“Well, then,” said Dale, “our military could simply shoot Kelkad dead.”
“The same device monitors his vital signs. If he dies, the weapon will be fired automatically.”
“Christ,” said Frank.
“Exactly.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“I am not sure,” said Hask. “But there is much more to this court case than simply my fate. The fate of your world hangs in the balance.”
“What if the particle-beam device were disabled?” asked Frank.
“Neither Seltar nor I have the expertise to do that; it had automatically locked onto your world from the moment we entered your solar system, and we were terrified that if we meddled with its workings, we would accidentally activate it.”
“You may not have the expertise,” said Frank, “but my government’s military has many people in its employ who specialize in high-tech weaponry—and most of them haven’t had much to do these last few years.
*37*
Detective Lieutenant Jesus Perez came out of the elevator into the sixth-floor lounge at Valcour Hall, accompanied by five uniformed LAPD officers. Six Tosoks—Kelkad, Rendo, Torbat, Dodnaskak, Stant, and Ged—were seated in the lounge, watching a taped movie on the TV there.
“Which one of you is Kelkad?” said Perez.
The alien captain touched a control on his translator. “I am Kelkad.”
“Kelkad,” said Perez, “you are under arrest.”
Kelkad’s tuft flattened in disgust as he rose to his feet. “So this is human justice! Your case against Hask is failing, so now you are going to put me on trial?”
“You have the right to remain silent,” said Perez, reading from a card. “If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. If you desire an attorney and cannot afford one, one will be appointed for you without charge. Do you understand these rights as I’ve explained them to you?”
“This is an outrage!” said Kelkad.
“Do you understand these rights?”
“Yes, but—”
“Fine. Which of you is Rendo?”
“I am she.”
“Rendo, you are under arrest. You have the right to—”
“What are you going to do?” asked Kelkad. “Arrest all of us?”
“That is correct,” said Perez.
“But that is insane,” said Kelkad. “I have learned about your laws. You cannot arrest multiple suspects simultaneously for a crime that clearly only has one perpetrator. None of us were involved in the murder of Dr. Calhoun.”
“Who said anything about Dr. Calhoun?” said Perez. “You are being charged with conspiracy to commit murder.”
“Whose murder?” demanded Kelkad.
“Everyone’s murder,” said Perez.
“This is preposterous! We are your guests. We have done nothing wrong.”
“Once your fusion engine is repaired, you plan to turn a particle-beam weapon onto the Earth.”
Kelkad was silent for a moment. “Where did you get a wild idea like that?”
“You will have a chance to face your accuser during your trial.”
“But who could—” Kelkad clapped his front and back hands together at his right side. “Hask! Hask has told you this. What kind of system of justice is this? Hask is an accused murderer—he would say anything to deflect attention from himself.”
“Until now, you were insisting publicly that Hask is innocent.”
“Innocent? No, he is clearly a killer. Clearly insane. You heard the testimony—he is unbalanced by the standards of your people. I tell you now that he is unbalanced by the standards of mine as well.”
“Hask is the only decent Tosok I’ve met.” Perez paused. “Well, one of the two decent ones, anyway.”
Kelkad rotated his torso so that his eyes fell on each of his companions in turn. “So one of you is in league with Hask?” he said.
“Oh, it’s not one of them, Kelkad,” said Perez. “Michaelson, do you have that tape?”
“Right here, sir.”
“Play it.”
Michaelson moved toward the VCR, ejected the tape the Tosoks had been watching—Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan—and inserted the one he’d brought with him.
“This was recorded about an hour ago,” Michaelson said, hitting play button.
It took a second for the picture to stabilize. When it did, it showed a view inside the Tosok mothership, obviously taken by a camera mounted on a Tosok’s torso; periodically a hand or part of a U-shaped foot was visible in the field of view. The Tosok was floating down a ship’s corridor? large yellow lighting disks—simulating the sunlight from Alpha Centauri A—alternating with smaller orange ones, simulating Centauri B’s rays.
The corridor ended at a square door, which slid aside. Standing next to Perez, Kelkad made a sound that was untranslated, but Perez assume it was shock at which door was being entered.
The image bounced around as the Tosok with the camera kicked of walls and the ceiling. The voice narrating the tape was the translator’s; it was almost impossible to hear the actual Tosok voice underneath. “All right,” it said, “I am at the main control unit for the particle-beam weapon. Now, give me a moment…” Hands reached into the picture, pulling a panel off of one the instrumentation banks. “There it is,” said the voice. “See that red unit in the center? That’s the circuitry controlled by Kelkad’s transmitter.”
The image bounced some more, and the red unit slid out of view as the Tosok jockeyed for position. “There are three lines going into it.”
A female human voice, crackling with static over a radio: “Just as I thought. Nothing complex—the designers obviously assumed Kelkad’s deadman switch wouldn’t ever be under attack from this end. Now, use the voltmeter I gave you—”
The human and the Tosok consulted for about ten minutes. Finally, the human said, “Okay, you’ll want to cut the blue one.”
The Tosok hesitated. “Of course,” said the translated voice, “there is a small chance that I will trigger the weapon when I interrupt the feed. I suppose some last words are in order, in case that happens.” A pause. “How about, ‘You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your neighbors’?”
Hands appeared in the picture again—this time, holding small tools—and the image bounced back to show the red unit. “Here we go…” One of the tools snipped what looked like a fiber-optic cable leading into the unit.
“The weapon did not discharge,” said the Tosok voice.
“The deadman switch should be deactivated now,” said the human voice.
In the sixth-floor lounge, Torbat said, “Hask will die for his treachery.” As if on cue, the recorded voice said, “As you humans would say, this is one for the history books, so I suppose I should get a decent shot of myself.” The image went dark as a hand reached toward the camera, and there was a clicking sound as it was disengaged from the suit. The view spun wildly as the camera was swung around, showing the Tosok—
“Seltar!” said Kelkad, the word sounding somewhat different when untranslated. “Kestadt pastalk ge-tongk!”
“If that’s ‘I thought you were dead!’ ” said Perez, with relish, “then you’ve got another think coming.”
“That should take care of everything,” said Seltar, on the tape. “You can go ahead and apprehend the others now.”
Michaelson moved in and clicked off the VCR. The TV came on in its place, showing Wheel of Fortune.
“Now,” said Perez. “Which of you is Dodnaskak?”