Part 1

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COMMUNITY PROPERTY

BY ALFRED COPPEL

_The first successful non-Terrestrial divorce case! Fame for Legal Eagle Jose Obanion for his generalship of a three-sexed, five Venusian history-shattering precedent! Habits are habits but--alas!--on Venus they differ...._

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, December 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

One of these days an embittered lawyer is going to write a text on the effects of spaceflight on the divorce laws. This writer will be a Terrie, about five ten, with blue eyes, black hair--turning grey very fast, and the unlikely name of Jose Weinberg Obanion III. Me.

I remember very well the day I was graduated from law school; the day my father gave me his version of the Obanion credo. _Always remember you live in a community property state--_

That simple phrase has kept three generations of Obanions in the divorce trade. And only I have had cause to regret it.

Basically, I suppose, my troubles began the day the Subversive Party swept the Joe Macs out of Congress and repealed the Alien Restriction Act of 1998. That bit of log-rolling gave the franchise to almost all resident aliens and resulted in a situation virtually destroying the sanctity of divorce as an institution.

I'm a Joe Mac myself--politically, I mean. Obanions have been voting the Joe Mac Party Ticket for more than a hundred years. Red is our color. There are even family legends that say an Obanion was with the first Joe Mac when he became President of that old unit the Euse of Aay.

We have to rely on legends, unfortunately, because the Joe Mac Party traditionally fed their rally bonfires with books, and when they won the election and took over the Euse of Aay they had a rally to end all rallies and somehow the Government Archives--books, you see, as well as punch cards and the like--got taken over by some very zealous Party men. The records were always rather incomplete after that. Only word of mouth information was available during that first Joe Mac Administration, and that can be sketchy. For example, the party color is red. All we know is that first Joe Macs had something to do with red. You see how it goes.

What I mean by all this, is that I can see the faults in my own Party. I'm no diehard. Nor am I a bad loser. The Subs won control of Congress by a landslide, so I guess the people wanted that sort of slipshod government. Only they should have been more careful, dammit, when they started tampering with the laws.

I'm not antispacegook, either. I have my framed Legal Eagle's Oath right over my desk and I live up to it. And if Congress sees fit to make any Tmm, Dccck, or Harry a citizen of our great Commonwealth--I account it my duty to see to it that they are not denied the benefits of our Terrestrial divorce laws.

But sometimes it can be _very_ trying.

The new Sub Administration and their rash repeal of Joe Mac laws has had the effect of putting reverse English on the Obanion credo.

_Always remember you live in a community property state...._

That wonderful phrase that encompasses so many great truths--that ringing statement that has made me rich and kept me a bachelor--now means something else. Confusion. Work. Yes, and even spacegook depravity.

* * * * *

I should go back and pick up the story at the beginning before I get too upset.

My name, as I said before, is Jose Obanion. I'm a licensed Legal Eagle, specializing in divorce law--and doing well at it. I have a good office on the 150th floor of the Needle Building, a damned fine address and a comfortable lay-out, too. A whole room to myself, a private visor service to the Municipal Law Library, and a lap-desk for my secretary, Thais Orlof.

On the day it began I was walking to work from the tubeway station and feeling rather pleased with myself. My income was high and steady, my protein ration account was in good shape and I was doing my bit as a civilized Terrestrial.

The morning was remarkably clear. You could make out the disc of the sun quite nicely through the smog, and there was a smogbow gleaming with carbon particles in the sky. I felt alert, expectant. Something BIG was going to happen to me. I could feel it.

Even in the go-to-work press of people on Montgomery Street, I didn't get shocked once. That's the way my luck was running. And three characters brushed against me and got nipped by my new Keep-A-Way.

There's been talk about making Keep-A-Ways illegal. Just the sort of infringement on personal liberty the Subversives are famous for. Inconsistent, too. They pass laws letting every spacegook in the universe come here to live and then talk about taking away one of the things that makes the crowding bearable.

I made a point of arriving at the office a little early, hoping to catch Thais in the act of coming in late. My secretary was a hard girl to dock, but I never stopped trying. It was a game we played. If she came in late, I would be justified in docking a protein credit off her pay for every thirty seconds of office time she wasted. So far I had managed to keep her pay low enough so she couldn't think of leaving my employ--though she was earning a few prots on the side by acting as correspondent in divorce cases that couldn't be settled by Collusion Court and actually had to be tried before a judge and jury.

Thais and I were still haggling over the price of her services as part-time mistress, too. I couldn't see giving her her asking price, which was half again the regular market price. Thais knew the value of a prot, all right. And of an erg, too. "Take care of the ergs," she would say, looking at me meaningfully, "and the prots will take care of themselves." Thais was a devout Ben Franklinist and she was full of aphorisms like that.

I settled myself into my Lowfer and glanced over the desk calendar. A full, profitable day ahead. Tremmy Jessup and his new fiancee were coming in at 0900 to sign the premarital divorce settlement. A wise couple, I thought approvingly. Save a lot of trouble later. At 1100 Truncott vs Truncott and Truncott. A multiple divorce case with two women involved. Very lucrative sort of case. And then at 1200 Gleda Warick was coming in to have me validate her Interlocutory decree. A formality. But I hoped to take her to lunch at the Palace where they were advertising a five ounce portion of genuine horsemeat on their five prot dinner. That sort of thing would impress Gleda and I rather hoped for great things from her. Not only that, she was spending 25,000 prots yearly on divorces. No Franklinist, she.

It still lacked a minute to the hour so I switched on the TV to catch Honest Pancho's commercial. Pancho was my most active competitor and he cost me plenty, but I couldn't suppress a grudging admiration of his enterprise. He had Lyra Yves doing his stuff for him, and anyone as socko as Lyra was dangerous. Sweetheart of the Western Hemisphere is the way she was billed, and her agent wasn't exaggerating too much.

Lyra was singing his come-on backed by a quartet humming a steady whap rhythm and doing a slow twitch. The lights were playing her daring costume big, accenting the fact that she had one breast almost covered. I frowned. How come the League of Decency let her get away with anything as suggestive as an opaque breast covering. Pancho must have friends in the censor's office. It was just another sign of the increasing degeneracy of our times. Soon entertainers would be appearing clothed from head to foot, exploiting the erotic stimulation of imagination.

"--whap me slap me baby doll," Lyra was singing. "Beat my head against the wall--lover, I don't care at all at all--_Whap!_ Honest Pancho's on the ball!"

Now the announcer cut in with his insinuating voice explaining how you could get your divorces quicker, cheaper and twice as funny at Honest Pancho's Big Splitzmart in the Flatiron Building, as well as his Legal Eaglery just down from the County Courthouse. "--yes, friends--TWO big locations to serve you. Come in and see Honest Pancho today!" And then Lyra again: "Whap! Honest Pancho's on the baaalll! WHAP!" She faded doing a sinuous twitch. I turned the TV off feeling a little worse than when I turned it on.

Maybe, I thought, I've been too conservative. Maybe _I'd_ better get on the baaaalll, too. Or else. I shrugged the thought aside just as Thais slipped through the door--exactly on time.

I watched her strip off her smog mask and cinder cape--on office time--and place them carefully in the sterilizer. She was very careful not to smear the paint that was most of what she wore. I tapped a NoKanse alight and inhaled deeply. "Good morning, Thais," I said.

"Whap!" she said in return. "I heard the TV all the way down the hall."

She pulled a Lowfer out of the wall and settled down with her lap-desk across her knees. The tip of one sandal was just brushing my shin. The office, unfortunately, could have been bigger, but with sixteen million people living in the city, space was rather costly even for a man with a better than average prot account.

"New paint?" I asked.

She smiled brilliantly at me. "Nice of you to notice, boss." She fumbled in the pockets of the belt around her naked, cerise-painted middle and took out her pad and stylus. "On time and ready for work," she said. "A calorie saved is a calorie earned."

But now, somehow, I didn't feel like attacking the day's schedule. Not quite yet. Pancho's commercial had disturbed me. "Thais," I said. "I wonder if I'm--well, slowing down--"

"You, boss?" She fluffed her green-tinted hair provocatively and raised an eyebrow at me. "I wouldn't say so."

"I don't mean that way," I said. "I mean professionally. I wonder if I shouldn't seek wider horizons."

"New cases? _Different_ cases? Give up divorce work? Oh, _Boss_!"

"Not give it up, Thais. Not that. I couldn't. Divorce is my life. Could a doctor give up healing? Could a Freudist give up lobotomy? No, I didn't mean that. Frankly, I meant should I get more aggressive. Go out and get cases that would have a certain advertising value." I didn't want to say I didn't feel like spending good protein on the sort of advertising Pancho and some of the other Legal Eagles, an unethical lot really, were buying. Besides, we Obanions have always been rather frugal.

Thais' face had come radiantly alive. "Oh, _Joe_--"

Now, that should have been a tip-off, because she _never_ called me anything but boss. But I blundered right ahead because she was looking at me as though I were Clarence Darrow or somebody.

"I have a case. A _real_ case. If you would--if you only _would_ take it, you'd be famous. More famous, that is. You'd be _really_ famous."

I knew that Thais had some rather questionable friends, being a Franklinist and all. And I knew too that some of them were spacegooks. But the combination of Lyra singing for Pancho and the way Thais was looking at me made me get careless.

"Tell me about it," I said in my best legal manner.

Her face fell. "Non-terrestrial." And then she brightened. "But that's the whole point. These people are citizens of Terra now ... and _think of it_--_you_ will be the very first Legal Eagle to represent them in a divorce case tried under our laws."

_Under our laws._ Oh, I should have known. But almost all law is precedent. And I was blinded by trying a case that would _set_ a precedent instead of follow one. Heaven help me, I said yes.

"Where are these spacegooks from? And what time can they be in the office tomorrow?"

"The Llagoe Islands on Venus," she said excitedly. "And they can be here anytime you say."

"Okay, ten hundred sharp. What do they do and how many people are involved?"

"They're musicians. And, uh, there are three. And two correspondents." She looked rather sheepishly at me as I raised my eyebrows and commented that even in this day and age of easy morality that was quite a number of 'people' to be involved in one divorce case. Too many, in fact.

"Well, they _are_ subject to our laws," she said doubtfully.

"Indeed they are--thanks to a Subversive Congress." I made a few notations on my desk pad. "Five of them, eh? A multiple marriage."

Thais' voice was very low. "Well, no. Not exactly."

"What then?"

She looked at me resignedly. "Three sexes," she said.

* * * * *

I gave up my luncheon with Gleda; as much as I should have liked to split a five prot pony steak with her. Instead of the Palace, I went to the library. The _public_ library. And read about Venerians. What I found out was interesting--and a little frightening, too. They were trisexual symbiotes. And they were only remotely humanoid.

There were very few of them on Terra--mainly because they relished their own planet's formaldehyde atmosphere so much they were extremely reluctant to leave it. When they did, ... and this really interested me--they generally became very wealthy as entertainers. They were accomplished musicians and--of all things--tumblers.

For reasons that were only hinted at in the staid _Encyclopedia Terrestria_, Venerians never entertained through the mass media such as the Livies or TV. Their stuff was limited to small, elite gatherings and it cost plenty.

I thought of Gleda Warick and the party she was planning for later in the week. She'd asked me to be alert for some good entertainment. Her friends were getting weary of games like Lizzie Borden and Clobber. Too many people getting hurt and all. Venerian tumblers and minisingers would be just the thing. And it would assure solvency on the part of my clients-to-be. Part of the Legal Eagle's Oath binds us to be concerned over our customer's finances.

The next morning, promptly at ten hundred, I was treated to the first sight of my clients. Their names didn't transliterate into anything remotely pronounceable, so they were going by the names of Vivian, Jean and Clare Jones.

After the first shock of seeing them wore off, I wrote on my pad: "Names used by humans of both genders. Significant."

They spoke English, the current _lingua franca_, with only a trace of a sibilant accent and they smelled of formaldehyde.

I explained their rights under our divorce laws. Did the best I could, that is, not being quite sure who was married to whom and under what conditions their marriage functioned--if at all. Finally I said, "Tell me all about it."

Clare, who seemed to be the spokesman for the group and therefore assumed, in my mind, a male gender, waved a boneless arm excitedly. "Had we known we were becoming subject to your Terrestrial laws by residing here we would never have remained. Our situation is desperate."

I wrote on my pad: "Situation desperate."

"Yes," hissed Vivian breathlessly. "Desperate."

I underlined _desperate_.

"We are, as you may know," Clare continued giving Vivian a dark look, "Trisexual symbiotes. You do not have any analogous situation among mammals on Terra."

I glanced at Thais. "We sure haven't," she said with feeling. "But it sounds _fabulous_."

"It is not, I assure you," Clare said running a four-fingered hand over his scaly crest in what I took to be a Venerian gesture of distraction. "We are not _married_ as you people understand the term--"

"Not married," I wrote, underscoring it heavily.

"But your law enforcement agencies insist that our symbiosis is analogous to marriage and therefore subject to the regulations governing that odd institution."

"What a bore," Thais said helpfully.

"Our problem is this. The three of us live in what you might roughly call a connubial state. We--what is your word?--co-inhabit?--"

"That's close," I said.

"We live together, that is. But more than eroticism is involved, I assure you."

"Of course." Now it began to sound like most of my other cases and I could get my teeth into it.

"You seem doubtful," the Venerian said with a sharp-toothed frown. "Let me reiterate that what I say is so. The three of us have spent a _ygith_ together--that is more than fourteen of your long years. But now the _ygith_ is over and we must seek another--how would you say it?--liaison?"

"This is essential?" I asked. "Not just a whim?" It is, you see, the duty of a Legal Eagle to make every effort to save a marriage. In view of the circumstances, I felt that surely this was a marriage unique and therefore _worth_ saving.

"No whim," declared Clare emphatically. "Each _ygith_--or what you Terrestrials would call 'mating period'--we must uh--realign. If we do not, deleterious effects are certain. Our health goes bad. We may even die."

"My friends," I said, "you have very little to worry about. There are many similar cases here on Terra. Just last week, for example, a divorce was granted in the case of Nork vs. Nork wherein it was established that the plaintiff, Mr. Nork was allergic to _Mrs._ Nork. A simple case, and not the first of its kind. I myself tried one such case wherein a wife broke out in a rash whenever her husband sought to question her about the household expenses. A divorce was granted on the grounds of basic incompatibility."

"Ah," Clare said sadly. "If it were only that simple. Our two correspondents, Gail and Evelyn, are ready to enter the realignment. But--" and here the Venerian glared at the smallest of the trio. "_this_ ungrateful wretch is unwilling to adjust to the changed circumstances."

Great tears formed in Jean's slotted eyes. "How can you speak that way to me? After we've been through so much together?"

"Now, now--" Thais, who has a very soft heart, patted Jean in an effort to make he she or it feel better.

"Get to the point, Clare," Vivian said testily.

"It is our understanding that property held in joint tenancy by two contesting parties in a divorce case may be distributed at the discretion of the court."

"That's correct," I said.

"We contend, therefore, that Jean--" Clare pointed a scaly finger at the small Venerian, "is community property. Vivian's and mine. We wish to make an agreement between us for the disposal of it--"

"Wait a _minute_," I said, shocked. "I don't think you understand the community property laws at all. Jean is, by definition, a person. A person cannot be considered property or chattel. Oh, no--"

The small Venerian made a face at them. "I told you you couldn't get away with it," she said. "This isn't Venus, you know."

"On Venus you would be property," declared Vivian. And to me, he--she--I still get confused about this--added: "My sex was emancipated thirty _ygiths_ ago at home. But Jean's is still considered--what did you call it?--chattel. No vote. No rights. Nothing but symbiosis."

"And Clare's is still the--uh--dominant one?" I asked hesitantly.

"That's the myth that's perpetrated," Clare declared acidly. "We _guths_ do most of the work, if that means anything."

I wrote on my pad: "Guths--breadwinners."

"And who--well, forgive my indelicacy, but--" I shrugged mundanely, "who bears the children?"

"We all do," the three Venerians chorused at once.

Well, that's the way the interview went. When the three Venerians finally left I had a rough outline for the brief on my pad. Besides the other comments, I had the following information:

Re Jones and Jones vs Jones, trsex smbytes!!

See Ency Clare--guth } Terrestria Vivian--warth } PP 1099, Jean--ith } Vol 17, 09 Ed

Jean--Community Property?

No. Not under Terr Law

See US vs Ignatz Wolk 1999.

What then?

Correspondents: Evelyn (guth) Gail (warth) Any overt acts of infidelity? Probable. No proof.

Only obstacle: Jean. Must reach agreement.

IMPORTANT: Plaintiffs and Defendant or Defendants and Plaintiff not solvent. Must arrange something.

See Gleda.

And see Gleda I did. I asked her if she could use not two, not three, but FIVE Venerian entertainers. She could and would. At 1,000 prots a head for an hour's entertainment. That took care of that much, anyway. I was, I felt, well on the road to making legal history.

* * * * *

The following day I made arrangements to meet Jean alone in a little bistro down on the Embarcadero. I felt the salt water air would make her-it feel more co-operative. But on the way down I became aware of someone following me. Cinder-caped and smog-masked, the tail I was dragging was inconspicuous enough, but I figured the thing about right. It was a Government man. There could be only one answer. Honest Pancho had tipped the TBI that I was doing something illegal or immoral. I was an active Joe Mac and that would be enough to put the Witch Hunt Division of TBI on me even without Pancho getting wind of my dealings with the spacegooks.

The gimmick would be, of course, that I was taking advantage of them, violating their rights under the V Amendment of the World Constitution. Pure falsehood, but my previous unwise political affiliations put me under suspicion.

I looked up through the smog, and sure enough. An Eyespy hung in the air just over my head--a tiny transmitter about as big as a half erg piece. If I spit on the sidewalk, I thought, they'll haul me in on the double.

This was bad enough, but when and if I actually got the Venerians an interlocutory decree, I'd really have to watch it--and them, to see that nothing went wrong. The WH boys would have Pancho right at their shoulder watching for the slightest excuse to invalidate the decree.

I could get used to the Eyespy, and I thought I could convince Jean. And above all, I had to keep the Venerians from anything like sexual activity during the two day period of the decree. Nothing--but nothing--will invalidate a decree quicker than _that_. And an invalidated decree is very bad for a Legal Eagle's reputation.

I was, I thought darkly, getting into this thing deeper than I thought. But the rewards would be worth it. Think of it. To Legal Eagle the _first_ extraterrestrial divorce case in the history of the world! Holy Protein, I'd be in song and story.

I made my way through the press of people on the slidewalks, my Keep-A-Way crackling a jolly tune, and the Eyespy hovering over my head.

San Francisco is a wonderful place. Full of excitement and bustle. It's a port of entry, for one thing, with starliners letting down into the Bay from all over the Solar System. On the Embarcadero there were Sandies from Mars, Rooks from the Jovian System--every sort of spacegook there is. Except Venerians. And mingled with the crowd I could make out the distinctive cinder capes of the Longshoremen--absolute rulers of the district.

The bistro I was looking for was a floating platform moored to the ancient wharves, the ones that were left after the tidal wave caused by the bomb back in '59. It was a nautilus type joint, most of it under water, called the Deep Six.

An attendant took my cape and smog mask at the door and bowed me along to the maitre d'.

"A table, sir?" He clapped his hands for a waiter. "May I order you something? A morphine syrette? Phenobarb? We have a particularly fine aphrodisiac cocktail, sir. Or shall I just send the hostess to you and you can order later?"

I eyed the line up of girls regretfully. They were all lovely, all almost fully clothed--and what flesh was exposed was completely unpainted. If Thais looked like that, I thought sadly, I wouldn't haggle about her price. But that was sheer depravity, I told myself sternly. That's what comes of associating with triple sexed spacegooks--I was here on business. Not pleasure.

"I'm meeting someone," I said. "A spaceg--a Venerian uh--lady. Miss Jones."