{"id":1635,"date":"2021-10-11T15:43:07","date_gmt":"2021-10-11T15:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=1635"},"modified":"2021-10-13T22:22:44","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T22:22:44","slug":"with-clean-hands-by-john-rackham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=1635","title":{"rendered":"With Clean Hands by John Rackham"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With Clean Hands<\/em><\/strong> by John Rackham (Science Fantasy<\/em> #60, August 1963) opens on a planet called Malin, where a planetary Governor called Ingersoll is hosting two anthropologists who have been living among the natives. The setting, though, is pretty much like the 1950\u2019s British Empire in space, as can be seen from comments that Ingersoll\u2019s wife\u2019s Martha makes to one of the visitors later on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to try to talk shop, Robert, take them into your study,\u201d Martha got up. I\u2019ve got work to do, as always. Stay single, my dear,\u201d she shook her head archly at Olga. \u201cOnce you marry, well, you can\u2019t really do anything else, afterwards. Children, housework, meals\u2014it\u2019s never ending. . .\u201d and she went to the door to ring a hand-bell for servants.  p. 89<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

After Marta leaves, Ingersoll and his two visitors discuss a native plant called Gleez, the basis for a sought after fabric which also has a special place in Malinese society and religion. Then, when one of the Malinese servants brings in a native version of coffee, Ingersoll learns that the native\u2019s \u201ccough\u201d, a normally untreatable and eventually fatal disease, has been cured by another native he refers to as The Healer. Ingersoll later phones the Chief of Police asks him to investigate.
At dinner that night Ingersoll and his guests discuss the natives\u2019 evensong before Daniels, the policeman, gets back to Ingersoll and tells him that has tracked down the healer. He reports that his preaching \u201csounds like a cross between Christianity and Socialism\u201d, and adds that his ideas are catching on, something which has led to labour problems in some areas. Daniels also says that he has bugged his accommodation.
We later see Ingersoll\u2019s son develop a cough, initially assumed by the parents to be a normal, human one until Martha comes and shows Ingersoll blood on a handkerchief\u2014when it appears that their son has caught the native disease. Finally, in the middle of all this drama, Olga (one of the anthropologists) visits Ingersoll one evening and sits on his lap! They have a conversation about interdependence before kissing.
The second half of the story sees all these plot elements merge together (spoiler) and, after further unrest on the planet, the native chiefs demand to see Ingersoll. When they are let in, Ingersoll sees that they have brought the healer before him and say they want him crucified (they need Ingersoll\u2019s permission as he has banned public executions). Then, during the meeting, his son bursts in and is cured by the healer.
Ingersoll later questions the healer in private about his activities, and tells him that he can\u2019t continue causing the same level of disruption. Ingersoll adds that he will be left alone to teach if he tones down his message and stops causing trouble for the native chiefs. The healer refuses.
Later, when the pressure to have The Healer crucified becomes overwhelming, Ingersoll once more meets the chiefs, this time asking for a bowl of water and a towel before consciously doing a Pontius Pilate act. After the chiefs take the healer away to his fate Ingersoll tells Daniels to slip the healer something that will help with the pain of crucifixion\u2014and arranges for the native\u2019s body to be spirited away afterwards.
Ingersoll later tells the anthropologists that he has arranged for the removal of the healer\u2019s body from its burial place as he wants to help spread his message on Malin. Later, of course, Daniels finds the body has vanished. The story ends with Ingersoll telling Olga that he is going to send his wife and son back to Earth; Olga says she will stay on the planet with him.
Most of the first half of this story is an amalgam of colonial and social clich\u00e9s from the 1950s, but the last part is an engagingly weird, if predictable, alien Messiah\/crucifixion variant1<\/sup>\u2014with an atypical side helping of adultery and marital breakdown.
** Average. 11,500 words. Archive.org link<\/a>

1. One of the most famous of these alien crucifixion stories is Harry Harrison\u2019s The Streets of Ashkelon<\/em>, published in Science Fantasy<\/em>\u2019s sister magazine New Worlds<\/em> a year earlier (#122, September 1962). One wonders if Rackham saw Harrison\u2019s story before writing his own.
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With Clean Hands by John Rackham (Science Fantasy #60, August 1963) opens on a planet called Malin, where a planetary Governor called Ingersoll is hosting two anthropologists who have been living among the natives. The setting, though, is pretty much like the 1950\u2019s British Empire in space, as can be seen from comments that Ingersoll\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[397],"tags":[370,17,399,398,7,216],"class_list":["post-1635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john-rackham","tag-370","tag-17","tag-john-phillifent","tag-john-rackham","tag-novelette","tag-science-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1635"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1680,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635\/revisions\/1680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}