Trial of the Century

by Lawrence M. Schoen

  “To understand you, Mr. Conroy.”

  “How’s that working out for you?”

  “It is not. Nor am I faring better with our recent exchange. You stated that your only worry is for the buffalito in your care. And I know this to be true. What did you mean by that?”

  “It’s not obvious?”

  “It should be, but it makes no sense. Either you live such a charmed existence that nothing else concerns you, which is inherently absurd, or your regard for this animal is so vast as to blot out all other issues. I find both of these explanations so preposterous as to make me question your sanity. Be advised that our jurisprudence does not recognize madness as a defense.”

  “I know all about Arcon jurisprudence. Where’s Reggie?”

  “Close at hand.”

  “Where?!”

  I hadn’t meant to shout. Loyoka took a step back and held up one hand, revealing a metallic disc on his palm with an tiny aperture aimed at me. “I set it down just outside. It slumbers even still.”

  “I want to see him.”

  The Arcon hesitated and lowered his hand. “If it is that important, I will permit it. But then you must explain. Do you agree?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  The wall opened again and he stepped back, squatted, and reached one long arm far to the right and outside my field of vision. When he brought it back, he held Reggie, his spatulate fingers curled almost protectively around the buffalito. As he came forward the wall closed again. I reached to take Reggie. I pulled him to my chest, unembarrassed to be hugging him in front of the alien. He was fine. Warm and wooly. He snuffled against me, but did not wake up, just like every other time I’d held him since the volcano.

  I’d run out of both options and leverage, and Reggie was running out of time. I didn’t know what the Arconi planned to do to me, but it didn’t seem important. Now that Loyoka had me in custody there was no guarantee his people would heal Reggie. But then, as I pressed my face into the tight curls on Reggie’s hump, an idea began glimmering.

  Loyoka tapped his foot, and kept tapping it until I looked up. “Now, explain your statement.”

  “Let me ask you something first. Your own records show that Reggie is mine, free and clear, right? Bought and paid for according to your own laws?”

  “That’s been established, yes.”

  “And the Arconi stand by the products they sell, don’t they? You wouldn’t want it getting around that any of your goods were defective, right? That would be bad for business.”

  “The Arconi trade commission backs the quality of all of our exports.”

  “Good. Then I have a prior claim to your charges against me. Those alleged crimes happened after I’d acquired Reggie acting as a licensed courier.”

  “What are you talking about, Mr. Conroy?”

  “The explanation I promised you. And the reason I’m not worried about anything any more.”

  He stared at me and his eyes widened. Score another victory against the Arconi power to see the truth.

  “But why?”

  “Because you’ve already established that I’m not a smuggler, and by your own admission Reggie is still under warranty. So before your people put me on trial on your trumped up charges, you’re first going to agree to heal him!”

  *

  Time in my little cell continued its theoretical passage, but only because I focused on it. The light never changed. Nor did I habituate to the faint scent of freshly baked cookies. Everything was the same as the moment I’d awakened there. Leave it to the bland Arconi to distill the tedium of space travel to the pinnacle of dull. I’d had only a rough idea of where The Mumby had been in its circuit through the galaxy, and an even vaguer guess as to the location of any Arcon-occupied planets, but even a dedicated courier vessel with priority clearance and a straight shot through the intervening transit portals would have needed weeks to get from point A to point B. When Loyoka returned I still wasn’t hungry and hadn’t slept.

  “We have arrived at our destination.”

  I gazed up, the soul of petulance. “Your destination, maybe. Not mine.”

  “This vessel has docked at a judicial holding facility on the Arconi homeworld. I have brought you here to stand trial for your crimes. Soon you will face numerous charges of deliberate and premeditated harm to the economy of the Arconi. While the smuggling of buffalitos carries a death sentence, the civil and criminal penalties for the current charges are less immediate but also cumulative. You would not live long enough to survive the entirety of your sentence. In such cases, and they are rare indeed, the government will devote the necessary resources to extend your life indefinitely, so that you may experience the full weight of justice. Do you understand what I am telling you?”

  He stood over me, already taller as nearly all Arconi are. His words added menace to his looming. I held Reggie’s sleeping body in my lap. My hands stroked his fur and I lifted my head to meet Loyoka’s gaze as I replied.

  “I understand a couple of things. I understand that you, and maybe all Arcons, are sore losers. Nobody likes being beaten at their own game, but instead of looking forward and figuring out what you could do better the next time, you can’t let go of the past and instead put all your energy into getting even. I’d never conceived of pettiness as a trait for an entire race of people.”

  Loyoka had pressed his lips together tightly as he listened. His truth sense evaluating the belief behind my words.

  “You said you understood two things. That was one. What is the other?”

  “That you’re full of crap,” I said. “You asked me years ago about smuggling. You asked me again here on this ship. You know the answer I gave was true. And yet here you are, dragging me off against my will, throwing me into a court to face charges that lack a valid premise. So don’t stand there feeling smug and talk to me about justice. Your justice stinks.”

  He offered no reply and just stood there, towering over me for a long while. When he finally spoke, it was as if our previous conversation had never happened.

  “Put down the buffalo dog and stand with your hands linked behind your back. Though you have offered no resistance thus far, it is customary to restrain prisoners being transferred into the keeping of the Justiciars.”

  “No.” I didn’t move.

  “Mr. Conroy, you need not be conscious for the transfer to take place. I can use the neural dampener again, though a second application so soon might have adverse side effects. Do as I have instructed, or I will take that risk.”

  “Happy to, but first you need to accept responsibility for Reggie and give me your word that you will see to his complete restoration.”

  “I am an officer of the law, not a sales clerk to be held accountable for damaged goods.”

  I stood and held Reggie out to him. “I don’t expect you to see to it personally, but you are a representative of the Arconi people. If you tell me you will ensure the thing is done, I know it will happen. Then I will be a model prisoner for you. I promise.”

  Loyoka had changed out of his ill-fitting disguise and wore a somber outfit that looked like oversized, footie pajamas of skyblue, herring-boned tweed with a collarless silk windbreaker in forest green. He nodded. “I acknowledge your prior claim, and will see that the proper authorities deliver such care and treatment as is appropriate to his condition. Is that acceptable?”

  “Perfectly,” I said, and tried to hand Reggie to him. Loyoka shook his head and gestured for me to set the buffalito down. I’d already had his word on the matter and that was as good as I’d get. I placed Reggie at my feet and ran my fingers one last time through his curls, then stood and assumed the position Loyoka had indicated. He spun me around and smeared goop over my interlocked fingers and hands and wrists. The goop tingled a moment and then stiffened, gripping me tighter than any pair of handcuffs I’d known. A moment later and the wall I’d been leaning against since first awakening vanished, revealing a short hallway and an open airlock beyond. A pair of
Arcons wearing black, non-reflective riot gear complete with faceless helmets waited for us. A slight shove propelled me forward, and as I entered the airlock they each took hold of me by an arm.

  “Do you accept transfer of this prisoner as specified in the previously transmitted documents, one Conroy, a Human of Earth?” I glanced back over my shoulder to see if Loyoka looked as satisfied as he sounded to be saying those words after so long.

  The bailiff on my left raised her helmet and met Loyoka’s eyes. “We do. And we thank you for your perseverance. Justice will be served.”

  “There are more important things than justice,” I said.

  Both bailiffs stiffened at my words, but Loyoka reassured them. “Humans often express personal opinions as facts. It can be difficult to distinguish between the two.

  I shrugged. “Sometimes they’re the same thing.”

  The airlock’s inner door closed, cutting off any reply. Loyoka had left.

  “Mr. Conroy, we will take you now to meet with the Advocate appointed to represent you.” The outer lock opened revealing a beige corridor with a high ceiling, even by Arcon standards.

  “I know the procedure,” I said. “I’ve been reading up on Arconi jurisprudence.”

  Whether that earned me any respect or just their silence, my bailiffs marched me along without another word.

  *

  My new cell was a lot like my old cell, which is to say featureless with walls that opened and closed to someone else’s will but not mine. Unfurnished, neither warm nor cold, the new space had twice the area of my broom closet incarceration on Loyoka’s ship, which at least allowed me to pace a bit. It didn’t smell like cookies. I’d begun to get thirsty and a tad hungry, both of which I took as a good sign. I missed Reggie. I’d been walking in a tight clockwise circle for about eight hundred paces, going over the wording of my earlier conversations with Loyoka and wondering if the phrases I’d used had been effective, when a wall opened to reveal one of the bailiffs and a second Arcon in purple corduroy pajamas, presumably my Advocate. She was tall, even for her kind, with a pageboy hairstyle and square jaw that gave her face a solemn nobility.

  Almost every Arcon I’d met had dour features. I suppose it goes with their faces being as elongated as the rest of their bodies, by Human standards. This one was an exception. Her mouth, nose and eyes seemed too small for her face, but were spread out in a balanced way that gave her an exceptional beauty. I had to wonder if her own people saw her that way. As she stepped forward the bailiff retreated and closed up the wall again, presumably to give us a modicum of privacy while still sealing us in. Time then to begin the next phase of my plan, such as it was.

  “Conroy of Earth? I am Veltuma. I have been appointed by the Tribunal to be your Advocate.”

  Her statement required a response. I tried to review the concepts Pilate and Oetting had shared, and Malsh’s advice for putting my own spin on them. Either it would work, or it wouldn’t. For Reggie’s sake, I had to make it work.

  “You’re here to help me beat the charges against me, right?”

  The Arcon looked down at me, eyes narrowing in what I assumed was scorn. “Not at all. My presence is merely a formality. The evidence against you is irrefutable. The outcome of your case is inevitable and was resolved the moment we received word you were aboard a commercial vessel that would not offer significant resistance to Arconi extradition.”

  “So you’re saying my chances are like a snowball’s in Narnia?”

  Her eyes widened, confusion replacing derision. “Pardon.”

  “I was just commenting on how my situation is extra sharp cheddar. Can you feel the tang of it in your cheeks?”

  “I… that is, my cheeks… I don’t feel anything.”

  “Oh come on, you’re a court-appointed Advocate. We both know that means you’ve seen irrefutable evidence get up, walk out the door, head down to the local bar, and get so drunk that a dozen lawyers have no choice but to stalk it as it leaves and spring an intervention on it.”

  “You’re talking about the evidence against you?”

  “Well, technically, you started that topic of conversation, but yes, you’re correct as wood.”

  Beginning with my cheese metaphor, Veltuma’s breath rate had increased. Judging by the throb of a vein in her neck, her heart rate had substantially climbed. As I watched, her fingers flexed, a slight tremor at first which soon graduated into the rhythmic clenching and unclenching of fists by the time I’d finished. Her telepathic truth-sense confirming my every figurative statement but unable to make sense of any of it.

  “Yes, well, as I said, the outcome is not in doubt.”

  “Oh, I have no more doubts than a buffalito has wrenches,” I said, spinning the idiom on the fly.

  “Wrenches?”

  “We call them monkey wrenches where I come from.”

  “I’ve read your case files and been briefed on Humans. And I am naturally familiar with buffalo dogs. But I confess I don’t know much about these monkeys of which you speak. A lesser primate species from your homeworld, yes? Did your corporation utilize these?”

  “That’s an intriguing idea. If I was still in business, do you think it might be useful to set up a working group to explore pairing monkeys and buffalitos? Can you picture a wrench-wielding monkey riding on the back of a buffalito?”

  Her hands had locked into tight fists by this point and begun smacking repeatedly against her thighs, faster and faster as the non sequiturs and questions took her further afield. Any doubt I might have in Pilate’s theories vanished. My confidence was as high as it was going to get. Time to switch back to literal speech.

  “Advocate Veltuma, there is something you need to know about this case. Something that will change all of it for you.”

  She noticed her fists for the first time. The Advocate unclenched and very slowly and deliberately brought her hands together in front of her body, fingers interlaced. She made a visible effort to slow her breathing before finally saying, “And what might that be?”

  “I’m going to win in court.”

  Short. Simple. I wasn’t expressing an opinion. I said it as a statement of fact. I believed it. I might be wrong, but that didn’t change the truth of my words for me as Veltuma saw it.

  The Adovocate’s eyes had popped wide, all but protruding from their sockets. In a whisper she replied, “Perhaps you don’t understand the situation…”

  “I understand. Believe me, I understand it better than green leafy vegetables and nonstick cookware.”

  “I…”

  “I’m going to win!”

  “This… this is not rational. You are not making any sense. I have read your files. You have previously gone to extraordinary measures to avoid and prevent any encounters with the Arconi, presumably for fear of finding yourself in your current situation. Why would you welcome it now?”

  “Back then I had a fortune and plenty of lawyers to run interference. That’s all gone now, and I’ve had the opportunity to re-evaluate my situation. As I see it, the cheese has had time to age.” I reached up with one hand, fingers spread wide, and with thumb and middle finger tapped her lightly on both cheeks. “Very, very sharp cheddar.”

  She stared at me without speaking, her telepathic gift registering the conviction of everything I’d said. Time hung suspended a moment. I dropped my hand and smiled. And then my Advocate backed away, striking the wall behind her with an elbow, then again with the length of her entire arm, and finally with a repeatedly pounding fist. “Bailiff! Remove me at once!” An opening appeared and the bailiff stepped in, a stun baton aimed in my direction. I leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed, as Veltuma scurried from my cell.

  *

  I was getting seriously hungry and thirsty by the time both bailiffs returned. One moved to a corner of the cell and kept a stun baton aimed at me. The other handed me a tray of food and a bundle of clothing. She also showed me a particular location on the featureless wall that opened to provide
access to sanitary facilities, and another spot where I was to place my clothes and the remains of my meal after I’d finished. Then they left.

  The meal was a meatless stew with large chunks of something that might have been apples or potatoes or an otherworldly analogue. The only utensil provided was a ceramic wedge, bent at a wide angle and about half the width of my palm. As stews go, this one was simple but satisfying. The clothing was a form-fitting jumpsuit in a pale white that would match most Arconi skin tones. If it was typical courtroom garb it probably made the defendants look naked. Maybe that was the idea. I took off the tuxedo I’d worn for my last show and stuffed it into the wall, then squeezed into the jumpsuit. I had to triple cuff the sleeves and pant legs but otherwise it fit me well enough.

  Someone must have been monitoring me, and as I’d finished dressing the light level dimmed. I curled up in a corner wishing I’d kept my clothing to use as a pillow, and went to sleep for the first time in what might have been days. I didn’t dream.

  I awoke to find my cell back at its previous illumination and a different pair of bailiffs but still wearing the same all-black riot garb, both male, standing over me. Effecting a nonchalance I didn’t feel I yawned, stretched extravagantly, and gave them my best stage smile. “Never seen a Human sleep before? Hmm, if I’d known it could draw an audience, I might have sold tickets.”

  A bailiff pointed at another corner of the cell. A breakfast tray sat on the floor, alongside a neatly folded pile of clothing. “The Justiciars are meeting with your Advocate in closed session. Eat, perform your ablutions, and dress. They will be ready for you soon.” They left, and I did as instructed. Breakfast was a local variant on porridge, topped with chopped nuts and dried fruit, and a tepid cup of floral tea. My ablutions ran much as they typically did, enhanced by the quirks and limitations provided by the plumbing in the wall of my cell. The real surprise was the clothing. My Arconi jailers had returned my tuxedo, cleaned and pressed. Further proof, not that I needed it, that my trial was going to be a performance.