Only when his chief clerk brought him an electronic megaphone did hope revive in him that he would be heard. He pointed it at the gong and struck a tremendous blow with his mace. The result was ear-shattering.
“The court is in session!” Lord Turn roared. “If the prisoner Soltan Gris will take the stand, I can read him the charges!”
Instant hush.
Soltan Gris, manacled, was sitting on a bench surrounded by the three attorneys that the Widow Tayl (Mrs. Gris) had provided him. Gris had thought he would be dressed in a General Services officer’s gray.
Instead, he was appearing in the black uniform of an Apparatus Death Battalion colonel. He had protested but his attorneys had said he had no choice. He even had to put on the scarlet gloves.
Soltan Gris was scared: in addition to everything else, he had stage fright.
The three attorneys were trying to look reassuring. They were old men; two of them had been Domestic Police judges and the third a Lord’s executioner. Gris did not trust them. But it had been explained to him that this was the closest anyone could get to a criminal defense attorney on Voltar, and although he had to accept them, he still did not believe they were on his side: the explanation had been done by Madison.
His evident refusal to walk toward the railed stand began to elicit a storm of animal sounds from the assembled, and his attorneys gave him a forward shove and two sergeants grabbed him. With a clank and clatter of manacles, Gris was propelled to the raised rail chair: its door was opened and he was slammed into it, the instant center of all eyes. Yells of hate bombarded him like missiles; a shaft of dirty sunlight from a high, round window blinded him. Gris was confused.
Lord Turn, again using the loudspeaker held to the gong, banged for silence. He hitched his scarlet robe around him and leaned from his massive chair toward Gris.
“You are Soltan Gris,” said Lord Turn, “officer of the Coordinated Information Apparatus. Verify if correct.”
Gris swallowed hard and nodded.
Turn had every hope of getting this over fast. “You are accused,” said Turn, “of false and felonious bigamy committed in this prison. You may make any statement you care to before you are sentenced.”
Gris drew a long, shuddering breath. The crime carried the death penalty. He couldn’t possibly see how he could get out of it. He had not seen Teenie in the court but he suspected she would have papers showing earlier marriages and would have given them to the judge. It looked like he was a goner for sure.
When he didn’t answer at once, the animal sounds started up again. The spectators had had all their weapons removed by guards but that didn’t include spent chank-pops and sweetsticks. A few missiles came his way. He gathered the idea that he was not popular. His mind was confused.
Lord Turn hit the gong again to bring order. It was like a shock to Gris. Suddenly, INSPIRATION! He would say what Madison had told him to say.
Gris shouted, “I accuse Jettero Heller! He is the cause of any crimes!”
Whatever the vast audience had expected to hear, it had not been that. Abruptly, one could have heard a dust mote fall.
Lord Turn sat up straight and blinked. Then he said, “Just a minute. Jettero Heller is a Royal officer. You were HIS prisoner in this jail. But this is NOT the trial we’re trying. You are being charged with false and felonious marriage committed within these very walls.”
Gris took heart. He hadn’t been sentenced yet. His attorneys were all nodding at him. He shouted, “I still accuse Heller!”
A buzz of confusion went through the room.
Lord Turn said, in an incredulous voice, “You accuse him of causing you to commit bigamy?”
Gris glanced toward his attorneys. They were all nodding at him. Madison, on the bench behind them, was grinning. Gris said, “Absolutely. He refused to follow orders. He went absolutely wild. Jettero Heller put me in a position where all I could do to defend myself was to get married again.”
The buzz in the room rose in volume: it was becoming a roar of confusion.
Lord Turn hit the gong again. “Clerk,” he said to his scribe at a lower desk, “this prisoner is being willfully digressive. Strike those remarks from the record.”
But Madison’s grin widened. They might get struck on the record but they had been carried by Homeview all over Voltar and would be all over the Confederacy.
The eldest Gris attorney, one of the two ex-Domestic Police judges, rose and demanded attention. “Your Lordship,” he said to Turn, “we accept the charge of bigamy in your prison but will seek to prove it was totally justified.”
“WHAT?” cried Turn.
The old attorney said, “To clarify the point, we will have to produce a great many witnesses. They will attest to various crimes and situations that give the background nature of this charge and when we come to the end of this trial, I am sure you will agree that the extenuating circumstances are so great that you will be bound to find our client innocent.”
Lord Turn roared, “Don’t presume to tell me what my findings will be!” Then he saw the Homeview cameras on him. He must not appear unreasonable or prejudiced. “However,” he said with a groan, “produce your witnesses and we will get on with this.”
Madison’s spirits soared into heaven number seven. It was exactly what he had planned and hoped for. He had brought off a PR man’s dream. He almost chortled aloud with delight. Miles and miles of headlines stretched before him like a roaring river of the blackest ink.
And all for Heller!
PART EIGHTY-ONE
Chapter 2
A trial which, by Voltar standards, should have taken ten minutes was, artfully, due to Madison’s careful coaching, being dragged out Earth-style for days and weeks and, he hoped, months.
And it gave headlines every day and provided hours of Homeview.
The two old Domestic Police judges, in their century on the bench, had seen and judged over every stall and circumlocution that prisoners by tens of thousands had ever dreamed up—and those prisoners had lots of time before trial to think. The old Lord’s executioner had heard every plea and dodge that terrorized victims and anguished families had ever strained their brains to put forth. Many had worked and they used them all for Gris.
The basic pattern of defense, however, was always more or less the same.
Witnesses, called by Gris’ attorneys, would take the stand. Each would detail and produce incontrovertible, horrifying evidence of a Gris crime. Although many of these crimes had already appeared in newspapers before the trial, here they were exhibited and reenacted and dwelt on for hours and hours, each one, until not the most sordid, vicious detail was left to the imagination. Wrecks were found and hauled in. Bodies were even exhumed and filled the courtroom with their stench.
Gris was becoming more confident, even cockier, in the limelight. When, after a day or two or even three was spent upon a crime, he would again be put upon the stand, he would confess that the evidence was true, that he had done it and that as an Apparatus officer he pleaded guilty to it BUT he would qualify the statement by declaring each time, “JETTERO HELLER MADE ME DO IT. IT WAS ALL BECAUSE OF HIM.”
Headlines, headlines, headlines, hours and hours of Homeview. Day after day. Week after week. The public outrage against this Apparatus officer was growing to such a pitch that Lord Turn borrowed tanks and stationed them in front of every gate. Not only was the courtroom jammed each day but the whole hill on which the castle stood was a constant jam of spectators. Every Homeview set on Voltar was playing to crowds.
Several times Lord Turn addressed the Gris attorneys. “How in the name of anything holy is this continuous blackening of your client ever going to get him off?”
The attorneys calmly ignored Turn’s bafflement. They just continued to produce more crimes. Gris continued to plead guilty to them. Gris continued to assert that Heller had made him do them. And so the show went on.
The Fleet was becoming absolutely livid. These accusations by a “drunk,”
sitting there and grinning now in his black Apparatus colonel’s uniform, continually accusing a Royal officer of the Fleet—and of all people, Jettero Heller—and never explaining for a moment how or why he had made Gris do it was getting to be a lot more than the Fleet could take.
The court was only running mornings, and one afternoon Madison received an urgent summons from Lombar Hisst to come at once to the Apparatus plaza in Government City.
He flew in but was diverted by an Apparatus patrol to an entrance through the cliff below. Even so, he had a glimpse of the plaza: it was packed with Fleet staff cars bearing admirals’ pennants.
Lombar Hisst was in a dungeon room under his office. He met Madison the instant the PR man stepped out of the airbus.
“You’ve got to help me,” said the agitated Hisst. “There’s a deputation up there. The most senior officers of the Fleet. The Fleet outnumbers the Apparatus ten to one, even more. They’re very angry about what Gris is saying! What if they mutiny?”
“Now listen,” said Madison, in a calm, reassuring voice, “this is just a problem in PR and we are being very successful. The basics are Coverage, Controversy and Confidence. We surely have Coverage: every paper is giving us front page every day and the Homeview exposure is terrific. This deputation is vital Controversy. We could not possibly do without it. Now all we have to add is maximum Confidence.”
“That’s what’s getting shaky,” said Lombar. “Mine.”
“Oh, no, no,” said Madison, “this is all part of the plan. This is a heaven-sent opportunity for image-building. You can raise public confidence to the stars with it! This is just another great chance to be a STRONG MAN! Somebody not to be trifled with! Now give me one of those presigned blanks we got from the Grand Council. I’ll send for my camera crew. You just let those admirals cool their heels while I set this up.”
Lombar, much reassured, did as he was told.
An hour later, in his cave of an office, before the cameras of Madison’s crew, he stood tall in his red uniform and glared at the deputation in powder blue.
In a roaring voice, into the incredulous faces of senior Fleet officers he had not even invited to sit, Lombar Hisst, using the Madison prepared speech, stormed, “You are here to complain about the statements of the prisoner Gris. I shall have you know that he is not representative of the Apparatus. Apparatus officers are honest and upright men, beyond reproach. That is more than I can say for officers of the Fleet. You have dared to question what I, the Dictator of Voltar, have ordered. Therefore, know all, by order of the Grand Council and signed by the Lord of the Fleet, its member, the following regulations are in effect at once:
“A) No officer or personnel of the Fleet may mention the name of Jettero Heller.
“B) No officer or personnel of the Fleet may speak ill of the Apparatus.
“C) No officer or personnel of the Fleet may complain about myself, Lombar Hisst, in any way, or question any order that I issue, no matter how or where.
“D) Fleet officers must salute any officer or personnel of the Apparatus.
“E) Any offender against these regulations shall be docked a year’s pay.
“The deputation before me is dismissed. Get out of here at once!”
A senior, gray-haired admiral, the whole front of his uniform gold with decorations, stepped forward. “Hisst, I can see from here that the order you hold in your hand bears no Royal seal. It cannot therefore be enforced, as it has no validity.”
Hisst drew himself up like a red thunderstorm. The cameras were rolling. “You, sir, have just violated Section C of this issue twice. You have questioned an order I gave and the deputation which came to me so impudently has not left! Therefore,” and he reached down to his desk for another order Madison had just typed in case, “the entire Fleet is restricted to its ships and bases and this order calls upon the Army to enforce it. Now salute and LEAVE!”
They did not salute. They left.
The camera crew went out to show them getting into the airbuses.
Lombar was ecstatic. “They obeyed!” he said to Madison. “Did you see their faces? Almost purple! But they are cowed! Why, I suddenly realize I can use them to relieve the Apparatus on Calabar and begin to organize the invasion of Blito-P3 in earnest!”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” said Madison. “Today you’ve taken a giant step forward to assuming total power and the Crown.”
“I certainly have,” said Lombar, expanding. “When we capture Rockecenter and put him back on his throne there, I’m going to have to tell him what a truly magnificent aide you are.”
Madison grinned.
This was cream on top of cream.
Yes, his homecoming would be glorious.
He just had to make sure that he had finished his job with Heller.
PART EIGHTY-ONE
Chapter 3
Madison felt now that it was time to advance his program a notch. According to his notebooks, with this trial, so far, he had been using a PR technique known as “invidious association.”
Day after day, as the gruesome testimony ran on, Lord Turn would challenge the Gris attorneys, demanding they inform him exactly what this or that crime could possibly have to do with Jettero Heller. In fact, each time Gris would take the stand again to admit guilt and state that he had done it because of Heller, Lord Turn would lose no chance to again demand an explanation—what did this have to do with the charge against Gris and what did it have to do with Jettero Heller? But the Gris attorneys were old, experienced hands and, with this legal dodge or that, would insist on their rights to present the case IN FULL before giving any explanation of relevance. In due course, they solemnly promised Lord Turn, it would be revealed just how the charge of bigamy was incurred by Gris because of Heller.
The image of Heller was becoming surrounded in mystery. Now it was time to begin to give it more substance. To a master of PR like Madison, it was just child’s play. The next move, while the trial continued, was to begin the image remold. It was time to release the musical.
He got Hightee Heller on the viewer-phone. “I understand,” he said, “that the play, The Outlaw, is all ready to hit the stage.”
“That’s true,” said Hightee. “Sets and costumes, music, all rehearsed and ready to go. But I don’t think this is a wise time to do it. It has political connotations and the political scene looks pretty rocky.”
“Oh, heavens,” said Madison, “is that all? Forget it. I can absolutely guarantee that no harm will come to you. Hisst will do whatever I say.”
“I’ve noticed that,” said Hightee.
“Well, come on, then, be a sport. The people hate him anyway and they love you. He wouldn’t dare touch you. By the way, you haven’t heard from dear Jettero, have you?”
“Oh, when I showed the jewel, a Fleet observer wrote in and said he was certain, from the way an Apparatus fuel dump was blown up, that Jet was on Calabar. But that’s impossible. He’d never side with rebels.”
Madison knew very well that Heller was on Calabar, but he said, “Of course not. Well, shall we put the musical on the planks tomorrow night?”
“If you can guarantee nothing will happen to members of the cast. We’re dealing with Apparatus thugs, you know, and I don’t want my friends knocked around.”
The shameless Madison said, “I absolutely guarantee on my honor as a gentleman, nothing at all will happen to the cast and no harm will come to you. Hisst just needs a bit of slowing down, that’s all.”
“All right,” said Hightee, “in front of the cameras she goes, tomorrow night, live. Good viewing.”
Madison called the manager of Homeview and dictated some announcement spots to go on the air at once and continuing. They were terrific come-ons. He wanted all Voltar in front of sets tomorrow night and the whole Confederacy right after.
At 6:30 the following evening, he ran down Lombar in his Government City office. Madison walked in looking very worried.
“Chief, in just a few minutes, there is someth
ing I have to get your opinion on. I tried to stop it but they are so bullheaded over at Homeview. They wouldn’t listen, and furthermore, they wouldn’t even tell me what it was all about. You’ve seen the spot ads?”
Lombar was reading some reports of fights and riots between the Army and the Fleet, occasioned by the Army halfheartedly trying to enforce Fleet quarantine to bases. It was giving him some satisfaction to see them quarreling with each other instead of him. His confidence was rising. The strong-man image seemed to be very effective. He hardly paid any attention at all when Madison turned on the Homeview.
The spot announcer said, “In just fifteen minutes now, the new HIGHTEE HELLER musical, The Outlaw, will come to you live, live, live. It has a new type of music called downbeat that has never been heard before. It has a cast of hundreds. After this one showing on Homeview it will move to the Joy City Amphitheater. So this is your last chance to view it free. Hightee Heller takes her life in her hands to bring it to you. So rush out and get your neighbors and friends and people on the street and get them to your set. It may be your last chance to see Hightee. BE HERE!”
Mission Earth Volume 9: Villainy Victorious Page 39