“I do.” Rachel pointed at the small black cartridge. “Firstly, I submit that the Junior Procurator’s search of the defendant’s personal property was illegal and any evidence gained from it is inadmissible, because the defendant is a civilian and not subject to the waiver of rights in the oath of allegiance sworn by a serving soldier — his civil rights, including the right to property, cannot be legally violated without a judicial warrant or an order from an official vested with summary powers subject to Article Twelve. Unless the Junior Procurator obtained such an order or warrant, his search was illegal and indeed may constitute burglary, and any information gathered in the process of an illegal search is not admissible in court.
Secondly, if that thing is a causal channel, I’m a banana slug. That’s a standard quantum dot storage card; if you get a competent electronic engineer in, they’ll tell you the same. Thirdly, you don’t have authority to hold this charade of a trial; I’ve been checking in the Articles, and they state quite clearly that courts-martial can only be convened by order of the senior officer present. Where’s your written order from the Admiral?“
She crossed her arms and stared at the bench.
Sauer shook his head. “The Junior Procurator has standing orders to investigate Springfield; that makes anything he does legal in the eyes of the Curator’s Office. And I must register my extreme displeasure at the defense’s imputation that I do not have authority to convene this court. I have obtained such authority from my superior officer and will use it.” Carefully, he avoided specifying precisely what kind of authority he had. “As for the item of evidence being misidentified, we have on record a statement by the defendant to the effect that it is a causal channel, which he was asked to carry aboard by foreign parties, to wit the dockyard. As the Articles concern themselves specifically with intent, it does not matter whether the item is in fact a banana slug: the defendant is still guilty of thinking he was carrying a communications device.” He paused for a moment. “Let it be entered that the item of evidence was admitted.” He glared at Racheclass="underline" Got you, you bitch. Now what are you going to do?
Rachel glanced at Martin and blinked rapidly. Then she turned back to face the bench. “A point of law, sir. As it happens, thinking is not generally considered the same as doing. Indeed, in this nation, which refuses to even consider the use of thought-controlled machinery, the distinction is even sharper than in my own. You appear to be attempting to try the defendant for his opinions and beliefs rather than his actions. Do you have any evidence of his actually passing on information to a third party? If not, there is no case to answer.”
“I have exactly that.” Sauer grinned savagely. “You should know who he’s been passing on information to.” He pointed at her. “You are a known agent of a foreign power. Defendant has been communicating freely with you. Now, since you consented to defend him, you are acting as an officer of this court. I refer you to Article Forty-six: ‘Any person deputized to act as an officer of the court is subject to the discipline of the Articles.’ I conclude that you have courageously agreed to waive your diplomatic immunity in order to attempt to rescue your spy from the hangman’s noose.” For a moment, Rachel looked confused; she looked at Martin again, blinking rapidly. Then she turned back to the bench. “So you rigged this whole kangaroo court as an attempt to work around my immunity? I’m impressed. I really didn’t think you’d be quite this stupid— Utah!” Everything happened very quickly. Rachel dropped to her knees behind her makeshift desk; Sauer made a motion toward the ratings at the back of the room, intending to have them arrest the woman. But before he could do more than open his mouth, four sharp bangs burst around the room. The overhead air-conditioning ducts split open; things dropped down, complex and many-armed dungs squirting pale blue foam under high pressure. The foam stuck to everything it touched, starting with the judge’s bench and the guards at the back of the makeshift courtroom: it was lightweight but sticky, rapidly setting into a hard foam matrix.
“Get her!” Sauer shouted. He grabbed for his pistol, but somewhere along the way a huge gobbet of blue foam engulfed his arm and cemented it to his side. A strong chemical odor came from the foam, something familiar from childhood visits to the dentist. Sauer breathed deeply, struggling to dislodge the sticky mass, and the fruity, sickly stench cut into his lungs; then the world turned hazy.
Rachel knew things were going to turn pear-shaped from the moment she walked into the room. She’d seen judges in hanging mode before, back on Earth, and on a dozen assignments since then. You could almost smell it, an acrid and unreasoning eagerness to order an execution, like the stench of death itself.
This board had it — and something else. A sly reserve, a smug sense of anticipation; as if the whole thing was some kind of tremendous joke, with a punch line she could only guess at.
When the security lieutenant delivered it — a half-formed, inadequate punch line, in her opinion, obviously something he’d stitched up on an ad hoc basis to fit the occasion — she glanced around at Martin. Please be ready. She blinked three times and saw him stiffen, then nod; the prearranged signal. She turned back to the bench, blinking again: green lights rippled behind her eyelids. “State two,” she subvocalized, the radio mike in her throat relaying the command to the drones waiting in the ventilation ducts. She turned back to the bench. The three officers sat there, glowering at her like thunderclouds on a horizon. Buy time.
“A point of law, sir. As it happens, thinking is not generally considered the same as doing. — ” She carried on, wondering how they’d react to effectively being accused of rigging this charade; either they’d back down, or—
“I have exactly that.” The political officer in the middle, the hatchet-faced one, grimaced horribly. “You should know who he’s been passing on information to.” He pointed straight at her. Here it comes, she thought. Subvocalizing again: “Luggage. Query readiness state.”
“Lifeboat closed out for launch. Fuel storage subcritical and ready. Spare reaction mass loaded.
Oxygen supply nominal. Warning, delta-vee to designated waypoint New Peter-stown currently 86
k. p.s., decreasing. Total available maneuvering margin 90 k.p.s.” That would do, she decided. The saltwater rocket was nearly as efficient as an old-fashioned fusion rocket; back home, it would do for an Earth-Mars return trip, surface to surface. This was pushing it a bit — they wouldn’t be able to ride it back up into orbit without refueling. But it would do, as long as—
“—I conclude that you have courageously agreed to waive your diplomatic immunity in order to attempt to rescue your spy from the hangman’s noose.”
She swallowed, glanced at Martin and blinked twice, the signal for “hold your breath.” “Luggage: prep for launch. Expect crew arrival from one hundred seconds. Launch hold at T minus twenty seconds from that time.” Once they burned that particular bridge and jumped overboard, all she could do was pray that the bridge crew wouldn’t dare light off their radar— and risk warning the Festival — in order to find her and kill her. The lifeboat was a soap bubble compared to the capital ships of the New Republican naval force.
Rachel turned her attention back to the bench and took a deep breath, tensing. “So you rigged this whole kangaroo court as an attempt to work around my immunity? I’m impressed. I really didn’t think you’d be quite this stupid— Utah!”