Of a Note in a Cosmic Song; Part Four

by Nōnen Títi

  Frimon was Daili’s age. Almost three kor older than Leni’s father had been then, but with the same pertinacious determination. He stuck to his principles no matter what the outcome, born to dispute the system if it did something wrong – like Skawag, like Jema.

  Benjamar had promised Daili to talk to Leni, but he had no idea how. She’d lost her father when she was Jitsi’s age. How could he possibly justify his still being alive to her? With a sigh he broke the silence. “I’m not so sure you will still appreciate me after what I need to tell you.”

  Frimon only raised his eyebrows.

  “A long time ago, on DJar, I was made judge after winning a major case with a lot of popular attention. I thought I’d done well representing justice. In reality, the outcome was inevitable and I had merely represented the laws of a system that may have been unjust: Geveler against the Society. The defence never stood a chance… Leni’s father didn’t.”

  Though nothing in Frimon’s position changed, something in the way he looked did; his face blushed red. He had obviously not known. “…Does Leni know?”

  “That it was me? No, not yet, but I will tell her. I only put it together myself not too long ago.” He didn’t want to mention Daili.

  “So what do you want? Make up for past mistakes?”

  “I want to make sure that in this case we’re talking a fair trial; no popular vote, but a jury. Real justice in accordance with the laws of Kun DJar, for as far as they exist, but without the prejudice of DJar.”

  “The laws? You mean those half-cast decisions made by majority vote? They are in no way supportive of our beliefs and neither are you.”

  “That is true, but I will be the judge. I will not have a vote in the outcome.”

  “Do you know how ridiculous that is? The judge is the one person who actually has any knowledge of the laws and experience with previous cases, yet the decision lies with a group of people who neither know what they’re doing nor give a damn. All you are is a mediator.”

  “I’ve come to that conclusion myself. All I can do is mediate in as fair as possible a way. You said in one of your speeches that the people are prejudice; that’s because they don’t get the information. Come to that trial and give it to them.”

  Frimon wasn’t that easy to convince. He replied that it would turn into a debate over abuse versus penance. “Do you even know what penance is? I don’t mean the word, but what it is to us. Did you ask? Did you know it with Sotyar?”

  Benjamar had to admit he only had a basic idea and he could not remember if he’d known any of it more than five kor ago. “But didn’t you assume that Sinti understood it? Did you explain it to her or anybody outside of the Society?” he asked.

  “As if anyone would listen.”

  “Well then come to that trial and I’ll make them listen.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll come, but don’t expect a miracle. You may have the gift of the word, but you need more than that to reach deaf people.”

  “So why did Sinti have to repent so long after that abortion? She was no member of the Society when she did it; why punish her now?” Benjamar asked, to make sure he wasn’t considered deaf as well.

  “Because,” Frimon said with a slight touch of sarcasm. “Because penance is not punishment, but relief from guilt, shame, or fear, which are the tools of morality and ultimately destructive. She talked about that abortion all the time; it bothered her. Penance was meant to take that bother away.”

  “But she clearly feels you punished her.”

  “Yes; she didn’t understand, and neither do you.”

  “In that case I expect you to explain it to both of us in that trial.”

  Benjamar left only a little satisfied. So much for a quiet time; now he had worked himself into the need to talk to even more people. The most direct path to getting the information he wanted was to walk in on a government meeting, even if it wasn’t much of a government, let alone a meeting. Frantag was pouring wine. “Something tells me this is not just a social visit,” he said.

  “You’re right. What is this trial all about, who has planned it, and how do you think you’re going to conduct it?”

  “Frimon is a troublemaker, Benjamar.”

  “I don’t care, Frantag. I thought you were a fair man. Fair trials don’t have the prosecutor and the judge drinking out of one pouch.”

  Benjamar caught a look from Roilan, but continued addressing Frantag. “Your responsibility is to the people. Officially, you are still the leader of this government. There is no need to let him push you out of the way before your time.”

  “Now wait a minute, I’m not pushing,” Roilan said. “The people voted on not allowing abuse, so there’s nothing wrong with this trial.”

  In his eagerness to defend himself he was always a little too quick with his assumptions, which made it rather easy to talk him over.

  “If there’s nothing wrong with it, then why haven’t I been informed? I’m the only judge this town has.”

  “But you said you didn’t–”

  “I know what I said. I’ve changed my mind. I also reserve the right to call for a proper jury and not let the entire assembly vote, because it doesn’t work. You can choose to represent Sinti if you want, but I preside over this trial.”

  Roilan waved his hand. He wasn’t even going to try and contend this. The only argument came from Frantag: He was quite relieved about not having to play judge, but the election result did state that a majority vote would decide a trial, so a jury would cause complaints.

  “Then we’ll go against all principles of fair elections and make an amendment right here and now that states that a jury, randomly picked, can be considered as representative of the whole population.”

  Benjamar looked at Roilan, who didn’t say what he should have. His idealistic system would have no choice but to return to a more workable one. “Now show me all those by-majority-voted laws you have that deal with justice.”

  Frantag pulled out of his chest a bundle of handmade papers, which were the law print of Kun DJar. It was the only copy. Another storm would set them all right back where they’d started, yet they’d made the effort.

  Benjamar read it through at home. It wasn’t much help.

  The next day he paid Wolt a visit to find out why Sinti had complained to him. Harmon wasn’t there.

  “She said I was the only one who had been nice to her during the expedition,” Wolt said.

  “Was Sinti forced to repent or did she consent to it?”

  “She says they forced her?”

  “Did you check on that?”

  A silence followed. Wolt had a habit of being sensitive to criticism, especially from Benjamar. The silence indicated that Wolt had not, but was trying to find a way to make that excusable without getting told off. He found none.

  “No Benjamar. I took her word for it. I don’t know why. On DJar I would have always checked the facts before a newscast.”

  “Only to deliberately twist them?”

  “Sometimes, but I was under pressure. Everybody was.”

  “I know that, Wolt, but there is no risk of losing your job now. Here your dignity is yours to uphold or sell out. Your choice.”

  Wolt rested his chin on his bony fingers in a way that reminded Benjamar of Tjarkag. “As far as I know, nobody is forced to join the Society, so if penance is part of their rituals then that is a choice you make when you join,” Wolt said.

  “Now you’re starting to talk sense. Where can I find Sinti?”

  “If you are the judge, are you not supposed to be impartial?”

  “Yes, but I’ve already spoken with Frimon, so in this case it’s only fair.”

  Sinti wasn’t much help. She insisted that she’d been forced and she produced more water than words.

  The eight members of the jury were randomly chosen by number and then matched to a name on the register which listed all the people in the colony. Benjamar left that up to Frantag, so he couldn’t get accused of having had a
ny influence. The jury members were informed. One turned out to be dead; someone had forgotten to mark the name after the disease. A new name was picked with dispatch after apologies to the relatives of the first one. Frantag explained the procedure in a short speech. Nobody protested the hastily rewritten law.

  Before the day was over, Benjamar had a visitor to his home, who brought along a smell which suggested he had more wine than blood in his veins. The sight of him was alarming: His beard was not only way too long, but it wasn’t cared for. He stooped while standing in the doorway.

  “Whose stupid idea was it t’pick me for that jury?” Aryan demanded.

  Benjamar explained the random process.

  “I won’t be on any jury and listen t’all that nonsense. I don’t give a hoot about that trial.”

  Benjamar never had much trouble convincing most people, but Aryan had never been one of them.

  “I’m not coming. Replace me.”

  “I can’t do that, Aryan. Frantag picked the names.”

  He cursed and ranted about having been threatened with prison if he refused and that he didn’t want to be a citizen of this paddock full of losers nor have a say in its running.

  It could be debated if not wanting an opinion was legally a crime, but morally it certainly wasn’t.

  “He said I have a duty to my peers. Yo’understand what I’m saying? My peers! Since when am I peers with Frimon or Sinti? I can’t stand none of them.”

  He couldn’t stand at all right now.

  “Throw me in prison if y’want, but I’m not coming. I got better things to do.”

  “Like what? Get that lander to work, so you can live on SJilai?”

  “Who told y’about that? You mind other people’s business too much, Benjamaaaar! Nothing’s allowed anymore. Even a bit of honest fun on th’beach so nobody’d be disturbed in their patha-ta-tetic little lives. Finally, they find a way to be men again, ’til you stick your nose in. Could you’ve not just told them t’change the name of that game?”

  “You considered those activities fun?”

  “Some people like t’use their body, Benjamaaaar. Is their body, so they should decide, but noooo! This’s turning into another DJar – all rules made by who stick their nose in prints and have no life. You wanted the fighting t’stop, so I found an alterna-ta-tative. You call’t abuse and now you want me to jury if the Society abuses. It’s the same thing for Bue’s sake!”

  “So you don’t want to be in a jury because you’re angry at me for that ruling?”

  Aryan still stood where he had, just inside the door, refusing to sit down and be calm. He was more upset than Benjamar had ever seen him. He swore he would never sit on any jury and he was going back to SJilai.

  Maybe he had a right to be angry. There was no argument Benjamar could think of to say that Aryan was wrong in his drunken accusations. Benjamar had ruled the games unlawful, called for a vote, without having checked the facts, exactly that for which he had rebuked Wolt earlier. It had never occurred to him that Aryan had organized this to solve the problems in town, nor that they’d purposely chosen the beach to be out of people’s way. Nor, for that matter, that he could have just ruled against the name, which was what offended people.

  “Listen, Aryan. I won’t make you come to that trial. Right now I’m busy, but after tomorrow I’d like to talk to you about those games.”

  “No more talk. No more telling me what’t do. I’m no child and I won’t be ordered round. Not by Maike or Frantag and not by you. Do what y’like, but don’t stop me work that lander. I don’t give a damn how old you are, but I’ll make sure you end up in t’clinic if you do.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Yes I am. Leave me alone! I want nothing more t’do with th’hole stupid planet.”

  He opened the door and stumbled out. Benjamar didn’t stop him. For one thing, this wasn’t a good time to aggravate Aryan. Besides, he was already tired of that misbegotten trial. This colony was nowhere near ready for it.

  TRIAL AND ERROR

  The trial was very much a repeat of what Benjamar remembered of the Sotyar trial. Frimon reminded them that the Society spoke its own justice and anybody joining was aware of that. He also tried to explain that penance was not abuse, during which Benjamar had to call the audience to order four times just to make sure they, at least, heard the words, even if they weren’t listening.

  Sinti spoke little. She insisted she’d not known and had been forced to repent. Roilan spoke on her behalf, but didn’t do much better: He focused too much on the abuse part and very little on Sinti’s inability to understand the word “consent”, which led to confusion during which Sinti admitted to having agreed under pressure. From then on, as Frimon had predicted, it became a debate over the meaning of “consent” and whether or not corporal punishment was abuse.

  Benjamar did the best he could to prevent it from becoming a means of expressing political views and to stop Sinti’s emotional outbursts from taking over. Eventually he was ready to send the jury of seven to make up their mind. Though charged with emotions, up until that point it had been pretty straightforward. But then the jury didn’t move.

  Maybe he should have foreseen it the moment he walked into the building and discovered Jema among them, but he hadn’t thought that far. When he repeated his request, she stood up. “We’re not judges. We were forced to sit here and give up our free time under threat of imprisonment. In other words, you detained all of us for all these hours to do what should be your job.”

  What followed was a silence, no doubt exactly what they’d intended. Much more effective than Aryan’s lone protest, she had convinced all the jury to sit this out and then make a demonstration out of it. Nobody could charge them with evading the law, since no rule was written on whether they had to speak. Had she done that with the elections, it might have given her what she wanted.

  Of course, just shocking people wasn’t enough, so she turned her attention to Roilan. “You can’t draw seven names out of a hat and imprison them for hours for a crime they didn’t commit, and then set them up against each other by forcing them to make judgments and still call your system an otacy and all people equal now, can you? Fair is fair, right?”

  Roilan did what he shouldn’t have: he responded. “We voted on these laws. Majority decides. That is the fairest way to get justice done,” he said.

  “It isn’t justice you’re trying to do.” She had staged this and was ready to answer anything; Roilan was overwhelmed by it and walked straight into the trap. He answered that a jury was a fair representation of the population. “It’s a random draw so it’s fair,” he said.

  “It’s never random if one sort of people is over-represented in the population, but it’s the minority that’s on trial, which it always is. Or do you want to tell me there is a member of the Society in this jury?”

  In an effort to explain the process, Roilan mentioned having hurriedly made the amendment and next time they would make sure a member of the minority was present, at which Jema called him an idiot.

  Benjamar put up his hands. “Enough. Sit down. Both of you.”

  Jema did so, smiling. Roilan did not. “Did you hear what she called me?” he asked.

  “Yes, I did. Sit down.”

  The demonstration was a revenge attack on Roilan much more than it was a statement of principles. It was also a direct challenge to Benjamar.

  He walked over to the jury members on the side bench. If they wouldn’t speak as a group, he would get individual answers, but answers he would get. Confronted thus, four of the six were quick to state that they’d not wanted a part in this. The other two had their doubts about the system, but when asked said they didn’t want to avoid responsibility.

  So why then had they agreed to this demonstration?

  None of them knew.

  “So you have a choice. You go off and deliberate as a jury and come back with one answer or I’ll have each of you stand up alone and tell the audi
ence what you think.”

  They went. Jema couldn’t hide a contemptuous smile. “The system is wrong,” she told him.

  “You can leave then. We no longer need you.”

  Once she’d left he gave everybody some time off until the jury was ready. Meanwhile, he sat back to observe the interactions. Frantag joined him; pale and thin, he shivered in the cold room.

  “So what do you think, Frantag?”

  “I don’t know. I have the feeling they’ll go with Sinti.”

  “That’s not what I meant. What do you think about this hearing? Does it work or is it a joke?”

  “You know, I’m no longer sure about these things. It used to be so easy on DJar. It had always been done that way so it followed that it worked. All these people seem to have their mind set on corrupting the process.”

  “Would they do that if it had always worked so well?”

  “I don’t know. I’m getting too old for this.”

  “You can’t get too old for it, Frantag. If you just started eating a bit and set your mind on keeping Roilan under control. You started this colony. This town needs you.”

  “Yes, that’s what you keep saying.”

  “Well, I’m counting on you to take back some leadership, because I’m not going to be around much longer.”

  “What?”

  He laughed at Frantag’s worried expression. “What I mean is that I want to go to this new settlement. You’ll need a governor there when people start moving. Let me do that. I have no intention of running mock trials like this one for the rest of my life.”

  Frantag expressed his disbelief over Benjamar wanting to pack up and start from nothing once again.

  “Why not? But I’d hate to see you waste your life in the service of those with a big ego. His age and his drive are what get Roilan his support, but you know what, Frantag? Young and quick is a recipe for disaster. It’s fine to have young people in these positions, but you still need to rein them in at times. It’s your colony. Don’t let him run away with it. Instead, train him until he is ready.” He excused himself when the jury returned.