DECISION
Judge Griffith sighed. she was doing a lot of sighing tonight. She steepled her fingers in front of her mouth and thought for a moment. "You have your tickets?"
Mickey stood up then. "I have their tickets, Your Honor. And unless they've cancelled my contract, I am the agent of record for this family. I can guarantee delivery to Luna and a high probability of an acceptable contract. I have three possibilities already. We have insurance in place against failure to contract, so the family will not end up a drain on the resources of any starside facility."
"Fair enough. Is it my understanding that you are also emigrating, Mickey?"
"Yes, Aunt Georgia."
"I'm going to miss you, sweetheart. Is it your intention to accompany the Dingillian family?"
"Uh—" Mickey looked to Douglas, uncertain. Douglas ... hesitated, then nodded. Okay, so that fight was over. "Yes, Your Honor."
"Are you willing to accept co-responsibility with Douglas Dingillian?"
"Uh—yes, I'm prepared to accept co-responsibility up to and including such time as I can guarantee financial security through an appropriate colonial contract, and for as long after that as the Dingillians are willing to accept my support."
"Mickey?" The Judge looked at him sternly. "You just met these folks—what is it? Two days, three days ago? Are you willing to take on this kind of a commitment on such short notice—especially now, after you've seen them at their worst?"
"Aunt Georgia, I admit that there's a lot of dirtside crap going on. But I think these are good people. And they wouldn't be in half the trouble they're in if it hadn't been for me ... "
"And your mom," Judge Griffith added.
Mickey shrugged in acquiescence of the point. "The thing is, I like them in spite of themselves. I owe them. I want to do it."
Judge Griffith cleared her throat gruffly. "Well, that sort of settles that. The younger generation has come of age. All that's left for 3 old broads is to find a nice warm grave and get someone to throw some dirt over us. Olivia, you did a good job on this boy. He has a conscience." To the rest of us, she said, "All right, I'm now prepared to hear arguments from the parents. I assume you are both going to protest a ruling of divorce here—?"
Both Mom and Dad stood up at the same time; they both said yes. In unison. It was the first time I'd ever seen them agree on anything. They looked at each other in surprise. Dad made a waving gesture at Mom. "You go first."
Mom didn't spare any words. If there's one thing Mom can be counted on for, she lets you know what she's thinking. "Is this the way justice up here works? Is your culture up here so morally bankrupt that you have to steal other people's children—?"
"That's the way, Mom," Douglas said. "Butter her up. Make her like you."
"Shut up, Douglas," Mom snapped at him. "I heard about your—misadventures. I can't tell you how disappointed in you I am."
"Then don't try," said Douglas.
"Douglas," said Judge Griffith. "It's your mother's turn. Sit down, please." To Mom, she said, "I assume you have an argument to present?"
Mom turned to Howard-The-Repugnant. "You're a lawyer! Do something!"
He shrugged, looked through his briefcase, pulled out a folded paper, and passed it to her.
"Huh? What's this?"
"My bill," he said. "The minute you walked in the door, you destroyed my case. Not being here was your best chance. As long as you were still groundside, I could make the argument that the children were being taken away without your opportunity to be present and have your side of the issue heard. It would have justified pushing the case into a Liaison Court, which handles mixed jurisdiction disputes. But now that you're here, this constitutes a fair hearing, and all I can do is restate what's already in the record. There might be a couple other things we could try, but the end result is going to be the same. And the judge has already made it clear she's not going to tolerate any delaying tactics. So there's nothing I can do here, except enjoy the show—and that's exactly what I am doing. Please pay that within thirty days." Howard leaned back in his chair, grimly satisfied. He looked almost human.
Olivia grinned over at him. "I may have misjudged your intelligence. You finally found a way to avoid losing a case—stay out of it. And present a bill anyway. My compliments, Counselor."
"Belay that noise, Olivia." This was punctuated with a rap of the gavel. I was beginning to wish I had a gavel of my own. It was a great way to get people to pay attention. I wondered how hard it was to become a lawyer. Probably not too hard, if Howard could be one. "Ms. Campbell, do you have anything else to say? Anything to justify awarding you custody, that is?"
"Your Honor, I already have custody. You have the case in front of you. The El Paso District Court awarded me custody of my children. These hearings are illegal. This is a kangaroo court. You have no authority over me or my children. I demand that you affirm the rulings of the groundside court."
"Thanks for the demonstration of how to put the tact into tactical, Ms. Campbell. But even if I liked you, you'd still be wrong. This hearing is very legal. I suggest you ask your attorney—I assume Howard is still acting as your representative, despite his apparent dereliction of responsibility—but ask him anyway. Ask him to explain the limits of groundside jurisdiction and the more far-reaching authority of starside courts. Because, up here, life is maintained at such great expense, we have to hold ourselves to a much higher standard of integrity than most folks from dirtside. What I am telling you is that the authority of this court is absolute in these matters. You are certainly free to take this case to the World Court, and I'll be disappointed in you if you don't, but once I make my ruling, it's going to be implemented immediately, and so far, I haven't heard anything from you that has given me reason to reconsider my intentions. In fact, the more you talk, the more you confirm my decision."
The woman next to Mom stood up. "Your Honor, may I speak?"
"Why not?" Judge Griffith sighed. "Everyone else is going to insist on having their say tonight. Your name is ... ?"
"Bev Sykes, Your Honor. I think you can understand that my partner, Maggie, is justifiably upset about this situation. She came to San Francisco for a much-needed vacation; the next thing, she's in the biggest crisis of her life—"
"It is a crisis which she helped create, Ms. Sykes. No one is innocent here. Least of all you, if I read this history right."
"The point is, Your Honor, that what you're proposing to do is overturn a stable situation—"
"I've seen absolutely no evidence of stability in this situation, Ms. Sykes."
Mom spoke up again then. "Perhaps if you'd ever had children f your own, you'd understand—"
Oops.
Judge Griffith's face darkened. "I had two daughters of my own, Ms. Campbell. They died in the Line accident of '97. That's when I got this chair. Do either of you have anything useful to add?"
Mom and the other woman whispered together for a moment, then they both shook their heads and sat down. They looked very unhappy. I almost felt sorry for them, but I wasn't going to change my mind, and I didn't think Doug was going to either.
Judge Griffith looked to Dad. "Mr. Dingillian, you had something to say?"