Lectyno strained to see who was sitting on the bench. They were all watching him; twelve men and three women. One of the women was watching him very intently. And with good reason. She was Lectyno’s sister, Rosytra.
The Evaluator stood. ‘Was this an accurate account of what took place outside your domicile three days ago, citizen?’ he asked.
Lectyno bristled. This was a slur. He did not answer the Evaluator, and the Advisory began to mutter amongst themselves. Rosytra detached herself from the line and came up behind the man evaluating the case. The man they usually called Uncle. The man who had never liked Lectyno.
Evaluator Gistyho smiled as Rosytra whispered something in his ear. He cleared his throat and spoke once more.
‘I apologise if I have offended the defendant. If I have, let the record show it was not meant.’ At this he glanced upwards for a brief moment at the cameras recording events. ‘Please, Guardian, answer the question.’
Lectyno gave a mirthless smile. ‘Thank you, Evaluator. That looked to me like what happened. Yes.’
‘Good.’ Evaluator Gistyho flicked at his bald temple as if an insect were aggravating him. But Lectyno knew this was just a show of his irritation with his nephew. ‘So, in the common tongue, your mother was “backsliding” you.’
‘She was also backsliding my sister,’ added Lectyno bitterly.
Gistyho gave a snort. ‘Your sister is not on trial here!’
He turned and looked down the Bench to where Rosytra sat. She bobbed her head in recognition of the clarification.
‘Your mother was “backsliding” you. And you wanted … What? Revenge?’
‘I am sure I do not have to tell you the law,’ Lectyno said.
Another round of mutterings from the Advisory and this time a different person stood up, but he was positioned in the Advocate’s balcony. He had dirty-green hair, braided around his ears, and held himself as if he found himself the most important person in the room. Which he no doubt did. This was Portyn.
‘Your eminence,’ he began. ‘I am certain the defendant means no disrespect in his statement.’ Portyn wrung his hands together in an appalling display of obsequiousness. Lectyno almost smiled. ‘It must be a difficult undertaking for him to detach avuncular familiarity from the decorum that these procedures demand.’
‘Indeed,’ Gistyho said, staring at his nephew with steely eyes. ‘But as a Guardian who hails from a family with a long tradition of legal service, I doubt it was unintentional.’
Portyn squirmed for a moment and then looked helplessly at his defendant. ‘I just wanted to point out that it is the duty of all citizens to deal with the problem of backsliders as quickly and efficiently as possible.’
The Evaluator smiled condescendingly. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is not the law.’
Lectyno frowned. ‘But it is our way. It is “common” law.’
One of the Advisory came forward and passed a handwritten note to Gistyho. He looked down at it and then shook his head.
‘I understand the issue well enough. The Yumyni judicial system deals in absolutes. It has to. Since we became the fifteenth broken moon of the Medusa Cascade, ours has been a harsh existence. We demand blood for blood. No leniency. But once justice is served, there will always be the possibility of the condemned returning and backsliding.’
Murmurs and nods from the Advisory greeted the Evaluator’s little speech.
‘As the defendant agrees on the veracity of the previous video testimony, let us move to the homicide itself.’
Lectyno turned to stare at the white wall behind him as it once more became a huge screen.
It was dark and the roadway was slick with a recent rain shower. A vehicle pulled up, humming. The electric engine was cut and a man got out. It was Lectyno. He had a raincover over his Guardian’s uniform.
The buildings that lined the road were clearly deserted, their windows broken and doors smashed. Through their broken façades, graffiti could be glimpsed. It was daubed on all the buildings’ internal walls.
The figure of an old woman detached itself from the shadow of one doorway and approached Lectyno, hobbling.
‘Lex,’ she said.
‘I agreed to meet you here for one reason, Mother,’ Lectyno said. He had a small case in his right hand.
‘I know Rosytra told you I wanted money,’ she said. ‘And that is what I told her. But it’s not true. I want to … come home.’
‘Home?’ Lectyno stared at his old mother. Then he gave a short laugh. ‘That’s never going to happen, old woman.’
‘I am still imprinted on the system,’ she said, a slight tone of peevishness about her. ‘I could just come whenever I please.’
Her son crossed the ground between them very quickly but stopped short of actually touching Nestyra. ‘If you try that,’ Lectyno hissed, ‘I will kill you!’
‘Your eminence.’ Portyn was on his feet again. ‘I’m sure we can all agree that is merely a turn of phrase, a common colloquialism.’ He smiled.
‘I am not sure that we can all agree,’ Evaluator Gistyho said, taking in the Advisory bench with a sweep of his arm. ‘For the fact is that, one day later, the victim was seen entering the Guardian’s property in the manner she described and is now dead.’
‘Ah, I think the official verdict is missing presumed dead,’ Portyn said and quickly sat down.
‘Duly noted,’ the Evaluator said.
Lectyno looked at the floor. The case was progressing almost exactly as he had guessed it might. He let his gaze linger as he thought about what lurked beneath the polished surface he was staring at. For here was what served as the tools of justice on the fifteenth broken moon: the three Angels of vengeance.
When the planet had been devastated, the government of the time had used every technology at their disposal to ensure that anyone and anything coming near was transported to an underground bunker. Many officials had been killed when they caught the Weeping Angels. Now they were kept in a round chamber: constantly lit with no doors or windows. Each one was positioned at 60 degrees to the others, so that they were all looking at each other – quantum-locked – and therefore could not move or pose a threat. Until they were used by the court as the ultimate sanction.
This is why the ‘executed’ sometimes came back. The Angels fed on the temporal energy given off when they touched victims and sent them back in time. However, they also displaced them in space. Because the fifteenth broken moon was little bigger than a city, the majority of those they touched found themselves in the void of space with nanoseconds to live before they boiled to death in the radiation of the void.
A few were ‘lucky’ and found themselves back on the streets, but many years prior to their previous lives. It was forbidden for them to meet their future selves and it was a serious taboo for them to seek their families again. In most cases the first thing these backsliders did was seek retribution. The judicial system’s blindness to this had led to a cycle of killings and revenge. It had become an almost inescapable loop.
‘My mother was punished by this system,’ Lectyno said aloud. ‘She was sent back in time by the Lonely Assassins and lived on the streets for forty years.’
‘What is your point?’ the Evaluator asked, clearly irritated by this unnecessary statement.
‘I am merely making an observation,’ Lectyno said. ‘How we think of these poor unfortunates as “lucky” …’
‘I believe the accused is feeling remorse for his mother now, yes?’ The skinny grey man that was serving as his prosecutor finally made himself known to the court. Fualik. ‘A typical response, your eminence, of a guilty man.’
‘At least one member of the family upholds the law,’ the Evaluator said, nodding his head at Rosytra. His stare returned to Lectyno. ‘I believe it was she that alerted the authorities to her mother’s disappearance.’
‘Just as you did all those years ago,’ Lectyno replied, holding his uncle’s gaze.
Gistyho flushed red with anger for a mo
ment and then coughed to hide his anger. ‘Quite so, my nephew,’ he said. ‘Quite so. But I am sure no one is impinging my record when it comes to upholding the law.’
This brought polite laughter from the bench.
‘And you are right, even with siblings, the rule of law is absolute. And now you face the same punishment as your mother. It is apt, do you not think so?’
One of the Advisory rose and passed the Evaluator a note.
‘Yes. “The defendant is wasting time,” it says here,’ Gistyho said. ‘As Evaluator I am inclined to agree. Shall we press on?’
The next footage to be shown to the court depicted Nestyra entering the house using her eye-scan on the security system. The security camera had a time stamp in the bottom right-hand corner. The front door opened and she went inside.
The scene froze and Fualik rose to give the prosecution notes. ‘As you can see the camera stamp bears the time of 25:89, late in the evening.’
He snapped his fingers, and the woman sitting next to him quickly passed him a remote-control device. He pressed a button. Beneath where the Evaluator was seated, a small hatch opened and something floated out, propelled by a tiny tractor beam. It was a gun.
‘This is the defendant’s sidearm,’ said the greyer than grey Fualik. ‘Can you confirm that, Lectyno?’
Lectyno made no effort to look at the gun. ‘All our weapons are standard issue. They all look identical.’
‘But each one is coded upon issue.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you have not mislaid your sidearm?’ Fualik leant forward, a nasty slug of a tongue moistening his lips. He knew full well that for a Guardian to lose his sidearm was a serious offence.
‘I have not,’ Lectyno said. ‘That is …’ He coughed and took a drink from the beaker beside him.
‘Well?’ asked the Evaluator.
‘That is, until it was taken from me by Proctors of the Court.’ Lectyno smiled sweetly.
‘This is not a performance dome!’ roared Gistyho. He was so animated that his Evaluator’s collar almost flew off. He had to refasten it hurriedly.
Fualik moved on quickly. ‘Let the record show: the accused identified his sidearm,’ he said. ‘And we have this!’
The gun floated down to a shelf that protruded from the same lectern the Evaluator sat behind. The tractor beam disengaged and almost immediately another one started up, producing a computer printout from the same hatch.
‘This is the weapon’s usage report from Guardian Headquarters. It shows a discharge on the same day as the victim entered the house and only three minutes later.’
Now there were gasps from the bench.
‘Can you explain why you discharged the weapon, Guardian Lectyno?’ Gistyho asked. He wasn’t even trying to conceal the slight smile that gave his lips a slight upturn to them.
‘It was in the execution of my duty,’ Lectyno said.
‘The execution of your duty,’ the Evaluator said. ‘And do we have an incident report to verify the Guardian’s version of events?’
Fualik made a large show of holding his hands out – empty. ‘No, your eminence.’
‘Well,’ said Lectyno. ‘I believe it is better not to have one than to falsify one.’
The court went silent. What could he be talking about? The bench all exchanged nonplussed expressions. Except Rosytra.
She produced a piece of paper and passed it to the Evaluator, who was looking very uncomfortable suddenly. He took it from her, looked down at it and then looked up again, frowning. ‘What is this?’ he asked.
‘A similar report, your eminence,’ Rosytra said. ‘From forty years ago.’
Now the Advisors were all speaking very loudly.
‘Silence in this court!’ screamed Gistyho. ‘I will have silence!’ As the prattling from the bench subsided, he turned back to his niece. ‘What is the meaning of this?’
‘It is the record of your own sidearm, is it not?’ she asked. ‘From the night my father was killed. Sorry, murdered.’
‘This is preposterous!’ the Evaluator said. ‘I have no case to answer. You are confused, my dear. Stricken with grief. I suggest you remove yourself from the court.’
Lectyno spoke up. ‘It was falsified. Do you recall?’
‘I do not, because it did not happen,’ Gistyho said reasonably. ‘I am going to call a recess,’ he added. ‘I feel this whole unpleasant business is putting a great strain on the family bonds in this court.’
‘You don’t, do you?’ Lectyno said. ‘Truly. Or, at least, your forget the name or the face of the junior technical who was just starting out in the legal system back then.’
The Evaluator jerked his head this and way and that, passing his gaze over the court.
Lectyno laughed. ‘And if you did not do it, who are you looking for now?’
‘No one.’
Rosytra was on her feet now. ‘He doesn’t recognise you. Sorry.’ She gave a humourless laugh.
Portyn rose so he was standing, facing the Evaluator. ‘That is a shame.’
Gistyho stared at the Advocate in disbelief. ‘Recess,’ he said and hit his fist on the lectern. But no one moved.
‘Not yet,’ Lectyno said. ‘Let us hear from this key witness shall we, Uncle?’
‘He approached me,’ Portyn said, nodding. ‘I am ashamed. But I had no inkling why he wanted it done. He promised me he would help my career.’ There was a tear in Portyn’s eye now, but he chuckled nonetheless. ‘Of course, he didn’t. But he did pay me. And then he became a judge. So I said nothing. You cannot challenge a judge.’
‘Except,’ said Rosytra, ‘in open court!’
Gistyho rose now as well and smashed his hand on the lectern again. ‘No recess,’ he hissed. ‘I have my verdict. This man is guilty! Let sentence be carried out forthwith!’
‘Summon the Proctors!’ shouted Rosytra as the cameras fell dormant. Everyone knew what this meant.
Suddenly the floor around Lectyno folded away, and three figures rose slowly from beneath. Lectyno stood, the man condemned now surrounded by the Weeping Angels. Gistyho looked very solemn as he pointed his finger at his nephew. His other hand was moving toward the lighting control. It would extinguish the lights in the court for the slightest millisecond, but in that blink of an eye justice would be served. This was enough time for the prisoner to be displaced and to give the Angels sustenance to keep them alive, but not enough for the Angels to feast and escape.
‘Wait!’ The cry came from the gallery, where the Proctors had arrived with a very unexpected addition. Nestyra was pointing down at the courtroom. ‘That man killed my husband!’
Before Gistyho could react, Lectyno was moving. He ducked between two of the Angels and snatched up his sidearm from the evidence shelf. He quickly checked the battery pack and then loosed a laser bolt, and the Evaluator spun back against the wall of the court.
‘Do not be alarmed,’ Lectyno shouted, scaling the lectern and clambering over the top. ‘I am a Guardian, and I arrest this man for the murder of my father!’
Gistyho was slumped against the wall nursing the power-burn on his arm. ‘You did not believe I would kill you?’ he asked. ‘That would be against the law …’ The Evaluator looked at his nephew with a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
‘No!’ laughed Lectyno.
‘Not when there is sentence to be carried out,’ said Rosytra. ‘Who in this court finds my brother innocent of his mother’s murder?’
Everyone called out ‘Nay!’
Rosytra grabbed her uncle and thrust him towards the approaching Proctors. ‘And who in this court finds my uncle guilty of my father’s murder?’
This time the court rang with the call of ‘Aye’ from all sides. Even Fualik.
Gistyho walked fitfully down the steps to the waiting Angels. ‘You had better hope I do not backslide, boy, for I will visit on you a—’
‘Quiet,’ spat Lectyno as his uncle was pinioned in place between the Angels. ‘Clear the court! Seal
the doors!’
The Advisors and Proctors, the Advocate and Indictor all moved from the chamber, leaving just the family: Lectyno, Rosytra and their mother, Nestyra. They all stood by the door, looking back at Gistyho. ‘We planned this for my beloved Memyno,’ Nestyra said. ‘I hope it’s painful!’
Lectyno ushered his mother and sister out before following them with never a backward glance. Gistyho heard his nephew call out: ‘Kill the lights!’ Everything went black and the last thing he heard was a terrible rasping of stone teeth …
THE JEOPARDY OF SOLAR PROXIMITY
THE SHIP WAS a thing of beauty. It was round but not so much a saucer, more an elegant bowl. The silvery-white metal hull was lit from within by the palest of blue lights. Three nacelles protruded from the circular vessel at precisely 120 degrees around its circumference. A soft violet glow described each thruster and manoeuvring jet – even the main engine.
Its stunning design made it all the more difficult for the Grand Marshal to watch its demise. But watch he did.
A huge explosion tore through the battlecruiser, sending green bodies and blackened debris floating out into space. More missiles sped towards the stricken target. They spun almost uncontrollably, dodging the ship’s defensive sonic cannons, before closing on the vessel and smashing into its hull. The detonation of these two rockets all but ripped the silvery craft apart and sent what was left hurtling at an ugly angle towards the planet Knossos below.
Skaldak growled and ordered the viewscreen changed to show the enemy fleet. At least, it had once been a fleet. As had his. The mighty Xix-Thassis fleet of the Ice Warriors had been all but destroyed in this galactic battle with a flotilla of Dalek ships.
By contrast to Martian elegance, a Dalek command ship was truly saucer-shaped. Only one remained: a dirty-bronzed golden colour with a central, rounded hump on the upper surfaces and several similar-shaped bulges on the undersides. Around their edges were lines of elongated lights that rotated as the ships moved. There were also three smaller Dalek Councillor-class assault craft, far more utilitarian in design: gunmetal grey with two distinct levels and no adornment.
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