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Virgil Finlay illustrates A Planet Named Shayol by Cordwainer Smith, Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1961. #FinlayFriday
#VirgilFinlay #CordwainerSmith #Illustration #SF #SFF #ScienceFiction

“Which do you prefer?” said the skin technician. “A great deal of pain or a couple of hour’s unconsciousness?”
“Why should I want pain?” said Mercer.
“Some specimens do,” said the technician, “by the time they arrive here. I suppose it depends on what people have done to them before they got here.”

Dec 13, 2024 at 11:09amWeb
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“I take it you did not get any of the dream-punishments.”
“No,” said Mercer. “I missed those.” He thought to himself, I didn’t know that I missed anything at all.
He remembered his last trial, himself wired and plugged in to the witness stand. The room had been high and dark. Bright blue light shone on the panel of judges, their judicial caps a fantastic parody of the episcopal mitres of long, long ago. The judges were talking, but he could not hear them.
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Momentarily the insulation slipped and he heard one of them say, “Look at that white, devilish face. A man like that is guilty of everything. I vote for Pain Terminal.” “Not Planet Shayol?” said a second voice. “The dromozoa place,” said a third voice. “That should suit him,” said the first voice. One of the judicial engineers must then have noticed that the prisoner was listening illegally. He was cut off.
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Mercer then thought that he had gone through everything which the cruelty and intelligence of mankind could devise.
But this woman said he had missed the dream-punishments. Could there be people in the universe even worse off than himself? There must be a lot of people down on Shayol. They never came back.
He was going to be one of them; would they boast to him of what they had done, before they were made to come to this place? “You asked for it,” said the woman technician.