Galactic Empires

by Neil Clarke

  He swallowed.

  “Or spend the rest of your life in a Baharn prison. Those are your choices.”

  He shook his head.

  “Decide now, Fabian,” she said, glad he had an unusual name, because she could remember it. She used to give her clients time to make a decision, but then she realized it wasn’t worth it. That took time away from other clients. “This is your last chance.”

  “If you were me,” he started, “what would you—”

  “I’d pay the fine,” she said. Then she put a hand on his back and shoved him toward the paralegal. “Miguel will take you to the court. I’m sending the filing ahead. You’ll have to sign and set the payment schedule.”

  Then she sent the filing before Fiske had a chance to say anything else.

  Her gaze met the paralegal’s. “He’s due in Judge Weiss’s court at nine a.m. Take him to the clerk, fill out the last few details, and for godsake, make sure he’s off the docket. If you fail to take him off the docket, I’ll fire you myself, is that clear?”

  The paralegal nodded, looking scared. She’d made that same threat last week to a different paralegal who was now no longer employed with the Public Defenders office. Unlike some of the other attorneys, she carried out her threats. There was no room for error here—and she had learned that the hard way.

  She extended her hand. Fiske took it hesitantly.

  “Stay on Earth or the Moon from now on, Fabian,” she said. “Don’t go near unfamiliar cultures, and I promise things will get better from here.”

  Then she let go, gave him a half smile, and left holding, feeling jubilant. She didn’t let Fiske see her face because he wouldn’t understand. The paralegal probably didn’t either, but this was what passed for a win in Earth Alliance InterSpecies Court—and she had learned early to celebrate these wins, because they were all she had.

  Of course, if she were the superstitious type, she would have wondered if this win boded ill for the morning’s other big case.

  But she wasn’t superstitious. She wasn’t going to let one tiny victory color the rest of her day.

  Since she didn’t have to go to court at nine a.m., she was free to see her new client. Prisoners didn’t get transferred to the holding area until an hour before trial, so she had to go to the jail. As she left, she sent a message down her links to have her client moved to the interview room.

  Two tram rides, jam-packed with lawyers and paralegals and law clerks, all heading to the jail to do something at the last minute before someone’s court appearance. Had she taken two more trams, heading to the prison part of the base, she would have also encountered family, friends and hangers-on, but fortunately she wasn’t going there. She didn’t need to see any of that anyway.

  The trams went through tunnels drilled deep in the base, far away from the outer rings. Transportation on the outer rings belonged to the shuttles to Helena Base. From Helena, people could go anywhere in the sector.

  But security learned early on that running the shuttles and the trams on similar tracks facilitated jail breaks. So the tram system got moved to the deepest part of the base.

  Since there was nothing to look at, Kerrie reviewed the case as best she could. But she had barely looked at any of the files by the time she reached the jail. She used the lawyer’s entrance, pressing her hand against the door all the way in. Her identification opened those doors, but didn’t stop the full-body scans, searching her for a weapon.

  She’d learned to ignore that, even when the scans got invasive. Instead, she simply went deep inside her own mind, studying the cases, preparing for the next court session.

  She stepped into the interview area, walled off from the rest of the jail by thick walls and soundproof barriers. A guard met her, called her by name, and took her down a corridor she had never seen before.

  She expected to be in the large communal interview room, with privacy shields lowered over the table where she would sit with her client. She would have been able to see all the other lawyers talking to their clients, but not hear them.

  Instead, the guard led her to a tiny room, made of the same clear material as the privacy shield. But a long table was bolted to the floor here, along with four chairs and a very visible panic button, in case she needed out. The door to the prisoner’s wing was reinforced with shields and warnings, and the door on her side had some kind of prod attached that would zap the prisoner if he even tried to get out.

  As she let herself in, she saw that the Peyti lawyer had already arrived, even though she hadn’t asked for him. Her only indication of the Peyti’s gender was his clothing, suit, tie, pants, even though Peyti culture didn’t require those things at all. It showed the Peyti was sensitive to human conventions, and thought it important that humans know about him.

  He was sticklike; so thin that he looked like he was about to break. His breathing mask covered the lower half of his face, and the three long, thin fingers on his right hand tapped the tabletop rhythmically.

  He had no patience, which was unusual in a Peyti. And he was not as tall as the average Peyti.

  She felt her heart sink. He was young—hence the clothing, the worries about what someone else would think, and the impatience.

  She opened the door.

  “I’m Kerrie Steinmetz,” she said. “I’m the public defender your client requested.”

  He stood and extended his right hand.

  “Uzvik,” he said, voice so soft she could barely hear him. She understood why Maise hated working with the Peyti. They were hard to hear, for one thing, and for another, their names were confusing. Most Peyti she’d met had “Uz” in their names somewhere. She would have to be careful not to use the wrong suffix when she spoke to him.

  She took the fingers gently in her own. They felt like bendable chopsticks. She had learned not to shake them or even grip them too hard. She didn’t want to cause him pain.

  She held the fingers for the requisite fifteen seconds, then let go. “I’m a bit confused, Uzvik. Public defenders get assigned for clients who can’t pay. Yet you’re here.”

  He tilted his head, a sign of sadness among the Peyti. “I am not being paid. It is a courtesy.”

  “For whom?” she asked.

  “My client,” he said.

  “If you are not being paid, how is she your client?” Kerrie asked.

  “Someone must stand by her,” he said softly.

  Crap. A loyal companion. She hated those. “Do you belong to the Multicultural Tribunal Bar?”

  “No,” he said so softly she could barely hear him.

  “What’s your specialty, then?”

  “Criminal law,” he said.

  “With a specialty in what?” she asked.

  “Piracy,” he said, and if he had been human, his tone of voice would have made her think he was embarrassed by that.

  “Then you’re completely out of your jurisdiction and your presence here compromises my attorney-client confidentiality. You’re going to have to leave.”

  He nodded and stood. “She is not guilty of this.”

  Kerrie would be rich if she got paid for every time someone said that to her. “You know as well as I do that it doesn’t matter here.”

  He tilted his head, his big eyes sad. “I thought it does matter. There are stories—”

  “From the Multicultural Tribunal,” she said. “Not from Earth Alliance InterSpecies Court. Here you’re guilty unless there’s a technicality.”

  “She is not a citizen of the Earth Alliance,” he said.

  “I know that,” Kerrie said. “I thought that was a point in her favor until I saw her sheet. She’s a convicted criminal.”

  “Ah,” he said, his eyes narrowing in a Peyti equivalent of a smile. “But she is not.”

  “Not what?”

  “Convicted. You have not looked closely at the file, have you?”

  “I just got it this morning,” Kerrie said.

  His brow wrinkled. “She has been here for two weeks. We
put in the request before the prison ship brought her here.”

  Kerrie shrugged. She’d heard that complaint before too. “The wheels of justice turn slowly.”

  He looked alarmed. He extended those strange fingers just as the announcement came through her links. She had to sit down, hands on the table, because her client was coming into the room.

  “I need you out of here,” Kerrie said.

  “I can be of assistance. Co-counsel.”

  “You’re not certified to practice in this court,” she said. “And because I know you’re not certified, that won’t invalidate her pleadings. So no more tricks. Get the hell out.”

  He didn’t wait for her to repeat herself. He scurried past her and pulled open the main door.

  “And don’t stand in the corridor where she can see you,” Kerrie said. “I’ll file a complaint with the authorities of the jail and you’ll lose all visiting privileges.”

  He bowed his head, then let himself out. She turned slightly so that she could see him disappear down the hall.

  Then the warning echoed through her links again. She sat straight, regulation position, as the door opened and her client entered.

  She was smaller than Kerrie expected, heartbreakingly thin in the manner of those raised in zero gravity. She moved slowly, clearly unused to and uncomfortable in Earth-normal gravity.

  The pregnancy didn’t help. She was in her third trimester, but how far along was hard to determine given her thinness. Her belly would look huge at six months let alone nine.

  “Where’s Uzvik?” she asked.

  “He can’t be here,” Kerrie said. “He’s not certified for this court.”

  The girl sat down heavily, one hand on her belly. She looked disappointed.

  “If that was a strategy, it was a stupid one,” Kerrie said. “I could be disbarred for letting him second chair.” “You could pretend you didn’t know.”

  Kerrie wondered how many times this girl had asked someone to “pretend” they didn’t know something for a court case.

  “Is that how he’s gotten you acquitted in all those other cases?”

  The girl shrugged, unwilling to answer. Smart. Because Kerrie would have to file amended petitions, stating she had knowledge of actions contrary to the legal ethics.

  “I don’t know how things work in the Frontier,” Kerrie said, referring to the part of the section where the Black Fleet had almost free range. “But here, following the rules matters.”

  It was all they had, really, even though she felt like a hypocrite saying so. The rules didn’t work for almost everyone coming through the sys-tem—particularly when cases like Fiske’s had to be considered victories.

  “I’m not exactly sure what you thought you’d gain by bringing him along,” Kerrie said in a tone harsher than she would usually use with a client so early in their discussion. “Your problem is with the Ziyit. They punish theft pretty simply. All you’ll lose is a hand, one I’m sure your people in the Black Fleet can afford to replace. Your baby isn’t at threat, and you’re probably not going to go to prison. The Ziyit don’t believe in incarceration.”

  “I can’t afford replacement,” she said. “I can’t afford medical treatment at all.”

  Kerrie sighed and leaned back. She hated clients who lied to her. “The Black Fleet can afford anything it wants. It also has—from everything I’ve heard—some of the best medical facilities in the known universe. You can get the hand replaced. It’ll be so perfect, your kid won’t know what happened.”

  The girl shook her head. “I can’t. Don’t you know how this works? The Ziyit will cut off my hand, and then they won’t tend to me. They won’t even let me bring in a doctor to treat. Then they’ll send me away for treatment. The blood loss alone could kill me. It’ll probably kill my baby.”

  “So use an AutoBandage and make sure someone from the Fleet is nearby. One ship won’t matter,” Kerrie said. “The Ziyit don’t care. They want the hand as a trophy. They’ll display it as a deterrent. As interspe-cies punishments go, it’s a relatively light one. They don’t even care if your ship waits for you. They won’t do anything to stop you from going there to get medical treatment. They’ll just deny you treatment in their facilities which, I have to tell you, is a good thing.”

  “You don’t understand,” the girl said, rubbing her belly. “I can’t go to the Fleet. They’ve tossed me out.”

  Kerrie stared at her and resisted the urge to shake her head. That changed everything. It explained why the Peyti lawyer wasn’t getting paid. It explained the strange tactic as well.

  Because the girl was in legal limbo. She wasn’t a member of the Earth Alliance, so she had no access to Earth Alliance medical facilities unless she could pay for them. And her presence here meant that she couldn’t pay for them.

  She was right; even with AutoBandages, she’d bleed out before she got to a site that would allow someone impoverished access. That might take days, maybe weeks. Shipboard methods might keep her alive, but they wouldn’t keep both her and the baby alive. “I suppose you’re guilty,” Kerrie said.

  The girl shrugged again, and Kerrie mentally cursed Maise. An acquittal. Yeah, that was going to happen. Instead, Maise had used her known prejudice against Peyti to pass off a nightmare case, one that would haunt Kerrie’s dreams for the rest of her life. She’d lose, not just the girl, but the baby too.

  “Why did the Fleet abandon you?” Kerrie asked.

  The girl looked down. “Because I got caught,” she said.

  The story went like this:

  The girl—whose name was Donnatella Waltarie—got a job working as human consultant to a Ziyit family that would be traveling into the Earth Alliance in a diplomatic role. The female head of the household (there were multiple females with multiple roles in Ziyit families) had received an appointment as the Ziyit ambassador to Messner at the far end of the sector.

  It was a political appointment, given as patronage, not because the Ziyit female had any particular knowledge of the Earth Alliance or human culture. Donnatella was to tutor the younger females in human cus-toms—and she did, for nearly two months.

  Two months gave her time to find the Blueglass Stone, a famous piece of Ziyit jewelry that had an outsized value on the black market because of its rarity. Donnatella didn’t say, but implied, that the Fleet had a buyer for the Stone.

  On her last day with the Ziyit family—as they packed for their trip— she slipped the Stone into one of her pockets. She received her pay from the Ziyit family, took a shuttle to an outlying space station, and then rejoined the Fleet. The Stone left with her.

  “But you said you got caught,” Kerrie said.

  The girl’s lips twisted, as if she didn’t want to discuss that moment. Kerrie would have to push her. Instead, she mentally scanned the file she had absorbed and got her answer.

  The theft—caught on surveillance equipment—happened four years before the arrest.

  Add to that the abandonment by the Black Fleet, and Kerrie had an inkling as to what was going on behind the scenes. “Whose baby are you carrying?” Kerrie asked.

  “It’s not important,” the girl said.

  “I think it is. It’s the reason all of this is happening to you. The Black Fleet abandoned you because its leaders had to choose sides—and you lost.”

  The girl shrugged. “That won’t get me out of this mess. Even I know enough about the legal system here to know that.”

  “Won’t the baby’s father send a ship to help you with the medical part of your sentence?” Kerrie asked.

  The girl’s lips thinned. “No.”

  “And your parents—?”

  “Dead,” she said.

  Kerrie frowned. “The Ziyit have images of you stealing the Stone. Then you got dumped so that you would be arrested here.” The girl nodded.

  “If the punishment is carried out properly, you’ll die or the baby will.”

  The girl leaned back, pretending calm, although she wasn’t c
alm.

  “Which will solve someone’s problem with you in the Black Fleet, is that correct?”

  The girl nodded once, as if she didn’t want to.

  Kerrie didn’t want her to. She didn’t want to know any of this because this girl, Donnatella, was right. It made no difference to Kerrie’s job or the case before her.

  The loss of a hand was a light sentence in InterSpecies Court because hands could be replaced. It was more traumatic to humans than it was to Ziyits who had twenty-six different appendages that could be considered hands. But humans—generally—survived the loss.

  If Kerrie argued the case properly, she might get some consideration for Donnatella’s condition—extra bandages, the presence of the Peyti when the sentence was carried out.

  But that didn’t solve the underlying problem. The girl had no money, and no way to get medical treatment inside the Alliance. She would get none on Ziyit, where the sentence would get carried out. And she couldn’t afford transportation off the planet. The Alliance couldn’t provide the transportation.

  Donnatella—and her baby—would die there.

  “You don’t deny that you stole the Stone,” Kerrie said.

  The girl shrugged. “I am a thief for the Black Fleet. Or I was. I am good at what I do.”

  So was the Peyti, because he got her acquitted time and time again.

  “You were born on one of the Black Fleet’s ships,” Kerrie said. “Outside of the Earth Alliance.”

  “On the ship, yes,” the girl said. “Where, I don’t know. The ships never keep track of where the children are born.”

  So she truly was not a member of the Earth Alliance, although Kerrie couldn’t prove that. The Black Fleet also didn’t issue birth certificates.

  Kerrie leaned back, frowning, wondering if that lack of proof would help her get Donnatella to a medical facility.

  Probably not. Because judges in InterSpecies Court always wanted proof, particularly when an attorney tried something original.

  Which Kerrie would be doing here.

  She had no proof—none—of Donnatella’s citizenship. Or did she? She had files to check.