by George William Sweeney

Sam was ill at ease. He knew that the Judges would arrive any day.

He had thought of escaping but there was no point to that. Whether he was present or not the judgement would be made, there was no stopping it.

Their arrival would likely be today, during the staff meeting at work. The Judges usually would demand that the co-workers would be the jury that sat in judgement in the Interplanetary Court. This court was unique; it went to the jury rather than their going to court.

Sam was sent to Terra five years ago as part of a judicial system very alien to his current home. The League of Planets set up the Interplanetary Court over twelve thousand years ago. The Judges would select a developing planet that was about to develop interplanetary travel to which to send a subject for five years. After this time, those who worked with and knew him would sit in judgement before the judges.

Sam’s stomach was hurting and his mouth was dry. This was a feeling he had not been familiar with on Andora before he was sent to Terra. Yet he had increasingly felt this way as the judgement day approached. He was hoping that they would quickly end the meeting so he could leave, at least to postpone the inevitable to another day.

On the right hand side of the stage a little speck of light appeared. At first it was a pale blue, just bright enough to catch everyone’s attention. Slowly it grew brighter and brighter until it became a pure white, temporarily blinding the onlookers. When the light subsided enough for people to see again they saw that there were three men standing where they had seen the light. Sam knew these men to be the Judges.

They were dressed in white robes with white caps on their heads. Around their waist they had silver and gold belts. All three were bearded and their hair was as white as their robes. Their clothing appeared to radiate light.

Everyone had risen to their feet as if to run, but nobody could.

One of the Judges stepped forward and held out his hands. He spoke with a soft voice, but the vibration of the voice could be felt in the gut, just as if it was a bass drum.

"Peace, Ladies and Gentlemen of Earth, we come in peace. There is no reason to fear." And he motioned for everyone to sit.

His voice was compelling, to stop their flight and to have them relax, some. When everyone had been seated the Judge turned to Dr. Turner. "May I take some of your time and speak to this grouping?

Dr. Turner only nodded her agreement as she almost stumbled her way to a seat.

"We are judges from the League of Planets. There is one among you who has been sent here for judgement. Our judicial system is different from your own. Many millennia ago we decided not to directly judge those individuals who seek to disrupt the peace of our society, but instead, to allow inhabitants of non-member planet to sit in judgement. This individual would live among the people for five years. At the end of this time we would return to allow his ‘peers’ serve as witnesses and jury to decide the case."

"And so is the case with the person you know as Sam Henderson." He pointed to Sam. "Come forth and stand before us now, for it is judgement time."

Sam walked to the front of the room and dropped to his knees. He began to speak in a tongue that none in the room could understand. Quickly the Judge raised his hand. "Do not speak in a foreign tongue before this jury! We will only speak their language."

Sam bowed his head in resignation.

The Judge looking back to the group continued: "We are not here to ask you to make judgement on the past crimes in society, but we ask you to judge him on his character within your own society. Has he treated all of you with dignity? Is he worthy to be welcomed back into any society or should he be banished? Who will speak of his character?"

There was silence for several minutes as everyone looked at one another. Then Joe Branden stood up. He had a satisfied look on his face as he began to speak. "Sam always spoke condescendingly to me. He thought that he was better than I was. One time he came to me with a question and when I told him that he had to ask my manager he started to yell at me and threaten me that I had better answer his question. If I had not picked up my walking cane and chased him out of the room I think he would have tried to hit me."

Kim was next to stand. She told of how Sam had harassed one employee so bad that he had driven him to smoke grass to calm his nerves. She told the group that Sam was constantly making up work for him just to keep him busy and would rudely interrupt him any time he was talking with friends to tell him to get back to work. He finally caused him to be fired, she said.

Sam arose to his feet and shouted: "Be quit, you do not know what you are doing."

The Judge quickly silenced him.

"See how he is," Said Juanikee. "He terrorizes and bullies everyone around him. He almost had Rama here terrified to the point of suicide."

Juanikee coaxed Rama to stand and verify what she had said.

"He terrorized me. Nothing I did was ever good enough. He would even sabotage my work so that he could criticize my performance. Never for a moment would he just let me do my work without his hanging over my shoulder."

"It got so bad that I did think that it would be better to end my life to stop his petrifying me. I just could not take it any longer. Luckily Juanikee and others stopped me and helped me get transferred to another office."

The judge’s face showed no hint of approval or disapproval as one by one testimonies were given against Sam. His face stayed stern.

Alas, when the last of the testimonies was complete the judge called "is there anyone else who would wish to testify."

Nobody rose to speak.

The judge stepped back and another judge moved forward.

"Is there no one who will testify in behalf of the one you call Sam?" The judge said as he looked around the room.

Again there was no interruption of the silence in the room.

Then Joe stood up and proclaimed that "there will be nobody to say anything good about Sam. He has abused everyone here with his arrogance and brash personality."

This judge stepped back to stand abreast with the other two. The third judge stepped forward as the others had.

"We have heard all testimony. What now is your judgement? Is this person worthy of condemnation, disserving of punishment?"

"I will ask everyone that thinks Sam should be set free without any punishment to stand up to show your choice."

He slowly rotated his head from side to side to view the room. Nobody stood.

"Now I ask for everyone to stand that judges Sam worthy of our fullest punishment for being disruptive to the peace of society."

Joe and Juanikee immediately stood, slowly followed by the others in the room.

The judge’s face was immovable. He looked towards Sam and reached out his hand.

"The people of this world have spoken their judgement. Join us for the completion of our task."

Sam stood, facing Joe he wispered, "you do not know what you have just done."

Sam walked up on stage to stand in middle of the circle that the judges formed around him. In unison they raised their hands over his head and as the room filled with light when they arrived, so now the room filled again with light, with the source being right over Sam’s head.

When the light dimmed again allowing everyone in the room to see they saw the three judged standing around another dressed as they. This new judge stepped out of the circle and took his place in front of the other judges.

This judge looked out on the crowd and spoke very calmly and with resignation.

"Look upon me. Do you know who I am? See my face. Do you not recognize me."

There was silence as everyone took a hard look. There were gasp of disbelief as some few recognized that this judge was Sam. The murmur of realization spread to nearly everyone.

"Yes, I am the same one you called Sam. My real name is somewhat similar to this."

He raised his arms and continued, "I now stand before you in the true robes of my office. I too am a judge."

"Many thousands of years ago our worlds were devastated by war after war brought on by those who would judge and seek to destroy others because of fear for that which was different, or for greed. Young worlds in their development into stellar cultures would often and easily fall pray to this disease."

"The older surviving cultures formed the League of Planets, and with it the Interplanetary Court. The sole purpose of the court was to find those worlds that were approaching interplanetary travel and determine how they treat each other and those that are different. We wanted to know if they were ruled by greed and fear, or by wisdom."

"An outside observer was not enough to make this judgement. It was far too difficult to judge a world by observation alone. We needed to reach into that society. We needed to see how they would judge us."

"This is how I came to your planet. I came as a judge to be judged by you. And by your own judgement of me, we would know if you were ready for joining our society of planets. If worthy you would be invited to join our League of Planets with the full rights and privileges that come with it. Yet, if you were found not to be ready, but that you would likely disrupt the peace of our galaxy we would eliminate the danger."

"Will you kill all of us?" came the cry from someone in the audience.

Sam closed his eyes and slowly lowered his head.

"No, we will not destroy your planet. But what we will do may well be deemed by you to be far worse. We will destroy your technology."

Raising his head again he said, "This will likely result in wide spread war, then famines and such destruction that you cannot imagine. Our hands will not leash out death. It will be your own hands that kill each other. When all the turmoil settles, your planet will be as you imagine ancient times. There will only be primitive cultures that lack any technology. Your world will start again."

"How do you know we will destroy ourselves if you take away our technology?"

Again he lowered his head in regret. "Because this is not the first time we have been here. This is the second time we have judged this planet. The first time was about twelve thousand years ago."

"We will give you one more chance, and only one more chance. If we return and again find you unfit to leave your world to join us among the stars we will destroy this world as your neighboring world, the one you call Mars."

With this, the judge turned around and formed a circle with the other judges. Together they left as they arrived, in the light. They left with light, and left behind darkness until a new civilization could grow to reach to the stars.