When he’d first arrived on Earth, politics had been largely the arena of wealthy men, but it wasn’t only for diversity’s sake that he was glad the formidable Ms Galarza had been elected head of the United Earth Government. At the tender age of thirty two, she had been dismissed by many as too inexperienced and by others as too radical. But after nearly three years of dealing with mostly obnoxious Earth leaders, Cael thought Earth needed someone a bit radical. Someone who was a staunch supporter of equality and freedom. Someone with both the compassion to help those in need and the ferocity to actually get things done. Someone like Sophia.
“Greetings friends, Humans and Intergalactic Community Representatives. It is with great pleasure that I address you from this stage today.”
She spoke in her native Spanish, the translator that was now ubiquitous amongst Humanity twisting her words into a hundred different tongues. Cael heard her in Allortasian, Asha, sat beside him, in English.
“The United Earth Government is something that many of us gathered here today did not think possible. We were too different, too divided, unable to see beyond our languages, our cultures to the thing we have in common - our Humanity.
“If you were thinking that in forming this government, the hard work is done, then let me tell you now that the hard work is only beginning. The Human Race has a long way to go before we can be considered fully fledged members of the Intergalactic Community. There is still poverty, still inequality, exploitation and division. But let us not fail to acknowledge the enormity of this first step we are taking today. A United Government. A system of governance that doesn’t put the needs of one people above another, but seeks to provide a better, fairer life for all citizens of the planet Earth.”
A cheer broke out among the crowd, thunderous applause echoing round the room. Asha glanced up at Cael, smiling as she caught his eye, mouthing ‘she’s fabulous’. Cael nodded in agreement, turning back to the stage as the crowd quieted again.
“But it is not just the citizens of Planet Earth we have to consider. We are players on a greater stage now. By the generous invitation of the Intergalactic Community, we are part of a whole so much bigger than most of us ever imagined. It is because of their technology, their teachings, their patient guidance that we have arrived at this point today. And it seems prudent to start this government with our own invitation.
“You might think that a government made of representatives from every state on Earth would have difficulty making decisions. No doubt there will be teething problems as we begin our real work together, but in this, there was no argument. Unanimously, we have decided that our first act as a United Government is to give our esteemed colleagues, our gracious advisors, our friends from the Intergalactic Community, full rights and recognition under Earth Law.”
Another raucous round of cheering and applause. Hard to believe this was the same planet where Cael had been greeted almost everywhere by protestors telling him and the rest of the Intergalactic Community to go home.
A large sheet of paper was brought out onto the stage. The cheering continued as it was placed on a ceremonial table, and representatives from the United Earth Government took it in turns to sign it, Sophia adding her signature last.
“With the passing of Piotr’s Law,” she continued, once returned to her podium. “We start as we mean to go on. As fully engaged citizens of the Intergalactic Community, committed to being full and fair partners, not just to each other, but to the Universe.”
“Piotr’s Law,” Asha said as the speech ended and the crowds began to file out. “I’m glad they decided to call it that officially.”
“Me, too,” Cael said, linking his fingers through hers and drawing her hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss to it. “I have some things to attend to after this - hands to shake, acquaintances to make, that sort of thing.”
“Mm, the last of the meet and greets?” she said, grinning.
“You know, I hadn’t thought of it that way. But, yes, I suppose it is.” He grinned back. “Can’t say I’ll be sorry to leave that behind.”
“I still can’t believe we’re leaving tomorrow.”
Neither could Cael. The Station would remain, but Cael’s job was done. It was time for him to take Asha home.
“Do you want me to come with?” she said, in the hesitant way of someone who had an answer to their question firmly in mind.
Cael smiled. “Much as I would appreciate your company, I think perhaps you’d like to go and meet Marta at the court?”
Asha gave him an apologetic look. “Do you mind? I’d like to be there for her today.”
“Of course not,” Cael said, hoping his eagerness for her to agree didn’t show. “Marta needs your support today far more than I do.”
“Thank you,” she said, closing the gap between them to press a chaste kiss to his lips.
The Imorna in his blood roared to life, as it ever did when she was near. His desire for her hadn’t faded at all - had grown, in fact, the more he’d got to know her, the more she’d grown into the role of being his partner, her blue tipped hair not the only way she’d changed in the last eighteen months.
“Go,” he said. “Take the car, I’ll comm you when I’m done here.”
She nodded, rising from her seat. As she headed out with the rest of the people leaving, she glanced back over her shoulder only once, flashing him another smile before she disappeared out of view. Cael waited another five minutes before he got out of his seat and headed out himself, checking his comm to find a message from Cribishk saying that he and Asha were in the car and heading away.
Cael grinned, then walked into the office space that the United Earth Government had been generous enough to set aside for him. Angela and Randar were waiting for him.
“She’s gone?” Angela said.
“Yes, heading out to meet with Marta as we speak.”
“And she doesn’t suspect anything?”
“Not as far as I could tell,” Cael said.
Angela beamed at him. “Then we better get to work.”
The courthouse was crowded, numerous families waiting in the entrance hall. Nell recognised most of them - men and women, Human and Intergalactic Community members, all of them there for the same purpose. Tanesha Williams, head of the local support group for Matched couples, stood with her Match at the base of the stairs, one arm wrapped around the shoulders of her Human son, Clark, the other cradling her newborn.
“I’m going to say hello,” she said, pressing a kiss to Garrant’s cheek. “Keep an eye on trouble for me.”
“Will do,” he said, smiling up at her, his eyes on Mikey, who was playing with some of the other children.
Tanesha beamed at her as she walked over.
“You do not look like a woman who gave birth just three days ago,” Nell said.
“I sure as hell feel like one,” Tanesha said. “And I keep thinking to myself - she could’ve held on just a little bit longer. Saved us going through this rigamarole twice over.”
But though she sounded exhausted, the smile never left her face. Her Match, Xaren, might have been seven feet of thick muscle, wicked looking horns atop his head, but he was all soft happiness as he gazed down at their baby girl.
“And are you being a good big brother?” Nell said, raising an eyebrow at Clark, who grinned and nodded. He had one of those smiles that showed every tooth in his mouth, and brown eyes that glittered with mischief.
“Good,” Nell said. “It’s a very important job, you know. But I thought you were up to the task.”
“I’m so proud of him,” Tanesha said, ruffling his hair. “He’s so good with her. Everything that’s been thrown at him this past year, and he keeps just taking it in his stride.”
“Kids are resilient like that,” Nell said, glancing over her shoulder to where Mikey was chattering away with a kid Nell didn’t recognise, and therefore he probably hadn’t met before.
She turned back to Tanesha. “Is it okay to have a cuddle?”
“Sure,” Tanesha said, handing over the little bundle.
Nell felt her eyes filling as she took the tiny babe in her arms. The little girl slept peacefully, fingers gripping the blanket she was wrapped in. Nell brushed a thumb over her soft little cheek, noting the two nubs on her forehead where one day she’d grow horns just like her father.
“And if you were thinking that that would be uncomfortable to push out, well, it wasn’t that bad.”
“So, just the regular amount of fiery agony?” Nell said, grinning.
“Exactly,” Tanesha said, grinning back.
Mikey skidded to a halt next to Clark, peering up at the bundle in Nell’s arms.
“Was your baby sister born?” he said to Clark.
Garrant followed him over, shaking Xaren’s hand, and wrapping Tanesha in a hug.
“Congratulations, both,” he said. “She’s beautiful.”
“You want to watch this one, Garrant,” Tanesha said, nodding at Nell. “Nothing says a woman’s broody like her crying when she’s handed a baby.”
Nell laughed, swiping the tears from her eyes, but before she could come up with any retort, a pair of doors swung open.
“Piotr’s Law has just been passed,” a clerk said, grinning broadly at them all. “So who’s first up?”
Nell handed the baby back to Tanesha as everyone in the room looked round to them.
“Go,” she said, nodding to her friend. “This was your thing, you made this happen. Go finish making your family.”
The problem was that no legal body on the Planet acknowledged members of the Intergalactic Community as people. It was an omission born of Humanity considering themselves the only intelligent species, not a deliberate slight. But there was no legal precedent for Matched couples to go through many of the processes that Humans could. Adoption being one of them. Which was a problem for families like Nell’s, where a Human child had an Intergalactic Parent, but increasingly it was a problem for the children of Matched couples. Like Tanesha’s daughter, born three days before Piotr’s Law made all Intergalactic Community members legally recognised. The nurses at the hospital had no choice but to put a blank on her birth certificate where the father was normally recorded. At least most Governments had decided in the interim that any child born to a Matched couple was half Human, and therefore afforded all the same rights as their Human parent.
Tanesha, along with being a supportive friend, staunch advocate of the Match program and all round excellent Human being, had been a tireless campaigner for adoption rights for the Intergalactic Community.
“My boy’s father is an asshole,” she’d said to Nell once when they’d got a bit rowdy over a glass of wine or three, before Tanesha had fallen pregnant. “Xaren’s his Dad, and maybe we don’t need a piece of paper to prove that, but I want one. I want it to be official.”
“Amen to that,” Nell had said.
For her and Garrant and Mikey, it was exactly the same.
“It’s a lot of effort for you to go through, though,” Tanesha had said another time, when they’d been closer to the finish line. She was pregnant by then, so no wine accompanied their evening. “If you’re just going to up and leave with your sister when she goes.”
Nell shrugged. “Part of me, the Human sensibilities part of me, wants it just to finish things, you know? Another part of me… I don’t really think Ricky would ever turn round and try to claim any right to his son. But I don’t want to live my life worrying that he might. This is his chance to have that conversation with us. If he’s not interested, then I can close that chapter of my life for good.”
Their turn came round soon enough. There wasn’t much ceremony to it - a brief spiel from the Judge and then a piece of paper signed, and it was done. Garrant was officially Mikey’s father.
“So I can call you ‘Dad’ now?” Mikey said, as they headed out of the court.
“You better had after we’ve gone through all this trouble!” Garrant said, teasing.
Mikey laughed, but Nell could see the deep, true happiness in his little face. The joy that he finally had a father of his own.
“You know I’ve been your dad since we decided to be a family back on the Olympia, right?” Garrant said. “You know this is just a bit of paper that makes it official to everyone else? We don’t need it to prove what our hearts already knew.”
“But I want everyone else to know,” Mikey said. “I want to tell everyone that I’ve got the best dad ever. Can we go to the play park on the way home, Dad?”
Garrant looked like his heart could burst with pride and happiness. Nell felt tears forming in her eyes again.
“Any other day, kiddo, and I’d have said yes. But we’ve got somewhere to be, remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” Mikey said.
“Come on,” Nell said. “We best get going. We don’t want to be late.”
The judge strode back in to the court moments after the announcement of Piotr’s law was made. Marta had been following the coverage on her phone, but clicked it back into silent mode and shoved it in her pocket as the usher called for them to ‘all rise’, her anxiety swelling to fill her emotional landscape, even as she presented a calm, cool exterior to the court.
The judge took her seat, releasing the rest of the court to sit down. Tarkken watched as Marta knotted and unknotted her fingers in her lap beneath the cover of the board in front of them, the only outward sign of the tension he was painfully aware of inside her. He reached over, catching her hand in his, drawing it into his lap as he threaded her fingers through his. She gave him a grateful smile, squeezing his hand, before turning her attention back to the Judge.
“This case has been cause for much interest, public and among the legal community,” the Judge said. “Unprecedented.”
Tarkken glanced to the back of the court, where Nick Gillespie was sat in a little glass box, dressed in a suit that couldn’t disguise his hard edges, or the contempt on his face.
“The question in this case was never whether the defendant was guilty. He pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity. The question was what he was guilty of. His defence have argued that Mr Gillespie could not be considered guilty of murder, as his intended target was not recognised by law as a person.”
As the person in question, Tarkken had rather a lot of feeling about that particular defence. When the defence barrister had first introduced it, he had nearly leapt out of his seat in outrage, only Marta’s hand closing tightly around his arm stopping him. But he’d had a feeling things would eventually go his way when the judge had just looked over her glasses at the defence barrister and said, “Well perhaps we ought to question whether the law should be changed on that particular point.”
Thus a year long adjournment had started while legal teams had sought to answer the difficult question of whether it was possible to murder a member of the Intergalactic Community, and therefore Piotr Kowalczyk, or whether the defence argument held that Nick Gillespie had done the legal equivalent of shooting at a wall, and therefore Piotr’s death was by misadventure, and Nick could not be held accountable for him jumping in front of the bullet. Nick had pleaded guilty to the possession of a firearm charges, but that carried a maximum sentence of ten years. Murder got you life.
“With the passing of Piotr’s Law,” the judge continued, “the Intergalactic Community are now officially recognised by law across the globe, and that recognition has been officially backdated to the first date at which Humanity became aware of them nearly three years ago.”
Marta released a held breath, relief flooding from her. There had never been much doubt that Piotr’s Law would pass, but the contentious issue of back dating it was what mattered to the case of R v. Nick Gillespie.
“With that in mind, and the plea of guilt to pointing the gun, firing it, I would argue that Mr Gillespie has, to all intents and purposes, pleaded guilty to murder.”
Tarkken looked to the defence barrister. But where he’d been full of swagger before, arguing the
points of law that said his client was guilty, but not of the offence he was charged with, he now had the look of a man admitting defeat. He’d taken the gamble of hinging his defence on the backdating clause not being included.
And the gamble had not paid off.
Asha met them in the foyer, sweeping Marta into her arms as soon as she saw her.
“Life,” Marta said, tears streaming down her face. “With a minimum of twenty-five years.”
“Fantastic,” Asha said, hugging her tighter, heedless of the tears falling on her expensive jacket. “Ugh, I’m so glad that scumbag is officially sentenced.” She drew back, giving Marta a sad smile. “I know it doesn’t fix what happened, but, I’m glad your dad got the justice he deserved.”
“Me, too,” Marta said, and Tarkken could feel her shoring herself up, even as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I’m glad it’s finally over.”
“God, yes,” Asha said. “This has been a long time coming.”
Tarkken still tried to keep out of most other people’s emotions, as far as was possible without getting himself in the same position he’d been in a year ago. But curiosity had him brushing lightly across Asha’s emotional landscape, sensing the satisfaction she felt that Nick Gillespie was going to prison for a very long time, the sadness and happiness and love she felt for Marta. Her joy that the United Earth Government had started up at last.
And nothing else. Tarkken smiled.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “There’s no need for us to hang around any longer.”
“Let’s head back to the Station,” Asha said, slipping an arm round Marta’s waist. “We can celebrate or commiserate. Whichever you prefer.”
As they walked out of the court towards the waiting car, Marta cast a glance back over her shoulder in Tarkken’s direction and winked.
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