In Deep by Damon Knight

mentioned it to us, because we never asked. Now it turns out to be crucial.” Dominick sighed. “Fourteen months, just getting a three-man base down on the planet. Seven more to get the elders’ permission to bring a gorgon here experimentally. All according to the book. We picked the biggest and brightest-looking one we could find: that was George. He seemed to be coming along great. And now this.”
    “Well, chief,” said Womrath carefully, “nobody has any more admiration than I have for Mrs. Carver as a consumer—she really puts it away, but it seems to me the question is, is George damaged—”
    Dominick was shaking his head. “I haven’t told you the rest of it. This panga thing stopped Carver cold, but not for long. He beamed down to the planethead and had Rubinson ask the elders. ’Is George panga to the Commandant’s wife?’ ”
    Alvarez grinned mirthlessly and clicked his tongue.
    “Sure,” Dominick nodded. “Who knows what a question like that may have meant to them? They answered back, in effect, ‘Certainly not,’ and wanted to know the details. Carver told them.”
    “And?” said Alvarez.
    “They said George was a shocking criminal who should be appropriately punished. Not by them, you understand—by us, because we’re the offended parties. Moreover—now this must make sense to their peculiar way of looking at things—if we don’t punish George to their satisfaction, they’ll punish Rubinson and his whole crew.”
    “How?” Alvarez demanded.
    “By doing,” Dominick said, “whatever it is we should have done to George—and that could be anything.”
    Womrath pursed his lips to whistle, but no sound came out. He swallowed a mouthful of banana and tried again. Still nothing.
    “You get it?” said Dominick with suppressed emotion. They all looked through the open doorway at George, squatting patiently in the other room. “There’s no trouble about ‘punishment’—we all know what it means, we’ve read the books. But how do you punish an alien like that? An eye for a what? ”
    “Now let’s see if we have this straight,” said Dominick, sorting through the papers in his hand. Womrath and Alvarez looked on from either side. George tried to peek, too, but his photoceptors were too short. They were all standing in the outer office, which had been stripped to the bare walls and floor. “One. We know a gorgon changes color according to his emotional state. When they’re contented, they’re a kind of rose pink. When they’re unhappy, they turn blue.”
    “He’s been pink ever since we’ve had him on the Satellite,” said Womrath, glancing down at the gorgon.
    “Except at the banquet,” Dominick answered thoughtfully. “I remember he turned bluish just before… If we could find out what it was that set him off—Well, first things first.” He held down another finger. “Two, we don’t have any information at all about local systems of reward and punishment. They may cut each other into bits for spitting on the sidewalk, or they may just slap each other’s—um, wrists—” He looked unhappily down at George, all his auricles and photoceptors out on stalks.
    “—for arson, rape and mopery,” Dominick finished. “We don’t know; we’ll have to play it by ear.”
    “What does George say about it?” Alvarez asked. “Why don’t you ask him?”
    “We thought of that,” Womrath said glumly. “Asked him what the elders would do to him in a case like this, and he said they’d quabble his infarcts, or something.”
    “A dead end,” Dominick added. “It would take us years…” He scrubbed his naked scalp with a palm. “Well, number three, we’ve got all the furniture out of here—it’s going to be damned crowded, with the whole staff working in my office,but never mind… Number four, there’s his plate with the bread and water. And number five, that door has been fixed so it latches on the outside. Let’s give it a dry run.” He led the way to the