Laurence M. Janifer

“ Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction.
But it happened to be wrong.
"The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him.
"Sometimes," Korvin said.
"It has other names?" the Ruler said.
"It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. ”

“ Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time.
"The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you."
"Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. ”

“ Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler."
One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule."
"That is our form of government," Korvin said.
"You are lying," the expert said.
One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—"
"Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. ”

“ It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. ”

“ The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. ”

“ They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation.
But—damn it—I wish I were home already. ”