Pancho had met his friend, Zero-Zero, in an interplanetary chat; and, as soon as he could, he booked a space flight to go and visit him. But while Zero-Zero was showing him the wonders of his planet, Pancho tripped over and bumped his head on a sphere that was lying by the path. After the impact, the sphere opened up, and from out of it came a little man. The little man had an enormous bruise on his head, and was hopping mad.

Zero-Zero was scared, so much so that he could hardly speak. And before Pancho could ask forgiveness, two enormous, uniformed robots turned up. They took out a few small devices and scanned the whole area. When they had finished this, from out of one of the devices their emerged a small metal card that one of the robots presented to the little man. Without a word they grabbed Pancho and the little man and whisked them away at top speed.

Before he knew it, Pancho was locked up inside a large sphere, with the little man and a very serious-looking robot dressed in a black toga. Before knowing what was going on, he heard the robot say: “go ahead”. Without hesitation the little man then gave him a lusty blow to the head. After this, the robot took out another device, checked Pancho’s throbbing head, and finally issued him with a small metal card.

-“Too hard. It is now your turn. Do not exceed what is stamped on the card.”

Pancho had no idea what was happening. He looked around him. Through the transparent walls he could see numerous other spheres, each one containing a robot dressed in a toga, along with people hitting and pushing each other, clutching little metal cards in their hands. The little man, standing before him, looked at Pancho with fear, and the robot remained expectantly at their side.

-“You may hit him. Remember, no more than on the card,”

continued the robot.

Pancho was hesitant. The robot in the toga impatiently explained:

-“This is a process of perfect justice. You must not worry about anything. Both of you will receive exactly the same harm that you have dished out. If one of you exceeds the limit you will receive another card with the exact value required for everything to be equalised."

Perfect justice? That sounded very nice. No one could come out worse than anyone else, and everyone would suffer what they had made others suffer. Pancho was surprised at how advanced they were on this planet. He was so keen to remark on it to Zero-Zero that he ran towards the door.

-“You may not leave,”

said the robot, blocking his way,

-“You must complete the process, you must spend the points on your card.”

Pancho was pensive. He had no desire to hit that poor little man any further, even though it was true that the little guy had really whacked him one…

-“It’s fine. I forgive him,”

he said, finally.
-“No,”

repeated the robot,

“you must use the points on your card. This is a process of perfect justice."

What a pain! How could it be impossible to forgive someone? Pancho began to feel annoyed at this rather snooty robot, so he took his card, tore it in two, and said,

-“Look! Now there are no points left."

The robot appeared to break down. It started emitting whistling noises, lots of lights all over its body lit up, and it lost control of its movements. Just when it appeared that it was going to explode, the robot returned to normal, and quietly said:

-“It is correct. Now you may leave. Thank you for using the system of perfect justice.”

The door opened, but before he could greet the shocked Zero-Zero, Pancho had to remove the little man from himself, who was embracing him and thanking him as though Pancho had saved his life.

On leaving the sphere, Pancho began to understand. All around he could see perfect justice system users lain on camp beds and looking tired and exhausted. Zero-Zero explained that the main problem with the perfect justice system was that it was almost impossible to give out the exactly correct amount of harm, and the judgments and exchanges of blows would end up going on for days and days. So scared was everyone of ending up in the judgment process that many people lived isolated lives, inside small glass spheres, just like the little man Pancho had fallen on.

A few days later, Pancho returned home, but his name was never forgotten on that planet. Previously, no one had forgiven anyone anything, but thanks to him they had discovered that forgiveness is a necessary part of justice.