from
The Trouble Twisters
by
Poul Anderson

I hereby state, flatly and unequivocally, that some facts of life are eternal. They are human facts, to be sure. Mutatis mutandis, they probably apply to each intelligent race on each inhabited planet in the universe; but I do not insist on that point. What I do declare is that man, the child of Earth, lives by certain principles which are immutable.

They include:

(1) Parkinson’s Laws:

(First) Work increases to occupy all organization available to do it.

(Second) Expenditures rise with income.

(2) Sturgeon’s Revelation: Ninety percent of everything is crud.

(3) Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong, will.

(4) The Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: Everything takes longer and costs more.

My assertion is not so unguarded as may appear, because characteristics like these form part of my definition of man.

—Vance Hall, Commentaries on the
Philosophy of Noah Arkwright

“Anti-God has many ways of luring souls astray.”

“But, my master, I distinctly told them this was a statement false to fact.”

“So you did. You are reported to have said that it might, at best, be mathematically true, but this does not make it philosophically true.” Sketulo leaned forward. Fiercely: “You must have known, however, that the question would soon arise whether there can be two kinds of truth, and that in any such contest, those whose lives are spent with observations and numbers will decide in the end that the mathematical truth is the only one.”

I certainly did, Schuster thought. It’s exactly the point that got Galileo into trouble with the Inquisition, way back when on earth. A chill went through him. I didn’t expect you to see it this fast, though, you old devil.

“Well, you know I’m interested in the history of science and philosophy, like to read about it and so forth. Because of this, as well as some family traditions, I’ve got a knowledge of the Kabbalah.”

“¿Qué es?”

“The system of medieval Jewish theosophy. In one form or another, it had tremendous influence for centuries, even on Christian thought. But believe you me, it’s the most fantastically complicated structure the human race ever built out of a few texts, a lot of clouds, and a logic that got the bit between its teeth.”

The nonhuman remains nonhuman. He can only show us those facets of himself which we can understand. Thus he often seems to be a two-dimensional, even comic personality. But remember, we have the corresponding effect on him. It is just as well that the average human does not know on how may planets he is the standard subject of the bawdy joke.

Even so, most races have at least as much contrast between individuals—not to mention cultures—as Homo Sapiens does. Hence there is a degree of overlap. Often a man gets along better with some nonhuman being than he does with many of his fellowmen. “Sure,” said a prospector on Quetzalcoatl, speaking of his partner, “he looks like a cross between a cabbage and a derrick. Sure, he belches H₂S and sleeps in a mud wallow, and his idea of fun is to spend six straight hours discussin’ the whichness of the wherefore. But I can trust him—hell, I’d even leave him alone with my wife!”

—Noah Arkwright, An Introduction
to Sophontology

Why hadn’t Thurman done the usual thing in such cases, and put the native name of his discovery into the catalogues?

Quite probably because men couldn’t wrap their larynxes around it. Or maybe he just felt like dubbing the planet “Vanessa.” Judas, what a radium-plated opportunity an explorer had! What girl could possibly resist an offer to name a whole world for her?

“Remember, I’m both a merchant and a nobleman’s son. The psychologies aren’t so unlike. A peer has to be a politician, with everything that entails, or he’s no good. And a merchant has to be an idealist.”

“What?” She blinked in startlement. “How?”

“Why, you don’t think we work for money alone, do you? If that were the object, we’d stay safe and snug at home. No, it’s adventure, new horizons, life’s conquest of inanimate nature—the universe itself, the grandest enemy of all.”

The adventure had, in fact, happened to somebody else. So had most of the stories Falkayn had been relating. But he saw no reason to spoil a good yarn with pedantry.

“Listen,” she said, “you are either very young and sweet or you are as clever as Satan.”

“Why not both?”

“She’s stalling,” Chee hissed to Falkayn in League Latin.

“I know,” he answered likewise. “But can you blame her? Here we are, total strangers, and the last contact her people had with galactic civilization was that piracy. We’ve got to be kind, show her we really mean well.”

Chee threw up her hands. “Oh, cosmos!” she groaned. “You and your damned mating instinct!”