Janat proceeds to read the Agreement in its entirety, a startlingly simple document considering the contract it represents. In a nutshell, much as Ritter described, open worlds are open to all slivvers, incoming or outgoing. Closed worlds are open to slivvers from other parallels but do not allow their own residents to sliv or even to know that parallel worlds exist. Ritter told me that Attero, in particular, holds them, at least publicly, to be merely science fiction. In the distant past, any persons attempting to verify or publish evidence to the contrary were executed. More recently, such persons face public ridicule and are labeled crackpots and conspiracy theorists. I think how true that is…they are lumped together in the same category as people who genuinely believe in Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, or in UFOs. No one takes them seriously except other crackpots and conspiracy theorists.
“Ritter Boone,” Janat says, blinking slowly as she assesses him, reminding me very much of a bored housecat. “Do you understand that by violating the theft standard, you face possible Disposal?”
“Yes,” he says, his voice rough.
“Please explain to the Tribunal, then, the facts and circumstances as you see them.”
From the corner of my eye, I see his jaw work for a few moments before he manages to speak. “I was standing on a public street on Attero. Davinney was there.” His head twitches a little as, I think, he starts to look my way but changes his mind. “I’d been following her, staring at her, and it scared her. And then I wanted to talk to her, to apologize, but that only scared her more. She started to run away from me. She didn’t notice a car coming down the street. I shoved her hard, to clear her from its path. Then I hit the H.IT.” His voice grows desperate. “I don’t know how she ended up here. I don’t remember any part of me still touching her after the shove, but there had to be something still in contact…my clothes, a — a fingertip. Something,” he finishes miserably.
Janat’s hand swoops out to the side as if she were a game show hostess showing off a lovely prize he’d just won. Instead, from the ceiling, an object appears. A BAU, I realize as Ritter dutifully steps forward. The three of them who make up the local Tribunal suddenly look up at the ceiling. A shifting from the back tells me the spectators are doing the same. I tilt my head back, but just like my own BAU results in holding, what I see means nothing to me.
“Let the recording show that Ritter Boone has spoken the truth,” Janat says, turning her piercing eyes on me. “Davinney Keith,” she continues, folding her hands in front of her, “do you understand that the result of the Agreement between Attero, a closed world, and Concordia, an open world, is such that you are not permitted to return home again?”
“I understand that’s the typical outcome,” I reply, looking Ritter’s way. Nothing.
“Do you disagree with any of the facts given by Ritter Boone?”
Why does she insist on always using our full names? Because using just our first names is too familiar. If she does that, we become people instead of violated and violator.
“It’s all a blur for me, really. I hit my head.”
“Do you fully understand that you will never return to Attero, the world you call home, and that you will never see your friends and family again?”
Why is she doing this to me? Why is she asking again and again? Does she want me to break down? Rage? Cry?
I nod. “Y-yes.” The word falls reluctantly from my lips.
“How do you feel about Ritter Boone? About the life he has stolen from you?” For the first time, Janat’s voice is not flat. It’s sympathetic. Her brow furrows and creases form at the corners of her eyes.
“Ritter said that in high profile cases, you’ve sent people back to closed worlds,” I blurt brazenly. Immediately afterward, I’m paralyzed by fear of retribution. A lightning bolt, perhaps, or maybe the platform will collapse like a trapdoor, and I’ll fall and fall forever.
Suddenly the screens arrange themselves into a huge image of me with everything from my height and weight to my home address written below it.
“Davinney Keith, do you agree that the person displayed in this screen capture is you, and that the information below the picture is correct?”
I read through it. “Yes.”
Another image pops up. My father, in his dress uniform. My breath sticks in my throat. Janat asks me if his information is correct also.
“Yes.” I can’t stop the trickle of tears at the sight of him. I don’t even try.
Janat turns toward the wall of screens. “Tribunal members of Attero,” she says, “please highlight.”
The screen fills with images, including a slightly larger image of the President of the United States.
“Does Major General David Alexander Keith have knowledge of the parallels?”
“Negative,” the president answers. “Although he’s recently been promoted to Lieutenant General, he does not have such knowledge. Within the United States, only the president, the secretary of defense, the secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and the Chief of Staff for each branch have such knowledge.”
My hopes are dashed. I’d just been about to mention his promotion to Lieutenant General, but it seems he still doesn’t rank high enough to be privy to the parallels.
If the president can see me, he intentionally avoids acknowledging me in any way. I wonder whether he cares that I am about to be stranded here. Nothing in his voice suggests any concern whatsoever for me as a person.
Janat waits for a moment, but there is only silence, so she turns back toward me. The screens rearrange themselves back to the nondescript mesh. “I’m afraid Ritter Boone may be incorrect about that,” she says.
The sympathy in her voice deepens. I hear what might be a sniffle from the back of the room. Maybe my question and the hope it contains demonstrate to the Tribunal that I’m still of the belief that I will be allowed to return to my Earth. I know my acceptance of the situation is a key factor in the Tribunal’s outcome. In Ritter’s outcome.
For the first time, Millick Vincent speaks. He, too, looks severe. I wonder if an angular face, cold eyes, and a largely emotionless demeanor are requirements for candidacy for the local Tribunal, if apathy is a trait eagerly sought after. Because although Janat has shown me some sympathy, it feels contrived. Almost like a script. Here is where you empathize with the violated, I think, envisioning the words printed on a page in some Tribunal procedural manual.
“High profile case status will remain under review,” Millick announces. “It is a status reserved for only the most urgent political or military situations. While I can assure you that Ritter Boone’s violation is not being taken lightly, I’m afraid that yours is not likely to be determined a high profile case and that sending you home is not a likely outcome.”
“Davinney Keith,” Janat again takes control. “Do you fully understand that in the most likely outcome, you will not be allowed to return home?” She emphasizes the word “not”.
I want to leap onto her platform and strangle her until she stops using our full names and the constant reminders that I am, most likely, stuck here forever.
I dip my head and my feet swim before my eyes. “Yes.” I’m surprised she doesn’t ask me to repeat it more loudly.
“Given that understanding, how do you feel about Ritter Boone and his violation of the theft standard?”
I sense that Janat’s repetition is hurtful to Ritter’s case. She’s impressing upon everyone that I don’t understand it, not really. If I did, I would…what? Want him to die? Want him to suffer the same permanent separation that I now face? Torn from friends, family, lifestyle, and all that is familiar? Do I want that for him?
This is the thing I’ve struggled with since my arrival, the thing that is only compounded by what I’ve discovered about Linney Benchley and about what the Tribunal might be setting into motion. I’d be stupid, also, not to ask myself whether Ritter’s suicide theory isn’t a subtle manipulation on his part to cast a shadow on the Tribunal that extends past hi
s own fate to the fates of innocent citizens. If I were leaning toward condemning him, I might think twice when I consider that the local Tribunal might be killing people.
There is not enough time for me to work through these things, research them on my own. I have to go with my gut.
“It hurts,” I admit, and my breath hitches at the loud sob that arises from the back of my throat. “It hurts a lot. But I’m not sure I would go home, even if I could.”
Even Janat cannot contain her surprise. “Why not?”
This is another something that has kept my mind in turmoil, not only since last night but ever since Ritter suggested that there was still a chance that I might be able to return home, if mine were a high profile case.
It’s my turn to try and fail to form words, to open and close my mouth again like the fish out of water I am. I can feel the entire room holding its breath.
“I’ve been gone for three weeks now,” I begin slowly. “No one has any idea where. From their perspective, I completely vanished. And now I’m supposed to reappear again without explanation? Then what? If I went back and tried to explain this — where I’ve been, what’s happened to me — to a whole world of people who haven’t experienced it and don’t believe it’s even possible, I’m going to look like I’ve lost my mind. If I go back and pretend I don’t know anything at all about where I’ve been or what happened to me, they’ll think I’ve suffered something so horrific I’ve blocked it out, given myself amnesia. Whether I go back remembering or not remembering, either way I’ll be…” I search for the word, the word that can explain the pity and heartbreak I’d inspire. “I’ll be broken to them. Changed. They’ll never get back the Davinney they lost, even if I go home. I love them too much to do that to them,” I say, clamping my jaw to stifle another sob. I don’t say that I’d deal with those likely outcomes, anyway, if given a chance to go home. My words were at least partly true, and they are what I’ve been telling myself constantly to take the sting out of my lifetime sentence on Concordia.
There’s a long stretch of silence. Either Janat is waiting for me to continue, or she’s waiting for my words to sink in. From the soft sounds behind me, they have. I suddenly can’t breathe as I realize that my words, which I meant as at least a grudging acceptance of my situation, may have further impacted Ritter’s outcome…and not for the better. Now the Tribunal of All is seeing that every choice, from my perspective, is a bad one. Stay or go, Ritter has caused a ripple. Maybe a wave. Maybe even a tsunami.
Gesturing at the fresh BAU that has dropped from the ceiling, she says quietly, with a reverence I don’t buy,
“Davinney Keith, if you would, please.”
I step forward sluggishly, like one of those dreams where you try to run from something but your legs weigh a million pounds each. I blow into the tube, and their heads fall back in unison.
Janat is the last to look forward again. The weight of her gaze only worsens the feeling I have of a weight upon my head, slowing forcing me into the floor. It feels like an eternity, waiting to hear whether the BAU says I’m telling the truth. I feel like I’ve been honest. Going home really would create a whole host of new problems. But is that more true than my desperate desire to return to Attero, anyway?
Millick Vincent speaks. “Let the record show that Davinney Keith has spoken the truth,” he says, fixing his beady gaze on me. Relief and disbelief go to war inside me.
“Ritter Boone,” Janat says, and the three of them that make up the local Tribunal shift their bodies as well as their attention toward him. They remind me of dominoes, and for a second I desperately want to send them spilling to the floor.
I don’t look at him. Something tells me I shouldn’t, that it would be bad for him somehow if I looked.
“It is the Tribunal’s understanding,” she continues blandly, “that Davinney Keith, whom you stole from Attero, is a scrier for one Linney Benchley, who ended herself on May 16th last year for reasons unknown. What is your explanation for being so conveniently in Davinney Keith’s proximity on the night of May 16th this year?”
The back of the room erupts into whispers, sounds of dismay and distress.
Breathe in, I think, and I count to four. Hold. I count to four again. Breathe —
“I wanted to make some sense out of Linney’s end,” he answers quietly. “I thought if I got to know one or more of her scriers, I might find something in them — in their personalities — that would explain what Linney did.”
My fear for Ritter’s outcome overwhelms everything else, including the pity I’d been feeling for myself. Of course the Tribunal would know about Linney. Strega had suggested they would, but I’d hoped that somehow it would go unmentioned. But they get all of the launch records, track all of the slivving. Who knows what other data they can pull from someone’s Idix?
Ritter, on the other hand, seems unsurprised. I wonder if they also know he thinks the suicides are murders. My heart stutters in my chest at the thought. Maybe his truth is like mine. Complicated. Two things can be true at the same time. Opposing things. Maybe offering only one of them up will be enough for him, too.
If the Tribunal knows anything about his theory regarding the suicides, they don’t act on the knowledge. Instead, without response, Janat returns her focus to me. I expect her to ask me whether I understand what this means…that Ritter sought me out and possibly stole me intentionally, but she doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t. Because Ritter has told the Tribunal that my arrival on Concordia was purely accidental, and his breath chemistry says that’s true. On Concordia, breath chemistry is indisputable, infallible.
“Davinney Keith, are you aware that if you are denied reentry to Attero, you will be expected to assimilate successfully into Concordian society or you yourself will face Disposal?”
The room suddenly lacks air. My chest squeezes tight. I feel myself sway on the platform. Ritter never said a word about this. He never told me I’d be at risk of Disposal myself, if I failed to assimilate.
“Davinney Keith?” Janat asks. “Should I repeat the question?”
No. No, you shouldn’t. I can’t hear it again. I can’t.
“No,” I say. “I understood the question.”
“And your answer?”
“I’m aware that if I can’t go home, I have to assimilate,” I reply, barely able to force the words out. “But I didn’t know I might be disposed of if I fail. No one…” I take a deep breath. “No one told me that.” The back of the room erupts into sharp, distressed sounds. Gasps. Loud sobs. I want to reach out and slap Ritter across the face for leaving me unprepared for the possibility of my own Disposal.
The three that make up the Tribunal study me. There is not a sound in the room. No sniffling. No sobbing. I can’t even hear anyone breathing. But I hear my own blood rushing in my ears. There’s a darkness at the edges of my vision and a closeness to the room that I want to run from. I hear my heart thumping and think wildly of Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. Can they hear it thundering in my chest, aching and afraid, every beat banging another nail into Ritter’s coffin? He stands silently next to me, frozen. There’s nothing in him that I can read because I won’t look at him, and for the first time since I’ve known him, he’s completely inanimate.
“Very well,” Janat says suddenly, bringing my heart to a brief but crashing halt. “Ritter Boone, for what reason did you withhold this information from Davinney Keith?”
Ritter breaks down now, his voice hitching, catching on a single, sharp sob. “There are two reasons. Initially, I forgot that Disposal was a potential consequence for her because that only became part of the Agreement last year.”
When he doesn’t continue, Janat prods at him. “You said you initially forgot. Why, then, did you not inform her once you, yourself, remembered?”
“I’ve most likely robbed her of her home and family. Her life,” he adds. “I tried to tell her several times, but I just…couldn’t.” His voice is impossibly soft as he whispers, “I’m sorry.�
� I close my eyes. I thought my conscience would be safe if I didn’t look at him. I thought if I didn’t see his face I could decide how I genuinely felt, what I wanted to see happen to him.
I wonder, suddenly, if Linney’s close relationship with Ritter somehow leaves me with some sense of caring about him that goes beyond my actual experience with him. If, somehow, my DNA, which matches Linney, somehow has memory of him that I do not. Whatever the reason, the despondency in his voice pierces my heart. I know it is the truth. I don’t need him to blow into a tube to prove it.
After a long silence, Janat asks, “Is there any person in this room who will stand for Ritter Boone?”
There is a flurry of shuffling in the back of the room as, I imagine, every spectator rises. But before Janat can begin to poll them, as Strega explained the Tribunal would do, I take a step forward on the platform. A collective gasp arises from the spectator’s area.
“I will,” I say, and the rustling in back silences abruptly.
“On what basis do you stand?” Janat implores.
“On the basis that I’m the violated, so my words should have more weight than anyone else’s.” I pause to let that sink in. “Ritter was trying to keep me out of the path of a car about to hit me. I don’t even know if you know what cars are, but since you didn’t ask him to explain further, I’ll assume you understand. He couldn’t know one way or another whether the car would hit me or not, and if it did, whether it would injure me or kill me, but what he did know was that if I transported with him, it could mean the end of him. And he chose to help me, anyway.”
Looking past me, Janat says, “I see that a caretaker is in the bystander arena.”
Strega.
“Come forward,” she gestures. I don’t turn my head but can see him from the corner of my eye. “State your name for the Tribunal of All.”
Assimilation (Concordia Series Book 1) Page 13
