Orbit 4 - Anthology

by Edited by Damon Night

  There was more, but Edmonds now heard only snatches. His eyes were looking into-- and through-- the eyes of Philip Dopher. In a strange, nearly real sense, both of them were for the next few minutes not even in this great chamber, but in a deserted room in an office building on Manhattan’s East Side, where Dopher was kneeling at an open window, caressing a rifle resting on a window sill, and waiting.

  Somehow, the voice of Helen Nord floated by, wisplike, fragmented. “...the consequences of the reasoning urged by New York... the thrust of the constitutional command... we do not recede from...”

  And now he watched the kneeling figure grow tense and still. The bearded cheek lay in lethal affection against the wooden stock, the eye peering through the telescopic cylinder, and the gloved finger beginning to squeeze its unspeakable message to the trigger.

  ”...if clairvoyance does exist-- and this we do not decide-- this source of information should have been brought to the magistrate’s attention, so that he could fully understand and evaluate what was being sworn to as a fact... and assuming arguendo that clairvoyance exists, we rule, nevertheless, that it is not such a generally accepted basis for experiential information that the magistrate could take judicial notice of it...”

  One year and a couple of hundred miles away, a puff of smoke appeared at the muzzle of Dopher’s rifle. Ben Edmonds closed his eyes and withdrew from the mind of the murderer.

  ”In summary, it is the decision of this Court that the warrant did not issue upon probable cause. The judgment of the Court of Appeals of New York is reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.”

  She was done.

  Everyone in the courtroom knew what had happened. It would be futile for New York to retry Tyson without the evidence of the rifle. He would have to be released, a branded assassin, the mark of Cain on his forehead, with every hand against him. How long had Tyson to live?

  Dopher appeared to be reflecting silently. To Edmonds the man seemed only mildly disappointed. Dopher had no way of knowing what had just happened to him: that the image Dopher dreaded most, the horrid secret one, had been carefully lifted from his mind, and had been carried away and laid down in another place, and there made permanent, as a flowing modulated pattern of light-sensitized silver bromide molecules in a gelatin emulsion.

  Edmonds knew that his face was covered with tiny drops of perspiration, and that he was cold.

  As Helen Nord closed her case folder, the Chief Justice turned and nodded to Oliver Godwin.

  The old man’s voice rasped out. “I must respectfully dissent from the majority opinion, and my Brothers Moore, Lovsky, and Randolph have authorized me to state that they join in this dissent. We do not contend that the discovery of the rifle justifies the search, but we think this not the point. We think the search was made on a lawfully issued warrant, and that the rifle was properly admitted for that reason. In any event, the matter is procedural. We think, if perchance the constable blundered, this should not set the criminal free. Society has the right to be protected against the return of this man. A great deal has been said about psi and clairvoyance in the proceedings below, and here. Some of the authors of this dissent have asked me to confirm their satisfaction that the record amply supports the existence of psi. Personally, I am far from convinced. But no matter, for our dissent is not founded either on the belief or disbelief in psi. We might observe that the use of psi as a police technique necessarily requires corroboration. But the only useful corroboration necessarily involves the subject matter of the search. It seems to us of the minority, that when the clairvoyant (assuming he was such) has been duly corroborated, the warrant stands self-validated, and further inquiry is superfluous. In our minority view the warrant was issued upon probable cause. We would, therefore, affirm.

  ”And now, with the consent of our brothers representing the majority opinion, we turn to one final matter. In the record below there is explicit testimony to the effect that the contents of the safe-- Exhibit Q-- will prove that psi exists. Both majority and minority have of course reached our separate conclusions without benefit of the safe-- which, indeed, is not even in evidence and can have no probative value in our decisions. We do now order that the safe be opened. Marshal?”

  Walter Sickles leaped to his feet. “Objection, Your Honor! We have had no opportunity to examine the contents!”

  ”Overruled. Your opportunity will come.” The old man added sternly, “And there is no such thing as an objection to this court.”

  Sickles sat down uncertainly.

  ”Will the marshal please proceed?” said Godwin testily.

  ”May I remind Your Honor,” said the deputy marshal, “that I do not have the combination.”

  ”Of course. Here it is.” Pendleton swiveled his chair around and gave the waiting page an envelope.

  In a moment the marshal had the safe open and was staring inside. “It’s full-- of something, Your Honor.”

  ”Yes. I imagine that’s the urethane foam. You’ll have to tear it out with your fingers. But be careful when you get to the camera.”

  The deputy dug in gingerly. Finally he pulled out the camera, still encrusted with adherent bits of plastic foam.

  There was a sudden excited buzz in the great chamber.

  Pendleton banged twice with his gavel. “Silence! Or I will ask the sergeants to clear the room!” He added quietly to the marshal: “Remove the film. Do you know how?”

  ”Yes, Your Honor.” He pulled the tab, counted off the seconds, then tore off the assembly and stripped the wet print. His eyes widened as he stared.

  ”If the court please!” Guy Winters was on his feet.

  ”The court recognizes New York.”

  ”New York requests permission to see the print.”

  ”Granted, Mr. Winters. And I assume Mr. Sickles would like to see it also?”

  ”Of course, Your Honor.”

  Together the two lawyers bent over the composite with the marshal, who held the black-and-white print by the tab as the three of them studied it.

  Pendleton’s voice was under control, but it had now risen by half an octave. He demanded: “What does the print show?”

  Winters looked up at the Chief Justice in wonder. “It seems to be-- the rifle. A puff of smoke... just been fired. It’s the room... the window. And the man is still aiming...”

  ”Man?” demanded Pendleton.

  ”Yes, Your Honor. It looks like... Philip Dopher!”

  ”Dopher? The witness below?”

  ”Sure looks like him,” affirmed Winters in irreverent wonder.

  And now a commotion in front of the audience. A stocky bearded man exploded into the center aisle. His right hand held a pistol. The spectators shrank away from him.

  He cried out, “Yes! I did it! Long live the revolution!”

  The defiant, weaponed fist upraised, in weird confrontation of the ultimate lawless force versus the ultimate force of law.

  Everyone in the audience was on his feet. A wide empty circle formed around the intruder.

  Dopher boomed out again. “If I killed your President, you think I won’t kill you? All of you, possessed by the devil! Only way you could know I did it. I have six bullets. I think maybe I start with your chief, Mr. Pendleton.” He waved the pistol. “Nobody move! Maybe I miss, and hit the smart lady judge-- you want that, eh?”

  Edmonds felt his stomach caving in. The horror was complete. It was futile now, and much too late, to say, never, never again.

  But now in the appalling silence, he felt a chill descending into the room. A cold wind struck his face, and he shivered. Behind him, the great maroon drapes were rustling.

  He almost forgot Dopher. What? he wondered. Or-- who?

  ”Laura...?” Oliver Godwin, struggling out of his chair, mustaches trembling like a questing antennae, had whispered the word. It was at once a statement and a question, fluttering, broken-winged, desolate. It made the hair stand stiff on Edmonds’ neck.<
br />
  Dopher’s pistol arm swiveled to the new target. Paralyzed, Edmonds watched the fist squeezing, the dead aim. He heard, unbelieving, the deafening crack, then the reverberations.

  Godwin did not fall. Edmonds knew he was untouched, and that a leaden pellet was somewhere sailing, lonely forever in stranger time and space. He turned back to the grotesque figure in the center aisle struggling between the two sergeants-at-arms.

  Roland Burke now stumbled to his feet and leveled a shaking finger at Dopher. “You! Did you kill President Cromway? Answer me!”

  ”Don’t answer that!” Thunder exploded from the throat of Oliver Godwin. He seemed to stand nine feet tall. “In this Court, the rights guaranteed by the Constitution will be respected. I admonish you, sir, to remain silent until you have the benefit of counsel. Be that as it may, Mr. Dopher, if such be your name, I now place you under arrest, on suspicion of murder of President Cromway, and for attempted murder here. We have no place of detention in this building, but in a moment I rather believe the District Police will arrive and transfer you to the District Jail, there to hold you for further proceedings in accordance with law. Mr. Sickles, will you accept Mr. Dopher as your client, until one of you shall request to the contrary?”

  ”Indeed yes, Your Honor. And I move that the Court impound and preserve this safe, camera, film, and all associated materials.”

  ”Unless my brothers have any objection-- “ he did not even look at his colleagues. “So ordered.”

  As Dopher was led out into the main hall, Godwin turned to the Chief Justice. He was at this moment the reincarnation, the fusion, and the voice of all the great justices who in decades past had guided the flow of American legal thought. He was the great Marshall; he was Taney; he was Hughes. He was the immortal Holmes. “I apologize to my Brother Burke for interrupting him, and to the other members of this Court, and most especially to my Brother Pendleton for any undue presumption of authority.” But now he stood silent a moment, looking about the great room, wistful, searching. His body bent over a little, and he put a hand on the bench to steady himself. When he spoke again, the few reporters left in the front row had to strain to hear him. “God’s blessing on this place... on these, my brothers...” He looked up at Pendleton. “With the leave of the court, I beg leave to retire.”

  Pendleton nodded to the clerk. “Adjourn the court.”

  The reporters, attuned to a generation of Washington arrivals and departures, caught it instantly. “It’s real. He doesn’t just mean retire, he means-- retire. Godwin’s finally retiring!” They were on their way to phones even as the crier was intoning, “All rise...”

  * * * *

  I think it not impossible that man, like the grub that prepares a chamber for the winged thing it never has seen but is to be-- that man may have cosmic destinies that he does not understand.

  -- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

  * * * *

  ”Thank all of you for coming,” said Chief Justice Pendleton to the assembled justices. “After the events of this past noon, I thought it best for one last, highly informal conference, to tie up loose ends on Tyson. You’ve seen the afternoon papers?” He passed the copies around. “There seem to be all kinds of speculation. The Evening Star thinks Dopher’s companions took the picture and got it into the safe somehow, and so betrayed him. The Daily News sees it as a plot to assassinate the Supreme Court. They demand a Congressional investigation with full TV and press coverage. Only the Post seems to have noticed that we released Tyson and simultaneously preserved Dopher’s constitutional rights. They don’t applaud either. But at least we need not be concerned further with Dopher. He’s been extradited and is on his way to New York.”

  ”And he’ll bring the identical question right back here, evidence obtained by clairvoyance,” said Moore.

  ”Not necessarily,” said Pendleton cheerfully. “I think each and every member of this court is automatically disqualified to participate in any future cause of Dopher v. New York. We were all witnesses. If we ever get a petition for certiorari, we would have to deny.”

  ”So New York will have to handle it all by itself,” said Helen Nord thoughtfully. “This time, with a confession in open court, in front of several hundred witnesses, how can Winters lose?”

  ”Especially if he won’t have to worry about an appeal to this court,” murmured Blandford.

  ”Why are we here, Mr. Pendleton?” asked Roland Burke.

  ”Well, I thought we’d have sort of a post-mortem discussion. And when we finish that, I’d like your signatures on a memento for Oliver Godwin. His resignation was effective at the close of court this afternoon.”

  ”High time,” breathed Burke.

  Pendleton looked at him sharply, then cleared his throat. “A great deal has happened in this case that some of us do not understand. A picture has appeared as if by magic. Two pictures, as a matter of fact.”

  Burke sat up suddenly. “Two pictures?”

  Pendleton peered at him noncommittally. “Yes, two. I’ll come to that later on. I don’t know what it all means, not really. Either we are faced with the most colossal fraud of our careers, a fraud that involves a number of people of good repute, or else... we have just experienced a three-ring circus of psi. A pistol was fired point blank at Godwin. But the bullet, if there was a bullet, vanished in midair. Yes, there seems to be a great deal going on around me that I don’t know about, and probably wouldn’t understand if I did. I want to leave it alone. I will not inquire further. None of this need interfere with, nor is it truly relevant to, the continued performance of this Court. And therefore, in closing, let me assure you that I reprimand no one. Quite the contrary. I think we all owe a great debt to someone, or perhaps to several. Finally, I am very glad we are all alive.”

  Mr. Justice Burke was perplexed. “You mean that’s the end of it? That we went through all that, and we’re still not going to decide anything? What kind of logic is that? Shouldn’t we withdraw our opinion, pull the whole case back for rehearing, and decide something?”

  ”And just what would we decide?” said Pendleton. “Should we take judicial notice that psi exists?”

  ”Of course not. You’re twisting it all around. All I mean is, we can’t dodge it forever. This is only the first case. Next term we’ll have half a dozen.”

  ”Exactly what do you think we ought to do, Brother?” asked Blandford.

  ”I don’t know. I do know you’re all against me.” He stood up. “I would like to be excused from this conference.”

  ”Just one more thing, Mr. Burke.” Almost diffidently Pendleton turned around and picked up a portrait folder from the cart behind his chair. He passed it down to the justice. “This is the little farewell memento I mentioned earlier for Oliver Godwin. We wanted to give him a banquet and a suitable gift, but he flatly refuses. It’s a photograph, with a signature card on the inside fold. We all plan to sign. Since you are now the Senior Associate Justice, we thought you might like to be the first.”

  ”Of course. Very thoughtful.” He opened the boards... and stared. “What on earth! Hands? A photograph of somebody holding hands?” He got out his fountain pen and unscrewed the cap, then looked over at Pendleton. “It’s an old man’s hand-- in a black silk sleeve. It’s Godwin, in robes, isn’t it?”

  ”Yes.”

  Burke peered again at the portrait. “The other hand. It’s a young woman’s. The bracelet looks-- familiar. Odd. Who is she?” He looked around the table uneasily. “Where did you get this?”

  ”It was on the negative from the Tyson camera. You may recall, I mentioned two pictures. The FBI developed the whole strip. This was on it, too. Ben Edmonds made the blowup.”

  ”Who is she?” whispered Burke. He looked at Helen Nord’s wrist. “It wasn’t you. You don’t wear a bracelet like that... of laurel... leaves?” As he considered this, doubt began to undermine doubt, and finally left him at the edge of some awesome mental precipice, unbalanced, and clawing to return to his warm, pr
edictable, three-dimensional continuum. “No!” he gasped. “It can’t be. And even if it is, I don’t have to believe it!”

  Chief Justice Pendleton looked at the gray face. He said soothingly, “Of course you don’t, Mr. Burke. In this country, and on this Court, nobody has to believe anything.”

  And now it seemed to Roland Burke that this cheerful band had been illuminated by a flash of lightning, that he was now seeing their faces for the first time-- and they were strangers, knowing, powerful, and he was helpless, and innocent among them. There was something terrifying about it. Nothing could ever be the same again.

  Ben Edmonds knew what must be passing through Burke’s mind: psi existed. It was a living thing, without boundary of time, space, life, or death. It was not subject to the laws of logic, or to any law made by man. It was without probable cause.