Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

Court was on a portable platform in the center of the Judicial Arena. As soon as the execution was confirmed, it would be wheeled out of the way.

  When Jacques stepped from the tunnel and strode toward the platform, an abrupt hush choked off the babbling and laughter in the stands. Most of the hundred thousand capacity crowd was already seated. Behind Jacques, the squire straightened his narrow shoulders with pride. This was the highpoint in a life spent among the tapes, circuits and feedback problems of computer research.

  Jacques mounted the platform, bowed to the crowd and took his seat in the black-draped, carved oak chair to the left of the Bailiff. His squire stood proudly behind him. The Bailiff murmured:

  "An imposing entrance for one who had only five minutes to dress! Your fair victim isn't here yet."

  Jacques stonily ignored him.

  An explosive cry from the stands brought the Bailiff to his feet.

  "Here she comes!" he announced with a grin of anticipation. "Take a good look, Sir Jacques--it's worth while!"

  Though it was the hardest thing he had ever done, Jacques refrained from looking until the woman and her two jailers had nearly reached the platform steps.

  And then he looked straight at her, and the shock of it was a physical blow. This was Ann, all right. Even after all the years there was no doubt about it. She was as tall as he remembered her, and there was the same softness and warmth in the curve of her sun-brown shoulders. He suddenly felt the old ache for her.

  She held a velvet robe around her shoulders, but she held it loosely, disdainfully. Under it, she was already dressed in the translucent death gown. Her thick, blond hair, much longer than the fashion of the day, fell nearly to her shoulders. On her feet were the silver sandals she would later remove, along with the velvet robe, just before stepping up on the pedestal in the execution circle.

  The two jailers, each in skull cap and long black sleeveless robe, led her to the prisoner's bench below the dais where the judges would sit. The sight of her was a torment to Jacques, the ripping open of an old scar. He knew that in a moment their eyes would meet, but there was not enough strength in the corded muscles of his neck to turn his face away.

  Time had been kind to her, Jacques thought in one corner of his numbed brain. There were signs of its passing, around her mouth and her eyes, but it had given her what youth could not. There was a knowing in the curve of her lips, and he wondered what her eyes would tell him now.

  But she glanced first, with some amusement, at the two jailers, who held their crooked staffs at the alert position. Next, her eyes contemptuously swept the semi-circle of empty judicial chairs. They passed by the Bailiff so quickly that he looked cheated, and then they stopped full on Jacques.

  He read in their calm appraisal the knowledge that she had expected him to be here, and that she was not surprised at what the years had done to him. Perhaps she had seen his pictures in the faxpapers, or even watched some of his executions. But he wanted to know more than this, and he tried to look deeper into the light and shadows of her eyes.

  It was still there, he discovered, feeling a selfish sense of pleasure that she had not found what he hadn't been able to give her. The endless seeking, the search for something never put into words, the want unfulfilled--all this was still there.

  He knew that she was reading him in the same way, but he could not tell what she found. Finally, it was she who looked away first, not in retreat, rather to appraise him thoughtfully. He felt her eyes on the knotted muscles of his cheeks, on his arms, on the whitened knuckles of his scarred hands, on his boots, now grey with dust from the walk across the arena. When her eyes came back to his, her unpainted lips parted in a faint smile.

  She knows, thought Jacques. She knows I don't want to kill her! And then the torment in him became unbearable. What irony that out of all the years of their lives they should come back together at this moment. An impulse tugged at him to snatch his pistols from the squire's silver box and try to take her from the arena, daring any to stop them.

  Then he realized that the Bailiff was standing again, that the hundred thousand spectators were surging to their feet. Trumpet fanfare blasted from the main tunnel, signalling the arrival of the judges. Instinct brought Jacques to his feet. Ann remained seated, and rose only after the jailers nudged her with their curved staffs.

  "Oyez, oyez, oyez!" cried the Bailiff into a microphone concealed in a carved boar's head."'Tis now two of the clock at aftir noone, and yon heralds bearing trumpets of devise give in knowledge unto all gentilmen, ladyes and gentilwoomen the cooming of this high and most honourable court! Remain at standing until said court is seated!"

  The Chief Justice, regally stern, led the procession of judges, clerks and pages across the arena. They mounted the platform, stepping in cadence. When the robed and bewigged judges were all seated, the Bailiff raised his staff and the crowd settled down with a buzz of anticipation. High atop one of the north towers, hidden cameras picked up the scene and vidcast it around the earth, and to the satellites and lonely planet outposts.

  One of the clerks picked up five rolls of parchment, untied the scarlet ribbon on each, and passed them around to the judges. The Chief Justice went through the pretext of scanning his, then nodded to the Bailiff to present the prisoner.

  With a sly wink at Jacques, the Bailiff took Ann firmly by the arm and guided her three steps forward. The Chief Justice coughed the nervousness from his throat, and asked:

  "Is this the Lady Ann of Coberly?"

  Before the Bailiff could make the correct response, Ann gave her own impatient answer.

  "I am Badge No. 7462883, Transistor Division, Coberly precision Products, Ltd."

  The Chief Justice frowned at this breach of court etiquette.

  "Have ye not been properly instructed?"

  Ann shrugged, and the loose robe slipped lower on her shoulders.

  "I suppose so, but is it necessary to waste all this time? You've got the record in front of you!"

  The judges exchanged significant glances, and a delicious shudder swept through the stands. Jacques felt time running out on him. At best the chances of a reprieve for any prisoner were small, and in face of Ann's attitude....

  The Chief Justice's expression congealed into judicial impassiveness.

  "Ye are charged with taking the life of a man," he began solemnly.

  "That's not true!" Ann interrupted.

  Her unexpected words brought a startled gasp from the spectators. The judges leaned forward alertly.

  "According to the evidence ..." the Chief Justice began again.

  "He wasn't a man!" Ann cried scornfully. Her glance flickered across at Jacques. "There are no more men."

  Ponderously, like a slow moving river that would not be diverted from its course, the Chief Justice returned to the facts of the case:

  "Ye speak in riddles, Lady Ann! The evidence makes it full clear that the victim was a man...."

  "Evidence!" Ann gestured toward the breathless stands. "There is your evidence! Ask those women what they are doing here! Ask them what their great, great grandmothers were doing at the ancient wrestling matches!! Ask them if they have ever known a real man--or ask your own wives!"

  The Chief Justice's impassiveness was shattered. His cheeks puffed out indignantly. A strange, tense silence gripped the women in the stands; the men drew back their padded shoulders, and shouted in reproof:

  "Shame! For shame, Lady Ann!"

  "Why don't you ask them?" Ann persisted.

  Yes, ask them, Jacques thought, with a sudden, overpowering anger of his own. Ask them! Maybe their answers would tell why he, too, of all men, should have failed so many of them.

  "Hold thy insolent tongue, woman!" roared the Chief Justice. "There remains before this Court only one issue--Did ye or did ye not strike a man to his death in the full view of scores of gentilmen and gentilwoomen of Coberly?"

  Ann shook her long hair in defiance.

  "It wasn't a man I struck with that casing
, and all the FBIT's heraldic mockery can't make him a man! I struck a bloodless slide-rule, a cold filing cabinet full of equations, a set of dull geometric patterns, an automaton that tried to treat a woman like a punched holrith card! He was no more a man than this...." She brought her elbow up so sharply that the paunchy Bailiff was toppled off balance and nearly fell. He looked frightened.

  "Ye admit to the killing, then?" demanded the Chief Justice.

  "I'm proud of it!"

  "And ye claim no special circumstances?"

  "How would you understand them?"

  The crowd exploded into a frantic, unintelligible babble, and the Chief Justice slammed down his gavel. He turned to his fellow judges. Two were staring at the prisoner with an indignation that exceeded his own. The other two, both very old men, sat with heads bowed and hands fumbling with their robes.

  Jacques felt his pulse leap with a hope that had seemed impossible. Could it be that after all...? Ann turned toward him, faltering for the first time, and they stared into each other's eyes.

  At a curt nod from the Chief Justice, the Bailiff, still trembling, began to poll the Court.

  The first two judges angrily raised their hands to signify that they were voting to uphold the death sentence of the lower court. The third judge hesitated, then held out both hands, palms down.

  This brought an outburst of applause from the stands. The first palms-down vote always evoked such a demonstration, for a one-sided execution was a comparatively dull affair.

  But the applause was choked off as the fourth judge slowly extended both hands, palms down. A scattering of boos and catcalls started. An ugly undercurrent rippled close to the surface. Was this woman going to win a reversal, in spite of all her insolence? If she did, the whole holiday would be spoiled, since there were no other executions on the docket. Better to have stayed home and watched films of old executions on the FBIT's nightly vidcast!

  Jacques looked away from Ann to watch the Chief Justice. The lines in Jacques' face were like gouges in a metal casting.

  Acutely aware of his role, the Chief Justice stood up and drew his robe about him with great dignity, taking care to face toward the TV cameras on the north tower.

  And as the Bailiff called for his deciding vote, the Chief Justice solemnly raised his right hand.

  Three to two for death! A hundred thousand spectators leaped to their feet, hysterically waving their arms. Three shots for the Lord High Executioner! Two for Lady Ann! What a day this was going to be after all! Here was a truly great joute à l'outrance! Ann swayed a little, then smiled. Jacques closed his eyes.

  Ritual and habit took over where Jacques' will could not function. His squire stepped forward, opened the silver box and offered the Pistolets du Mort to the Bailiff. The weapons sparkled in the sunlight. They were a modern adaptation of an ancient design, and had become official death weapons after earlier experiments had convinced the FBIT that few 22nd century men were strong enough to handle the swords and lances of chivalry. The Bailiff loaded one gun with two shells, the other with three. Then he replaced both in the silver box, closed the lid and put the box on the bench in front of the Chief Justice.

  Already the judicial platform was wheeled to one side of the arena; the twin pedestals were being rolled to position in the execution circle. They were thirty inches high, and were positioned precisely sixty feet apart, each on a line with the open ends of the stands so that wild shots would not strike a spectator.

  Next came the Ceremony of Confrontation, intended to symbolize that the Lord High Executioner was acting only under the compulsion of duty, without malice or any base motive.

  Moving mechanically, Jacques stepped toward Ann. The jailers crossed their staffs two paces in front of her. It was the closest Jacques would be permitted to approach until the Ceremony of the Spirit, when he would kneel beside her shattered body in the dust of the arena. He also was supposed to kneel now, and silently speak a prayer for both their souls. He knelt, but could not bow his head. Ann looked down at him, and the faint, unfathomable smile returned to her lips.

  "It's all right," she said softly. "You don't have to speak to me with words."

  The natural, warm scent of her body came through the fragrance of the oils with which she had been anointed in her death cell. It was a remembered scent that once again drove Jacques to the brink of madness.

  Her voice, husky and steadying, came down to him:

  "For two like us there is no other way, Jacques. Don't fail me again."

  He rose stiffly, backing away, staring into the mystery of the lights and shadows in her wide eyes, groping for the meaning of her words.

  A friar moved up to take his place, and the jailers dropped their staffs. But Ann dismissed the friar with a quick shake of her head.

  The Code now called for Jacques to leave the platform and walk with measured steps around the arena before mounting his pedestal in the execution circle. A signal from the trumpets started him on his way before he was aware of what he was doing. The habits of a thousand executions demanded obedience.

  Women in the front rows leaned far over the railing. Some reached their hands down to him, offering flowers and kerchiefs, hoarsely begging him to wear their favors during the execution. Others sat still, transfixed, lips parted and moist. The men beside them shrank back in their seats, looking at him as a sparrow would look at a coiled snake. Vendors of ribbands and souvenirs, cakes and drink, stood silent as he passed before them. The flutes, citterns and cymbals, the melodic voices of the minstrels, picked up the brooding death chanson:

  "Farewell my friends, the tyde abideth no man, I am departed from hence, and so shall ye; But in this passage the best songe that I can Is requiem eternam...."

  The walk around the arena was an eternity, and then it was over and done with, and he had mounted his pedestal.

  * * * * *

  A low crescendo, like the roll of faraway surf, swept across the stands. Ann was at the edge of the platform. She stepped out of her slippers, unfastened the velvet robe, handed it to one of the jailers. The crescendo grew, matching the surge of blood in Jacques' temples. A breeze swept the translucent death gown tight against her bare body, and she walked steadily down the steps, across the arena. Her feet stirred little puffs of grey dust that twisted and whirled away. The friar followed a few paces behind. At the pedestal, he offered her his hand. She refused it, stepped up without assistance. Bowing his head, the friar walked back to the judge's platform.

  Jacques' squire and a page boy appeared almost immediately. They walked part way across the arena together. Each bore one of the pistols on a black satin pillow. At the edge of the execution circle, their paths forked toward each of the pedestals. The trembling page offered Ann her pistol first.

  "Do ye remember your instructions?" he asked in a quavering voice that was picked up for the vidcast by the microphone hung under his frock.

  "Yes, thank you."

  Ann held the pistol loosely at her side, and looked toward Jacques, across the abyss of sixty feet.

  With frozen fingers, Jacques accepted the other pistol from his squire, and knew that he was out beyond the point of no returning.

  But he did not, could not, know what he would do once the signal for the execution was given. "Do not fail me again," Ann had pleaded. But what had she meant? Even at this final moment her smile was as enigmatic as ever.

  The page and the squire retreated to their stations at the side of the arena, this time moving hastily.

  The Bailiff raised his black staff and pennant, held it poised until the Chief Justice nodded, then lowered it with a flourish. A trumpet sounded one high, clear note.

  The signal had been given.

  Jacques remained motionless, waiting for a sign from Ann. But she, too, waited, her chin slightly lifted. What was she waiting for? What did she expect from him?

  In the stands, the breathing of a hundred thousand people was a rasping sound.

  And then Ann moved, so quickly
that the surprise was complete. Her pistol flashed up, fired while still in its arc. The bullet blasted the air beside Jacques' ear, so close that for a fraction of a second he thought he had been hit.

  Ann's voice drifted across to him, across the stunned silence, and it contained both a taunt and a plea:

  "I won't miss next time, Jacques!"

  And he knew she would not. He had seen too many guns fired not to recognize technique. If she had learned to shoot that well, there was no doubt she could have hit him the first time.

  Jacques still couldn't fathom her motive, but there was no longer any chance to consider it. His conscious mind wanted to let her fire again, to put an end to this terrible dream. But the instinct of self-preservation was too strong; the lessons at the FBIT academy had been taught too well. Numbness went out of him, and he watched her eyes for the telltale flicker that would give a split-second warning of her next move.

  The warning came, and he was ahead of it. His shot struck Ann high on the right shoulder. Her second and last bullet ploughed into the dust midway between them. She twisted around from the force of the impact, and half slipped, half fell from the pedestal. But she kept herself erect, bracing against the pedestal with her left hand. A red blotch was spreading from her shoulder to her breast and down her side. There was shock and pain in her eyes, but the half-smile was still on her lips.

  "Une!" shouted the crowd, counting his first shot.

  Jacques no longer needed a will of his own. The momentum of a thousand deaths swept him along, overpowering everything else.

  "Deux!" screamed the hundred thousand voices. "Deux! Deux!"

  His second shot struck Ann well below the left shoulder, knocking her away from the support of the pedestal, sprawling her in the dust. Yet so indomitable was her will that she brought her hands together and raised herself to her knees. Her entire upper body was covered with dust and spreading fingers of crimson.

  "Trois!" shrieked the maddened crowd. "Trois! Trois!"

  Women tore away pieces of their clothing and waved them with savage abandon.

  "Trois! Trois! Trois!"

  The third shot could barely be heard. Ann was lifted from her knees and hurled backwards. She rolled over twice, then lay face downward, her fingers digging in the hard earth.