“Had enough?” Keeler gasped. The man circled, cursing agitatedly in some language the Lingotron did not understand, all the while vigorously shaking his wrists.
“General, I am surprised at you,” Goldenrod burbled, happy grin still transfixed on her face. “You used to be so nice.”
The man stopped, and with a deep breath recovered himself. His dark, dark eyes squinted and fixed on the staff the Commander held. “Thean!” he hissed.
Congratulations, you have correctly guessed the pedigree of my weapon As a prize, you win the right not to kill me.
Keeler scrambled to his feet, still holding the staff protectively in front of him.
“How did you come to possess such a thing?” the old man demanded.
“Family heirloom,” Keeler explained.
“General, this is Commander Keeler from the starship Pegasus. Commander, this is General Ziang,” Goldenrod seemed graciously unaware of what had just happened. “He comes from a former Commonwealth colony. They are trying to rediscover the lost worlds of the Commonwealth. Isn’t that just precious? ”
Unimpressed, Ziang asked. “What business does your new friend have in my sanctum sanctorum?”
“I was hoping you could tell me something about the Commonwealth, and especially the Crusades,” Keeler told him. “Directions to Earth, that sort of thing.”
“Earth?” Ziang’s eyes narrowed. He spat. “Why would you want to go there?”
“Well, my family and, everyone I know is from there … originally.”
“Your family… Keeler is it? Are you descended from the Admiral Lexington Keeler of the Christian Fleet in the Ninth Crusade.”
“He is both my ancestor, and one of the Founding Fathers of my planet. Did you know him?”
“Indeed I did. Your ancestor was a brave and honorable man,” Ziang said. “We should never see his like again.”
And you should count yourself lucky, Keeler thought.
The man’s manner changed, but only slightly. The harshness remained, but was directed away from his intruders. “Rude! Rude! Rude of me. This is no way to show hospitality. Come, let me show you my palace. Let me arrange dates, nuts, and pastries. And coffee, steaming and black from my vines. Your grandfather was a great, great man,” he patted Keeler on the back. “I would give anything to have one more conversation with him.”
“I can arrange that,” Keeler said.
Winter – Ultima Thule
In the courthouse of the Village of Ultima Thule, Lord Waterstone was completing his examination of Enforcer Lambrusco. “… and what did you find when you opened the bag that Tactical Commander Redfire was carrying onto the ship on which he was about to leave the planet?”
“When we opened the bag, we found bloody clothes and the candlestick that was used to bash in Manchester’s skull.”
Waterstone lifted a candlestick sealed in a plastic bag. “Is this the weapon you found in Commander Redfire’s bag, amid his bloody socks and underwear?”
“I believe it is, yes, sir.”
“I have no further questions,” Waterstone said, despite the extreme emphasis on certain words in his examination of Lambrusco, miraculously managing to maintain an air of something almost casual, a certain throw of the shoulders that said ‘ Jury, the case against this man is so obvious, I scarcely need to put myself out convincing you.’
Brigand leaned over and whispered a few things in Gotobed’s ear. The judge saw her roll her eyes in disbelief, then nod slightly, perhaps sigh as she resigned herself to playing their strange game. She rose and made her way determinedly to the stand. “Mr. Lambrusco, I’d like to revisit your… your theory of the case. You contend that TyroCommander Redfire killed this Manchester by several blows to the skull with a candlestick.”
“Correct.”
“This attack, under your theory took place in Lord Tyronius’s Conservatory.”
“Correct. The pattern of blood spatter indicates the attack took place in the Conservatory. The only other place we found blood was on the clothing in Commander Redfire’s bag.”
“Do you have any physical evidence that TyroCommander Redfire was ever in the Conservatory?”
“His fingerprints were on the door.”
“You found his fingerprints on the outside of the door. Did you find any on the inside of the room?”
“No, but that only means he didn’t touch anything once he was inside.”
“On the contrary, he did touch at least one other thing in the room… the candlestick. Did that come from the room where Manchester was murdered?”
“No, it came from the dining room where Manchester tried to make a grab for his kid.”
“Did you find any prints on the candlestick itself?”
“No.”
“How do you explain that?”
“He could have worn gloves when he attacked Manchester, wrapped the candlestick in a towel, or wiped it clean when he was finished.”
“So, in your scenario, he grabs the candlestick from the dining room, carefully wraps it in a towel, or wears gloves to keep his prints from it, then he takes off his gloves or puts down the candlestick to paw at the door of the Conservatory, to which he presumably led Manchester.”
“Or followed him. Manchester could have let him in from inside the room,” Lambrusco suggested.
“Why would he have done that?”
“Objection,” Lord Waterstone rose to his feet. “Irrelevant, calls for speculation.”
“Sustained, mon.” To Gotobed. “That means he doesn’t have to answer.” Undeterred, Gotobed pushed her attack. “He attacks Manchester, you said it’s a very bloody attack.
Would his clothes have become bloodied?”
“Not necessarily. The fabric your people use seems to repel contamination.”
“Not even the gloves he would have worn to wield the candlestick? They would have been soaked in blood, wouldn’t they?”
“We haven’t located the bloody gloves yet.”
“The gloves you claim he used to keep from leaving fingerprints on the candlestick. You’ve never found them?”
“No.”
“So, he gets rid of the gloves, but he keeps the murder weapon, under your theory.”
“He could also have wrapped it in a towel, or a napkin or anything.”
“Have you found a bloody towel or napkin or ‘anything’ in the estate.”
“No, we haven’t.”
“In other words, you found none of Manchester’s blood anywhere on Redfire’s clothes except for the clothing in the bag that came into contact with the candlestick.”
“He could have disposed of them.”
“He could have disposed of the candlestick as well, couldn’t he have? If he had washed it clean and replaced it in the dining room, no one would have noticed, correct?” Waterstone jumped to his feet. “Objection, calls for speculation.” Judge Braithewaite shook his head. “I’ll allow it, mon.”
Lambrusco conceded very little. “If he had been thinking clearly, he might have done that.”
“Instead, after carefully covering his tracks, disposing of his bloody clothes, washing himself clean of any physical evidence, he puts the murder weapon into a bag and hands it over to you when you ask for it, correct?”
“This was a crime of passion. People don’t always think clearly…”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Answer, mon,” said Braithewaite.
Lambrusco sighed. “Correct, but he was in the process of taking the murder weapon off the planet when we arrested him.”
“Did he resist or object in any way to your search of the bag?”
“He seemed to resent it.”
“I didn’t ask if he resented it. Did he resist or object to your search?”
“No.”
“That’s all I need to know from this witness,” Gotobed said, regaining her seat.
“She’s a quick-study,” Harmony whispered to Waterstone.
“If she was
trying put doubt in the minds of the jury, I don’t think she succeeded,” Waterstone grumbled drily. He stood. “Redirect, your honor.”
The judge waved him forward, and he strutted up to Lambrusco. “Were any fingerprints other than Redfire’s discovered on the candlestick.”
“No.”
“On the travel case?”
“No.”
Waterstone seemed satisfied. “Nothing further.”
Pegasus—EdenWorld Vivarium, Deck 14
Pieta, David Alkema, and Trajan Lear lay on the green grass of a small arboretum off one of the primary vivaria, one dedicated to botanical samples from EdenWorld Colony. The collection was limited to those species of plants that did not eat people and whose scent did not produce hallucinogenic or aphrodisiac effects as quite a large number of Edenian plants did. David Alkema believed there were going to be a lot of follow-up missions to EdenWorld.
Without Max Jordan, their attempt at Happy Fun Ball had fallen apart quickly, and now they lay on their backs, staring up at the strange golden simulated sky of Eden, watching holographic clouds tell pantomime stories of monsters and dragons. When the peace and silence became unbearable, Pieta nudged Alkema and asked, “What are you thinking about?”
Alkema, being the youngest of four brothers and the beneficiary of wisdom they acquired by trial and error, knew exactly what a woman meant by this question. “I was thinking how much I loved you, what nice things I could do to show it, and also wondering what you were thinking about,” he answered, covering all the bases.
“I was thinking about when we met,” she said, sounding gratified that she could immediately get to the conversation she wanted to have without having to listen to whatever thoughts might be on David’s mind. “Remember, I was just a little girl, then. I was so…”
Obnoxious, Alkema and Trajan thought, for them this had been less than two years ago.
“… sweet and innocent,” she finished. For her, almost eighteen years had passed. “I saw you and I just thought, I’m going to have that man. I’m going to keep him all to myself just like mater kept Tobias. I can’t believe I ever thought that way, now.”
She nestled in a bit closer to him. “When you first brought me back to the ship and you didn’t want to have sex with me, I was devastated,” she continued. “It took me forever to learn that things are different here.”
“I was surprised, too,” Alkema said. “Because you were Iestan. In the Book of Vesta, Interludes and Examinations, it’s written that sex is the closest humans come to godliness, because the power to create life is divine, and procreation is as close as we come to it. Iestans are supposed to approach sex with reverence.”
“We were taught that those verses only apply to procreative sex, our interpretation was guided by the prophet Juno,” she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I just was so hurt that you still rejected me when I first came on board.”
“It wasn’t rejection,” David Alkema told her.
“I know that now,” she said cutting him off. “You were still adjusting to me being a woman, and not a little girl.”
“I would have been a first rank jerk to take advantage of you then,” Alkema put in.
She paused. “In those first days on your ship, I missed Tobias, and Tamarind, but Jordan wouldn’t let me stay n my chamber. She forced me to … to try and find a place in your crew.”
“You’ve done an amazing job with Sam and Max,” David told her. “This transition was a lot harder on them than you, and I don’t think Commandant Jordan could have managed without you.”
“Max has always been pretty mature about things, but Sam has been a handful. Remember when he hid his commlink in the UnderDecks and made everyone think he was trapped in a water conduit?” Alkema chuckled at the memory. Trajan shivered whenever anyone brought up the topic of water conduits. At Eden, he had nearly died in one.
Pieta continued. “Or the time he and Marcus drank the pure syrup at Fast Eddie’s Slam ‘n’ Jam and ran around the ship singing and dancing,”
Alkema laughed out loud. “Or the time Sam filled up Grounds-Technician Willard’s quarters with cream corn after he took his hoverboard away from him.”
Trajan cracked a smile. That had been a funny one.
Alkema remembered another. “Remember when he broke his leg in the natatorium and, while he was stuck in his chamber, made all those prank calls to Eddie, asking for crewmen who didn’t exist?”
“Like Specialist Assmaster,” Trajan remembered
“And Specialist Buck Naked?” Pieta added.
“Lieutenant Incontinentia Buttocks!” Alkema remembered. “Technician Phil McCracken!”
“I don’t know where he gets it from,” said Pieta. “Jordan isn’t like that. I’m not like that. Tobias sure wasn’t like that.”
“TyroCommander Redfire is like that,” Trajan said. Reminded suddenly of the unpleasantness of the trial on the surface, the laughter dropped dead, and the conversation endured an awkward pause.
“I am sure they’ll find him innocent,” Pieta said, to break the silence. “They have to.”
“Prime Commander Keeler won’t let them get away with it, if they do, which they won’t,” Alkema said. “He already has Honeywell working a rescue plan.”
Pieta sighed, reached over and stroked Alkema’s arm. “I think things have begun to grow between us, don’t you?”
“Definitely,” Alkema answered. “I don’t see you as a little girl any more, that’s for sure. You’ve grown… in every way that matters.”
“Thank you for noticing,” she said, in a way that might have been playful. “I love you,” she added.
“I love you, too,” said Alkema, with more confidence than affection. He gave Pieta a kiss and then turned toward Trajan. “I hope you don’t feel left out of our intimate conversation?”
“Huh? … oh, nay. I could leave if you want.”
“No, stay here,” Pieta insisted.
“What were you thinking about, anyway?” David asked Trajan.
Trajan stared at the auburn clouds in the sky. “Max hasn’t been in school for three days.”
“Are you worried about him?”
“I guess.”
Alkema nodded. “We’ll have to do something about him. I’m worried about him as well.” Winter – Ultima Thule
Commander Redfire was on the stand. Waterstone was questioning, pacing and stalking through the courtroom as though it was an arena and he was a gladiator. He paced and strode between the prosecutor’s table and the jury box, pretending to formulate the questions he had in fact rehearsed for days.
“Mr. Redfire, how did it make you feel when you learned Clinton Manchester had propositioned your son, sexually.”
“Max is not my son,” Redfire reminded him, “but I was shocked and angry.”
“So, you hit him?”
“I cold-cocked him,” Redfire said with firmness and defiance. “It was an appropriate and measured response in accordance with the custom of self-policing practiced by my people and enshrined in our laws.”
Waterstone continued, breathing quick, deep, contemptuous breaths. “So, you would have us believe that you acted out of a pure sense of justice,” he spat out the word ‘justice’ with a growl and with eyes that almost seemed ready to shoot out of his head. “I don’t believe you, Mr. Redfire. I think in your fury, the furthest thing from your mind was your people’s law, Mr. Redfire. I think that your assault of Manchester, an assault that several witnesses have described to this court, was an expression of your own rage …” pause, change of pitch, “over what he attempted to do with that child.” Gotobed stood up. “Your honor, Lord Waterstone is just acting agitated in hopes of getting the jury to empathize with his rage.”
Judge Braithewaite’s eyes widened slightly. “What’s your point? Do you have an objection, mon?” He seemed to be suppressing his amusement.
“Za, I do object, za. How can you get justice by working up people’s emotions. You have to b
e dispassionate and examine the facts objectively.”
Braithewaite shrugged his locks. “That’s the system. It works most of the time. Objection over-ruled.” Gotobed sat down, and Brigand comforted her. “You broke his rhythm, well done.” Waterstone launched back into it, seeming not at all diminished. “Answer the question, Mr. Redfire.”
“Uh, was there a question?” Redfire asked.
“Was your assault on Manchester an expression of your rage?”
“Za.”
“Let the record show that the defendant answered za, which means ‘yes’ in his own language.? In other words, your assault was an expression of something you felt in your heart.”
“I was angry and so I hit him, za. My people would consider that an appropriate and measured response.”
“What your people think is not on trial here,” Waterstone moved quickly toward the prosecutor’s stand, where Harmony was handing him several small black plastic squares. “The people wish to enter into record the following examples of Redfire’s self expression.” Gotobed knew what was contained in the data modules. She rose to object. “Your honor, I don’t see what bearing this information has on this case.”
Braithewaite waggled his finger. “Approach.”
Before he reached the bench, Waterstone was arguing. “Your honor, this evidence establishes that the Defendant has a predilection toward expressing himself violently. It speaks to motive, and to his violent character.”
Gotobed replied. “None of these images indicates that Commander Redfire is violent, let alone guilty of murder.”
“Then, the jury may fairly draw that conclusion. Show the tapes.” Of course, they weren’t tapes, but the usage of that word had persisted long into the era of solid state data storage. The first black square was placed on the witness stand and Waterstone waved his hand over it.
The first image showed a huge building, a tall, oval structure of burnished copper, with interesting chunky piping snaking all around it. Suddenly, there was a bright pink explosion. The building disintegrated, and settled into a neat ring of rubble with a half-circle and two round piles that almost resembled a smiling human face.
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