by Rachel Ford
And we remained in custody.
A few hours after the ruling, a guard stopped at our cell with a parcel of toothpaste and toothbrushes. “You’ll need these,” he said in passable English. “Showers for your block are tomorrow. You will be escorted.”
“What about our advocate?” I asked.
He ignored the question, and my reminder that we were assured one by law, and went on his way.
“I guess that means we really are here for the long haul,” Maggie sighed.
I nodded glumly. “Yes. And still not a damned word about a lawyer.”
“We’ll get lawyers,” Frank said. “But Kudarian law is a little more…flexible…about timelines. It may be days yet. They’ll try to build a case first.”
“Bastards.”
“You don’t think they’ll get away with it?” I wondered. “Pinning this on us, I mean.”
Maggie wrapped an arm around me. “I don’t know, babe. They’re going to try. That’s obvious.”
“But why? It doesn’t even make sense.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. We’re outsiders. Humans.”
“Many Kudarians are xenophobic,” Frank agreed. “Especially where humans are concerned. It’ll be easier for them to believe humans were involved than that a Kudarian did this.”
“But they’re trying to pin it on you too,” I reminded him.
“Yes. But I’m the one who sponsored you. I work with you. Hell, I pretended I was going to marry Magdalene.”
I nodded slowly. I could see how, to the wrong kind of mindset, that would make him as untrustworthy as us. Maybe even worse. To some Kudarians, one of their own associating so closely with humans was probably a greater sin than being human.
“And if there’s not another obvious suspect,” Maggie offered, “we might be as far as they look.”
“What are we going to do?” I was really trying not to worry, to trust in the system and justice, but I was finding that increasingly harder to do.
She squeezed me. “Sooner or later, we’ll get an advocate.”
“And what if it’s too late?”
“We’ll appeal to the Union if we have to.”
“How? They won’t even let us talk to an advocate. We’re getting railroaded.” My voice was rising, despite my efforts to project calm. “They’re not going to give us a fair trial. Let’s face it, we’re going to get screwed here Mags.”
“Hey,” she said, and her tone was concerned, “we’re going to be alright, babe.”
“How do you know? We have no idea what’s going on.”
“No. But we’re innocent, and we’ve got the truth on our side.”
“But if no one believes us…”
She turned so that she was facing me. “They’ll have to, Kay. It’s the truth. And if she was actually murdered, that means the killer’s still out there. They’ll want to find him. Or her. Whoever. But it’s not us, and putting the humans behind bars isn’t going to do that.”
I shook my head. “Oh Mags. I wish I could believe that. But…I can’t help but think what happens if they don’t? We’re screwed.”
She nodded slowly. “If they won’t…we keep fighting. That’s all we can do, babe. We’ll keep fighting until we win.”
The days passed slowly. It was, I suppose, a reflection on the substandard treatment of our captivity that being able to brush my teeth that day, and shower the next, lifted my spirits immensely.
The fact that we still hadn’t heard from an advocate by the fourth day of captivity put something of a damper on that good mood, though. By time day five rolled around, I probably wouldn’t have left my cot if not for Mags insisting. Not that there was much to do. There are only so many times you can pace the same eight-by-twelve square before you start to feel like a hamster in a wheel.
Still, it helped to get on my feet. It helped to get my mind off our plight. It helped to distract me from details like why we hadn’t heard from Frank’s family at all, too. And that was a question that weighed heavy on my mind.
His parents, I could see breaking contact if they believed him guilty. But I couldn’t imagine F’rok and F’riya believing these charges. That meant either that they didn’t know where we were, or weren’t being allowed contact.
I’d mentioned this to Maggie and Frank, and I don’t think my conclusion surprised either of them. Frank was glum, and Maggie tried to maintain a stoic air. That, I supposed, was more for my sake than anything else, since I’d been terrified ever since they put us behind bars.
It didn’t help that my bruises only got worse as the days passed, as they deepened and grew darker and more purple and yellow. I could tell they bothered Maggie, more than she’d ever say. Sometimes she would flinch at the sight of them, her brow creasing as she brushed a hand down my swollen cheek. “Oh my poor, poor Katherine,” she’d say, and her voice would tremble with pain.
It seemed every time I thought I couldn’t love her more, every time I thought my heart was as full as it could ever be, Maggie found a way to show me otherwise. I loved her more in those miserable days than I’d ever done; I relied on her to keep me from sinking into a despair that loomed ever larger the longer we lingered in silence.
We’d been in custody a week, and I’d more or less stopped expecting to hear from a lawyer, when a guard stopped at our cell. It was about an hour after breakfast, and showers weren’t until the next day. I’d been studying the ceiling overhead, letting my imagination find patterns in the concrete.
Now, I sat up straight as he unlocked the door.
“Come with me.”
“What’s going on?”
“Where are we going?” Mags asked.
“You have a visitor. An advocate.”
I could have yelped out loud with sheer delight, but I managed to hold it in. “Thank God,” I murmured instead.
I got to my feet almost as soon as he had finished speaking, and so did Mags. She squeezed my hand, flashing me a smile full of relief. It struck me in the moment that she’d been as apprehensive about this whole thing as I had. She’d just done a better job keeping her worry under wraps.
She hadn’t allowed herself to fall apart because I needed her strength to keep myself together.
I squeezed her hand in return. “Let’s go, babe.”
Chapter Forty-Two
The advocate was waiting for us in the same interrogation block we’d visited a few days earlier. Our escort pushed opened the door, saying, “Here.”
My jaw practically hit the floor when I saw the figure waiting, arms crossed, for us. She was a trim, middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper hair and a no-nonsense attitude. I didn’t know her from Adam.
But she was human. Honest to goodness, flesh and blood human.
Which, in my surprise, was the first thing I blurted out. “You’re human.”
She looked me over carefully, then Maggie, and didn’t bother to address the statement. She focused instead on the unspoken questions attendant to it. “I’m Rita Malone, an attorney with the Union diplomatic corps.”
“The Union? You mean, they sent someone?”
“Did Kudar call you in?”
She snorted softly. “I was assigned the case because a member of the Black Flag’s crew contacted Union diplomatic channels.” She arched an eyebrow. “Rather persistently, as I understand it.”
“A member of our crew?” Maggie said, frowning in confusion. I shared her wonder. We’d been the only ones onboard at the time of the arrest, and the rest of the crew wasn’t due back for weeks yet.
“A Mister Sydney, I believe his name was. I take it he is not entirely organic, or something of that nature.”
I laughed out loud in sheer surprise. “Sydney?”
“Thank God for that robot,” Maggie shook her head.
“Robot?” Rita asked.
“Yes. Syd’s not organic at all.”
She pondered this for a moment, then nodded. “There’s more and more of that these days, I guess. At
any rate, he knows his law.”
I smiled, remembering his disclaimers on the topic. I guess Via Robotics had nothing to worry about after all.
“He wouldn’t take no for an answer, either. He kept pushing until your case got eyes on it.”
“Thank goodness. You’re the first advocate we’ve seen since we’ve been here.”
She nodded. “I’m not surprised. They’ve got no case against you, and it’s Kudarian custom not to let the accused lawyer up until they get what they need to take him down.” She shrugged. “It’s not very sporting, but it’s the way things are done here. Anyway, take a seat, ladies. And tell me everything. Starting with why you’re here, and what you know about the dead woman.”
We did, and once we’d answered and re-answered her questions, and she’d noted down our responses and asked follow-ups, she sat back and nodded. “Well, I’ll say what I said earlier: they don’t have a case in hell against you two.”
I whooped in delight, feeling unreasonably vindicated. After all these days of imprisonment, after the investigator’s recommendations had been dismissed, finally an advocate stepped in and said what we’d been saying all along.
“Of course not,” Maggie put in. “We’re innocent.”
Rita fixed her in a curious gaze. “I’m a lawyer, Ms. Landon. I don’t deal in innocence and guilt, or sins and redemption for that matter. That’s the province of moralists and priests. I deal in evidence. And the fact is, they’ve got none.”
This put something of a damper on my enthusiasm. In my mind, relying on a lack of evidence seemed like a loophole for the guilty: sure I did it, but you can’t prove it. But Mags and I were completely innocent. Somehow, I’d assumed that’s what we’d be proving. “Oh.”
“Their case against your friend is circumstantial at best. And against you? The crux of it is: you’re human.”
I nodded. “That’s what we were thinking. Frank too.”
“They’re relying on two data points. The first, that she was poisoned – allegedly; I want to get my hands on those toxicology reports – with saffron, an Earth spice. The second, that you’re close associates of their primary suspect.
“The first point relies entirely on you being human. They haven’t found a trace of saffron on the ship, and your robotic crewman informed my people that they already poured over it with a fine-tooth comb. The link is so tenuous that, if this case was tried in a Union court, the prosecuting attorney would be at risk of judicial censure if he dared bring it to a judge.
“But…” She shrugged. “This is Kudar. And, bluntly, cultural biases being what they are, there are plenty of judges who will see a logic in it that does not exist.”
I felt a frown forming on my brow. “So…what do we do?”
She smiled though, with the look of the cat who was about to get the cream. “For starters, I’m going to pull the numbers of human transports operating in this sector for the past few months, maybe half a year. It’s going to be tens of thousands. I’m going to pull the numbers of people on those ships. I’m going to pull how many Kudarian vessels left this system. It’ll be fewer, but still high.
“And once I get my numbers of people who had just as much access to saffron as you, I’ll remind the magistrate that he’s holding you on a case that’s equally strong against tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of people.”
“You think that’ll work?”
“Not on its own. That’s setting the stage.”
“Oh.”
“Then, I pull out the reports about your ship coming up clean. Not only is the theory behind their suspicion absurd, but their search turned up nothing.”
“And that will work?”
“Maybe. If it doesn’t, I remind them that you’re Union citizens, and any case against Union citizens has to pass a Union standard of evidence.”
I nodded, feeling myself relax again. “So…that will do it?”
Rita cocked her head and looked at me. “I know you want me to say ‘yes,’ and promise you’ll be out in time for happy hour. But…this is Kudar. Things take time, and sometimes a little extra persuasion.
“If we were in a Union courtroom, yes, that would ‘do it.’ Hell, you wouldn’t be here at all. But in a Kudarian one, we might need more. And we’ve got it. If they won’t consider this through the eyes of the Union, then I bubble it up the chain, and we get more Union reps here.
“It will take a little longer, but you will be out, Katherine Ellis. The both of you.”
I loosed a breath of relief. “Good. And what about Frank?”
“Mister Inkaya?” She shrugged, noncommittally. “That’s a different story, potentially.”
My face fell. “Why? He’s innocent too.”
“That may be. But innocence is irrelevant,” she reminded me. “What’s relevant is only whether they can persuade a Kudarian magistrate and jury of his guilt or not.”
“But he’s a Union citizen,” I protested. “Can’t the Union do anything?”
She shook her head. “Unless they resign it, all Union citizens are first and foremost citizens of their home systems. Which means they’re bound by their courts of law in internal matters. This is an internal matter. You are citizens of an outside system, so you are owed representation here. But it would be an unprecedented intrusion to send a Union representative to defend a Kudarian on his own home world.”
“That’s not fair. They’re railroading him. Shouldn’t every citizen of the Union be protected under the same laws?”
“It’s not the law that’s at fault here, Katherine. It’s the interpretation. Mister Inkaya is protected under the same laws that protect you and Magdalene. But how they’re interpreted and applied is largely at the discretion of the presiding magistrate.”
It seemed to me, in an indirect way, the law was still at fault. Any law that would allow a citizen to be treated unfairly on the basis of his origin was a flawed one. But my feeling on the case notwithstanding, she was right: we could count on help from the Union, but Frank was on his own. “Shit.”
“The good news,” she added, “is that the case really is very weak. If Mister Inkaya is fortunate, if he hires a good defender, he should be able to prevail.”
Chapter Forty-Three
The Kudarian legal system seemed designed to prove out the old Earth adage about the wheels of justice turning slowly, though it was less focused on grinding exceedingly fine. That’s where Rita Malone came in.
Through, I think, sheer force of will she made the magistrate listen. Here was an aspect of the Kudarian court system that I rather despised: the accused was not permitted to be in the dock for so-called preliminary hearings like these ones. Everything we knew about either of our hearings so far had been relayed to us, the first time by Investigator Kilar, and now by our advocate.
They were long, nerve-wracking waits. Though I hated the fact that Maggie was in prison of course, I could not be anything but glad for her presence. Sappy though it sounds, she brought a sense of calm, of relief in those anxious moments just by being there. She didn’t have to do anything particular, either. A nervous half-smile, an affectionate squeeze of the hand, a quiet hug: the what’s didn’t matter.
It was the who that mattered.
It helped, too, that Malone contacted Frank’s family for us. Up until this point, they’d been in the dark as to where Frank was being held or why. They were as frantic and grateful as I would have imagined.
And, as soon as the Inkayas knew, they hired a lawyer for their son. Frank was escorted separately to his own counselor, so we never crossed paths. But he had a solid history of wins and a respected reputation as an up-and-coming Kudarian defender. And, Frank spoke enthusiastically about him, and his plans for his case.
We saw the Inkayas during the first visiting day following their discovery of our location. Kudarians are not a weeping people by nature. At least, in my experiences with them, they strive to suppress such shows of emotion. But there were tears aplenty at our reunio
n. Frank was practically smothered by his family and in-laws.
They reserved hugs for Maggie and me, too – and handshakes from the elder Inkayas, whose indulgence in the human custom was, I think, all that they could manage.
Our visit was limited to fifteen minutes, and we spent the time hurriedly pouring over the details of what respective parties knew. In this, the Inkayas and J’kar actually had more to share than we did, for the story seemed to have taken root in Kudarian press.
Though no formal charges had been brought against any of us yet, Kia’s death was headlines across the three globes. Maggie, Frank and I had all been named as arrested in conjunction to the killing.
“So much for unbiased jury pool,” Maggie fumed.
F’rok and F’riya exchanged nervous glances.
“What?” I said. “What is it?”
“It’s worse than you know, Kay. A lot worse. It’s all through the papers. All over the casts.”
“What is? What are they saying?”
“A lot. There’s reporters outside our property every day. We actually had some bastard trying to get pictures from outside the windows.”
“Ger threatened to set the dogs on him,” F’riya smiled.
I frowned. In all my time there, I’d never seen the animals. “Do you even have dogs?”
“Of course not. But they don’t know that.”
“They’re saying…well, awful things. Calling F’er so many terrible names. Saying he was jealous that Kia rejected him, and murdered her and tried to murder Kor. He was poisoned too, you know, although it looks like he’ll survive. Which is a relief, of course. But they’re blaming poor Fe’er. And…” she trailed off, glancing with questioning eyes again at Ger.
“Tell me,” I urged. “Please, F’riya: I’m locked in prison, I have no idea what’s going on.”
She sighed, nodding slowly. “They’re saying things about you and Magdalene too. Crazy things. And…” She hesitated. She was, I could see, profoundly uncomfortable.
“And?”
