“Lesser Bench” was a misnomer. Morgan knew that. Everybody knew that. The Greater Bench met only in solemn conclave on the beach to hear capital cases, and certain classes of piracy accusations. Everything else that transpired in the Thalassojustity took place under the purview of the Lesser Bench.
The question was which of those benches.
The two Marines dragged Morgan into the interior of the Thalassojustity Palace. The main nave soared to the roof, some eighty feet above, and was lined with enormous statues of sea captains and Thalassocretes through the ages. The joke ran that the bodies remained the same and the heads were switched from time to time. Whatever the truth, the sculpture represented one of the greatest troves of Classical art in the world, with continuous provenance stretching back well before the onset of consistent recordkeeping.
Glorious, strange, and too large for the world—that was the majesty of the Thalassojustity, encapsulated in the world of art.
At the moment, Morgan was feeling inglorious, ordinary, and far too small. Even the marble flags were oversized, designed to intimidate.
He was scooted a bit too fast past the massive altarpiece at the far end of the nave, through a bronze door wrought with an overly detailed relief of some long-forgotten naval battle, and into a far more ordinary hallway that could have been found in any reasonably modern commercial building in Highpassage. Electricks flickered overhead, giving a reddish-yellow cast to the light. Entrances lining each side of the hallway were so mundane as to be aggressive in their plainness—dark brown, two-paneled doors, each relieved with frosted glass painted with the name of some bureau or official. Cocked-open transoms above each provided some relief from a warmth that must be stifling in high summer.
Only the carpet, a finely napped deep blue that Morgan could not put a name to, betrayed the true wealth of this place.
Well down the hall he was propelled into an intersecting corridor with doors set much farther apart. Larger rooms for larger purposes? The Courts of the Lesser Bench, he realized, as they passed a door where gold-flecked lettering proclaimed “EXCISE BENCH.”
The door he was pushed through was marked “LOYALTY BENCH.”
Morgan’s heart stuttered cold and hard. The treason court. Where offenses against the Thalassojustity itself, or against the common good, were tried.
The door slammed behind him. No Marines. Morgan whirled, taking in the small gallery, the judge’s podium, stands for witness and examiner, the interrogation chair, glass cabinets where evidence or exhibits might be stored.
And no one present. No judge, no advocates, no clerks of the court, no bailiffs, no witnesses, no one at all but himself. Defendant?
The walls rose high, two or three storeys, though not as tall as the nave. These were paneled in inlays of half a dozen different colored woods to create a pleasing abstract pattern. Electrick chandeliers dangled overhead. Their fat iron arms signaled their gaslamp history.
Morgan ceased gaping and sat down in the gallery. He had no desire to approach the front of the courtroom. As nothing seemed to be taking place, he simply closed his eyes for a moment. His heartbeat calmed for the first time since stepping to the podium back at the Plenary Hall of the Planetary Society.
Without seeing, other senses sharpened. He smelled the furniture polish and floor wax of the courtroom, along with the faint ozone scent of the electricks. All of it masked the underlying accumulation of human stress and fear. Perspiration had left its indelible mark in the air.
The sounds of the room were similar: a faint buzz from the lights, the creak and sigh of old wood, the footfalls of someone approaching.
Morgan’s eyes shot open and he stiffened.
The newcomer—no door had opened, had it?—was gloriously dark-skinned as any king of old, gray eyes almost silver in a cragged and noble face. His hair was worked back in prince-rows, each set with tiny turquoise and silver beads so that he seemed almost to be wearing a net upon his head. A silver hoop hung from his left ear, the conciscrux of the Thalassojustity tiny in his right. Barefoot, he wore a laborer’s canvas trousers and shirt, though dyed a deep maroon rather than the usual blue or grubby tan. Despite the attire, this one would not have fooled any thinking observer for more than a moment, not with his bearing.
After a moment, Morgan finally registered how small the man was. Barely shoulder high, four foot nine at the most. That was when he knew who he faced—Eraster Goins, presiding judge of the Lesser Benches. The Thalassocrete.
“Pardon my state of undress,” Goins said politely. “I was attending to some physical matters when I was informed of the requirement for my presence.”
“I … Sir…” Morgan made the hand-sign of his lodge.
A crinkling smile emerged that was entirely at odds with the power at this man’s word. Goins could summon fleets, lay waste to cities, claim the life of almost anyone, at his mere whim. “Of course I know that, Dr. Abutti. You do not need to demonstrate your loyalty or training at this time.”
At this time.
“Wh-what, then, sir?”
“Well…” Goins cracked his knuckles, took a moment to find great interest in the beds of his nails. Morgan did not think this was a man ordinarily at a loss for words. “So far as anyone in the city of Highpassage is concerned, you are in here being thrashed within an inch of your now-worthless life. This matter will be of specific interest to certain Lateran observers.”
Morgan was moved to briefly study his own hands. He was under threat, certainly. No one talked to Goins or his ilk without placing themselves at great risk. A single false word could misplace an entire career, or a lifetime’s work. Or freedom.
“This is about my speech at the Planetary Society, isn’t it?”
“Your perspicacity shall soon be legendary.” Goins’ tone managed to be simultaneously ironically airy and edged with a whiff of fatality. “Perhaps you would care to explain to me what you thought you were about?”
“Am I on trial?” Morgan regretted the words the instant he’d blurted them out.
“No, but you certainly could be.” Goins eyes narrowed, his smile now gone to some faraway place. “You would enjoy the process far less than you’re enjoying this discussion, I shall be pleased to assure you.”
“No, I didn’t mean…” Morgan stopped stumbling through reflexive excuses and instead summoned both his courage and his words. Proof was proof, by the stars. He couldn’t explain everything, but he could explain a great deal more than was comfortable. “I have new evidence concerning the Eight Gardens, and the origins of man.”
“I do not believe that is considered an open question. Are you a Lateran theologian, to revisit Dispersionism? That is a matter for our contemplative competitor on the southern verge of the Attik Main.”
Morgan made the sign of the Increate across his chest. “I do not presume to challenge faith, I just—”
“No?” Goins voice rose. “What precisely did you intend to present to the Planetary Society, then?”