Third World (29 page)

The judge entered and they went through
the rigmarole where everyone rose and then he sat down and banged
his gavel.

The Clerk of the Court stood at the
front of the room. Maxine approached the bench, with Justice J.D.
Meyer looking appraisingly at her over his low half-glasses. His
eyes located Newton and they conferred some more. The judge made a
small gesture.

“
This court is now in
session.” The Clerk took her seat.

They muttered together some more and
then those liquid black eyes stabbed at Newton.

“
Young man. Would you
approach the bench, please.”

“
Thank you, your honour.”
Picking up his notes and data-pad, heart in his mouth and knees
oddly trembling, Newton Shapiro did just that.

***

“
Excuse me, your Honour.”
They hadn’t even opened up their mouths yet.

A large gentleman in a white suit,
replete with black bowstring tie and a panama hat, stood sweating
beside Hank Beveridge.

“
My client is entitled to
representation.”

“
So he is, sir.” His Honour
looked at Newton Shapiro as the gentleman pulled something out of
his bulging briefcase and shuffled forward. “May I have the
pleasure of introducing Mister Jared Powell, duty
counselor.”

Shapiro’s mouth opened and he slumped
in the shoulders.

“
Honoured.” His face held a
wry look.

“
Hello, Lieutenant.”
Powell’s eyes gleamed at him.

“
Now, where were we?” His
Honour looked at Newton with kindly eyes, but wasn’t fooling
anybody. “You, young man. State your case.”

There would be no shenanigans in this
courtroom.

“
Mister Beveridge may be a
deserter. I am holding him in custody in order to properly identify
him. If he comes up negative, or if results are inconclusive, then
he will be released.”

“
But you’re not holding him
in custody. The police are.” Powell’s voice was smooth, silky and
very confident.

“
For a very good reason. We
don’t have proper facilities and the prisoner’s health and welfare
are a concern.”

“
And so you place a man
under arrest, transport him hundreds of kilometres across country,
while keeping him chained to a seat in your pickup truck.” Powell
looked back at Hank and mouthed something silently.

Hair stood up on the back of Newton’s
neck and his face reddened.

“
Such is the nature of a
pioneering world. Mister Beveridge was arrested on a legal
warrant.” Newton looked at the prosecutor, but her face was down
and she appeared to be listening intently.

Other than that, she was of no
help.

Powell glanced at the data-device he
held in his hand.

“
Facial recognition,
ninety-five percent probability.” He looked at his Honour. “The
gentleman’s data is already inconclusive. Now he proposes to
transport a citizen of Third World off-planet and try another
fishing expedition. I love it when someone shoots down his own case
for me.”

Newton ground his teeth.

His Honour grinned slightly.

“
Release the suspect into my
custody and we’ll hold him on our own.”

“
I’m sorry, young man, but
I’m not convinced you have the right.” The judge’s eyes went all
far-off and strange.

Meyer chewed his bottom lip and his
head tilted. They waited patiently. Then he sat up and impaled
Newton with his eyes.

“
Sorry.”

Powell practically crowed.

“
I’m sorry, I won’t hear the
case, because in my opinion you do not have sufficient grounds to
hold this man, let alone arrest him.”

The prosecutor grabbed his arm, and
further protest died on his lips as he stared into the eyes of his
Honour.

“
Thank you, your Honour.”
Powell practically purred.

“
Remove the restraints from
the prisoner.” The clerk of the court was carefully neutral in
tone, but the voice carried well enough.

Powell strolled back to confer in
hushed voices with Beveridge. The two men shook hands and stood
talking.

Powell was watching Shapiro.

The swell of talk filled the courtroom,
where by his estimate at least a dozen recognizable Cedar River
residents had swelled a crowd that was probably a bit larger than
usual to begin with.

Newton stumbled back to the
prosecutor’s desk where they conferred briefly.

“
What the hell else can I
do?”

“
Lay a formal charge, but
that has to be done in a military court if the suspect is subject
to military justice—but that only applies if you can properly
identify him.” Maxine wasn’t particularly sympathetic.

Desertion wasn’t a crime on Third
World, but then there was nothing to desert from.

A prison world might even be more
hospitable in some ways, there would be a certain infrastructure. A
prison world would have a fingerprint reader…

She shuffled papers, getting ready for
her first case of the day. Shapiro noted a dozen briefs lined up on
her desk, with bits of paper held onto the outside with paper clips
and post-it notes with jottings stuck on the top one.

“
Well. Thank
you.”

She stuck out her hand.

“
It’s been a pleasure
meeting you, Lieutenant Shapiro.” She smiled with sincere
charm.

Powell was right there at his shoulder,
and in spite of his best efforts, Newton found himself unable to
hate the man. He hated the universe, he hated the mission and the
service itself right about then. He didn’t really hate Beveridge.
Quite the reverse was true—he actually kind of liked Hank and even
had a sneaking bit of admiration for him.

He might have been shot trying to
escape after all.

Powell shoved papers into his
hand.

“
What’s this?”

Powell smirked and slapped him on the
shoulder.

“
Damage suit.” Powell looked
him up and down in quick assessment. “We’re asking for a hundred
thousand Imperial dollars in compensation for false arrest,
abduction, mental anguish, oh, you know—all that sort of
thing.”

“
Oh, for the love of
God.”

“
We’re prepared to settle
out of court, if you would care to discuss this
outside.”

The eyes of Hank Beveridge and what
seemed like half the planet were upon him.

“
Holy.” His stomach felt
very hollow.

In the end, they stood in the bright
light of day. Newton peeled two thousand dollars in fifties and
hundreds off of his much-depleted roll of petty cash. The lawyer
pocketed two hundred and fifty and handed the rest over to Hank
Beveridge. In exchange, Newton Shapiro got two copies of a
quit-claim signed by Mister Beveridge, two witnesses, and
himself.

His own troops looked on in
astonishment as Beveridge and his supporters departed he courtroom
steps and sidewalk, and headed straight for the bar up the
street.

The sight of Beveridge and the girl
Polly, arm in arm and obviously very much in love, was little
consolation for Newton Shapiro.

It wasn’t that he wished ill on anyone.
The problem was that he had a mission to perform, and had acted
according to the dictates of his own conscience.

The law was the law, and discipline
must be maintained in the Fleet.

It didn’t take a fool to see that, but
he did. He did.

***

“
Lieutenant! Lieutenant!”
Hernandez was yelling at him from the right side window of Unit
Two.

She waved at him frantically, even as
the glass panel lowered. A jolt went through him from the strident
urgency of her tone.

Breaking into a run when he saw her
hold up the microphone, he nipped around the front of the vehicle
and up the ladder.

“
Yes?”

“
Urgent message from
Hermes.
” She handed
Newton the microphone.

“
Lieutenant Shapiro
reporting.”

“
Hi, Lieutenant. This
is
Hermes.
”

Shapiro recognized the voice of
helmsman-in-training Dan Volmar.

“
Commander requests
rendezvous in LEO point A, three hours or less. We have a quick
turnaround and then we’re departing.” Volmar’s face was now up on
Screen Three on the dashboard. “What are the results of your
mission?”

“
Inconclusive.” He blurted
it out without a second’s thought.

Shapiro’s mind raced. Where the hell
were they? Where did they go? What did they do? But he had no time
for questions, and the same went for them.

“
Everything
okay?”

“
Absolutely. No problem.” He
waited.

“
Acknowledged.” Volmar’s
signal cut.

He handed the com unit handset back to
Hernandez.

“
All right, people.” Newton
held the command frequency. “Everybody back on board. We are
getting out of this burg. I repeat, mount up.”

He looked at Jackson, seated in the far
corner with his arms up along the backs of the seats.

“
We’ll leave the vehicles at
the spaceport and make a quick call to the company.”

Jackson nodded.

“
So they were out of
orbit.”

Newton shook his head
indecisively.

“
They didn’t really say, did
they?”

“
And a quick
turnaround.”

“
Yes.”

Jackson nodded. Much was implied,
nothing was known. Situation normal, all fucked up.

“
Hernandez.” Jackson’s voice
was flat and commanding.

She turned and looked inquiringly at
Jackson.

“
Hand over the local
phone-set.” He thought for a minute and then looked cheerfully at
Lieutenant Shapiro. “I’ll call the leasing company and let them
know. They can either meet us, or we can leave the keys under the
mat.”

Shapiro grinned. He looked
down at himself, all plastered in dried mud and food and sticky
stains, with bits of leaves in the joints and all those mysterious
smudges that seemingly couldn’t be removed from the visors. The
boys and girls down in the
Hermes’
armory were going to just love him, and
them.

His body was tacky, his mouth tasted
bad, and it was like a hot shower was the most important thing in
the world. To sit on a proper toilet would be heavenly.

“
As of this point, Mister
Jackson, I no longer give a damn.”

Jackson smiled inscrutably and punched
in the numbers as the vehicle rocked and then subsided from the
last one slamming the rear gate.

There was a twitch and a roar, with
blue smoke emanating from Unit One’s twin exhaust stacks as Roy
fired up the motor.

The radio sputtered and he waved for
silence.

“
Trooper Oscar is ready to
be released as long as he is transferred into immediate medical
care.” Ensign Spaulding in Unit One, visible on Screen Two, pointed
at her map display. “That’s the hospital. I’ll go pick up Oscar and
you guys warm up the shuttle?”

“
Roger that.”

Newton dropped into a seat and strapped
in.

“
All right, youngster. Take
me to the airport—and step on it.”

He looked at Jackson and the troops
lined up along the rear wall.

“
I’ve always wanted to say
that.”

Hatcher was kind enough to give him a
cute little golf clap, quickly taken up by the others and he
rewarded them with a quick grin and his best impression of a man
who needed sleep very, very badly.

Chapter
Twenty-Three

It All Seems Very
Comprehensive

“
Well, Lieutenant Shapiro.
I’ve read your report, and it seems all very
comprehensive.”

It was fifty pages of polite nonsense,
but Shapiro didn’t contradict the man.

“
Yes, sir.” He paused.
“Thank you, sir.”

Commander Burke’s eyes met his and he
grinned slightly. He cleared his throat almost
inaudibly.

“
As you are aware,
Hermes
and
Artemis,
in conjunction
with
Indomitable
and the fleet tender
Aphrodite,
were engaged in deep-space
exercises while you were away.” It all came up rather suddenly, but
then there had been an increased level of secrecy about all Fleet
doings lately.

The two frigates and a light cruiser
had engaged in high-speed combat maneuvers, in-flight refueling,
replenishment, staff transfers and live-firing exercises. Newton
had been briefed on the outcomes, and was sorry he’d missed out. It
was rotten luck, as all agreed.