Randoms

by David Liss

  She put her hands on the table, leaned forward, and trapped me in the unstoppable cosmic power of her lavender gaze. “You need to get off the station before the hearing tomorrow.”

  “I can’t, remember?” I didn’t have the energy to rehearse all the reasons why, at least not in detail. “The Earth. My mom. I’ve got to try to see things through.”

  She grabbed my hand, and there was nothing soft, nothing tender about it. Her grip was hard and urgent, and for all that, I still felt the thrill of her touch. “Zeke, you need to go. As soon as possible.”

  I had that inside-out feeling, as though I’d just dropped into my own personal tunnel aperture. “What are you talking about? Has something happened to make you not trust Dr. Roop?”

  She shook her head. Her eyes were getting moist. “I think he believes he can protect you, but I’m not sure he can. It’s Ms. Price. She is working against you.”

  “Dr. Roop says she knows she has to back me,” I told her.

  “Dr. Roop doesn’t know everything,” she said. “I’ve accessed her data account and—”

  “Tamret, you can’t do that!”

  She leaned back and ran her fingers through her hair. She looked wild and slightly terrifying, but no less riveting for all that. “Stop telling me what I can’t do. I can do anything I want. You need to understand that. They will never catch me.”

  “You’ve already been caught,” I pointed out.

  “You are such an idiot!” Her voice was so low it was almost a growl. “I let them catch me. They knew I hacked, so I hacked, and they felt all great about how they found me out, so now they think they know how to keep an eye on me. Trust me. I’m smarter than they are.”

  “And smarter than I am, apparently,” I said, genuinely impressed.

  “We’ve already established that. Listen, your buddy Ms. Price is not what she appears.”

  “I told you, she’s not my friend.”

  “I don’t care about that!” she snapped. Her ears shifted back and forth, like a nervous twitch. “What I’m trying to tell you is that her account has levels of encryption that go way beyond what we have, and certainly beyond what an observer from an unaffiliated world should have. I managed to get in and have a look around. Almost everything nonactive has been erased and shredded, but I was able to pick up some data fragments.”

  She opened up a screen on her data bracelet that projected a wall of text in front of me, a series of isolated message fragments. Most of them were too short or too vague to be of value, but then Tamret highlighted and enlarged the one she was looking for: . . . corridor, pretended to want to make amends with him and that I was on his side. He’s not very smart, so . . .

  So, indeed.

  “Why does everyone think I’m not smart?” I asked.

  “Because you’re a moron,” Tamret said, but her voice had become soft and low, and it sounded almost like an endearment.

  “Can you figure out who she was sending this to?”

  “No, that was completely corrupted. It could be anyone, but if I had to guess, I’d say she’s working with the chief justice or someone on the judicial council, trying to make sure this embarrassing incident ends quickly. Who knows? Maybe they struck a deal in which if she helps them, they help your planet try again. Whatever the reason, she’s out to get you, and that’s why you need to get off this station.”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Dr. Roop thinks he can get me through this, and I mean to give him the chance.”

  “If he is wrong, it will be too late.” Tamret took my hand in her vice grip again. “You have to listen to me. You are too stupid to make this decision yourself. I’ll go with you. Give me an hour to hack some credits, and we’ll leave on the next ship off-station. I don’t care where it’s going.”

  Everything was spinning. I couldn’t think straight anymore. “You would leave with me?”

  She nodded.

  “Even though I’m a moron?”

  Tamret was now meeting my gaze. “Because you’re a moron. You need me. You won’t be able to survive on your own.”

  We were at a table, in the middle of a governmental cafeteria. Maybe beings were staring at us. Maybe no one cared. I was oblivious. All I knew was that Tamret was willing to give up everything to help me. So what if Ms. Price wanted to feed me to the wolves? Who cared that the Confederation was willing to trade my life for the illusion of safety? All of that seemed meaningless compared to what Tamret had offered.

  I closed my eyes, savoring the feel of her hand in mine, wanting to memorize the sensation. “The trial isn’t my last chance,” I said quietly. “If it fails, Captain Qwlessl from the Dependable is going to get me off-station, so I don’t need to run. Not yet.”

  She nodded. “If you have to go, I’m going with you.”

  Why was she willing to go on the run with me? I wanted to ask her, but I didn’t, because I was afraid the answer would disappoint me—that it would be about her debt to me or Rarel honor or a revenge-deity oath.

  “Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

  I barely understood the first thing about the conflict in which I was now caught up, but I was determined to win. I was going to outwit the evil of the Phandic Empire and the cowardice of the Confederation. I would beat the odds and dodge the betrayals and knock down anything else that stood in my way. I was going to do it for my planet, and for my mother, and now I was going to do it for Tamret, because if things went bad and I was on the run, my life would be in danger. No matter how much I wanted her with me, and despite what I’d told her, I was not going to let her come along. If I wanted to protect and preserve the things I cared about, that hearing had to go my way.

  I was no longer willing to sit back and hope for the best. It was time to take action.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  * * *

  The hearing was to be held in the Judicial Building, across the government compound from our residence. Not anticipating I’d be on trial for my life, my mother hadn’t bothered to pack a suit for me. She was, by nature, an optimist. I wore a long-sleeved shirt tucked into my khakis, and I hoped I didn’t look too disrespectful.

  Dr. Roop walked me over, but none of my friends were permitted to come along. The whole way there, he kept describing what he and Ms. Price thought was best. I made it clear I didn’t trust her, but he insisted I was wrong, and that whatever I thought of her, I had to believe she would not act against the interests of her own world. I couldn’t tell him what I knew, not without exposing what Tamret had been up to, so I would have to hope that if Ms. Price tried to stab me in the back, Dr. Roop would be able to step in before it was too late. I had taken some precautions of my own, and I hoped he would understand when he found out I’d been plotting behind his back. Ms. Price was far more devious than Dr. Roop, and I thought the situation required something a little stronger than the herbivore touch.

  We entered what looked like a standard courtroom or government chamber. The far wall was a huge viewing screen on which was projected the gas-giant insignia of the Confederation. In front of that stood a central bench, large enough to seat perhaps twenty beings, though far fewer, as I understood it, would be present. In front of that was a series of tables where interested parties could sit, and then a large area for the public, large enough to hold perhaps a few hundred beings, though the judicial council intended that no one would observe the proceedings.

  Ms. Price was already present, sitting at our designated table, looking crisp and polished in her perfectly pressed gray suit, her severely bunned red hair, and her freshly applied redder nail polish. She sat next to me and smiled her bright red lips. “You are going to be fine,” she said. She even sounded like she meant it, but I couldn’t find it in me to trust her. Maybe she wanted to protect me. Maybe the Confederation and the Earth were done trying to sell me out. I hoped so, but I wasn’t counting on it.

 
Chief Justice Junup, he of the cape and goat-turtlish appearance, entered the room, followed by the rest of the council: a quadruped with a featureless and triangular face; a being who looked like a fat and clownish Darth Maul; an oozing ten-legged octopus or, I guess, decapus; and six more beings of various shapes, sizes, and colors. I hoped they were as just as they were diverse.

  There was also a being of a species I had not seen before. He was almost seven feet tall, a broad and imposing-looking beast of a creature with thick skin the color of a green olive. His head was spectacularly long, rectangular, and big-jawed, with a pronounced underbite. He wore an almost skin-tight military uniform, with a narrow blade, like a fencing weapon, at his side, and he gave the general impression of a being made for war. Actually, he looked like a space orc—any Warhammer 40K fans in the house?—crossed with Frankenstein’s monster. The effect was almost funny, except that he regarded me with yellow eyes filled with unmistakable hatred. I was not laughing.

  There was something else about the creature that looked familiar, something I couldn’t put my finger on. The one thing I was sure of was that it had to be a Phand. This was the being who wanted me dead. He didn’t simply dislike me or find me a pain or wish me not as much success as he might wish other people. He wanted me to die. I’d never seen anyone who I knew, with absolutely certainty, wanted me, Zeke Reynolds, as a particular individual, to be no longer alive. I don’t recommend the experience.

  I felt despair wash over me, and it was not because this alien hated me, or because Ms. Price or Junup or anyone else wished me ill. It was because it seemed to me that I was playing a rigged game.

  There’s a scene in the original Star Wars movie when Han Solo is ferrying Luke and Obi-Wan to the doomed world of Alderon, and to pass the time, R2D2 and Chewbacca play a kind of futuristic hologram chess game. When R2D2 captures a piece and Chewie lets out an indignant roar, C3PO says there’s no point in complaining; it was a fair move. Score one for justice, right? Except then Han warns them that Wookiees are known to pull people’s arms out of their sockets when they lose. “I suggest a new strategy, R2,” C3PO says in a stage whisper. “Let the Wookiee win.” Score one for brute force.

  It’s a moment played for laughs, and I thought it was hilarious when I was little, but thinking about it later, I found myself considering what the movie never shows: R2D2 and Chewbacca playing through a pointless game in which the outcome is already determined, and the only goal is to reach the cheerless end. There can be nothing compelling in the match for R2D2, nothing satisfying for Chewbacca. All that’s left is the pantomime of an honest contest between two contestants who feel somehow obligated to finish what they’ve started.

  That was exactly what this hearing felt like. It was playacting, the pretense of justice, with the outcome already written. I hoped I was wrong, that things would be fair, but I wasn’t willing to sit there and take it if my enemies truly meant to stack the deck against me. Better to win the game now, I decided, and worry about keeping my arms in my sockets later.

  • • •

  “I believe we are ready to proceed,” Junup said in his deep voice. He, the Phand, and the rest of the council had taken their seats at the elevated bench in the front of the room. “Mr. Reynolds, you are not a citizen of this Confederation, and so we realize you likely will not understand all the details of our legal system. Therefore, you may inquire if the proceedings are not clear to you. To begin with, you should know that biofunctions are being monitored against their stable base. Your data bracelet will inform us if you appear to be lying. Are you ready to begin?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Unable to confirm veracity of statement” came a calm, gender-neutral voice.

  “Perhaps,” the chief justice said, “it would be better to inquire if you wish to ask any questions as this point.”

  “No, sir.” And because I am my own worst enemy, I added, “I have every faith in these proceedings.”

  “Unable to confirm veracity of statement.”

  Honestly, I just wanted to say the polite thing, but now Junup was looking at me like he couldn’t hand me over to the Phands soon enough. Ms. Price glowered at me, as if to tell me it was probably not a good idea to embarrass the chief justice. I had already figured that out by myself. I’m sure they were both taking some comfort in the fact that there were no data collectors in the room.

  That was when the data collectors entered the room, which, and not by coincidence, is probably when Chief Justice Junup decided he hated my guts.

  • • •

  After my conversation with Tamret, I’d understood that I couldn’t just hope the hearing was fair; I had to make sure it was. I’d contacted Hluh and suggested she come to report on the proceedings and keep things honest. I’d asked her to bring a small number of her professional friends with her. When she’d told me she did not have any friends, professional or otherwise, I suggested she bring some colleagues. She seemed to think this was a workable alternative.

  There were about twenty of them, some of species I’d seen before, some totally unfamiliar. Some wore the colors or insignias or logos or holographic tattoos of their various news outputs. Hluh wore a bright orange jumpsuit. All of them had activated their data bracelets, and recording devices hovered over them, taking in everything.

  Junup bounded out of his chair. You wouldn’t think a goat-turtle could move that fast. “What is this? This hearing is closed to the public.”

  “No, it’s not,” Hluh said in her clipped voice. And having exhausted that topic, she took a seat in the front row. Her recording device was already rolling, but she now called up her keyboard and began to type away.

  “You can either leave of your own volition, or I can call the peace officers,” Junup told them. “All judicial councils have the right to close proceedings at their discretion. It’s clearly stated in the Guidelines of Judicial Ethics.”

  “You are mistaken,” said one of the data collectors. He was a giraffe guy, like Dr. Roop, and he was also a snappy dresser. Maybe it was a species thing. “The guidelines clearly state you can close a hearing when a citizen is charged with a crime deemed to present a threat to the security of the Confederation. Mr. Reynolds is not a citizen, and so you have no legal right to bar us. As I’m sure you know, you can close a proceeding of this sort, but only if you have a sufficient number of citizens of good reputation present to verify a fair and open procedure. I see no witnesses at all, so you have no choice but to let us stay.”

  Junup worked his jaw in fury as he realized that if he had only loaded the empty seats with a few dozen of his cronies, he would have avoided this problem altogether.

  “If you wish to limit the number and identity of witnesses,” the giraffey data collector continued, “their names must be made available to the public for review. Unless you choose to postpone this proceeding by several weeks, you must permit us to stay.”

  “I have no interest in your bureaucratic niceties,” the Phand said, his voice low and terrifyingly calm. “I have traveled far in search of justice. I will not be delayed by weeks.”

  Junup’s hand was forced, just as I had intended. I had hoped that the Phandic representative would be just as happy to both embarrass the Confederation and get what he wanted. As it turned out, I was right. Junup told the data collectors to remain, but warned them not to disrupt the proceedings.

  Once they had taken their seats, the Phandic representative began to make a humming noise, and he locked his eyes upon me once more. After a moment of humming and glowering, he stood and came out from behind the bench to face the board. Then he turned in my direction and studied me as though trying to take in every detail, to memorize my features, but I did not look away. I wished I had, because after he had glowered at me for a good minute, the Phand began to wiggle his jaw, moving it back and forth, up and down. Then he dropped it almost six inches, his mouth spreading open, big and b
lack and wide, like one of those Scream Halloween masks. While his eyes bore down on me with the full fury of his malice, he began to vomit forth at least a gallon of a brown and chunky liquid, which pooled on the floor and, quite literally, steamed. He then reconnected his jaw and walked regally to the other side of the bench and resumed his seat.

  Dr. Roop leaned toward me. “Allow me to explain,” he whispered. “In his culture, disgorging is a sign of contempt.”

  “Yeah. Thanks for helping me interpret that,” I said. “Is anyone going to clean up the puke?”

  “Cleaning it would be rude,” Dr. Roop said. “So watch your step when you testify.”

  “This council welcomes Vondik Ghandilud Vusio-om of the Phandic Empire,” said Chief Justice Junup. “Though our peoples often do not agree, let this council be a place of peaceful discussion.”

  “It is easy to speak of peace,” said Vusio-om, in a deep and menacing voice. “It is more challenging to pursue it. Our government is outraged that you harbor a war criminal among your kind, and yet you refuse to allow him to be brought to justice.”

  “That he is a war criminal is yet to be determined,” Junup said. “It is the purpose of this meeting to uncover the truth. In accordance with our laws, you are given a voice in making that determination. Would you like to begin, sir?”

  “I begin by outlining the events. On the seventh day of the Month of Holy Blindness, the seventy-second year of the Empress Donatruitu-ia, our ship was engaged in legal operations when the Confederation vessel fired upon it, using excessive and deadly force. It was destroyed, with all hands, including my own brother, before evacuations could be attempted.”

  “The legal operations you speak of were the destruction of a Confederation shuttle containing nonaligned citizens and firing upon the Dependable, sir,” said the triangular-headed quadruped.