A Covenant of Justice

by David Gerrold

Kernel d’Vashti stood up then, bowing with extravagant politeness. He presented an imposing figure, surrounded by his Dragons and Vampire aides. “Your honors, I apologize for speaking out of turn, but we cannot begin. Not until the Lady Zillabar joins us. Those people—” He spat the words with contempt. “Those people still hold her in involuntary servitude. I demand—” He caught himself, stopped, bowed again—this time only slightly—and rephrased his speech. “I request that this court see fit to compel these lawbreakers to produce Lady Zillabar immediately so that she may participate in this proceeding, which certainly affects her, and that we may see that her captors have not abused her and that she still enjoys good health.” d’Vashti concluded with another bow, this one quite florid, and waited expectantly.

  “If it please the court—” Harry’s voice came from the back of the amphitheater. Everyone swiveled in their seats to look at him. Harry came striding down to the open circle at the center of the amphitheater, “As the Arbiter who judged the ruling contested here, may I ask question of some pertinence of Kernel d’Vashti? I believe it will help clarify matters.” Without waiting for the Senior Arbiters to confer, Harry turned to d’Vashti. “Do you accept the authority of these arbiters, this body of law, and this proceeding?”

  d’Vashti hesitated. After a moment, he said suspiciously, “Of course, I do. Why do you even raise the issue?”

  Harry nodded, satisfied. “With the court’s permission, I’ll explain. If you don’t accept the authority of this body to rule on this matter, then we cannot act in good faith here. Additionally, the brothers Markham would have the right to request a dismissal of the case, and according to precedent, the Senior Arbiters would have no option but to grant it. I raise the issue because you have previously indicated your unwillingness to accept the authority of this Gathering. Do you now state for the record that you accept the authority of this Gathering and all that proceeds from it?”

  d’Vashti shook his head. “You just changed the question. I don’t accept this Gathering as legal, but I do accept the authority of this hearing—”

  “No,” said Harry. “You can’t have it both ways. These Arbiters derive their authority directly from this Gathering. If you do not accept the Gathering, then you don’t accept their authority, and neither can you ask for an arbitration. Would you clarify your stand please so that we may proceed appropriately?” Harry allowed himself the slightest of smiles. He turned and looked directly at Sawyer and Finn and the others, as if to ask, “Do you understand now?”

  d’Vashti nodded. He looked as if he’d just bit into something unpleasant. He looked as if he wanted to turn away from the entire proceeding. He looked dangerous. “You son of a bitch,” he said softly. “You clever son of a bitch.”

  “Thank you,” said Harry. “I appreciate the acknowledgment—all the more so because it comes from you, your excellency. Now then, do you accept the authority of this court, and of the Gathering it represents?”

  d’Vashti nodded slowly. “I do,” he said.

  “Thank you,” said Harry. He turned to the Senior Arbiters. “Thank you for allowing me to help clarify this issue. As you know, I have placed myself at the service of this court, and of this Gathering, specifically to help expedite matters such as this. I do appreciate the court’s forbearance here.”

  He bowed and returned to his seat.

  Zillabar Redux

  It didn’t take long for the Senior Arbiters to make their ruling. And shortly after that, Star-Captain Neena Linn-Campbell arranged for Shariba-Jen, Gito, and Arl-N to escort the Lady Zillabar—in shackles—to the site of the hearing.

  Zillabar looked weak, but her spirit appeared undimmed. Despite the bindings, she strode into the amphitheater as haughty and as arrogant and as nasty as she could manage.

  d’Vashti stood waiting to greet her but she swept coldly past him, deliberately snubbing him. She walked to the open circle at the center of the amphitheater and looked up at the Senior Arbiters. “Your honors,” she said. “I request relief. The Captain of the starship, Lady MacBeth, and her crew, and her associated passengers—in specific, Sawyer and Finn Markham, Lee-1169, Dr. M’bele, and the two TimeBinders, William Three-Dollar and Nyota M’bele, and others—have kidnapped me and held me against my will. I request relief.”

  “May it please the court—” Harry Mertz came trundling down to the center of the amphitheater again. “A judgment exists against the Lady, compelling her to fulfill her part of a contract made with Sawyer and Finn Markham. The restriction of her movements became necessary in order to satisfy the terms of the judgment. Previous to my ruling, the Lady Zillabar had demonstrated bad faith on this contract; Sawyer and Finn Markham requested relief, the Lady accepted the results of that and one subsequent arbitration.”

  “I had no choice,” she said.

  “Shall we retell the whole history of this affair then?” Harry asked. “Including the events that transpired aboard your starship, as well as at your private nesting camp?”

  d’Vashti stepped quickly forward then. “That history has no relevance here.”

  “Perhaps it does,” said Harry. “We should let the Senior Arbiters decide.”

  d’Vashti replied, “The Lady Zillabar represents one of the most important families in the Regency—”

  “All the more reason why we should not allow any hint of dishonor to stain her name,” agreed Harry. “Let’s bring the full story out into the light so that Phaestor everywhere may know how the Lady sets the standard of behavior for the entire Regency.”

  Zillabar looked to Harry, her eyes filled with hatred. “I have no need of your defense, you sniveling old fool. I will keep my private affairs to myself. I have that right. I stand here now with only one request of the Senior Arbiters. Please release me from the custody of the Captain of The Lady MacBeth.”

  “Point taken,” said Harry, stepping back out of the way.

  d’Vashti spoke up then. “Your honors. I would like to state for the record, that my species, the Phaestor, does not produce many fertile females. One female will lay many eggs in her lifetime and will produce a significant number of offspring for the next generation. The Lady Zillabar serves not only as the ruler of her own family, she also represents the future of the Phaestor aristocracy. I believe that the deliberate imprisonment of this woman constitutes an act of racial war. Under the Charter of the Regency—a document we all hold sacred, and which remains in effect, despite the alleged purposes of this Gathering, and indeed even until this Gathering ratifies any new form of government—under the sacred Charter, which must remain inviolate, preserving the rights of species survival remains the single most important commandment, one which takes precedence over all other claims of any kind. Therefore, you have no other option but to reject the claims of these terrorists and criminals.” d’Vashti concluded with a triumphant flourish.

  Sawyer and Finn exchanged worried glances. Sawyer started to whisper something, but Finn put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

  The Senior Arbiter had frowned at d’Vashti’s last words. Now, she said, “Please do not use offensive language, Kernel d’Vashti. The court will make its own judgments about the criminality of any individuals here.”

  “Your honor, I said criminals and I meant criminals. Convicted criminals. Escaped criminals. Sawyer and Finn Markham, Lee-1169, Kask, Harry Mertz, and Arl-N all escaped from the detainment on Thoska-Roole. Sawyer and Finn Markham, Lee-1169, and William Three-Dollar, also escaped from the Lady’s Imperial starship as well. Therefore, in addition to granting Lady Zillabar’s petition, I request that this court authorize me to take these criminals back into custody and return them to the detainments from which they escaped.”

  “Your honors—” said Harry, bustling back down to the center of the amphitheater. “It seems to me that mitigating circumstances exist in the matter of these convictions. Indeed,” he said, waggling a finger, “I agree that the mandates of the Regency Charter bear strongly on this case, and I welcome Kerne
l d’Vashti’s raising of these issues. I think we need to hear the whole story of these criminal convictions and the circumstances of the subsequent escapes—”

  “No,” said the Lady Zillabar. “d’Vashti does not speak for me. I have no wish to continue prosecution against any of those the Kernel named. In my official capacity as the senior representative of the ruling authority on Thoska-Roole, I intend to recommend that the Department of Criminal Prosecution investigate this case locally. Without my testimony, I expect that the Department will have to dismiss all charges and expunge the records; in which case, this court should not trouble itself with this matter. I’ll stipulate to that if the court will.”

  The Senior Arbiter conferred briefly with her two colleagues, whispering feverishly among themselves. At last, shrugging, they turned back to the Lady. “As you wish. This court will respect your privacy. Although Justice Mertz obviously wishes to expand the scope of this hearing, at this point, we see no reason to do so.

  “Additionally, we find Kernel d’Vashti’s argument about respecting the genetic heritage of the Phaestor aristocracy so compelling that we have no choice but to grant your petition for release from the custody of The Lady MacBeth. That claim takes precedence over any contractual obligation you may have to the brothers Markham.”

  “Thank you,” said the Lady Zillabar, inclining her head in a noble bow. When she straightened, she turned around to face her antagonists and gave them a look of sheer venom. “Thanks for your blood. I’ll return later for the rest of it.”

  The Rule of Law

  They kept their faces carefully blank until they returned to The Lady MacBeth and had sealed and dogged all the hatches. They held their silence until Shariba-Jen reported that the latest sweep of the ship showed that no security breaches had occurred.

  Then, they started shouting, laughing, and slapping each other on the backs until Harry Mertz began coughing uncontrollably and Ota had to lead him to a chair.

  “I can’t believe it,” said M’bele. “It worked. It actually worked.”

  “It had to work,” said Finn. “We didn’t have a lot of other alternatives.”

  Catching his breath, holding up a hand, Harry nodded and agreed. “It worked because they believed it. And they believed it because we did.”

  Finn had already begun removing the death-mask makeup that Robin and M’bele had so carefully applied. As he pulled off the gray hair and peeled the ashen skin from his face, he finally began to look like the Finn Markham of old—ruddy, dark, and wearing a good-natured ear-to-ear grin.

  “All right,” said Lee-1169. “Can we have some explanations around here, finally? I have no idea what we just did. Did we win a victory or not.”

  “Oh, we won a victory, all right,” said Three-Dollar. “We just don’t know how big a victory yet.”

  M’bele spoke up then. “Finn Markham responded so well to the treatments that he shook off the worst effects of the blood burn before we arrived. I kept this information secret from everyone—even from Sawyer at first—because I didn’t understand what had happened. Then in looking over the entire history of the treatment, I realized exactly why this occurred. Finn’s dramatic improvement only began after Lady Zillabar began feeding on all the different flavors of blood that we made available to her. The Phaestor body produces all kinds of protections against various blood diseases. When the Lady fed, all of her responses kicked in simultaneously, and Finn Markham benefited from that protection. The Lady transferred multiple immune factors to him. So, Finn Markham’s dramatic recovery occurred as a direct result of the generosity of every person here.

  “But more than that,” said M’bele, looking extraordinarily pleased with himself, “I can now tell you that as a result of the extended course of treatments, Finn Markham has achieved a profound immunity to the blood-burn, one which I feel will not only prove permanent, but could equally well prove transferable—not only to other humans, but also to every other species whose blood helped feed Zillabar. If so, we have not only a cure, but a vaccine—and for that we can thank each and every one of us here.”

  “I didn’t donate,” said Lee, both bitter and regretful. To M’bele, he said, “I let my anger overwhelm my compassion. Forgive me.”

  Sawyer turned to Lee. “You don’t have to apologize. We all understood. Nobody condemns you. I don’t. I don’t know that I would have acted any differently if I had stood in your place.”

  Lee shook it off. “But—now I feel as if I have betrayed this Alliance.” He looked around in confusion. “Sometimes what feels right turns out wrong. Sometimes what feels wrong turns out right. How can anyone know what to do?”

  Three-Dollar went to him and touched him compassionately. “You have to stop looking to the past as a guide. Instead, design the future that you want and then choose to step committedly into it. Always look to the future you want to step into for guidance. That will tell you what you have to do.”

  Lee accepted this information with a puzzled frown. He would have to think about this for a long while. He sat down thoughtfully.

  Now, Robin spoke up. “But—?” she asked. “Why the pretense that Finn still needed further treatments? Why did we have to make him look so deathly ill for this hearing? That part I don’t understand.”

  Three-Dollar nodded deferentially to Harry. Harry shrugged modestly. “Well,” he said, “I take the blame for that. I did not tell any of you what I intended because I feared that your foreknowledge might keep you from acting appropriately. We needed you to become angry and rebellious, so that d’Vashti would believe that we had lost our unity—so that d’Vashti would see what he wanted to see, our vulnerability. We needed to have him underestimate us.”

  “So . . . you knew that the court would overturn your ruling?”

  “I expected it,” Harry said. “Indeed, I hoped for it. We had no further need of Zillabar here. Keeping her in custody made us look like villains. We had to get rid of her. She’d served her purpose. Finn had his health. We couldn’t just release her, could we? No, we needed to have her serve us once again. By letting d’Vashti have the appearance of victory, we’ve also guaranteed his ultimate failure. The moment he accepted the authority of the court, he also accepted the authority of the Gathering.

  “The TimeBinders have to concern themselves only with the upcoming Unification and Speaking. But the Arbiters have had a much more compelling worry. Whatever the TimeBinders create, how will we enforce it on the Regency? By getting d’Vashti to accept the legality of the processes here, he has established the precedent that the Regency will also accept the Speaking of the ‘Binders. Whatever else happened at that hearing, we always had as our real goal, having d’Vashti speak his acknowledgment for the record. We achieved that by not letting d’Vashti realize what he had stepped into. I thank you all for your part in this marvelous subterfuge.”

  Sawyer stood up then, frowning slightly. “But what about all that stuff you said about justice—justice for the enemy as well as for yourself?”

  “What about it?” Harry eyed him blandly.

  “Those high-sounding words; did you mean them or not?”

  “I meant them,” said Harry. “Every single word. I believe that d’Vashti must have access to justice too. And Zillabar. You and Lee and others have correctly asked the question, ‘How can we have justice if the Phaestor don’t also subscribe to it?’ The question troubles others as well. This hearing that we just concluded represents part of the answer. First, you have to have the agreement of the Phaestor that they will subscribe to the same code. They have. Now we can truly talk about justice. As an Arbiter, I remain committed to justice. When I wear this robe, I will speak as fairly as I can. When I doff the robe, however, I retain a healthy awareness of my pitiful shortcomings as a human. I confess to some loyalty to my friends. But I promise you, I have never let my love of my friends overwhelm my love of justice. It pleases me no end that in this situation, justice also serves those I have learned to love.”


  Harry noticed the look on Sawyer’s face and said, “That troubles you, doesn’t it?”

  Sawyer nodded. “I don’t have to list all the different ways that d’Vashti and Zillabar have broken their word, broken their oaths to the Regency, broken the law, broken the boundaries of common decency—and you know as well as I how they have repeatedly violated the Charter of the Regency. Why didn’t you bring that up? Why didn’t you force the discussion of that issue? We could have had them disgraced—”

  “We could have risked triggering a civil war. d’Vashti and Zillabar would not walk willingly into their own destruction. Nor could the Phaestor allow the Gathering to take that kind of action against two of their highest leaders. No. First we erode their authority by getting them to accept the authority of the Gathering as a higher body. This way, my friend, we have the force of law on our side.”

  “But it doesn’t matter what you get them to agree to. They’ll ignore it at their convenience. They always do. You can’t possibly expect them to they’ll keep their word about accepting the authority of the Gathering?”

  “Actually, I don’t expect anything from either of them. Remember, I have personal experience of their treachery too. But listen to me, Sawyer Markham. We will abide by the rule of law, even if they do not—for once we begin to play by their rules, then no matter what else happens, we have already lost.”

  The Lady and the Tiger

  Within moments after the Imperial shuttle docked with The Black Destructor, the Lady Zillabar had stormed off, with d’Vashti following stiffly in her wake. Neither had spoken to the other—not in the hearing of multiple aides, attendants, and guards, Dragons and Vampires alike.

  As soon as they had both reached the private quarters d’Vashti had set aside for her, Zillabar turned to the waiting attendants and maids and dismissed them instantly. “I will speak to the Kernel alone.” As soon as the door had dilated shut behind the last of them, she let the first outer signs of her anger appear on her outer face.