The Ethical Engineer Read Online Free Page A

the other nine are. You aren't being
ethical if you try to apply them wherever you go—you're just finding
a particularly fancy way to commit suicide!"
    "You are being insulting!"
    "I hope so. If I can't reach you in any other way, perhaps insult will
jar you out of your state of moral smugness. How dare you even
consider having me tried for stealing money from the Cassylia casino
when all I was doing was conforming to their own code of ethics! They
run crooked gambling games, so the law under their local ethos must be
that crooked gambling is the norm. So I cheated them, conforming to
their norm. If they have also passed a law that says cheating at
gambling is illegal, the
law
is unethical, not the cheating. If you
are bringing me back to be tried by that law you are unethical, and I
am the helpless victim of an evil man."
    "Limb of Satan!" Mikah shouted, leaping to his feet and pacing back
and forth before Jason, clasping and unclasping his hands with
agitation. "You seek to confuse me with your semantics and so-called
ethics that are simply opportunism and greed. There is a Higher Law
that cannot be argued—"
    "That is an impossible statement—and I can prove it." Jason pointed
at the books on the wall. "I can prove it with your own books, some of
that light reading on the shelf there. Not the Aquinas—too thick. But
the little volume with
Lull
on the spine. Is that Ramon Lull's 'The
Booke of the Ordre of Chyualry'?"
    Mikah's eyes widened. "You know the book? You're acquainted with
Lull's writing?"
    "Of course," Jason said, with an offhandedness he did not feel, since
this was the only book in the collection he could remember reading,
the odd title had stuck in his head. "Now let me see it and I shall
prove to you what I mean." There was no way to tell from the unchanged
naturalness of his words that this was the moment he had been working
carefully towards. He sipped the tea. None of his tenseness showing.
*
    Mikah Samon got the book and handed it to him.
    Jason flipped through the pages while he talked. "Yes ... yes, this is
perfect. An almost ideal example of your kind of thinking. Do you like
to read Lull?"
    "Inspirational!" Mikah answered, his eyes shining. "There is beauty in
every line and Truths that we have forgotten in the rush of modern
life. A reconciliation and proof of the interrelationship between the
Mystical and the Concrete. By manipulation of symbols he explains
everything by absolute logic."
    "He proves nothing about nothing," Jason said emphatically. "He plays
word games. He takes a word, gives it an abstract and unreal value,
then proves this value by relating it to other words with the same
sort of nebulous antecedents. His facts aren't facts—just meaningless
sounds. This is the key point, where your universe and mine differ.
You live in this world of meaningless facts that have no existence. My
world contains facts that can be weighed, tested, proven related to
other facts in a logical manner. My facts are unshakeable and
unarguable. They exist."
    "Show me one of your unshakeable facts," Mikah said, his voice calmer
now than Jason's.
    "Over there," Jason said. "The large green book over the console. It
contains facts that even you will agree are true—I'll eat every page
if you don't. Hand it to me." He sounded angry, making overly bold
statements and Mikah fell right into the trap. He handed the volume to
Jason, using both hands since it was very thick, metal bound and
heavy.
    "Now listen closely and try and understand, even if it is difficult
for you," Jason said, opening the book. Mikah smiled wryly at this
assumption of his ignorance. "This is a stellar ephemeris, just as
packed with facts as an egg is with meat. In some ways it is a history
of mankind. Now look at the jump screen there on the control console
and you will see what I mean. Do you see the horizontal green line?
Well, that's our course."
    "Since this is my ship and I'm flying it I'm aware of that," Mikah
said. "Get on with