by Jim Rudnick
She laughed. “While it was a glorious pleasure,” she said, shaking a finger at him, “it is also not a big enough number for a combination number.”
He nodded and looked over at the far table where another bottle of wine stood, open and breathing but still twenty feet away.
He sighed, went over to retrieve same, and returned in a second or two. As he refreshed their glasses, he looked out the close side of the room’s window and saw the moon over Neen was rising on the horizon.
As the moon rose, it bathed the palace grounds between him and the horizon with an amber color that was so pretty, he snorted, and when Helena cocked her head at him, he held out his hand.
The two went to the window, perched a hip on the edge of the bookcase there, and looked out at the duchy around them.
They saw gardens, ponds, and a row of trees with that great double grain and red and white color from another planet. Those trees are from ... from ... oh, hell, I have no idea, he thought. There were hedges that grew in a maze off to one side, and while they rose up only about nine feet, they were so much fun, Ambassador Bedre had said on his guided tour of the palace, for the children of the duchy who came every spring for the big festival.
On the far right side, he could see the palace festival grounds where, years earlier, he had been the guest of honor after saving the duke’s life. Here he had seen the Bacu and their busking skills, the log rolling contests and their superior lumberjacks from Anulet, and the choirs from Alto; he had also had his first real meeting with the Master Adept. She’d warned him about his future and that it lay “in her hands.” No mention of who those hands belonged to, and he’d thought, as had Bram, that Helena might be the one. It had turned out to be the Baroness, but still, now in retrospect, Helena looked after his future. Sort of. He tossed off the rest of his glass in one big swig.
“About the prettiest I think I’ve ever seen,” he said and he meant it.
Helena squeezed his hand and smiled up at him.
“As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one other palace that is in the running ... perhaps one day we can compare,” she said, and they both nodded as the moon rose over the Duchy d’Avigdor.
#####
Professor Scholes knew what she’d just read was important. The weekly report from Reynolds, the xeno team leader on the wrecked alien ship on Ghayth, was very important.
“Might even say,” she said to herself, “that it might mean that one of the team, Ellen, could be the ticket into getting the wreck back up and fully powered. Or maybe not. Only testing would tell, and that would come later.”
But for now, she had to send off an encrypted Ansible to the Caliph. The Caliph. Her lover. One day to be the most important head of state on the RIM.
And while she’d never sit beside him, she was his mistress, and that alone was important enough to make her his mole. She was his eyes and ears on the Ghayth wreck, and this was another opportunity to help him gain information about the aliens.
Ellen had somehow been able to get her DNA into the wrecked ship’s database and had been recognized as being a crewmember. Ellen was now a crewmember who could simply touch a device or a console screen, and it would power up and accept her commands.
There had been some issues with testing, she remembered. Professor Beedles, the xeno team member in charge of artifacts, had worked all this out—at least at the start when Ellen had been playing with the ‘alien ladder’ as it was now called. The alien ladder was simple plates and perch bars, but when Ellen had first picked the plate up, it had given her a shock. She’d dropped the plate, but when she picked it up again, it suddenly had a display that she could see. Placing the perch bar over that plate had created an anti-grav situation. Upon seeing it, Beedles had said it would work for the aliens just like a ladder worked for humans—hence the name had stuck.
The testing had begun then, and so far, Ellen the xeno team customs and society professor, had been the guinea pig for just about everything on board the wreck. Cheryl remembered how Ellen would grumble about being dragged away from the study of icons on what they thought might have been the wall of a perch room or bedroom to walk thousands of feet down the wreck’s hulk, just to put her hand on a new plate recently found or uncovered. Mostly, nothing happened. But sometimes the plate chimed—not a human-sounding chime but more of a chirp-sounding chime—and then something else happened.
They had learned the chime didn’t mean that whatever was happening was within sight or even close them. Once in a while, they could see the changes that Ellen’s system-identified hand brought, but other times, they had no clue what happened.
Still, tomorrow, they were going to test Ellen on the bridge, Reynolds, the xeno team leader, had said, and that would be of interest, Cheryl thought, to the Caliph.
Applying human knowledge, the bridge was where everything that was anything on a ship originated, and the xeno team members believed this would hold true for the wreck. Since the bridge was where the ship itself was controlled, bringing in a pseudo-crewmember would be a good thing, she reasoned. “Hope so, at least as long as nothing goes horribly wrong,” she said to herself, and then she remembered at the post-dinner briefing, Major Stal had said there was an extra duty shift of marines inbound in case something occurred.
Eating in a tent and sleeping in quarters on a spaceship was all new to her, but Cheryl realized she was living and breathing changes—big changes—that were coming to the RIM Confederacy.
She breathed quietly to herself, counting off ten deep breaths. She sat at the console at her side desk with both feet propped up on her bunk. She had already turned the whole view-screen into a display of the night sky above Ghayth and she could see some stars at least. The changes to the planet and its weather, being worked on by the best climatologists that could be found in the Barony, were starting to take hold as their foray into ocean temperature began to work.
Strengthening tropical winds pushed warmer air from the huge oceans to the west onto the southern continent, and the warmer air carried much less precipitation than had been the case now for centuries. Drier conditions were already making small changes to the coastal mountain range. Here, well inland, and on the southern beaches of the southern continent, the changes were focused even more.
It hadn’t rained now in three days. Not that it might not tomorrow, Cheryl thought, but the climatologists were just getting used to working on a global scale, and that meant the changes were probably polarized at this point. She thought small changes were the way to go, but she didn’t know for sure; the science behind climate change was beyond her, and if not for the monthly briefing, she’d be in the dark.
Still, no rain every single day was a delightful change.
She looked over at the view-screen, decided the stars would have to wait, and turned back to her business at hand.
She opened the xeno team leader’s report on-screen and captured a print screen of the report. She opened a simple image viewer to view the captured report image and saved the picture of the report, still fully readable, as an image. She attached the image file to an email with the subject line of “hi” and then hit the ENCRYPT button on the console in her shipboard quarters. Moments later, her encrypted email was ready to send. She hit SEND and off it went to Neres University to her teaching assistant for the course on Ancient Roorian dialects. He was charged with the simple task to forward it to a disposable email address at Gallipedia, where an aide to the Caliph would retrieve it.
Convoluted, yes, but it would hide her tracks, and she knew that this had to be done.
No one—specifically, no one on the xeno team or in the Barony—knew she was mistress to the Caliph and as his mole, she was passing on information about the alien wreck on Ghayth.
#####
Bram sat in the visitors’ gallery of the courtroom, watching the ebb and flow of the people beyond the bar.
Called to the bar. He knew that meant something to some folks; however, to him, it meant you had
to be “someone” to go beyond the waist-high barrier separating the visitors’ gallery from the working part of the courtroom on the other side.
There, on the far right, was the jurors’ box—empty today. The prosecutors sat next at a short row of tables, separated by a gap of less than ten feet from the defense tables that also held the accused. The judges were going to be seated up on top of that dais at the center of the room with their backs against the Anulet red-and-white wood wall, the parquet tiles so small that the wall looked almost crimson.
All of the seats, including those in the gallery, were covered in a pure white fabric and made out of a solid-looking wood. Looks like oak, he thought. Wait, maybe black walnut. I really have no idea. But a courtroom should look like a place where justice is served, and this is such a place.
As usual, the person accused of a criminal act would be presented, and the prosecutor would be expected to prove the guilt of the accused. However, today would be different. Yes, someone was the accused, but as he pictured Gia Scott, he realized that the accused in this case was guilty. Everyone knew that. Everyone had seen her shoot three people. She had killed the Master Adept and Duke David d’Avigdor and wounded Tanner Scott.
Bram had been a member of the wedding party at Tanner’s wedding, and he had been as close as one could possibly be to the shooting. Even discounting his eyes and memory, there were vids from many of the news and vid stations that proved her guilt.
He sighed. In spite of all the evidence, there were “mitigating circumstances” that meant there might be a way for her crime to be modified and the penalty for same to be adjusted or reduced.
At least he hoped so.
When a man Bram thought was the bailiff entered the courtroom, all talking in the visitors’ gallery ceased. A quick look inside the man’s head proved him right, and the bailiff asked all to stand as the judge was coming in.
Shortly thereafter, a judge appeared in a crimson robe with a dark fur collar and took his seat. He was a man of indeterminate age, but past fifty for sure, with a balding head, and he wore old-fashioned glasses perched well down his nose. He looked over the top of the rim of his glasses and nodded at the court bailiff.
Moments later, from behind the dais on the other side, in paraded the defense first—a young man who must be Gia’s lawyer followed by a Provost guard holding Gia’s arm. As they settled in at the defense table, the prosecutor came in, looking like he was in a hurry, and quickly dropped a big pile of folders and two tablets onto his table. He looked over at a woman who sat below the judge’s dais, smiled, and made motions to her that Bram couldn’t see clearly.
A quick look inside the prosecutor’s brain showed him little, as the man was nudging around a song in his head, purposely keeping Bram and any other Issians out of the loop.
Whatever he had asked the clerk was relayed to the judge, who sat up straighter in his seat, Bram thought, and he looked around the visitors’ gallery. There were five news anchors up front already, and he saw a vid camera, which would be recording a feed for everyone’s usage later. Sitting beside him was a courtroom artist already drawing a picture of the setup here in the courtroom. Bram thought he’d made Gia’s hair a bit too dark, but that was okay with the big wavy style the artist had done.
The judge spoke up, his voice as empty of emotion as one could hope. “Let’s get started, shall we,” he said, as he looked down through his glasses at whatever lay in front of him.
The prosecutor rose, walked up to the lectern that stood between the defense’s table and his table, and smiled up at the judge. “Your Honor, we have scheduled today for a simple motions hearing—for various motions on the upcoming trial of the defendant, one Gia Scott, on the charges of double murder in the first degree.
“We would ask that these motions are all decided upon before a suitable court date to start the trial could be arranged.
“We also ask that the defendant be held in remand until that date can be—”
“Your Honor, please, I object. Instead of dealing with the introduction at hand, the prosecution is asking for a decision up front before we’ve even begun to argue for habeas corpus,” the defense lawyer almost shouted as he rose and leaned forward, his hands holding himself up on his table.
His name, Bram knew, was Jordan Alpert. He was a Barony citizen who had applied for and received quick approvals to practice law here on Neen, the capital planet of the Duchy d’Avigdor. He knew too that this little tip toward speed had been given by Helena, Tanner’s wife, who now as the Duchess d’Avigdor, a Royal, had simply asked that this be done by the Duchy Law Society. Unusual, yes. Unprecedented, no. It had been done often on many RIM Confederacy worlds, as lawyers sometimes followed their clients from realm to realm. Still, the young man was new to the Duchy d’Avigdor, and it remained to be seen if he could work around his unknowns and change the current charges and sentence for Gia.
Hope he can, Bram thought, and I might be the only guy here in this court who would want that.
The judge nodded at the defense. “Sustained, and Mr. Alpert, no need to jump with force, young man,” he said dryly.
The defense lawyer sat.
The prosecutor nodded. “Sorry, Your Honor, back to the motions. The prosecution has only three to offer up today. The first of which is that,” he said as he nodded to a second lawyer on the prosecution’s team who stood and trotted over to the defense table and then to the court clerk to deliver printed documents.
The prosecutor continued. “We would like a ruling, please, on the level of interference that this case will enjoy—we ask that as the defendant is a blood relative of the new duke that no Royals be allowed to attend or testify at the trial. We do not need them to do that—there are valid verified videos that show all the evidence we will need,” he said.
Alpert was up on his feet at once. “Your Honor, we object once again. While the use of these videos will be argued later, the fact that the prosecution wishes to limit the role that either the duke or his wife might play in this trial is beyond what he can ask for. We, the defense, might want to call one or both of them.
“There were dozens of other Royals attending the wedding, and many of them were up front in the front row. Surely, the prosecution would have no issue with any of them being called by us as well.
“But the duke and his wife, being closest to the scene, would be perhaps of great value to us in the defense of this defendant. Perhaps they saw something that we all missed—that the unverified videos missed too. Surely, Your Honor, you can not countenance that action ...” he said, once again leaning forward on his table.
Alpert shook his head. “More than that, Your Honor, we also object to his use of the term ‘interference’ in relation to this case and its intent to pre-poison Your Honor’s mind to the value of a Royal and their testimony. Surely, Your Honor, justice is blind ...” he said, and that got a slight grin on the judge’s face that was so fleeting, Bram didn’t know if he’d seen it—or just felt it with his mind.
“Sustained. Mister Prosecutor, we will not limit any Royal in any way in this case. You or the defense may call them as witnesses should you desire to do that. Clerk, so ordered, please record that motion. Next, if you please ...” he said dryly.
The prosecutor nodded to his second, and again documents were trotted around to the defense’s table and the clerk’s table.
The prosecutor began speaking while Alpert looked over the documents. “We also make the motion that due to the fact that the defendant is related to the duke—who at the time was Lord Scott of the Barony—that any and all medical records from the Barony Hospital Ship be marked as inadmissible in our courts. The bias that such records might show would be highly biased and prejudicial in that they may try to show the defendant as non compos mentis to validate those records as exculpatory evidence.”
The judge held up his hand and stopped the defense attorney who was already leaping to his feet. “Let me have this one, young man,” he said as he smiled
down at the prosecutor.
“Not a chance, Mister Prosecutor, as medical records are always admissible. They come from professionals who went to school for longer than you or I did—so that motion, too, Clerk, is to be recorded as denied. Next, please ...” he said as he motioned for Alpert to resume his seat.
“Lastly, then, Your Honor, we ask that the courtroom be closed to any and all Issians, as their attendance would be a detriment to the prosecution, in that it would allow the Issians to be aware of, and therefore able to take advantage of, prosecution strategy before it even occurs, Your Honor,” he said as he half-turned toward Bram.
Bram was dressed in his Duchy d’Avigdor whites, and the navy uniform included, of course, his Adept officer badging of the ringed planet. Bram shifted slightly in his seat. Not a chance, he thought, and he smiled up at the judge, who was now looking at him.
Neither the defense lawyer nor the judge said anything for a moment, so Bram rose. As he did, the bailiff trundled over to stand in front of him, blocking his way to move past the bar.
Bram shook his head, moved to one side, got the attention of the judge, and said, “May I speak to that, Your Honor?”
The judge frowned and peered over the rim of his glasses at the Issian in front of him. “Are you related to the defendant?” he asked.
“No, Your Honor, in fact, I’ve never even met the defendant,” he said in all honesty.
He could feel her eyes staring at him, and he glanced away from the judge to look at her for a second and then looked back at the judge.
“Have you made a personal determination of the guilt or innocence of the defendant?” the judge asked.
“Not at all, Your Honor,” he replied.
The judge looked down at the defense and the prosecution and then posed his last question. “And were you friendly with the Master Adept who the defendant has been charged with murdering?”
“Yes, Your Honor. Like all Issians, I respected and in fact loved the Master. And I would ask that you allow us—those of us who wish to come to the trial—to be able to come and see justice done. Barring Issians is so unfair, so un-duchy-like that I would think that might change the relations between Eons and Neen, Your Honor. We seek what justice we can ...” he said.
