She glanced at the clock: 4:31 A.M. “Time to go.” She went to the bathroom, ran a comb quickly through her short brown hair, donned a warm flannel robe and went downstairs to her office. “Phone: call Bian Dinh. Time to wake her for her appointment with Destiny.”
But Dinh wasn’t sleeping. She, too, was pondering the trial, though she had an entirely different perspective on it. “This will give us a wonderful platform to expose the weaknesses of K’tolu’tan morality,” she bubbled at her friend. “Just like the Scopes evolution case, my innocence will vindicate me and show what hypocrites their moral leaders are.”
“But Scopes was guilty,” Rabinowitz reminded her. “And he wasn’t facing a murder charge with no other suspects available.”
“Such details won’t matter when I present my case. I will expose the corruption and oppression in their society—”
“You will keep your damn mouth shut is what you will do. The last thing we need is you telling an already biased jury what idiots they are. The cards are stacked against us and I don’t know whether we’re playing bridge or poker—but if you still want my help, you’ll play by my rules.”
Dinh flamed. “I will not be gagged, and especially not by someone who’s abandoned all the noble ideals we both once held so sacred.”
“Good. I didn’t want to go to court today anyway.”
She started to switch off the phone when Dinh reached out to the screen and said, “Debs, wait.”
Rabinowitz waited, staring at the screen in silence.
“You would really leave me to face the court alone? Debs, I can’t do it without you. I never could. Together we can slay dragons, but without you…” Her voice broke. “I do need your help.”
Rabinowitz softened. “Then let me give it to you the best way I know how. Maybe my tactics have changed since we last rode out against the windmills—but maybe I’ve learned a few things, too.”
Dinh gave her the telepresence address of the body rental agency she used on K’tolu’tan, and the women each established their connection to the shop. K’tolu’tan didn’t have much TP traffic, and their choice of bodies was decidedly limited—one basic shape, any of three nearly identical shades of beige, fashioned from some lightweight metal alloy. As Rabinowitz joined with the robot she chose, it was as though her body shifted.
K’tolu’tanou bodies had an odd symmetry. They were bilaterally symmetrical about a horizontal axis drawn across the middle of their shells, with three limbs on each side of the axis. The three limbs at the bottom had evolved into short, powerful legs; the middle one could stretch to make a tripod for balance. For someone who could only use two legs at a time, the center of balance was all wrong; Rabinowitz felt top-heavy, and was positive that leaning forward would prove disastrous. She was only too happy to give herself over to the automatics that translated her two-legged walk into the K’tolu’tanou mode. She moved very slowly in a gait halfway between a drunken lurch and a sailor’s rolling swagger, but at least she was in little danger of falling over. Remembering the clumsy alien who’d attacked them at the banquet, she was grateful for small favors.
There were only two eyes, one on either side of the imaginary axis, but they were at the right side of the body, and on long stalks. She felt as though she were looking at the whole world cockeyed—and the automatics took a long time to learn how to interpret her eye movements to move the eyestalks. “With limited outside contacts, they don’t bother investing in good software,” she muttered. It was almost easier to turn her entire body around to change her field of vision—an awkward procedure at best.
Her arms were less of a problem. The one closest to the eyes had a big claw that let her snap at things and hold them steady. Inside the claw was a retractable three-fingered hand. The middle arm had two elbow joints and was long enough to work in concert with the claw; it also had a serviceable three-fingered hand at its end. The third arm could not reach the claw, but had eight long delicate fingers that allowed fine manipulation.
She snapped the claw hard a couple of times and fantasized about a few necks she would like to catch between those pincers. “Almost worth it,” she muttered.
The ground was firm but not hard, like densely-packed wet sand, even inside the building. Dinh, who’d had more practice with this type of body, gave her pointers on how to move. Rabinowitz practiced walking around, coordinating her arms with her movements and turning her entire body just to see things at a different angle. “Maybe the jury will take pity on us because we look so crippled,” she told her friend over their private phone connection. “Or maybe they’ll be too busy laughing to care about the case.”
“I’ve never seen a K’tolu’tano laugh,” Dinh said solemnly.
“Not a good sign,” Rabinowitz said. She tried to shake her head, but the motion didn’t translate to the rented body.
The police were waiting in the agency lobby to escort them to the courtroom. The police car, which looked like a miniature barge and rode on an air cushion just a few centimeters above the ground, set off at an amazingly slow speed. “If this is the way they all drive,” Rabinowitz commented to Dinh, “they must not have many serious accidents.”
It was daytime here, with a dim red sun giving feeble illumination; it took a few seconds for the computer to render the “false color” imaging best adapted to human sight. This region was not densely populated, nor were the buildings very tall; Rabinowitz saw nothing higher than two stories. She got the unmistakable impression of beach front property. The robot body conveyed odors only for smoke and corrosive chemicals—scents representing immediate danger—but Rabinowitz’s mind kept imagining the salty tang of an ocean breeze.
The police car pulled into a lot with other parked vehicles, all with the same lack of style and design. The police helped the two women out of the car and led them past a line of other people into a nondescript two-story building. They were instantly noticed; their artificial bodies and clumsy gait obviously proclaimed them aliens. The crowd went silent around them and parted to let them through, as though no one wanted to be tainted with the touch of alien corruption. Rabinowitz and Dinh walked straight ahead behind their police escort, ignoring the unfriendly stares.
Their destination became obvious as soon as they entered the building: spectators were moving toward one room like a line of ants to a fallen ice cream cone. Again, all movement stopped as they passed, and Rabinowitz had to work hard not to feel self-conscious about her awkward mechanical stagger. Only the fact that she’d done a variation of this so many times on so many different worlds let her keep her perspective.
There were no special tables or stands laid out for prosecution or defense, but the police led them down into the pit and then took up positions behind them. Placing the audience around the defendant made for better drama—and also better aim. Rabinowitz wondered what the local equivalent was for rotten fruit.
A K’tolu’tano standing down on the stage saw them enter and came quickly up the aisle toward them. “I am F’-tim,” he said, aware that the humans probably couldn’t tell one K’tolu’tano from another.
Rabinowitz kept an eye on the rows as they filled with spectators. “There weren’t any seats in the amphitheater in the holo you sent me, either,” she remarked to F’tim. “Don’t you people ever sit down?”
F’tim seemed somewhat embarrassed by the question, but Dinh spoke up immediately. “They only sit while they’re eating. Sitting has obscene social connotations.”