Fierce September

by Fleur Beale

  ‘More serious than breaking quarantine?’ the judge asked, sounding as if there were no more serious offence.

  I was stunned. What charge? What could I possibly have done now? I glanced at Mother, at my stratum. They were staring at each other, eyebrows raised, faces worried. Camnoon, as always, looked serene. I took comfort from that.

  The judge sighed. ‘Very well, Mr Hainsworth. But the only reason I allow this is because of the unusual interest in this case.’ She let her gaze rest for several seconds on a camerawoman. ‘Continue.’

  Mr Hainsworth handed a sheet of paper to the old man to read out. He stood up. ‘Juno of Taris, you are accused of drugging and kidnapping Willem Brasted. How do you plead?’

  I gaped at him, then at the lawyer. ‘Are you crazy?’

  The judge snapped, ‘Answer guilty or not guilty.’

  ‘Not guilty.’ But I couldn’t leave it there. ‘Why would you make up such a story? How on earth did you dream up such a … such an idiotic idea?’

  ‘Leaving the emotive language aside,’ the judge said, ‘I too would be interested to hear your evidence, Mr Hainsworth.’

  My stratum sat forward in their seats, Mother and Sina moved closer together for comfort. Mother whispered to Hera, who looked rebellious but kept quiet.

  The lawyer wheeled around, stretching his arm out to point at me. ‘This girl has done worse than break out of quarantine. This girl, Your Honour …’ but he looked up at the audience, not at the judge. I felt sick as their avid hate broke over me. ‘This girl whom we took in, whom we have nurtured at considerable cost to –’

  ‘Cut the histrionics, Mr Hainsworth,’ said the judge crisply. ‘I’m in charge of this case. You have no jury to impress. If you haven’t anything relevant to say, please leave. And you will be disciplined later.’

  He lowered his arm to grasp the edge of his gown, lowering his voice as well. ‘Your Honour, I have evidence that Juno of Taris, in collusion with her sister Hera, drugged and kidnapped Willem Brasted who, as we all know, was the one who brought these –’

  Again the judge cut him short. ‘Stick to the charge, sir. I do not want to warn you a third time. Do I make myself clear?’

  He bowed. ‘My apologies, Your Honour. May I proceed?’

  She sighed. ‘Please do.’

  I felt as if this had nothing to do with me, that all I could do was watch.

  Marba’s voice crashed into my mind. Concentrate, Juno. He travelled to Auckland.

  To Auckland? His name must have been on the lists of train passengers. Marba and the rest of my stratum had their gaze focused on me, not on the lawyer.

  I rubbed my face, and managed to bring myself fully present just in time to hear Mr Hainsworth say, ‘I call Hera of Taris.’

  ‘Leave my sister out of this!’ I gripped the edge of the dock. He mustn’t bring her into it, he couldn’t. She was too little, and it was dangerous.

  The judge cautioned me. ‘I allow for your lack of understanding of the court system, young lady, but do not try me too far.’

  The lawyer couldn’t quite hide a smirk. ‘I call Hera of Taris.’ He turned to the judge. ‘She’s sitting over there.’ He pointed at her.

  ‘Come forward,’ the judge ordered.

  Mother stood up, carrying Hera, and came to join me in the dock. I was glad to feel her arm against mine, although she too was shaking.

  ‘Put the child down, madam,’ the lawyer said, a sneer tingeing his words.

  ‘No!’ Hera yelled and clung fast, her arms in a stranglehold around Mother’s neck.

  The judge banged her gavel. ‘This is becoming a circus. Leave the child where she is. Clerk of the court, we will proceed if you please.’

  The old man stood up again. ‘Madam, you are the woman known as Hera of Taris?’

  Mother spoke clearly. ‘No. I am Sheen of Taris. This is Hera.’ She patted Hera’s back. ‘Hera and Juno are my daughters.’

  ‘You lying trollop!’ bellowed the lawyer. ‘Your Honour –’

  But she cut him off with a sharp crack of the gavel. ‘Control yourself, sir.’ She looked at the three of us in the dock. ‘Sheen, your injuries suggest you have been somehow implicated in the abduction your daughters stand accused of. Please explain.’ She glared at the lawyer, daring him to speak. He subsided.

  Mother told of waking in the night to discover Hera was missing. ‘And I don’t remember anything more.’ She touched her head and face. The skin around her eyes was still dark from the beating. ‘I was struck on the head, they tell me.’

  The judge turned to the lawyer. ‘Your witness, Mr Hainsworth.’

  But he didn’t have any questions for her. He strode away from the judge, shoulders hunched. When he turned around he glared at the three of us, and twice he opened his mouth to say something then thought better of it.

  Hera leaned over to kiss me. Mother whispered, ‘I love you, dear daughter.’ They returned to their seats.

  Concentrate. Marba again.

  The judge asked, ‘You wish to continue with the charge, Mr Hainsworth?’ I couldn’t get a sense of how she felt about me, but she sure wasn’t liking him too much. I felt heartened.

  He jumped up from his seat and strode across the room. ‘I certainly do, Your Honour.’ He swivelled on one foot, making his gown flare out, and looked up at the audience who might as well have been cheering him on, their support was so thick in the air.

  I gathered my wits and my courage, suddenly aware that this was the one chance we of Taris might ever have to prove our innocence. And this lawyer’s name was on the list of travellers Biddo had found. I didn’t remember reading it and it wasn’t in the section I’d had to familiarise myself with. But if Marba said he was on the list, then it was true and I would trust it. I gave my stratum a small nod.

  The lawyer had himself under control after his outburst. He must have worked around that glitch in his story. I waited, wary but ready.

  ‘Begin, if you please Mr Hainsworth. This case isn’t the only one I have to deal with today.’

  He began. ‘Juno of Taris, I put it to you that you and your mother carried out the drugging and kidnapping of Willem Brasted. I put it to you that when your … mother … was injured you were the one who took it upon yourself to arrange for Mr Brasted’s drugged body to be nailed up in a crate and transported to New Plymouth. I put it to you that you must have been very angry indeed when he was discovered and rescued before your fell purpose could be completed.’ He rocked on his toes, his hands grasping the edges of his gown. ‘Well? You have nothing to say, I see.’

  So unbelievable – where to start?

  DI Whitely.

  Of course.

  ‘Your Honour, we heard that Willem was in danger, that he’d gone to New Plymouth …’

  She interrupted me. ‘We? Your mother and you?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, my mother was injured by then. It was my learning stratum.’ I pointed. ‘They’re over there. They called me up in the night to say Mother and Hera were missing …’

  ‘Wait! For goodness’ sake, girl, tell your story coherently if you please. So you weren’t in the Centre?’

  The judge’s eyes sharpened as I told her about Vima. ‘Vima? The girl who discovered the virus?’

  ‘Yes. Vima discovered it was an artificial virus. We went to New Plymouth to find Willem and warn him about the danger, but then Mac – the guard on the train – told us the only way he could have gone there was by catching the train we were on, and Mac said he definitely wasn’t on it. So we got suspicious and Mac ended up searching the luggage compartment and finding Willem in the crate.’

  ‘Your witness, Mr Hainsworth.’

  He stood up, a sneer already in place, but I had a sense of him scrabbling around, looking for a foothold. He was dangerous. I glanced at Hera. She sat on Mother’s knee, and seemed to be almost vibrating with the effort of keeping quiet. Her entire being was focused on him.

  ‘Well, well. What an ingenious pack of l
ies you’ve cooked up between you.’

  The gavel banged above my head. ‘Facts, if you please, Mr Hainsworth.’

  I broke in. ‘May I answer, Your Honour?’

  She signalled her permission.

  I kept speaking to her. ‘The New Plymouth police did a lie-detector test. Can you contact them?’

  That shook him. ‘Let us deal with the matters before this court, Your Honour!’

  ‘It would appear to be a matter very much to do with what is now before this court, sir.’ She stared down at him. ‘Next time you bring a dramatic charge such as this, Mr Hainsworth, may I suggest you do some checking first?’

  ‘But I have a witness!’ he cried. ‘A witness who swore an affidavit that Hera of Taris and her sister Juno are dangerous. That Juno in particular has consistently put her people in danger. That she is a rebel for whom laws mean …’ he snatched up a pencil and snapped it ‘… this much.’

  A witness? I looked at Mother, Sina and my stratum. Their faces were blank with surprise. Then it dawned on me.

  ‘Is Roop your witness?’

  The judge looked up from writing a note. ‘Answer please, Mr Hainsworth.’

  He protested instead. ‘Your Honour, I cannot divulge my sources.’

  ‘Emergency regulations, Mr Hainsworth. Kindly answer.’

  ‘Yes, her name is Roop and I have seldom come across a more distressed woman.’ He did the dramatic finger-point at me. ‘Distress caused by this girl. By one of Roop’s own people.’

  ‘Can you explain why she would testify against you, Juno?’ the judge asked. Her voice was cold; she wasn’t yet inclined to look on me as anything but a breaker of quarantine.

  I thought for a moment. ‘I think she’s very frightened. She has a little girl and I broke the quarantine. It put her in danger. There is more, but it concerns our history. How I always found the strict rules of Taris hard to obey when there was no good reason for them.’ The judge looked at me quizzically. ‘The main one was why we had to have our heads shaved bare every week.’

  She almost smiled. ‘I think we can understand why a girl would find that rule irksome.’ Her own hair was dark and straight, cut short but with style. ‘But that doesn’t explain why she would accuse you of this crime.’

  ‘What did he say to her? That might explain it.’

  ‘It is a matter of confidentiality, Your Honour.’

  The judge was losing patience with him. ‘Need I keep reminding you that we are working under emergency regulations, sir?’

  ‘Oh, very well! I knew what the Taris mob had been up to, but I thought there might be one of them who was a decent human being, so I went looking for her.’ He sneered at me. ‘She was only too ready to spill the beans about this little madam here. Evil, she called her. Said she’d broken quarantine and that she was going after Willem.’

  The judge frowned. ‘There are several gaps in the story your witness told, but doubtless you have other evidence. We will proceed.’

  I closed my eyes, concentrating, hoping for a message from Marba. Nothing. Instead an idea floated in, a risky notion that would doom us forever if it was wrong.

  I opened my eyes. The lawyer looked ready to fire another question at me. I got in first. I would risk it. I would ask the question that would decide our fate.

  ‘I have another question for you, Mr Hainsworth …’

  ‘I’m not the one on trial, missy!’

  ‘Ask your question, Juno,’ the judge said. ‘I’ve sent for the lie-detector results. Mr Hainsworth, you can answer while we wait for them to arrive.’

  A wave of hate blasted from him. I was used to waves of hate – Hilto had seen to that. All the same, it shook me. I took a couple of deep breaths and gathered my courage.

  ‘Mr Hainsworth, why did you travel from Wellington to Auckland in the days immediately before we of Taris arrived in Wellington?’ I leaned forward over the edge of the dock, staring right into his furious face. ‘I put it to you,’ how useful those words were, ‘that you went to Auckland, where you were given samples of the virus that caused the pandemic, and that you used it to infect a person you knew to be travelling to Wellington two days before the Taris ship was due to arrive.’

  He was shaken, and I was shaking. What if …

  He jumped to his feet. ‘Your Honour, this is calumny. Just because this is a courtroom, should I have to listen to such lies, such wicked slurs on my character?’

  I felt sick.

  ‘The accusations are serious, I agree. A degree more serious than those you have brought against her. I suggest you answer them.’

  I breathed again, but wished I knew what the judge really thought, what her opinion was.

  He stretched out his arms, appealing to the audience even though he spoke to the judge. ‘I certainly did travel to Auckland in the time mentioned. There’s no secret about that.’ He shot me a killing look. ‘Although how this girl came to possess such private information is a question I will be asking her.’

  ‘Your purpose in going?’ the judge asked. ‘Please keep in mind, Mr Hainsworth, that you haven’t addressed the most serious accusation.’

  Again, he spread his arms. ‘Your Honour, what can I say? No, of course I didn’t do anything as wicked, as evil, as this girl has the utter nerve to suggest.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t even bring myself to repeat her accusations.’

  I pressed my hands together. He was good. But he must be used to acting, to putting across a story.

  The judge said in her impartial voice, ‘Your witness, Juno of Taris. Do you have further questions?’

  My mind skittered around.

  Lie-detector test.

  It was Marba.

  For a second I couldn’t think what he meant. Then, in the nick of time, it came to me. ‘Yes, Your Honour, I do have a further question.’ I paused, determined my voice wouldn’t shake for this question. ‘Mr Hainsworth, are you prepared to take a lie-detector test? To prove that you had nothing to do with spreading the virus? The deliberate spreading?’

  Hate campaign.

  Oh well, we were either already doomed or about to be proved innocent. Might as well ask that too.

  ‘And I would also ask: are you helping to make people hate us by putting things you know to be untrue about us on the internet?’

  The lawyer hurtled towards me. I cowered back, glad the dock was raised above floor level. A couple of cops sprang at him, wrestling him away from me. He seemed to collect himself, for he stood quite still for several seconds, breathing deeply.

  ‘I apologise. It’s all right, I won’t lose control again.’ The officers let him go but didn’t step away from him. He straightened his gown. ‘Never have I been so insulted. Never.’

  ‘It is a very serious accusation,’ the judge agreed. ‘If there is no substance for it, then Juno will face consequences that will be added to her sentence.’

  Just then a young woman came in and handed a paper to the old man. From what I could see it was a computer printout. He handed it to the judge who said to Mr Hainsworth, ‘Please sit while I consider this report from the New Plymouth police.’

  We waited. I held onto the ledge in front of me for support. I looked at my thirteen friends sitting there, acting as my lawyers.

  Thank you.

  Silvern was grinning at me, her eyes bright. She would do so much better than me up here.

  The judge put the papers down. ‘Mr Hainsworth, you will be interested to know that the lie-detector test shows that Juno has told the truth about her involvement in the abduction of Willem Brasted.’ She ignored the hiss from the audience and went on. ‘The test shows that she helped save him and that she had no idea who harmed him.’

  The lawyer raised his eyebrows and drawled, ‘With respect, Your Honour, I find I can’t place much credence in the test of a girl such as she is.’

  ‘The test was done on her and her three companions,’ the judge said. ‘All the results show that the young people rescued him, that they ar
e in no way implicated in his abduction.’ She raised her hand to halt his protest. ‘We have accepted the reliability of this testing process for more than twenty years, sir. There is no reason now to question it.’ She waited for a second but he didn’t reply. She became brisk. ‘You will be wanting to clear your good name.’ Did she put an ever so slight stress on good? ‘And so I ask you if you are willing to take a lie-detector test yourself? I’m sure I have no need to remind you that the accusations Juno of Taris is making are serious in the extreme.’

  I waited, heart thumping.

  ‘Well, Mr Hainsworth? Is there a problem?’

  He put both hands to his head and groaned. ‘Of course there’s a problem, Your Honour! How can I be calm enough to take the test when my character has been so horribly impugned?’

  ‘By taking the test to prove the nature of your character, sir.’ She was firm. ‘Kindly make up your mind, but might I also remind you of the saying that mud sticks. You would, I think, be wise to scotch these rumours once and for all.’

  I managed not to look at her, for I had the feeling she doubted him.

  Brighton Hainsworth groaned again, and this time I heard the terror in it. I had no pity for him.

  ‘Very well. I have no choice. I shall take this test, distraught as I am, and I can only pray that my emotional state won’t affect the results.’

  The judge sighed. ‘You know as well as I do that one’s emotional state has no effect on the test. But since your distress is real and evident, you may retire and calm yourself while I prepare the questions.’ She signalled to the police to escort him out of the room.

  He walked past me without acknowledging me. I felt no hate from him, just a roiling mass of anxiety.

  Welcome to the world you helped create, Mr Hainsworth.

  The judge put down her pen. ‘Juno, these charges are extremely serious. I must caution you that you will be in equally serious trouble if they are proved wrong.’

  I leaned my elbows on the ledge because my legs were struggling to support me. ‘I know they are serious, Your Honour.’ A rush of energy surged through me and I straightened up. ‘They are every bit as serious as the charges against us over the internet. Charges we know are utterly false. We haven’t been able to defend ourselves and so everybody believes that we’ve done the dreadful things said about us.’ I dropped my voice. ‘What they say on the net is that I’m supposed to have agreed to a plot to release the virus that killed my grandmother. To me that is more wicked than anything I have accused Mr Hainsworth of. I loved my grandmother. I loved her dearly and I miss her.’ I couldn’t keep going.