"Charles L. Harness-Time Trap" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

now, with Darnoval. Troy reproduces the orchestra and his wife does the piano. you'd think she had fifty
years to live instead of five minutes."
"Both seem nice people," ruminated the custodian. "If they hadn't killed the Provinarch, maybe they'd
have become famous 'pathic musicians. She had a lousy lawyer. She could have got off with ten years
sleep if he'd half tried." He pushed some papers across the desk. "I've had the chamber checked. Want
to look over the readings?"
The warden scanned them rapidly. "Potential difference, eight million; drain rate, ninety vital
units/minute; estimated period of consciousness, thirty seconds; estimated durance to nonrecovery point,
four minutes; estimated durance to legal death, five minutes." He initialed the front sheet. "That's fine.
When I was younger they called it the 'vitality drain chamber.' Drain rate was only two v.u./min. Took an
hour to drain them to unconsciousness. Pretty hard on the condemned people. Well, I'd better go
officiate."
When Jon and Ann Troy finished the Darnoval concerto they were silent for a few moments,
exchanging simply a flow of wordless, unfathomable perceptions between their cells. Troy was unable to
disguise a steady beat of gloom. "We'll have to go along with Poole's plan," he 'pathed, "though I confess
I don't know what his idea is. Take your capsule now."
His mind registered the motor impulses of her medulla as she removed the pill from its concealment
under her armpit and swallowed it. Troy then perceived her awareness of her cell door opening, of grim
men and women about her. Motion down corridors. Then the room. A clanging of doors. A titanic effort
to hold their fading contact. One last despairing communion, loving, tender.
Then nothing.
He was still sitting with his face buried in his hands, when the guards came to take him to his own trial
that morning.
***


"This murder," announced the People's advocate to the twelve evaluators, "This crime of taking the life
of our beloved Provinarch Blogshak, this heinous deed-- is the most horrible thing that has happened in
Niork in my lifetime. The creature charged with this crime"-- he pointed an accusing finger at the
prisoner's box-- "Jon Troy has been psyched and has been adjudged integrated at a preliminary hearing.
Even his attorney"-- here bowing ironically to a beady-eyed little man at counsels' table-- "waived the
defense of nonintegration."
Poole continued to regard the Peoples' advocate with bitter weariness, as though he had gone through
this a thousand times and knew every word that each of them was going to say. The prisoner seemed
oblivious to the advocate, the twelve evaluators, the judge, and the crowded courtroom. Troy's mind was
blanked out. The dozen or so educated telepaths in the room could detect only a deep beat of sadness.
"I shall prove," continued the inexorable advocate, "that this monster engaged our late Provinarch in
conversation in a downtown bar, surreptitiously placed a lethal dose of skon in the Provinarch's glass,
and that Troy and his wife-- who, incidentally, paid the extreme penalty herself early this-- "
"Objection!" cried Poole, springing to his feet. "The defendant, not his wife, is now on trial."
"Sustained," declared the judge. "The advocate may not imply to the evaluators that the possible guilt
of the present defendant is any way determined by the proven guilt of any past defendant. The evaluators
must ignore that implication. Proceed, advocate."
"Thank you, Your Honor." He turned again to the evaluators' box and scanned them with a critical
eye. "I shall prove that the prisoner and the late Mrs. Troy, after poisoning Provinarch Blogshak, carried
his corpse into their sedan, and that they proceeded then to a deserted area on the outskirts of the city.
Unknown to them they were pursued by four of the mayor's bodyguards, who, alas, had been lured aside
at the bar by Mrs. Troy. Psychometric determinations taken by the police laboratory will be offered to
prove it was the prisoner's intention to dismember the corpse and burn it to hinder the work of the police
in tracing the crime to him. He had got only as far as severing the head when the guards' ship swooped