Already, the tension in the air, the sense of expectancy, was high.
Nichol August raised his arms as Brant and Lilly stepped into the loose circle, but there was no crowd noises to die down at his command. They were already silent. Waiting.
Lilly nodded at Nichol, telling him silently to proceed.
Brant studied Farago. She looked just as young up close as she had from a distance. Her chin was up, her black eyes staring defiantly ahead, not meeting anyone’s gaze directly. Her face was pale, though and her hands were clenched at her sides. At least she had the sense to be afraid.
“Amelia Farago has admitted to killing another human,” Nichol said, lifting his voice so it would be heard across the square. Elsewhere in the city, everyone would be watching the city feed that one of Yennifer’s AIs controlled. Brant had no illusions that anyone was watching for entertainment, or that anyone would not be watching.
“Shelton Sarkozi died a permanent death as a result of her crime,” Nichol added, “for the only mule farm he had access to was destroyed when the Periglus used their terraforming weapon on Varnham.”
Brant sighed. He hadn’t known that. It was another factor, another degree of tension.
“The reason Farago gives for killing Sarkozi is that she caught him stealing her food vouchers, the last she had left for the day. Stealing is also a crime here on Charlton. We consider the property of others to be inviolable, to be treated with respect and consideration at all times, yet theft is not as great a crime as murder, which is why we meet here now to decide how to proceed.” He let his arms drop and faced Farago. “Do you have anything to say in your defense?”
Farago looked at everyone assembled in the circle. Then she lifted her voice so it would be heard, too. “I am pregnant. I must have food. He was taking the last of mine, threatening the life of my child.”
Surprise rippled across the square, followed swiftly by a concerned muttering. Even Brant had trouble hiding his reaction. The life of a child was precious. Glave’s teachings were clear on that. Children were humanity’s most valuable resource and their birth and raising were an adult human’s priority. Even if the Ammonites were being disbanded and their philosophies derided, the basic principles still held sway over every human society. The last remnant of Cadfael College still lingered to take children into their care and raise them to become stable, highly educated and contributing adults.
Lilly was watching him, gauging his reaction. There was sympathy in her eyes. She knew this would bother him more than anyone else in the square.
Brant swallowed. Oh, this was going to be impossible….
Nichol August was staring at Farago, his lips working. He had been just as badly surprised and was casting about for something to say. Already, the normal procedure for the hearing and voting upon a crime had been upset.
Ask for input, Brant urged him mentally.
Nichol licked his lips. His gaze flickered around the circle.
The other mayors and reeves were shifting on their feet. They understood that Nichol must control the procedure and if he let the observers think for themselves for too long, they would overreact.
Lilly was watching Nichol, as well. She would understand just as clearly, yet she couldn’t take over for him, because that would be a symbolic stripping of village independence in favor of the city overall.
Brant stepped forward and raised his arms, before even he was aware of the decision to act. He turned in a full circle, bringing attention to him.
Nichol scowled.
“Does anyone present wish to speak on this matter before it is voted upon?” he called.
Silence.
Then a man in the corner of the square got to his feet. “I can just say what I think?” he asked. “I don’t have to have seen it happen or anything?”
“If you believe that what you have to say will make a difference to the way the assembly votes, then you are free to speak,” Brant told him. “Although I and everyone here will shut you down if you are using the floor as a podium.”
Nichol’s scowl deepened. Brant had heard that Nichol liked to pontificate when he held the floor, using public moments like this to further his political agenda.
The man glanced around uneasily. “I agree that murder is terrible, no matter the justification, but she is carrying a child. That makes a difference. I just don’t think she should go unpenalized, or everyone will be pulling knives whenever they feel like it. Glave would turn in his grave.”
There was a murmur of agreement and he sat down again.
A woman got to her feet. “Just because she is pregnant doesn’t mean she should get special treatment.”
“Of course she should!” The shout came from the other side of the square. “It’s a baby!”
“Stand up and let us see you, if you wish to speak,” Brant yelled. “This is an open debate. Keep it civilized!”
A dozen more people got to their feet and Brant pointed at the nearest, another woman.
“On Varnham, if anyone killed someone, they were executed,” she said. “She knows that as well as we all do. It didn’t stop her, so she must be prepared for the consequences.”
There was a hollow silence as she sat down. That was too much reality for many of them, Brant realized. Ammonite or not, everyone found the idea of destroying a child almost impossible to contemplate.
“We’re not on Varnham anymore,” a man with red hair said. “Things are done differently here. We’re guests, we should be abiding by the rules here. Varnham doesn’t exist anymore.”
For the next forty minutes, Brant merely controlled the flow of debate, making sure everyone who wanted to speak was called upon at least once. Once they had started to repeat themselves, though, he raised his arms again. “Everyone, please sit.”
He hesitated. The standard process dictated that now he would call for a vote on whether Farago was guilty of the crime she had been accused of, yet there was no accuser standing and facing her. Also, she had already confessed to the crime.
And these were original circumstances.
Brant looked at the assembled reeves and mayors, who were watching him with open interest. Nichol, though, was standing with his arms crossed and his head down. He had bowed out of the proceedings, at least mentally.
Very well, then. Brant took a deep breath. “We have all heard every point about this matter. It is now up to you to decide Farago’s fate. We do not need to decide if she is guilty or not, as she admits to the crime. Instead, we need to decide what punishment she should receive.”
The people in the circle around Farago muttered and shifted on their feet.
“What are you doing?” Lilly whispered.
He shook his head, just enough for her to see.
She pressed her lips together and spoke no more. The tiny furrow was sitting between her brows, though.
“I will take suggestions,” Brant said loudly. “One suggestion at a time. If you like the suggestion, you can raise your hand in support.”
The woman who had spoken of execution was the first on her feet. “A life for a life,” she declared. “It’s fitting.”
Brant nodded. “Who agrees?” he asked.
Surprisingly, there were a dozen or more hands raised. That was all.
The woman scowled and sat down.
The red-haired man stood. “A public whipping, while we all watch.”
There was a lot of whispering. Brant ignored it. “Who agrees with this suggestion?” he asked.
Far more hands were raised, but still not a majority.
Several more people got to their feet and Brant pointed to them in turn and let everyone vote on their suggestions, which ranged from slavery to hard labor, to incarceration and included even more forms of physical punishment, some of them highly creative. None of the suggestions got a show of hands that said that the idea resonated with everyone.
Brant waved everyone back down as he thought hard. “I have a suggestion of my own.”
&n
bsp; Silence. He didn’t need to look to know that everyone was watching him, now. He had their complete attention.
“Let’s ask Farago what she thinks is a fitting punishment.”
The reaction was loud and thick with disapproval. Brant held up his hand. “Wait!” he cried.
It proved how involved everyone had become in the process that he got silence almost immediately.
“This is a measure of Farago herself. If she really does regret her actions, then the punishment she suggests will be a fitting one that satisfies everyone. If she is as unrepentant as she appears, then the punishment she suggests will be ludicrous. You will know that she is not sincere in her intention to live among you as a viable adult, and suitable arrangements can be made for her, including shipping her off to a place where she will be unable to harm other people.”
Lilly gasped softly, beside him. He didn’t dare look at her.
“Who agrees we ask Farago herself?” he demanded.
Nearly every hand shot up into the air.
He took a deep breath, letting his heart settle just a bit, then turned to face Farago. “Well? What do you consider a suitable punishment to be?”
The silence was total, as everyone watched her.
Farago’s defiant stance shifted. She dropped her gaze to the ground. Then for the first time she lifted her chin and looked Brant in the eye. “I will serve whatever function the city demands of me, until my child is born, for no money and no return.” She hesitated. “I honestly regret the loss of Sarkozi’s life. I will do what I can to make amends.”
There was a ripple, almost a sigh, that washed over the square.
Brant’s heart was beating even harder. This was the crux of it. This was the moment where the weight of public opinion would turn one way or the other. He turned to look out upon the square, spinning on his heels to take in everyone. “Who here agrees that this is a fitting punishment? Farago has offered to provide her services in whatever way we see fit, with no hope of gain, for the next six months at least. Does this sit well with you?”
Silence. No hands.
Then one was raised. It was the red-haired man. Then another hand. Then more. And more. Brant turned in a tight circle, watching the hands rise…until, finally, more hands were held up than not.
He nodded. “Very well. The majority of you have agreed that Farago will serve Charlton in a way that is fitting. I declare that she will provide her labor to the regeneration clinics in the city, working in the mortuary section among the newly dead and the permanently dead. In that way she might also come to understand in full what her actions have cost Sarkozi. At the end of her service, we will vote once more on whether she has redeemed herself and earned a permanent place among the residents of Charlton, or if she should be given transport to some other location.”
There was no hesitation this time. Applause thundered across the square, along with cheering and whistling and a deep thrumming that Brant realized was the stamping of feet and hands on the floor.
He glanced at Lilly. She was smiling as she looked around the square and when her gaze settled on him, her smile grew warmer and softer.
He drew in a breath that was unsteady. He’d pulled it off.
* * * * *
Lilly barely waited until they were in the bedroom section of their room, with the door shut, before she started to peel off his clothes. Her lips and hands were everywhere, knowing and experienced. His pleasure leapt.
“I don’t know why that worked, but it did,” she murmured against his flesh. “It was brilliant, Fareed.”
He was having trouble thinking clearly. “Voting on suggestions means everyone will be satisfied with the punishment, or satisfied that everyone else believes the punishment is fitting. It removes all the bitterness.” He gasped as her hands explored and caught her head in his hand. “Were you happy with the outcome?” he asked curiously.
“Thrilled,” she said. “Can’t you tell?”
“I mean, if you were only thinking about yourself and your life in Charlton, would that have made you happy, too?”
Her expression sobered. “Completely,” she said. “It was almost flawless. I’m so proud of you.”
His heart shifted. “Don’t be. I went against every Ammonite principal and practice I’ve been trained to believe was right.”
She sat up, her face troubled. “I never lived on an Ammonite-controlled world. I never even visited one.”
“Justice was swift and one hundred percent systemized,” he said. “There was an index of crimes and the punishment to match it. Nothing about the crime or the criminal was taken into account. It was believed that unwavering application of the laws would suppress the breaking of those laws.”
“You believed that?” she whispered.
Brant sighed. “I left, remember? I threw it all aside. Including my body.” He picked up her hand. “I thought I had made those choices for you, Lilly, but today I learned that I did it for more reasons than that.”
“You’ve given up on Glave?” she asked.
“Not the precepts, no. Human life is still holy. Only, the way we go about preserving and promoting human life…there are different ways of doing that. I just hadn’t seen how that could work until there in the square, with everyone watching me.”
“Including me,” Lilly breathed, her lips pressing against his once more.
Chapter Twenty-One
Charlton Space City, New Cathay (Ji Xiu Prime), Ji Xiu System, Perseus Arm. FY 10.187
It was a relief to be able to move out of witness mode. Yennifer hadn’t realized how much she liked human interactions. She also hadn’t realized how much she interacted, either. If someone had asked her for a gut instinct response, she would have said she did not talk a lot. Now she realized that was wrong.
It would be interesting one day to run a statistical analysis to determine just how much she used human communications instead of the far more efficient digital systems that defined a Varkan.
For today, though, she had a different issue to deal with. Nichol had withdrawn into himself. As they walked back to the rambling house in Celestial where they had lived for the last four years, he didn’t speak. Even when she tried to engage him with a direct question, he refused to respond.
It could simply be because there were so many people sitting and lying on the floors of the corridors and the village public areas, who could listen to every word they said as they passed. Yet Nichol had been talking freely on the way to the main square. Now, he was scowling, his brow jutting heavily over his narrowed eyes.
Yennifer always found him impossible to read when he was in these sorts of moods. She was generally very good at understanding human needs and desires. Watching Lilly and Brant and Connell and the others work among humans had taught her much more.
Even watching Nichol work his influence upon others had been educational.
Nichol himself was a difficult subject. She presumed it was because he was so naturally guarded—a fact that would shock anyone who knew him more than slightly. Nichol’s raising had been difficult and his early losses as a young adult had left their mark. He was a very private man in a very public role, which added stresses of their own.
What Brant had just done to him was unforgiveable. Except that… Yennifer pressed her lips together as they walked, trying to avoid formulating the disloyal thought, yet it was there, anyway.
Brant had done what he had, taking over that way, because Nichol had lost control of the crowd. Nichol had been taken by surprise by Farago’s claim of pregnancy and the upsetting of normal procedure. Someone had needed to act swiftly to keep the crowd from becoming unruly in reaction to the polarizing facts that had been spoken. Brant had only done what needed to be done.
Although she couldn’t help but admit, just to herself, that Brant had been clever and out of a situation that had started to look ugly, he had wrested back the good opinion of everyone assembled and had maintained peace.
She would never tell Nic
hol that. Especially not now.
He pushed on the tall gate that gave access to their little house and the AI opened it for him. He moved inside. Yennifer caught up with a quick stride or two and slid into the courtyard and looked around with pleasure.
It was the prettiest house in a lovely village, with its own private courtyard from where she could stand and study the stars overhead. The rooms of the house lined three sides of the courtyard. As weather was not an element in Celestial, the only protection they needed was from the scheduled rainfall that washed buildings and streets, watered the many plants growing in the village and helped keep the air in the dome clean and sweet.
She had cancelled rain for the foreseeable future. There were simply too many people sitting and lying in the public areas, bereft of shelter. It did make for a dusty courtyard, which Nichol had commented upon as they had left earlier in the afternoon.
Now he looked around the courtyard with an impatient sigh. “We can’t even enjoy evening rain while they’re out there!” He stomped up to the galley section and ordered a drink with heavy thrusts of his finger.
Yennifer no longer had any sort of appetite for food or drink. Perhaps Nichol did. Maybe that was adding to his temper. “Are you hungry?” she asked, coming up behind him. “Would you like me to arrange something for you? You can relax on the couch—”
“Now you want to help?” he snarled, spinning to face her.
She stepped back, confused. Fear blossomed as she realized that Nichol had found a way to blame her for this. She had thought that this time, she was blameless, but…
Yennifer swallowed. “Of course I want to help you!”
“You couldn’t have helped out there in the square when I really needed it?” He pulled the cold drink out of the dispenser. It was Sommera, the black spirit he preferred to drink when no one was looking. He tilted the glass, taking big gulps.
Her heart sank. At the same time, she felt a tiny spark of resistance. “I was in witness mode, Nichol. I can neither speak nor react. I couldn’t have helped you.”
Cat and Company Page 18