The fall of Crick 14, part IV (8th of June, 2013)

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A favorite entertainment of Crick's mushroom scientists was the "game of court". That is, namely, how it was called by the experienced researchers who could, months in advance, feel the smell of the "court process" which was about to take place. It was a disciplinary process against someone who stood out for some reason, who was either too loud, or who, save us the mad mushrooms, dared to officially write to someone outside Crick and to expose all the rotten substrate of the station.

Of course, all such disciplinary processes were completely illegal, but that didn't matter at all on Crick. The earthly law was too far away and it didn't care for Crick.

Rarely was, for the purpose of the conduction of the process, waited for something "real" to happen. Besides, reality did not exist, so it was completely mushroomly legitimate, if not entirely legal, to make up some dreadful disciplinary offense. The master of such fictional constructs was ac. fung. Nudlan Nurguzz, the president of the Mushroom Academic Council, whose inventions were sometimes so weird that they were impossible to disentangle. They were weird even according to the criteria of mushroom scientists.

Nurguzz probably knew that he tragically missed his call because, as a mushroom scientist he was a complete zero - sometimes it took him five years to write a couple of words related to mushroom science, and when he eventually wrote them, these were completely insignificant words read by none and which took him quite some effort to publish in the most obscure journals of The Library. It bothered almost no one on Crick, because, of course, science was of no interest to the mushroom scientists of Crick 14. To the legendary mushroom scientists of Crick 14, it was completely normal for such scientific greatness as Nurguzz was, to have the final word in the discussions regarding most delicate problems of the mushroom science. His words were often deciding in the issues regarding choice of new mushroom apprentices and formation of new mushroom modules. In those discussions ac. fung. Nurguzz used a special and, through years of his presidency, detailedly refined vocabulary. He would, for example, in the voting procedures, with a special, almost munching satisfaction use the word "eliminated" for the candidate who wouldn't pass the vote of the Mushroom Council. "Eliminated! Eliminated! Eliminated!"

From the personal archive of ac. fung. Nurguzz one could conclude that he, irrespectively of his large influence on the scientific life of Crick 14, secretly envied his brother, ac. iur. Guzllan Nurguzz, who was one of the most famous judges of Istrrunia. Ac. iur. Nurguzz made his fame on the trials of war criminals from the Istrrunian-Trbittian war, and those well informed about his career, whispered that, in addition to hundreds of "real" war criminals, he sent behind bars also a dozen of personal enemies who had nothing to do with the war. The only "real" crime they committed was a rough word about ac. iur. Nurguzz which they had a misfortune to say in a wrong place and in a wrong company. Besides, ac. iur. Nurguzz followed the mantra of his brother who was always explaining to him that reality does not really exist, so, for he probably didn't feel any guilt for his wrong deeds. Here is a record from the personal diary of ac. fung. Nurguzz regarding his famous brother, archived just before the sleep, and most likely under the influence of kvitto-beer:

His little court, his opportunity to oppress the misfits, ac. fung. Nurguzz found in Crick. His office was full of judicial literature, vintage paper books on precedents, judicial practice and the most bizarre possible exceptions and rulings in the centuries old history of Istrrunia. Nurguzz could suck in the court mold for days, and smell the suffering of those falsely accused, of all those who were by the judicial procedures lead to suicide or at least insanity. It gave him a sick pleasure which he could cure and temporarily forget only with heavy kvitto-beer drunkenness in the loneliness of his room, when he thought that no one saw him. Of course, there were always those on Crick 14 who were able to see somehow. Everything was known about everyone. One only had to ask at the right place.

Nudlan Nurguzz lived for the days when he could shine, when he could be the boss of Crick 14 and masterfully apply all the judicial tortures in which he was slowly catching up with his famous brother. These were the days of catharsis, the time when Crick needed to be purified from the intruder or unsuitable thought. This could be done in different ways.

The simplest options were the accusations of financial embezzlement, for example, to accuse someone of stealing and selling a highly-concentrated kvittocibin. It required only two witnesses (no biggie) and alteration of several entries in the storage evidence. For ac. fung. Nurguzz this was a child's play, and witnesses waited almost in lines in order to be actively engaged in the game of court. At least half of Crick 14 would give half of their scientific articles (which were worthless anyway) for a single juicy testimony in which the bastard in question was caught at least breaking in the kvittocibin storage space - although they all much preferred testifying about something more inconvenient. For example, about mobbing of a poor female mushroom assistant or indecent exposure of genitalia in a state of kvitto-intoxication.

Ac. fung. Nurguzz was a grand master of processes which included some variant of the exposure of genitalia, and he even managed to drive several of naive victims to a state in which they truly believed that they committed the unpleasant offense.

Nurguzz's aim was to stretch such processes to weeks or even months. It was his time, the time when all the mushroom scientists look to him with awe, the time when he was a master of fear, despair and penance.

His procedures planed to the utmost detail were a subject of numerous morning coffees when the worried female mushroom scientists talked e.g. about a verbal harassment of their poor colleague or about a kvitto-drunkenness with indecent exposure. It was whispered about in every room of Crick 14, and the stories in time grew in bizarreness and magnificence. Some of these turned into a real works of literature which were, luckily for ac. hist. Twen, preserved by the archives of Mushroom Academic Council. Those were the days of glory for ac. fung. Nurguzz, a petty mushroom scientist and grand mushroom inquisitor, who had a misfortune to bury his talent in such a Nowheresville that Crick 14 was.

Of course, it should be mentioned here that no one on Crick 14, except completely green mushroom scientists, sincerely thought that something worthy of a disciplinary procedure "really" happened. All, except the dumbest mushroom assistants, knew that they participated in a purging ritual in which causes and reasons were completely secondary. Besides, the reality didn't exist so one should not worry too much about causes and reasons - there were always constructions of reality in which the offense might have taken place. They only needed to be convincingly constructed.

To be continued ...

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Last updated on 8th of June 2013.