ow do you explain it?" Johnson asked.
"I don't," Hawkes replied quietly. "That's one of the things I'm here to learn. But did you notice this? The man we encountered this afternoon was not only the same as the one on those pictures: he still looks the same. We might, for the sake of argument, grant that a man's appearance would change only slightly in twenty-five years. But when you add another twenty-three on top of that—and he's still unchanged...?"
"If you're certain that he's the man, why don't you arrest him?" Johnson asked.
"Can we arrest a man apparently about thirty years old and accuse him of a crime committed forty-eight years ago—or even twenty-three years ago?"
"I suppose not," Johnson agreed. "What do you intend to do?"
"I haven't decided yet. First I'll have to learn more about the situation here. You can help me with that. Right now I'd like to know something about the native customs—especially in regard to legal matters."
"Their laws are fairly simple," Johnson began. "There's no law against stealing or taking by force anything you can get away with. That sounds absurd by Earth standards, it prevents the amassing of more goods than an individual needs, and makes for fairly equitable distribution. If a native somehow acquires a sudden amount of wealth—goods, in their case—he must hire guards to protect it. Guarding is a major occupation. They do an especially big business during the tourist seasons. In time the pay of the guards will eat up any native's surplus. Either way—by loss or guard pay—the wealth is soon redistributed."
"Can they even kill one another with impunity?"
"No. Their laws are rigid in that respect. In the process of—relieving another of his property, they must neither break a major bone, nor inflict permanent damage. If they disobey, they are tortured to death in the public square."
Hawkes asked, "Who enforces their law?"