Now, folks, there's no time to waste. We'll
find it very difficult to formulate a satisfactory definition based
on considerations such as these. However, I think we can resolve the
question in terms that will form a basis for future legislation on the
question. It's going to make some big changes in things. Hunters aren't
going to like it--and the meat industry will be affected. But if, as
it appears, we're entering into an era of contact with ... ah ...
creatures from other worlds, we've got to get our house in order."

"You tell 'em, Senator!" someone yelled.

"We better leave this for Congress to figger out!" another voice
insisted.

"We got to do something...."

The senator held up his hands. "Quiet, everybody. There'll be reporters
here in a matter of minutes. Maybe our ordinance won't hold water. But
it'll start 'em thinking--and it'll make a lots better copy for Willow
Grove than the killing."

"What you got in mind, Senator?"

"Just this:" the Senator said solemnly. "A person is ... _any harmless
creature_...."

Feet shuffled. Someone coughed.

"What about a man who commits a violent act, then?" Judge Gates
demanded. "What's he, eh?"

"That's obvious, gentlemen," the senator said flatly. "He's vermin."

       *       *       *       *       *

On the courthouse steps Cecil Stump stood, hands in hip pockets,
talking to a reporter from the big-town paper in Mattoon, surrounded
by a crowd of late-comers who had missed the excitement inside. He
described the accuracy of his five shots, the sound they had made
hitting the big blue snake, and the ludicrous spectacle the latter
had presented in its death agony. He winked at a foxy man in overalls
picking his nose at the edge of the crowd.

"Guess it'll be a while 'fore any more damned reptiles move in here
like they owned the place," he concluded.

The courthouse doors banged wide; excited citizens poured forth,
veering aside from Cecil Stump. The crowd around him thinned, broke up
as its members collared those emerging with the hot news. The reporter
picked a target.

"Perhaps you'd care to give me a few details of the action taken by
the ... ah ... Special Committee, sir?"

Senator Custis pursed his lips. "A session of the Town Council was
called," he said. "We've defined what a person is in this town--"

Stump, standing ten feet away, snorted. "Can't touch me with no _ex
post factory_ law."

"--and also what can be classified as vermin," Custis went on.

Stump closed his mouth with a snap.

"Here, that s'posed to be some kind of slam at me, Custis? By God, come
election time...."

Above, the door opened again. A tall man in a leather jacket stepped
out, stood looking down. The crowd pressed back. Senator Custis and
the reporter moved aside. The newcomer came down the steps slowly. He
carried Cecil Stump's nickel-plated .44 in his hand.

Standing alone now, Stump watched him.

"Here," he said. His voice carried a sudden note of strain. "Who're
you?"

The man reached the foot of the steps, raised the revolver and cocked
it with a thumb.

"I'm the new exterminator," he said.





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