“I was just trying to be helpful.”
They turned another corner, passed the next section where the wall had been ripped, and sailed down the straightaway. At the end of the corridor, Joneny brought them to a halt and gasped.
Before them in blue mist a vast auditorium rolled away. In the center, above a raised dais, was a huge sphere. Even at this distance and in this light, Joneny could see etched on the surface a representation of the lands and oceans of Earth. The scooped immensity of the hall, the rings of seats, the isolated globe, gave the place a comprehensible air of hugeness, completely different from his glimpse of empty space in which the wreck hung. This feeling of contained size was calming, nearly religious. “What’s this? Is it the Death’s Head?”
“It’s the Courthouse,” said the boy.
“The Courthouse?” Joneny looked from the smooth, vaulted ceiling down to the tiered seats, at last back to the globe. “What happened here?”
“Trials.” He added, “Of criminals.”
“Were there many criminals onboard the starships?”
“Not many, at least at the beginning. Toward the end there were a lot more.”
“What did the criminals do?”
“Mostly went against the Norm.”
“The Norm?”
“That’s right. You can hear the records if you want. They were all recorded.”
“Does the mechanism still work?”
The boy nodded.
“Where is it?”
“Down there.” The boy pointed toward the dais.
Joneny touched his belt, and the gell floated down over the seats toward the globe. He paused just above the stage, adjusted the gell for hyper-malleability and magno-permeability. His sandal soles clicked as he hit the floor, a drop of an inch, and stuck there through the pliable surface of the gell.
When he glanced toward the boy, he saw that he was hovering on the other side of the dais now, outside the bubble. The boy motioned to him, and Joneny carefully walked the bubble around the edge of the dais. When he reached the other side, there was a small pop as the boy stuck his head inside (Joneny jumped a little) and said, “The index is right there.” He popped out again.
Joneny reached for the slanted desk through the bubble’s skin, which molded to his hands. He ran his fingers around the edge of the desk till he found a catch. He pushed it, pulled at the desktop; it came up. Revealed was a complicated mosaic. Bending closer, Joneny saw that it was actually a matrix of pentagonal labels, each holding two names. The top of the desk slid back down into an envelope. Joneny squinted in the blue:
45-A7 Milar vs. Khocran; 759-V8 Travis vs. The Norm; 654-M87 DeRogue vs. Blodel; 89-T68L One-Eyed Davis vs. The Norm.
The tray of labels was on a very long conveyor that moved upward. It was arranged in some sort of five-coordinate index system that was roughly chronological. As he perused the labels, one thing became quite clear. There was a marked increase of trials between One-Eyed Someone-or-Other and The Norm. Joneny came to the place where the crystal labels stopped. The last trial was 2338-T87 One-Eyed Jack vs. The Norm.
Joneny looked up as the boy popped inside the gell again. “What do you do with these?” Joneny asked.
“How do you mean? Just press one and it’ll play back.”
“Press?”
“With your finger or your toe or your elbow,” the boy said a bit impatiently. “Just press it.”
Joneny reached out and pressed the last labeled pentagon — and stepped back as a roar swelled around him. The sound was being transmitted through the soles of his feet. The whole floor of the dais was acting as the vibration plate for some sort of loudspeaker. The roaring was the sound of many people talking at once.
A staccato tattoo rang out above it, and an elderly baritone, oddly accented, cried out, “Order in the court! Silence! Please! Order in the court.” The roaring stilled, became the rustling of someone here twisting in a chair, someone there coughing behind a fist.
Joneny looked across the empty chairs in the blue auditorium.
“Order in the court,” the voice repeated unnecessarily. The baritone voice paused, then went on: “There has been a slight deviation from normal proceedings. Captain Alva, before we make the official opening, you may make your statement.”
“Thank you, judge.” It was the voice of a younger man. Also a very tired man, Joneny thought. His phrases were measured, with long pauses between. “Thank you. Only it isn’t exactly a statement I want to make. It’s a request — of the Court, and an appeal to the leniency of the citizens of the City of Sigma-9. I would like to request that this trial not take place…” In his pause a murmur began among the people. “…and that One-Eyed Jack, in fact all the One-Eyes remaining in Sigma-A-9, be placed in the custody of the City’s navigation staff, with myself fully and finally responsible for their conduct.” The murmur broke out into expletives of indignation. Above them the judge’s gavel crashed and the judge’s voice cut sharply over the noise:
“Captain Alva, this is most — ”
And above even this the captain’s voice came sharply: “I make this request, not only in my own name, but with the full consent and encouragement of the Captains of every other City in the Nation. We have been in radio contact with one another constantly since the tragedy of Epsilon-7. Captain Vlyon of Alpha-8, Captain Leela of Beta-2, Captain Riche of Epsilon-6—every single Captain of every City in the Nation has begged me to make this request, Your Honor, and they are all making similar requests of the courts of their respective cities.”
The crowd sounded chaotic. The gavel pounded again. When something like order was regained, the judge’s leveling voice led over the noise: “Captain Alva, may I remind you that, as Captain of this City, you are in charge of its physical welfare. But there are other issues involved here; and as the Spiritual Head of the City, as the repository for moral cleanliness, and as representative of the Norm, I must certainly, in the name of the City, refuse your request. I most certainly must refuse!”
The murmur rose again, this time an inrush of relief. Not so heavily the gavel sounded; more responsively, silence came.
“To continue with the formal opening of the triaclass="underline" Case 2338-587 Jackson O-E-5611, physical and mental deviate of the first magnitude, alias One-Eyed Jack, versus the Norm. Are you in Court, Jackson?” Momentary silence. “Are you present at court, Jackson?”
A voice came back, curtly, shrill, yet with the same tiredness Joneny had heard in the Captain’s words. “You have eyes. Can’t you see I’m here?”
“I must ask you to follow the forms prescribed by the Norm and not to ask impertinent, irrelevant questions. Are you present at court?”
“Yes. I am present at court.”
“Now, will you describe, please, your deviation from the Norm as you understand it.”
A hiss of air drawn quickly between teeth. “This is not an irrelevant question. It is a declarative statement — you have eyes and you can see.”
“Jackson O-E-5611”—a defensive listlessness oozed into the judge’s voice — “the code of the Norm requires that a deviate, to be held responsible, have understanding of his deviation. Now, will you please describe your deviation as you see it to the court.”
“I had the misfortune to emerge from the Market with a full set of brains in my head. That’s not normal around this place. Or perhaps I’m a deviate because there was a certain amount of information about Earth and our goals that I felt was important to study without the permission of the Norm. Or because I decided it was worth joining others like me to pursue these studies. But to you that makes me a One-Eyed monster who’s got to be exterminated before he thinks in the wrong direction and corrupts somebody.”