The Greatest Man on Earth

by (most of) Slush

[ Michele deBes ]

That man was the greatest man on earth.

Although he looked quite ordinary, everyone knew the name of Rabin Dekler. Every child had heard tales of Rabin’s death defying feats of quantum distortion.

Unfortunately, that name didn’t mean much to the Instiller of Cantoris Minor, who had cheated in ‘Ancient History of the Outer Planets’ and didn’t know about Earth.

“You have been caught subverting the media with restricted material. The penalty is Instillation.”

Rabin shuffled forward. He had already lost weight in the holding cells and his shoulder length brown hair was lank. The foodmat didn’t have Earth standard, and he was forced to survive on vitamin pills. He looked up with serious brown eyes, straightened his shoulders and stood tall, which meant he reached about half way to the Instiller’s knee.

“I call on the council of elders. Let them decide my fate.”

The Instiller looked down at the man.

“You speak our language and seem to know our laws. Do you know what this means?”

“I may choose six of my native people to speak for me, to describe an incident that proves my worthiness for mercy. The council then decides on my fate.”

“That is correct. I will call the council,” said the Instiller.

Ten glowing orbs appeared.

“Call your first referee.”

Rabin thought of his home world, Earth, and all the people on it who knew him and were grateful to him for saving them. He could choose from all the great poets who would speak beautifully, politicians who would speak with authority, religious leaders who would vouch for the purity of his soul, generals who would vouch for his bravery. Or there were his close friends, who would be impassioned, or his colleagues who had shared in his exploits and knew first hand what he had to go through, what he had to give, because they were doing it too.

Or maybe it was just the people he would want to see one last time.

He slowly straightened, stood tall again and said in a loud, commanding voice, “I call on?”

[ William Bowden ]

“Krebis Lane on Arturia Prime.”

There was a brief pause, during which the orbs began to flicker, first randomly, then sequentially. At last Krebis’s face appeared tele-jected and floating eerily in the room above Rabin and the Instiller. He looked like a zombie, thought Rabin. Christ, all those Stims together and the man was clearly still a party Re-Animal.

“Krebis Lane, I am Instiller-Third-Level CM Locious Proctor III. I have with me a man who claims to be known to you, by the name of Rabin Dekler. Is this so?”

“Uh, yeah, hi, Rabin, what’s all this?”

“And despite residing on Arturia Prime you are Earthborn, are you not?”

“Yes, of course I am, look is this leading somewhere?Installer, was it?”

“Mr Lane, we have contacted you as part of a procedural hearing against Rabin Dekler, who faces Instillation as a result of transgression of CM Holy Law™. We require an example of his character, you will furnish us with an event depicting such, you may begin now.”

At this point Krebis seemed to gather himself a little, perhaps grasping that this wasn’t another one of Rabin’s stunts.

“Uh, right, well most people think of Rabin as ‘The Distortion Guy’ and it’s true he’s the best there is? But, well, when I think back, the first time Rabin saved my life was before long before Quantum Distortion, but when we were fucking around?”

At this point a gong sounded and one of the orbs briefly went red.

“?with Quantum Echo, which was pretty dangerous. Anyway at some point I’d got stuck in a feedback loop, probably cause I was kinda into Sub-dimensional Dub at the time, and my quantum selves were feeding back to the point of infinite multiplication. Man, I was going to fill this universe and God knows?”

Again there was a worrying glow and another gong from the orbs. Perhaps Krebis had been a poor choice. Great Stimmer, bad Racon thought Rabin.

“?what others. Anyway I was totally out there, man, errr no pun intended your lordship, and yet ol’ Rabin he’s cool as a cucumber-recon, and in less than 0.000000000000000000007 picoseconds so the Harvard boys reckon, he’s turned on his old Hawking Time Inversor and I’m heading back into the womb quicker than a Glayboy at a Nailing Expo! Man I was gone, and yet Rabin the Auto-Fuck?”

Another gong sounded.

“?charted the inverse progression, slipped in pre-endpoint grabber, and saved one of me onto his Datalogs. I still don’t know if I’m the right me, but I owe him my life, that’s for sure. All right, so I was trapped in Virtual on slow-down in the Datalog for about eighty years my time, but it kinda taught me a lesson, actually I had an entire life as a Woodcarver ? you know what that is, but it was kinda puritanical and I couldn’t re-write anything from within, not even a G.E.L.F for company, guess it’s why I got into Stims when I was finally re-bio’d.”

Horrifyingly Krebis reached into his top pocket and popped a Stim into his neck ReCeP. His tele instantly vanished and Rabin realised how loud his breathing had become in the last minute.

“Primary Judgement,” said the Instiller, and Rabin could have sworn he smiled slightly as he did so. The orbs glowed first green, then white, then red. All of them were red. Surely that wasn’t a good sign.

“Primary reports indicate a null. You saved something that was not worth saving Rabin Dekler. You must now call your second referee.”

[ Peter Miller ]

The face that appeared in the tele-ject was radiant and beautiful. A collective gasp came from the public gallery. There were perhaps five people on the planet who did not recognize Patience Prime. None of them was here.

“Rabin,” she said quietly. “This is a mistake. I will tell them, you know.”

Rabin averted his eyes. The law forbade that he converse with the referees.

The Instiller turned its attention toward the tele-ject.

“You are called on to speak for Rabin Dekler. What you say reflects on his Instillation proceedings.”

“I am aware of the Law of Instillation.” Patience Prime was dismissive. “Rabin Dekler is a criminal.”

Another gasp from the gallery.

“Rabin Dekler is charged with transgression of Holy Law, but that is the least of his crimes. I have evidence that he has committed terracide. Planetary destruction on a massive scale.”

Commotion from the gallery.

It was clear that the Instiller was confused by this choice of referee. Its eye filaments scintillated.

Patience Prime’s gaze came to rest on Rabin. A silence washed across the room.

“Rabin,” she said. “You know the thing I need to say to you. You would not have called me for any other reason.”

Rabin’s eyes flicked up to hers, only for the merest glance. It was enough.

Patience said just one word:

“Akhenaten.”

[ Hugh Todd ]

There was a commotion in the courtroom. Rabin had slumped onto the railing of the dock, moaning. A pair of officiabots clanked to his side and parked there uncertainly, as though they had come to the end of their programming instructions. The Instiller was conferring with the clerkbot, which looked slightly panicked, repeatedly scanning the dock, the council orbs, the doors, the Instiller, the gallery and the observer cams until at last a medibot appeared and attended to the supine defendant.

“All clear,” said the medibot, after a moment or two of efficient activity. “Nothing a shot of adrenaline couldn’t cure.” And it slid from the chamber.

†Rabin was standing ramrod straight, looking startled and slightly wild. He noticed that the council orbs had arranged themselves into two groupings. They flickered through a rainbow of colours. Rabin watched compulsively, rocking on the balls of his feet, thrumming his fingers on the railing. He started humming, until the clerkbot flashed a warning light in his direction.

“They’re having an argument,” thought Rabin. “And argy-bargy argu-mental dental rental argument.” And he blinked rapidly, trying to keep his racing mind in check.

The lights on the orbs began to stabilise. Red. Bugger. Red again. Ruggedy buggedy boo. Green. No, red. No, green. Histerifying. More greens. Another red. Another. And then the verdict was in. Four red. Six green.

Rabin blinked again. Six green. Onetwothreefourfivesix. Six.

The gallery erupted. There were shouts and fists waving, and punches. At a signal from the Instiller, the upstairs officiabots moved in and cleared the most troublesome of the gallery members, and a measure of calm returned to the courtroom.

The Instiller, too, seemed perturbed by the council’s finding. It let a full five seconds pass before announcing, “Primary judgement six for and four against the defendant in relation to the terracide on Akhenaten. Fortunately for you, Mr Rabin, the council appears, at least by a majority, to take your side on this one.”

The beautiful face on the tele-ject looked pale. Rabin saw Patience take a breath and open her mouth to speak, but before she could complete her first shrill syllable of objection, the Instiller waved an arm and she vanished.

Rabin already had his third name ready.

“I call on…”

[ Peta Lee ]

“...my sister Azmira.”

The orbs started to flicker sequentially, increasing in speed until the whole room was filled with the flashing of diamond white light and Rabin thought that he was going to be blinded as well as Instilled. Then without warning the orbs went dark and still.

The Instiller looked down at Rabin. “Your sister is dead,” it said impassively. “Choose your fourth referee.”

The gallery was deathly quiet as Rabin stared numbly at the place where the tele-ject should have been, all trace of adrenaline dashed from his system.

Suddenly nothing mattered anymore. The people of Cantoris Minor, at the mercy of the Instiller and its puritanical elders were no longer his concern. He had spent his energy across the length and breadth of the galaxy, using all the power over time and space that he had gained through Quantum Distortion to fight for the freedom of the oppressed everywhere, and he hadn’t even known his own sister was dead.

“How did she die?” he asked the orbs as their glow returned. They were silent as ever and he looked up in anguish at the Instiller. “How did she die?” he shouted at him as the officiabots moved in defensively. Its eye filaments didn’t flicker as it repeated its instruction. “Choose your fourth referee.”

Rabin didn’t even quibble at the unfairness of not being able to choose an alternate third referee. All he wanted was to find out about Azmira.

“I call my nephew, Mahrain,” he whispered.

This time a teenage face appeared immediately in the tele-ject. Tall and brown eyed, he looked so much like Azmira that Rabin’s voice choked in his throat and he only stared mutely at him.

The Instiller announced its purpose to the young man, who looked out grimly at the court.

“So this is my great uncle Rabin,” he† said. “The saviour of Earth. The man who ended poverty by time-shifting unused food and resources from throughout the ages to the starving billions. The man who distorted space so that every man, woman and child on Akhenaten suffocated at the same time on an airless planet, sparing the galaxy from their cannibal invasion fleets. The man who was offered the presidency of Earth, only to turn his back on it to go off and save everyone fucking else as well.” His voice was cold and Rabin felt the words like acid on his skin. Mahrain drew a bitter breath and looked his uncle squarely in the face.

“Let me tell you about the so-called ‘Greatest Man on Earth.’ Let me tell you about his pride, deciding who should live and die as if he were God. Let me tell you about the way he only used his inventions for the most grandiose schemes, so that he was worshipped and acclaimed. And when his family made a simple request to him, something that he could have achieved in the blink of an eye, did he help us? Did he save his only sister from dying of a broken heart?” Mahrain’s voice rose to a shout. “One tiny thing, but it wouldn’t have bought him fame and adulation, no-one would have known, so he refused her. He couldn’t be bothered to spare the energy. He refused to bring my father back from the UN force on Akhenaten before the air was sucked away. And after she found out, my mother’s life was slowly sucked away. Not just by the death of her husband, but by the selfishness and cruelty of her only brother.”

Rabin gazed in despair at his nephew, tears blinding him, needing to tell him his grief, the pain that still burnt his soul when he remembered refusing Azmira, knowing that it would have alerted the Akhenaten military.

But before he could speak the tele-ject was clear and the orbs started to flash different colours around him. He didn’t look at them, knowing everything was hopeless, when a gasp from the gallery drew his attention to the ten green lights shining on him.

The Instiller was silent for a long time, and when it spoke again its voice was quizzical, and maybe even soft.

“Call your fifth referee.”

Rabin drew himself up as tall as he could. “I call on…”

[ Karen Goldrick ]

“I call on…...”

The ten orbs faded to amber, then dull yellow. Rabin felt the unseen televid audience, the Tech Bots jacked up in their respective recharge, the Elders of Cantoris Minor, all lean close. Crowding him as if to remove his choice before he even spoke. Lucius Procter the 111 rose up and tilted his head, his eye filaments a rigid stalk, wavering closer and closer to Rabin’s own eyes. So close he became cross-eyed.

Rabin shook his head to clear the murky residue from the adrenafix.

“The Instiller. I call upon the Instiller of Cantoris Minor.”

There was considerable uproar as the Instiller’s eye filaments withdrew and scattered. Noise and confusion was good. It gave him the one thing he needed. Time.

He had nothing else he could use. The rest had been removed during the painful internalising procedure prior to incarceration. But Time was good. It was enough.

Even without his temporal downloads, he could run the initials by rote in his head. †If he failed to allow completely for the effects of variants of distance from the true centre, and distortion from poor televid reception, he still reckoned he’d get close enough. The rest he’d just wing with his own brand of tried and tested brash confidence.

The orbs faded to black. Too soon. He wasn’t up to the Bexley constant. He’d never be able to distort.

“The Council forbids the choosing.’ the Instiller boomed. “The witness must be one of your own. It is now time to call your sixth and final referee.”

“I must protest. It is well known in Universal History, that the ancestors of Cantoris Minor were once genetically breeched by descendants of a terran colony.I repeat, I call upon Lucius proctor the 111, Instiller of Cantoris Minor.”

Multiply by Norton factor and we’re almost there. Rabin searched for an appropriate destination. The orbs flashed as if † celebrating an ancient religious ritual, then again faded as the tele-ject screen cleared.

“Hysterifying” Rabin thought, “They’re going to play along….”

[ Simon von Overseas ]

The Instiller tele-jected above them, a floating camera live feeding his image into the air for all to see.

He Spoke, “I have nothing to say beyond this: † this Rabin Dekler, is clearly guilty of media subversion. His many attempts to undermine our laws and authority, and his attempts to start a revolution against our most sacred institutions are treasonable and without precedent.’ He stopped.

The image blanked and the Instiller drew back his head while the orbs flickered momentarily before all glowed a deep dark red. The gallery sat in silence.

The Instiller spoke, ‘Call on your sixth and final referee’.

Rabin had bided his time, re-computing the powerful initials and software code manually. Line by line he was almost there. The council paused to give him the time he needed to decide on the last referee. At least they had the good grace not to play thinking music. His brow creased with concentration, the code would run on any system, even his brain, but it had to be character perfect.

The Instiller spoke with impatience. ‘Call on your sixth and final referee or forfeit your witness.’

Rabin struggled, almost there.

He†said, ‘I call upon? ’ And he paused again, thinking deep, not knowing where the jump would take him, not really caring.

Again he said, ‘I call upon?’ pausing. Thinking: final line, pausing. Thinking: last few characters, now pausing.

Rabin spoke out in a strong clear voice, ‘I call upon Rabin Dekler.’

The gallery went crazy, the orbs flickered on, the telejection computer began to automatically search for the witness. The Instiller stood up and said, ‘Enough!’

But Rabin was no longer in the room. The last character of code†had been held in his mind and released as the orbs came on, their tiny electromagnetic field enough to provide the energy he needed for quantum relocation.

The Instiller, without understanding the escape, stood up and called for a security contingent to locate the criminal. The orbs flashed chaotically and people yelled.

‘The Instiller demanded calm and spoke. ‘In the absence of the accused, Justice will not wait. As the orbs are in deadlock I will cast the deciding vote. Rabin Dekler is found guilty of all crimes. Rabin Deckler will endure death by Instillation.’

There was a cry from one of the officiabots, ‘Rabin Dekler has been located.’

All eyes swung around to the tele-jection. They saw a man who looked liked Rabin Dekler, struggling with his hands around his neck, struggling to breath.’

The officiabot spoke again. ‘He is on Akhenaten.’

‘Then justice is done,’ said the Instiller, his eyes locking onto Rabin’s. ‘Turn on the Execution music.’