HUGO INGERMANN LOOKED up at the big screen above the empty
bench, which showed, like a double-reflecting mirror, a view of the
courtroom behind him, filling with spectators. It was jammed, even
the balcony above. Well, he’d be playing to a good house,
anyhow.
He had nothing to worry about, he told himself. Either way it
came out, he’d be safe. If he got his clients acquitted by
the faginy and enslavement charges—even a collaboration of
Blackstone, Daniel Webster and Clarence Darrow couldn’t do
anything with the burglary and larceny charges—that would be that.
Of course, he’d be the most execrated man on Zarathustra,
with all this publicity about Little Fuzzy and the forest-fire and
the rescue, but that wouldn’t last. It wouldn’t alter
the fact that he’d accomplished a courtroom masterpiece, and
it would bring clients in droves. Well, maybe he’s a crooked
son of a Khooghra, but he’s a smart lawyer, you gotta give
him that. And people forgot soon; he knew people. It would bring
back a lot of his People’s Prosperity Party followers who had
defected after he’d been smeared with the gem vault job. And
in a few months, the rush of immigrants would come in, all hoping
to get rich on what the CZC had lost, and all sore as hell when
they found there was nothing to grab. When they heard that he was
the man who dared buck Rainsford and Victor Grego together,
they’d rally to him, and a year after they landed
they’d all be eligible to vote.
If things went sour, he had a line of retreat open. He
congratulated himself on the timing that had accomplished that. He
didn’t want to have to use it, he wanted to win here in
court, but if anything went wrong . . .
Still, he was tense and jumpy. He wondered if he oughtn’t
to take another tranquilizer. No, he’d been eating those damn
things like candy. He started to straighten the papers on the table
in front of him, then forced his hands to be still. Mustn’t
let people see him fidgeting.
A stir in front to the left of the bench; door opened, jury
filing in to take their seats. Now there were twelve good cretins
and true, total IQ around 250. He’d fought to the death to
exclude anybody with brains enough to pour sand out of a boot with
printed directions on the bottom of the heel. He looked over to the
table where Gus Brannhard was fluffing his whiskers with his left
hand and smiling happily at the ceiling, wondering if Brannhard had
any idea why he’d dragged out the jury selection for four
days.
The other door opened. In came Colonial Marshal Fane, preceded
by his rotund tummy, and then Leo Thaxter and Conrad and Rose Evins
and Phil Novaes, followed by two uniformed deputies, one of them
fondling his pistol-butt hopefully. They were all dressed in the
courtroom outfits he had selected: Thaxter in light gray—as long as
he kept his mouth shut anybody would take him for a pillar of the
community; Conrad Evins in black, with a dark blue neckcloth; Rose
Evins also in black, relieved by a few touches of pale blue; Phil
Novaes in dark gray, smart but ultraconservative. Who’d think
four respectables like this were a bunch of fagins and slavers? He
got them seated at the table with him. Thaxter was scowling at the
jury.
“Smile, you stupid ape!” he hissed. “Those
people have a 10-mm against the back of your head. Don’t make
them want to pull the trigger.”
He beamed affectionately at Thaxter. Thaxter’s scowl
deepened, then he tried, not too successfully, to beam back. He
didn’t have the face for it.
“You know what’s against that back of yours,”
he whispered.
Yes, and he wished he hadn’t put himself in front of it in
the first place. Ought to have refused to have anything to do with
this case, but, my God . . . !
“Will it start now?” Rose Evins asked.
“Pretty soon. You’ll all be called to the stand for
arraignment; you’ll be under veridication. Now, remember, you
only give your names, your addresses, and your civil and racial
status, that’s Federation citizen, race Terran human. If they
ask anything else, refuse to answer. And when they ask how you
plead, you say, ‘Not guilty.’ Now remember,
that’s only the way you’re pleading. You are not being
asked whether you did what you’ve been charged with or not.
When you say, ‘Not guilty,’ you are making a true
statement.”
He went over that again; this had to be hammered in as hard as
he could hammer it. He was repeating the caution when there was a
stir behind. Looking up at the screen, he saw a procession coming
down the aisle. Leslie Coombes and Victor Grego in front—holy God,
maybe Grego’d take the stand; just give him a chance to
cross-examine!—and Jack Holloway, Gerd and Ruth van Riebeek, George
Lunt in uniform, Pancho Ybarra in civvies, Ahmed Khadra, Sandra
Glenn—no, Ahmed and Sandra Khadra now—Fitz Morlake, Ernst Mallin . . . the whole damn gang. What a spot to lob a hand-grenade! And six
Fuzzies. One wore a light-yellow plastic shoulder bag to match his
fur, and the others had blue canvas bags lettered CZC Police, and
little police shields on their shoulder-straps. Just as they were
getting seated, the crier began chanting, “Rise for the
Honorable Court!” and Yves Janiver came in, gray hair and
black mustache—must dye the damn thing three times a day, made him
look like a villain.
Janiver bowed to the screen and to everybody on Zarathustra who
wasn’t here in the courtroom, and sat down. The opening
formalities were rushed through. Janiver tapped with his gavel.
“A jury having been selected to the mutual satisfaction of
the defense and prosecution—you are satisfied with the jury,
aren’t you, gentlemen?—we will proceed with arraignment of
the defendants. As this is in Native Cases Court, we will give the
visiting team the courtesy of precedence.”
The court clerk rose and called Leo Thaxter. Thaxter sat in the
witness-chair and had the veridicator helmet let down on this
head.
The globe was cerulean blue; it stayed that way, and
didn’t even flicker on “Not guilty.” Thaxter was
an old hand, probably had his first arraignment at age ten on JD
charge. Rose Evins swirled the blue a little; her husband got a few
quick stabs of red, trying to avoid some truth he wasn’t
being asked to tell. The Fuzzies were all sitting on the edge of a
table across the room, smoking little cigarette-size cigars and
yeek-yeeking among themselves, making ultrasonic comments. Fuzzies
were entitled to smoke in court; that was an ancient custom—of all
of four months old. Phil Novaes went up to the stand. For him, the
globe was a dirty mauve. When he was asked to plead, it blazed like
a fire-alarm light. “Not guilty,” he said.
“Now, what the hell did you do that for?” Ingermann
hissed when Novaes came back.
Everybody in the courtroom was laughing.
“Diamond. Native registration number twenty.”
There was an argument among the Fuzzies. The one with the
plastic shoulder bag jumped down, ran over to the witness chair,
and climbed into it. The human-size helmet was swung aside and a
little one swung over and let down. As soon as it touched
Diamond’s head, he was on his feet.
“Your Honor, I object!”
“And to what, Mr. Ingermann?” the judge asked.
“Your Honor, this Fuzzy is being placed under
veridication. It is a known scientific fact that the
polyencephalographic veridicator will not detect the difference
between true and false statements when made by members of that
race.” The jury wouldn’t know what the hell he was
talking about. “A veridicator will not work with a
Fuzzy,” he added for their benefit.
“You’ll have to pardon my abysmal ignorance, Mr.
Ingermann, but this alleged scientific fact isn’t known to
this court.”
“It’s known to everybody else. Your Honor,” he
added insultingly. No use trying to avoid antagonizing the court;
this court was pre-antagonized already. Maybe he could needle
Janiver into saying something exceptionable. “And it is
specifically known to the leading specialist in Fuzzy psychology,
Dr. Ernst Mallin.”
“I seem to see Dr. Mallin here present,” Janiver
said. “Is that a fact, Doctor Mallin?”
“I must object unless Dr. Mallin veridicates his
reply.”
Mallin winced. He had a thing about being veridicated in court;
he ought to, after what he went through in People versus Kellogg
and Holloway.
“Bloody-go-hell, what you want me make do?” the
Fuzzy on the stand demanded.
Everybody ignored that. Janiver said:
“I see no reason why Dr. Mallin should veridicate a simple
answer to a simple question; nobody is asking him to give testimony
at this time.”
“Nobody can give testimony at this time, Your
Honor,” Coombes said. “The defendants have not all been
arraigned.”
“What are you trying to do, Ingermann; get a mistrial out
of this?” Brannhard said.
“Certainly not!” He was righteously indignant. That
was something he hadn’t thought of; should have, but too late
now. “If the learned court, in what it describes as its
abysmal ignorance, seeks enlightenment . . . ”
“Doctor Mallin, is it true that, as the learned counsel
for the defense states, it is a known fact that Fuzzies cannot be
veridicated?”
“Not at all.” Mallin was smirking in superiority.
“Mr. Ingermann has been listening to mere layman’s
folklore. As sapient beings, Fuzzies have the same neuro-cerebral
system as, say, Terran humans. when they attempt to suppress a true
statement and substitute a false one, it is accompanied by the same
detectable electromagnetic events.”
Whatever that meant to these twelve failed-apprentice
morons.
“Dr. Mallin is giving expert testimony, Your Honor. He
should be duly qualified as an expert.”
“In this court, Mr. Ingermann, Dr. Mallin has long ago
been so qualified.”
“Your Honor, Mr. Ingermann may get a lot of fun out of
this, but I don’t,” Coombes said. “Let’s
get these defendants arraigned and get on with the
trial.”
“It is illegal to place anybody under veridication unless
the veridicator has been properly tested.”
“This veridicator has been properly tested,” Gus
Brannhard said. “It red-lighted when your client, Novaes,
made the false statement that he was not guilty.”
That got a laugh, a real, order-in-the-court laugh; even some of
the jury got it. When it subsided, Janiver rapped with his
gavel.
“Gentlemen, I seem recall a law once enacted in some Old
Terran jurisdiction, first century PreAtomic, to the effect that
when two self-propelled ground-vehicles approached an intersection,
both should stop and neither start until the other had gone on.
That seems to be the situation Mr. Ingermann is trying here to
create. He wants to argue that the defendants cannot be arraigned
until Dr. Mallin has testified that they can be veridicated, and
that Dr. Mallin cannot testify until the defendants have been
arraigned. And by that time his clients will have died of old age.
Well, I herewith rule that the defendant on the stand, and the
other Fuzzy defendants, be arraigned herewith, on the supposition
that a veridicator which will work with a human will work with a
Fuzzy.”
“Exception!”
“Exception noted. Proceed with the arraignment.”
“I warn the court that I will not consider this a
precedent for allowing these Fuzzies to testify against my
clients.”
“That is also to be noted. Proceed, Mr. Clerk.”
“What name you?” the clerk asked. “What Big
Ones call you?”
“Diamond.”
The blue globe over his head became blood-red. Red! Oh, holy
God, no!
“You said they couldn’t be veridicated; you said no
Fuzzy would redlight—” Evins was jabbering, and Thaxter was
saying, “You double-crossing bastard!”
“Shut up, both of you!”
“How I do, Pappy Lessee?” the Fuzzy, whose name was
not Diamond, was asking. “I do like you say?”
“Who is Pappy for you?” the clerk asked.
The Fuzzy thought briefly, said, “Pappy Jack,” and
got a red light, and then another when he corrected himself and
said, “Pappy Vic.”
“You do very good; you good Fuzzy,” Leslie Coombes
said. “Now, say for is-so what your name.”
The Fuzzy said, “Toshi-Sosso. Mean Wise One in Big One
talk.”
Those damn forest-fire Fuzzies; he was one of them. The
veridicator was blue. Rose Evins was saying, “Well. It looks
as though you didn’t do it, Mister Ingermann.”
The next Fuzzy, called under the name of Allan Pinkerton, made
an equally spectacular redlighting, and then admitted to being
called something that meant Stabber. That was good; and just call
me Stabbed, Ingermann thought.
“Well, Mr. Ingermann; do I hear any more objections to the
veridicated testimony of the Fuzzies, or are you willing to be
convinced by this demonstration?” Janiver asked. “If
so, we will have the real defendants in for arraignment
now.”
“Well, naturally, Your Honor.” What in Nifflheim
else could he say? “I must confess myself much deceived. By
all means, let the real defendants be arraigned, and after that may
I pray the court to recess until 0900 Monday?” That would
give him all Saturday, and Sunday . . . “I must confer with my
clients and replan the entire defense . . . ”
“What he means, Your Honor, is that now it seems these
Fuzzies are going to be allowed to tell the truth, and he
doesn’t know what to do about it,” Brannhard said.
“What the hell are you trying to do, ditch us?”
Thaxter wanted to know. “You better not . . . ”
“No, no! Don’t worry, Leo; this whole thing’s
a big fake. I don’t know how they did it, but it’d
stink on Nifflheim, and by Monday I’ll be able to prove it.
Just sit tight; everything will be all right if you keep your
mouths shut in the meantime.”
He looked at his watch. He shouldn’t have done that. He
shouldn’t have given any indication of how vital time was
now.
“Well, it’s now 1500,” Janiver was saying,
“and tomorrow’s Saturday. There’ll be no court,
in any case. Yes, Mr. Ingermann; I see no reason for not granting
that request.”
HUGO INGERMANN LOOKED up at the big screen above the empty
bench, which showed, like a double-reflecting mirror, a view of the
courtroom behind him, filling with spectators. It was jammed, even
the balcony above. Well, he’d be playing to a good house,
anyhow.
He had nothing to worry about, he told himself. Either way it
came out, he’d be safe. If he got his clients acquitted by
the faginy and enslavement charges—even a collaboration of
Blackstone, Daniel Webster and Clarence Darrow couldn’t do
anything with the burglary and larceny charges—that would be that.
Of course, he’d be the most execrated man on Zarathustra,
with all this publicity about Little Fuzzy and the forest-fire and
the rescue, but that wouldn’t last. It wouldn’t alter
the fact that he’d accomplished a courtroom masterpiece, and
it would bring clients in droves. Well, maybe he’s a crooked
son of a Khooghra, but he’s a smart lawyer, you gotta give
him that. And people forgot soon; he knew people. It would bring
back a lot of his People’s Prosperity Party followers who had
defected after he’d been smeared with the gem vault job. And
in a few months, the rush of immigrants would come in, all hoping
to get rich on what the CZC had lost, and all sore as hell when
they found there was nothing to grab. When they heard that he was
the man who dared buck Rainsford and Victor Grego together,
they’d rally to him, and a year after they landed
they’d all be eligible to vote.
If things went sour, he had a line of retreat open. He
congratulated himself on the timing that had accomplished that. He
didn’t want to have to use it, he wanted to win here in
court, but if anything went wrong . . .
Still, he was tense and jumpy. He wondered if he oughtn’t
to take another tranquilizer. No, he’d been eating those damn
things like candy. He started to straighten the papers on the table
in front of him, then forced his hands to be still. Mustn’t
let people see him fidgeting.
A stir in front to the left of the bench; door opened, jury
filing in to take their seats. Now there were twelve good cretins
and true, total IQ around 250. He’d fought to the death to
exclude anybody with brains enough to pour sand out of a boot with
printed directions on the bottom of the heel. He looked over to the
table where Gus Brannhard was fluffing his whiskers with his left
hand and smiling happily at the ceiling, wondering if Brannhard had
any idea why he’d dragged out the jury selection for four
days.
The other door opened. In came Colonial Marshal Fane, preceded
by his rotund tummy, and then Leo Thaxter and Conrad and Rose Evins
and Phil Novaes, followed by two uniformed deputies, one of them
fondling his pistol-butt hopefully. They were all dressed in the
courtroom outfits he had selected: Thaxter in light gray—as long as
he kept his mouth shut anybody would take him for a pillar of the
community; Conrad Evins in black, with a dark blue neckcloth; Rose
Evins also in black, relieved by a few touches of pale blue; Phil
Novaes in dark gray, smart but ultraconservative. Who’d think
four respectables like this were a bunch of fagins and slavers? He
got them seated at the table with him. Thaxter was scowling at the
jury.
“Smile, you stupid ape!” he hissed. “Those
people have a 10-mm against the back of your head. Don’t make
them want to pull the trigger.”
He beamed affectionately at Thaxter. Thaxter’s scowl
deepened, then he tried, not too successfully, to beam back. He
didn’t have the face for it.
“You know what’s against that back of yours,”
he whispered.
Yes, and he wished he hadn’t put himself in front of it in
the first place. Ought to have refused to have anything to do with
this case, but, my God . . . !
“Will it start now?” Rose Evins asked.
“Pretty soon. You’ll all be called to the stand for
arraignment; you’ll be under veridication. Now, remember, you
only give your names, your addresses, and your civil and racial
status, that’s Federation citizen, race Terran human. If they
ask anything else, refuse to answer. And when they ask how you
plead, you say, ‘Not guilty.’ Now remember,
that’s only the way you’re pleading. You are not being
asked whether you did what you’ve been charged with or not.
When you say, ‘Not guilty,’ you are making a true
statement.”
He went over that again; this had to be hammered in as hard as
he could hammer it. He was repeating the caution when there was a
stir behind. Looking up at the screen, he saw a procession coming
down the aisle. Leslie Coombes and Victor Grego in front—holy God,
maybe Grego’d take the stand; just give him a chance to
cross-examine!—and Jack Holloway, Gerd and Ruth van Riebeek, George
Lunt in uniform, Pancho Ybarra in civvies, Ahmed Khadra, Sandra
Glenn—no, Ahmed and Sandra Khadra now—Fitz Morlake, Ernst Mallin . . . the whole damn gang. What a spot to lob a hand-grenade! And six
Fuzzies. One wore a light-yellow plastic shoulder bag to match his
fur, and the others had blue canvas bags lettered CZC Police, and
little police shields on their shoulder-straps. Just as they were
getting seated, the crier began chanting, “Rise for the
Honorable Court!” and Yves Janiver came in, gray hair and
black mustache—must dye the damn thing three times a day, made him
look like a villain.
Janiver bowed to the screen and to everybody on Zarathustra who
wasn’t here in the courtroom, and sat down. The opening
formalities were rushed through. Janiver tapped with his gavel.
“A jury having been selected to the mutual satisfaction of
the defense and prosecution—you are satisfied with the jury,
aren’t you, gentlemen?—we will proceed with arraignment of
the defendants. As this is in Native Cases Court, we will give the
visiting team the courtesy of precedence.”
The court clerk rose and called Leo Thaxter. Thaxter sat in the
witness-chair and had the veridicator helmet let down on this
head.
The globe was cerulean blue; it stayed that way, and
didn’t even flicker on “Not guilty.” Thaxter was
an old hand, probably had his first arraignment at age ten on JD
charge. Rose Evins swirled the blue a little; her husband got a few
quick stabs of red, trying to avoid some truth he wasn’t
being asked to tell. The Fuzzies were all sitting on the edge of a
table across the room, smoking little cigarette-size cigars and
yeek-yeeking among themselves, making ultrasonic comments. Fuzzies
were entitled to smoke in court; that was an ancient custom—of all
of four months old. Phil Novaes went up to the stand. For him, the
globe was a dirty mauve. When he was asked to plead, it blazed like
a fire-alarm light. “Not guilty,” he said.
“Now, what the hell did you do that for?” Ingermann
hissed when Novaes came back.
Everybody in the courtroom was laughing.
“Diamond. Native registration number twenty.”
There was an argument among the Fuzzies. The one with the
plastic shoulder bag jumped down, ran over to the witness chair,
and climbed into it. The human-size helmet was swung aside and a
little one swung over and let down. As soon as it touched
Diamond’s head, he was on his feet.
“Your Honor, I object!”
“And to what, Mr. Ingermann?” the judge asked.
“Your Honor, this Fuzzy is being placed under
veridication. It is a known scientific fact that the
polyencephalographic veridicator will not detect the difference
between true and false statements when made by members of that
race.” The jury wouldn’t know what the hell he was
talking about. “A veridicator will not work with a
Fuzzy,” he added for their benefit.
“You’ll have to pardon my abysmal ignorance, Mr.
Ingermann, but this alleged scientific fact isn’t known to
this court.”
“It’s known to everybody else. Your Honor,” he
added insultingly. No use trying to avoid antagonizing the court;
this court was pre-antagonized already. Maybe he could needle
Janiver into saying something exceptionable. “And it is
specifically known to the leading specialist in Fuzzy psychology,
Dr. Ernst Mallin.”
“I seem to see Dr. Mallin here present,” Janiver
said. “Is that a fact, Doctor Mallin?”
“I must object unless Dr. Mallin veridicates his
reply.”
Mallin winced. He had a thing about being veridicated in court;
he ought to, after what he went through in People versus Kellogg
and Holloway.
“Bloody-go-hell, what you want me make do?” the
Fuzzy on the stand demanded.
Everybody ignored that. Janiver said:
“I see no reason why Dr. Mallin should veridicate a simple
answer to a simple question; nobody is asking him to give testimony
at this time.”
“Nobody can give testimony at this time, Your
Honor,” Coombes said. “The defendants have not all been
arraigned.”
“What are you trying to do, Ingermann; get a mistrial out
of this?” Brannhard said.
“Certainly not!” He was righteously indignant. That
was something he hadn’t thought of; should have, but too late
now. “If the learned court, in what it describes as its
abysmal ignorance, seeks enlightenment . . . ”
“Doctor Mallin, is it true that, as the learned counsel
for the defense states, it is a known fact that Fuzzies cannot be
veridicated?”
“Not at all.” Mallin was smirking in superiority.
“Mr. Ingermann has been listening to mere layman’s
folklore. As sapient beings, Fuzzies have the same neuro-cerebral
system as, say, Terran humans. when they attempt to suppress a true
statement and substitute a false one, it is accompanied by the same
detectable electromagnetic events.”
Whatever that meant to these twelve failed-apprentice
morons.
“Dr. Mallin is giving expert testimony, Your Honor. He
should be duly qualified as an expert.”
“In this court, Mr. Ingermann, Dr. Mallin has long ago
been so qualified.”
“Your Honor, Mr. Ingermann may get a lot of fun out of
this, but I don’t,” Coombes said. “Let’s
get these defendants arraigned and get on with the
trial.”
“It is illegal to place anybody under veridication unless
the veridicator has been properly tested.”
“This veridicator has been properly tested,” Gus
Brannhard said. “It red-lighted when your client, Novaes,
made the false statement that he was not guilty.”
That got a laugh, a real, order-in-the-court laugh; even some of
the jury got it. When it subsided, Janiver rapped with his
gavel.
“Gentlemen, I seem recall a law once enacted in some Old
Terran jurisdiction, first century PreAtomic, to the effect that
when two self-propelled ground-vehicles approached an intersection,
both should stop and neither start until the other had gone on.
That seems to be the situation Mr. Ingermann is trying here to
create. He wants to argue that the defendants cannot be arraigned
until Dr. Mallin has testified that they can be veridicated, and
that Dr. Mallin cannot testify until the defendants have been
arraigned. And by that time his clients will have died of old age.
Well, I herewith rule that the defendant on the stand, and the
other Fuzzy defendants, be arraigned herewith, on the supposition
that a veridicator which will work with a human will work with a
Fuzzy.”
“Exception!”
“Exception noted. Proceed with the arraignment.”
“I warn the court that I will not consider this a
precedent for allowing these Fuzzies to testify against my
clients.”
“That is also to be noted. Proceed, Mr. Clerk.”
“What name you?” the clerk asked. “What Big
Ones call you?”
“Diamond.”
The blue globe over his head became blood-red. Red! Oh, holy
God, no!
“You said they couldn’t be veridicated; you said no
Fuzzy would redlight—” Evins was jabbering, and Thaxter was
saying, “You double-crossing bastard!”
“Shut up, both of you!”
“How I do, Pappy Lessee?” the Fuzzy, whose name was
not Diamond, was asking. “I do like you say?”
“Who is Pappy for you?” the clerk asked.
The Fuzzy thought briefly, said, “Pappy Jack,” and
got a red light, and then another when he corrected himself and
said, “Pappy Vic.”
“You do very good; you good Fuzzy,” Leslie Coombes
said. “Now, say for is-so what your name.”
The Fuzzy said, “Toshi-Sosso. Mean Wise One in Big One
talk.”
Those damn forest-fire Fuzzies; he was one of them. The
veridicator was blue. Rose Evins was saying, “Well. It looks
as though you didn’t do it, Mister Ingermann.”
The next Fuzzy, called under the name of Allan Pinkerton, made
an equally spectacular redlighting, and then admitted to being
called something that meant Stabber. That was good; and just call
me Stabbed, Ingermann thought.
“Well, Mr. Ingermann; do I hear any more objections to the
veridicated testimony of the Fuzzies, or are you willing to be
convinced by this demonstration?” Janiver asked. “If
so, we will have the real defendants in for arraignment
now.”
“Well, naturally, Your Honor.” What in Nifflheim
else could he say? “I must confess myself much deceived. By
all means, let the real defendants be arraigned, and after that may
I pray the court to recess until 0900 Monday?” That would
give him all Saturday, and Sunday . . . “I must confer with my
clients and replan the entire defense . . . ”
“What he means, Your Honor, is that now it seems these
Fuzzies are going to be allowed to tell the truth, and he
doesn’t know what to do about it,” Brannhard said.
“What the hell are you trying to do, ditch us?”
Thaxter wanted to know. “You better not . . . ”
“No, no! Don’t worry, Leo; this whole thing’s
a big fake. I don’t know how they did it, but it’d
stink on Nifflheim, and by Monday I’ll be able to prove it.
Just sit tight; everything will be all right if you keep your
mouths shut in the meantime.”
He looked at his watch. He shouldn’t have done that. He
shouldn’t have given any indication of how vital time was
now.
“Well, it’s now 1500,” Janiver was saying,
“and tomorrow’s Saturday. There’ll be no court,
in any case. Yes, Mr. Ingermann; I see no reason for not granting
that request.”