“That’s easy to answer. We pay him. After all, he’d been working for the state for free while he’d been serving his time. However there is still one glitch in the system.”
“Tell me about it.”
“In malice aforethought, the regret is so great that the mandated punishment is execution.”
“I got it,” said Rubicon excitedly. “What if you execute the guy and then after he has served his sentence, he decides not to do the crime? Isn’t that more than a little bit difficult? I’d call it fairly impossible. Better still, unfairly impossible.”
“You nailed Paradox right on the head.”
“What’s been done about rectifying the situation?” Rubicon was especially proud of rectify. It was his word of the day.
“Learned judges pondered the problem and decided that it was unconstitutional to deprive the would-be perpetrator of the opportunity of changing his mind.”
“What if he didn’t change his mind?”
“Good question. We have no answer for that other than re-education. However, our culture is so strong that no criminal has ever seen fit to do the crime without first having served his time. We’ve been lucky so far.”
“I still think your society takes advantage of the potential criminal.”
“It’s what you might call a stand off,” Commander said. “We’ve never executed anyone. No one has ever been found guilty of malice aforethought, at least as far as murder is concerned.”
“But what if someone were to do the unthinkable?”
“We’d be between a rock and a hard place,” Commander said with a quite tone of resignation. “At any rate, the whole thing is totally absurd. To tell you the truth, if that were to happen there would be heck to pay.”
“That’s something like Hell, I gather.”
“Yes, but on Udopia, we don’t allow swearing.”
“So what’s the penalty for swearing?” Rubicon asked.
“It’s severe,” Command replied. “I can’t for the life of me remember what the penalty is to tell you the truth. Swear words are not heard on Udopia.”
“Interesting,” Rubicon said. “All the boys in my class do, but few of the girls.”
‘It’s the other way around on my planet,” Commander commented. “Teenage girls sometimes swear but only for effect. “You see,” Commander said, lowering his voice to achieve a semblance of conspiracy, “if you swear on Udopia, you are immediately characterized as having a deficient vocabulary and that’s considered a considerable insult.”
“Couldn’t have that agreed Rubicon.”
“You’d better return to Earth, Earthling. This business is wearing me out. At times, I think our sophisticated society is really no better than the rather primitive society, you have there on Earth,” he said pointing out the porthole. “A lovely Earthrise, don’t you think?”
“Rather,” Rubicon agreed. “I have no regrets.”
“How could you? You are in a Udopian environment. Our logic applies.”
“So how do I avoid regrets on Earth? I wonder.”
“Have sincere thoughts,” Commander Commander said.
“Whether you mean them or not,” replied Rubicon. “Just kidding.”
“It’s been a long night. Where would like me to let you off?”
“In my own bed, if it’s not too much trouble.”