by Larry Niven
“It is,” the Speaker’s hologram said from its place of honor in the front row. The Speaker himself would probably never enter a gravitational well again.
“Very well,” Zack said, and banged his gavel. “Oye oye, the court of the township of Avalon is now in session. Bailiff, please bring the accused into the courtroom.”
Cadzie entered. There were two sergeants-at-arms present, but he was allowed the dignity of walking without escort.
He sat in a chair kitty-corner to the judges and the audience, that he might face both.
“Cadmann Sikes, you are accused of the murder of Aaron Tragon. How do you plead?”
“Not guilty,” Cadzie said.
“Your plea is so entered—”
“Why are we here at all?” Cadzie demanded. “Why not just look at the tape? A camera followed me every step of the way.”
Marco Shantel said, “The camera failed, Cadmann. That will be brought out in evidence.”
“Enough,” Zack said. “Who stands for the defense?”
Carlos stood. “I do, your honor.”
“I see. And our prosecutor is Thor Masterson.”
“I am prepared, your honor.” The massive Thor was a Starborn, but under his bronze beach-body exterior was a keen mind that had enjoyed studying the law.
Zack didn’t seem entirely pleased. “Prosecution makes the opening statement.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Thor said. Cadzie had seen that smile before. Payback. But for what, precisely? “Insofar as the maintenance of basic laws is the most foundational necessity of a society, the breaking of the most basic of those basic laws is the greatest threat to every individual. The people intend to demonstrate that he did with deliberation and malice aforethought stalk and murder the man he believed responsible for the death of his grandfather and namesake, the honorable Cadmann Weyland.”
He paused, as if to let that sink in. As if he was almost overwhelmed with the responsibilities of his office.
“This is a somber duty,” he continued, “and it gives me no pleasure to participate in these proceedings, nor should it give you, the jury, any pleasure at all.” His expression held a theatrical piety that Marco Shantel might have appreciated. “But this is not about our affection for a young man, or our respect for the hero whose name he bears, or our opinions about what did or did not happen long ago. It is about this one incident, and the need to preserve order in the world. Thank you.”
After a few moments of polite murmurs, Zack raised his hand. “Carlos? Statement?”
“Thank you,” Carlos said, and stood. “It has been forever since I studied the law. Never passed my bar exams. In fact, my lack of serious intent about my education and prospective career probably led to my family deciding I was better off ten light-years from home.”
Chuckles from the improvised courtroom.
“But . . here I am. And here we are. And of those who know and love Cadzie with all our hearts, I suppose I’m the closest thing to a lawyer.”
Nods and murmurs of agreement.
“So the question we have to ask today is whether or not there is sufficient reason to actually bring this matter to trial.”
“And you say there is not?” Zack asked, perhaps a bit too optimistically to convey the impartial air required of a judge.
“I say there is not, your honor. Something happened in that cave, that is for certain. One human being and two grendels are dead. Judging by burn marks and signs of internal heating it seems that all were victims of some kind of electric shock.”
“What kind of symptoms?”
“Burns. Broken bones due to muscular contractions. Torn muscle connections for the same reasons.”
Thor raised his hand and his voice. “A shock which could easily have been administered by a grendel gun, your honor.”
Back off, kid. Zack could read that in Carlos’ attitude even if he avoided speaking the words. What he did say was, “But unless we are proceeding under the Napoleonic Code, the court will be forced to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“And you believe we can’t do that?” Thor asked.
“That’s exactly what I think.”
Zack cleared his throat. “While a trial is the appropriate place for expert testimony and cross-examination, can you offer your reasoning?”
“My client is innocent, your honor,” Carlos said. “The tragedy happened while investigating a site created by a creature of unknown capacities. We have never so much as autopsied a cthulhu corpse, and because they are aquatic, there has been little documentation of their behavior. What we do know is that Aaron and his grendels were deep in their territory when they died.”
Thor looked like he wanted to cough up a hairball. “And that is one of your three?”
“Yes. We simply do not know if either biologically or technologically, these creatures could have a weapon, or a booby trap, which could have created these effects.”
“And what is the second?” Zack asked.
“The trained grendels. We know that Aaron used some kind of shock collar on his animals, and the possibility that one of these devices malfunctioned cannot be ignored. We believe that it can be demonstrated that the capacitors on the collars were drained—”
“Which also could have been triggered by a grendel gun—”
“Which could, yes. Again, reasonable doubt.”
“And your third point?”
“The grendel gun bolts are manufactured in number, but not great numbers. We keep track of them as best we can. Cadzie expended cartridges, but that is to be expected: he defended against a grendel attack.”
“Your honor!” Thor protested. “This is too convenient!”
“Not if you’re the accused, and you’re innocent,”
Cadzie said. “In that case it’s damned inconvenient.”
Thor glared at him. “Zack, I mean, your honor, we all know how lax bookkeeping is about those bolts! You can pick up a fistful at the supply shed—”
“But have to sign your name and keep track of the supply,” Zack said. “The point being, your honor, that we just don’t know what happened in that cave.”
“There were no booby traps. We’ve gone over every inch of that cave.”
“That,” Carlos said, “rules out technology that we understand. But we just don’t understand what we’re dealing with here. The one thing we know is that we are dealing with creatures with an advanced understanding of magnetism. Magnetism is created by moving current, and current is affected by magnets.”
“I don’t think we need a physics lecture,” Thor said, irritated.
Marco was called to testify. His carrying voice was a bit unhappy, a bit belligerent. His cameras, all three including the one following Cadmann, had been zapped by the local magnetic fields. That left a massive hole in his record of Messenger’s conquest of the universe. But his description of the battle with the grendels roused his acting instincts: he spun a story that had his audience gasping.
Trevanian stated that other cameras in the armored suits had also been zapped. Carlos and Cadzie again found that damned inconvenient.
The report on Aaron’s autopsy was given by Dr. Charlotte Martine. The tall young Godson’s ordinarily diffident attitude seemed suspended as she described the autopsy. The one hole in Aaron’s skin went in all directions, more than a dozen probes. Very clumsy, if the perp was looking for a grendel gun projectile. It seemed hard to believe that any such perp had found what he was looking for.
And so it went through the afternoon. After five hours of testimony, the board adjourned and conferred, and after two hours returned to the main room.
“Cadmann Sikes,” Zack said. “After careful consideration, we find that there is insufficient evidence to bring charges. I want to clarify that this should not be construed as a verdict of ‘not guilty.’ When we consider the history between your family and Aaron’s, this situation is particularly disturbing.”
“I understand,” Cadzie replied. “
What I find most disturbing is this highly inconvenient failure of a camera that could have told us everything.” He glared at Marco Shantel.
The Godsons’ Narrator said, “They all failed, Cadmann. It was the damned magnetic fields, they ruined everything—”
“That will be brought out later,” Carlos said, also glaring.
Marco ignored him: he was glaring at Cadmann. “How do you think I feel about this? Major discoveries and a ripe murder mystery, and I don’t have it recorded! I’m supposed to be setting our history in concrete! Everything we’ve got quits when it gets in that temple. It was the cthulhu magnets, God—” at which point he saw the Speaker’s glare, and stopped abruptly.
There was a little more conversation, but then Cadmann was declared “not at fault” as indeed Aaron had once been, long ago. And that was that.
♦ ChaptEr 35 ♦
force majeure
Joanie’s head spun. She wanted to go back to the mainland. She wanted to spit in Zack’s face. She wanted to cry with relief or laugh with derision at a staggering miscarriage of justice. All at the same time.
Trudy found her smoking behind the armory, gazing out at the pen where pigs snuffled about in the mud with no awareness of human affairs.
The Godsons clustered and whispered, and from the bits she overheard, it was easy to ferret out their attitude.
“What did you think of the verdict?” she asked Trudy. She thought, hoped, that she’d be able to get an honest answer.
“I’m happy, I suppose.” Trudy paused. “Aren’t you? Now we can find out what really happened in there. No more distractions.”
Joanie snubbed out her butt. A perverse part of her wanted to throw it to the pigs. Maybe they’d eat it, and pass the carcinogens along. Their cancer treatment technology was excellent, so it was a harmless enough aggression. “What do you mean?”
“I mean . . whatever killed your father is still out there. The trial was a distraction.”
“A distraction,” Joanie murmured.
“Don’t you think it was a fair trial?” Trudy asked. “After all, these are your people.”
Something ugly behind Joanie’s eyes tightened her vision. Don’t say it . . .
“And it was my father.”
“And you want to know what was true, yes?”
“Truth,” she said bitterly. “Do you care about truth?”
“Me?”
Joanie looked at Trudy, wondering how honest she was prepared to be. What the hell. It was just one of those days. “I’ve heard rumors that you can just turn your heart on and off.”
No flicker of irritation. “It isn’t that simple.”
“So you’re in love with Cadzie. So you think you know him and he must be innocent. Because you love him.”
“It’s not that simple,” Trudy repeated.
“It never is.”
Trudy looked at her with an almost infuriating calm. “You’re hurting, and I understand that. I think . . I think that no matter what happened in that courtroom it was going to hurt you, because the real pain is losing your father. Everything else, no matter what the verdict, was secondary to that.”
“You know me so damned well.”
A mild chuckle. “I barely know you at all. But I know people. You wonder about the switch in my head. I was programmed for that. To find a good man, bond to him, be his helpmate. But . . it’s not a one-way ticket. If he violates some very specific boundaries, I am allowed to terminate the bond.”
“‘Terminate the bond.’” Joanie groaned. “Do you know how that sounds?”
“Yes,” Trudy said. “And I don’t expect you to understand.”
Trudy sounded so reasonable, so undefensive that Joanie found her curiosity engaged. “So . . what happened . . what you know to have happened . . didn’t violate the principles. You don’t have to break the bond?”
“No. And that . . isn’t easy.”
“Why not?”
Trudy looked at her, seemed to mull over possible word choices.
“I have . . loyalties.”
“To the Godsons?” Trudy nodded.
“And . . .”
“They think I should cancel the bond.”
“And you disagree?”
“I don’t.”
An uncomfortable silence followed. Something hadn’t been said.
“Is there something you aren’t telling me?” Joanie asked.
“I’m sorry,” Trudy said. “I may have already said too much.”
Joanie wondered what Trudy might have meant. If she had been in the main camp that evening instead of curled in the corner of a grass-thatched hut at Surf’s Up, she would have learned.
Trevanian doubled as the armory chief. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have maintained a presence there, would do nothing but sign weapons and ammunition in and out, but something in the back of his head told him that he wanted to actually be there this night.
So when there was a knock on the latched door as he spent time on inventory, he wasn’t totally surprised. He opened the door to reveal three relaxed, alert Godsons: two men and an impressively tall and athletic-looking woman. Stype?
“Hi. How can I help you?” Trevanian asked.
“Stand down,” Major Stype said. “You are confronted by superior force. If you resist you will be injured.”
“What the hell?” he said, but when Stype centered her stubby pistol on his chest, that bubble of opposition collapsed, and he stood down. The Godsons entered, swept the room for lurkers and took control. Weapons were distributed, but the Godsons were more interested in controlling the armory than looting it. They had their own weapons.
Additional soldiers drifted in a few at a time, checked in quietly with Stype, then left to take up positions around the sleeping camp.
Trevanian was gagged and bound. He strained against plastic manacles for a few moments, then surrendered. Major Stype watched the entire time, and after he stopped struggling leaned in and asked: “If I loosen your gag, do you promise not to scream?”
Trevanian nodded, unsure of whether he would keep his promise. The gag was loosened. He decided not to risk a loud sound. Something about these people made him think she wanted an excuse to hurt him.
“Thank you,” he said. Then added. “Once you do this, you can’t go back.”
“It is already done,” she said. Five minutes later, the door opened again and a stocky black man with three stripes on his arm whispered in her ear. She nodded, smiled. “It’s irrelevant now. Sound the alarm.”
One of the others sounded an air horn.
About half the colonists on Camelot lived five minutes’ walk from the central dining hall. After about ninety seconds, sleepy colonists began to emerge from their doorways, yawning and rubbing their eyes.
Zack came straight to the center of town, leaning on a weathered crook-necked shamboo cane. His conical knit sleeping cap, striped red and white with a white tassel, kept flopping into his face. He moved with painful torpor, white hair disheveled. “What the hell is going on?” he asked.
Major Stype kept her hand floating above her side arm, but not upon it. “Please stand by until more of you have been awakened. There is nothing to be alarmed about.”
“What?” Rachel Moskowitz asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
The town square filled. The colonists watched the armed soldiers with growing anxiety.
Finally, Stype spoke again. “Citizens of Avalon! Your leaders have failed you, failed the mission that took you to the stars. Although our actions may seem extreme at this moment, we believe that in time you will come to see that we are the greatest allies you have ever had.”
“What the hell is this about?” Rachel asked.
“We are temporarily seizing the armory, and placing the colony under military law.” Silence.
Sleepy colonists were suddenly wide-awake, but stared at each other, as if wondering if they were still dreaming.
“You have no right!” Zack said. He tried to s
ound strong, but threads of fear were woven into his anger.
“We may not have the right. But we certainly have the responsibility,” Stype said. “We are fighting for the future of the human race. We came here in peace, and since we’ve landed seen you squander your heritage, and risk your children’s future by allowing sentimentality to trump the rule of law. You have forgotten who you are.”
Major Stype’s voice chilled the quad. “The most revered member of your colony, by far, was Cadmann Weyland. What do you think he would think of this? Even though the transgression involves his namesake . . ?”
Unnoticed at first, the Godsons circulated quietly among the dwellings, waking and herding those not already in the town square, as others in autogyros visted the outlying homesteads, carrying the good news to all.
All over the colony, the Starborn and Earthborn were gathered into knots. A group of colonists were being herded down from Mucking Great and its foothill. Two of them were Carlos and Twyla, who had barely been given the time to don robes. Carlos had not been allowed to bring his walking stick, as the Godsons had considered it a possible weapon. He stepped down out of the jeep, shaking with age and anger.
“What are you saying?”
The Godson who had roused him at gunpoint was brusque. “We’re saying that Cadmann Sikes willfully murdered the man he holds responsible for the death of his grandfather. And that all of you turned your heads away and excused it, out of affection for his namesake. Your sentimentality has clouded your judgment.”
Carlos fought to keep from trying to strangle this man.
“I don’t believe this is happening.”
“Believe it,” the Godson said, his hand resting on his sidearm. “But don’t make it worse than it is.”
A skeeter landed, and a bound Cadzie was pushed out. The crowd surged forward. A shock rifle crackled with electricity. A moment later Thor spasmed on the ground. “Leave him alone!” Cadzie screamed.
