Sweet Justice (7 page)

There was the sound of soft tearing as the can hit the still figure and sank in. The Old Man’s eyes jerked open, and as Jamie watched, two heavy black tears trickled down the Old Man’s cheeks. Or at least, the boy thought they were tears, until they scuttled, on tiny insect legs, out of the light, into the man’s hair.

Then Jamie started screaming.

When Judge Hershey found him, a quarter of an hour later, he was still standing there, staring at an old overcoat. Hershey had examined it; it contained the paper shell of what had once been a human being, and a number of stunted black spiders.

The Old Man was the third sugar user she had found like that that Saturday, and she didn’t like it at all.

BRIT-CIT BOUND

It had taken eight hours to get clearance, eight hours during which Hershey prowled the Grand Hall of Justice corridors, inspected her equipment, reviewed the case files, and waited. She was quite prepared to verbally dissect anyone who so much as said hello, but no-one did, which made her even more irritable.

She thought of the perps vanishing into Brit-Cit like spiders scuttling into a garbage pile, and her lips tightened.

It was almost midnight when Chief Judge Silver called her into his office. ‘I’ve spoken to the Brit-Cit Chief Judge, and the International Justice Council...’

‘And?’

‘And they want to talk to you, Hershey.’

Hershey flicked the hair out of her eyes impatiently. There were times when the thought of the International Justice Council, the cadre of Judges that administered matters of jurisdiction and international law, would have caused her a second of apprehension. Now she thought of...

(spiders)

...and a cold flame of anger burned inside her. She sat down, opposite the bank of screens, and said, ‘Go ahead.’

The screens came to life; the top screen showed about half a dozen shadowy faces in helmets and uniforms of as many designs; Hershey could not make out any faces. The bottom screen showed a large man with a huge moon-face, a bronze lion on his shoulder, and a star-shaped beauty mark on his cheek. He was the first to speak:

‘So you want to come to Brit-Cit, eh, Judge Hershey?’ His accent was soft and strange.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Nobody tell you we’ve got Judges of our own over here?’

‘I know that... sir.’

‘Don’t you think we’re capable of finding one little sugar dealer?’

Hershey took a deep breath. ‘That’s not the issue any more,
sir
. Have you looked at the records of this case?’

One of the figures on the top screen broke in. ‘We’ve seen the records, Judge Hershey. What we query is the need for your involvement. Clute will undoubtedly be tracked down by Brit-Cit Judges...’

‘With respect, sir,’ broke in Hershey, ‘this is
my
case. I broke it. I had Clute identified, and I was there when those people started to... started to...’ She paused. ‘I think this is big. I think it could be a matter of planetary security. And there is nowhere that crummy little perp can hide, be it Brit-Cit or anywhere, I can’t track him down and beat the truth from his lousy little hide! Does that answer your question, sir?’

But the top screen had gone blank. The Brit-Cit Chief Judge nodded at her, then his screen blanked out as well.

Hershey looked up at Silver. ‘Well?’

‘It was agreed in principle half an hour ago, but they wanted to get a look at you first. Get on your bike, Judge Hershey – you’re going to Brit-Cit.’

She was out of the room before he finished the sentence.

ARMOUR PIERCING LOOK

Three hours later, Hershey saw the Silver Lions of Brit-Cit for the first time, as they loomed out of the neon night. A face flickered onto her Lawmaster’s communicator.

‘Judge Hershey? This is Judge Armour. Welcome to Brit-Cit. I’m half a klik ahead of you – lock your Lawmaster to mine and follow me to Scotland Yard.’

‘Scotland... that’s north Brit-Cit, right?’

‘Uh, right. But Scotland Yard’s the Justice Headquarters in south east Brit-Cit.’

‘Oh.’

She flipped the Lawmaster onto remote, and followed the British Judge down the narrow Brit-Cit roads. Six lane highways. Hardly room to move.

Armour’s face appeared on the screen. ‘Never been to Brit-Cit before, huh?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I’ve never been to Mega-City, either, so I suppose we’re equal. I did a shift on the Atlantic Plex, though. Worked with a few Mega-City One Judges. You know Dredd?’

‘Yes.’

‘Quite a Judge. Impressive sort of bloke.’

‘Bloke?’

‘Oh, uh, chap, uh, man. Person.’

‘I see. Yes, he is.’ Hershey sighed under her breath. She was only three hours from home; you would have thought they could have spoken English.

‘Jolly good,’ said Armour.

They pulled up in front of Scotland Yard. It was an impressive building compared to the blocks around it – few of them even half the size of a Mega-City Block – but Hershey found herself comparing it to the Grand Hall of Justice; in comparison it was poky and quaint. She climbed off the bike. Armour was waiting for her by the entrance, a giant of a man with a black velvet star stuck on his chin. She removed her helmet and shook out her hair.

Armour’s jaw dropped. He grinned. ‘Gosh! Nobody told me you were going to be so attractive. I can see this is going to be a pleasure.’

Hershey had perfected a number of stares over the years for people who attempted to treat her as anything other than a Judge. They ranged from pitying, to the chill, through to the arctic. Now she let loose a look that was positively sub-polar; Armour gave an involuntary shiver and looked away. He tried to smile once more, but his facial muscles seemed to have forgotten how. She walked in to the British Hall of Justice, and the Brit-Cit Judge followed her in.

They travelled up in the elevator in silence, until Hershey said, ‘That
thing
on your chin. What’s it for?’

‘It’s a beauty patch. They’re very fashionable. In Brit-Cit.’

‘“A Judge,”’ quoted Hershey from memory, ‘“should be clean, upright, and stern. No more. We are not in a beauty contest.”’

‘Judge’s Manual?’

She shook her head. ‘Dredd.’

‘Oh.’

The Brit-Cit Chief Judge, whose Brit Territories’ flag name badge told Hershey his name was Jones, was sitting in a large easy chair. He looked up as Hershey came in. She gave him her slightly cold look (which produced a sensation not unlike a fridge door being left open), and stood by his desk.

‘We’ve never had anything like this before, lass,’ said Chief Judge Jones. ‘Outside Judges coming in, like. I hope we’re all going to get along.’

Hershey raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m looking for Clute. Severian Clute. He’s a small-time Brit-Cit sugar dealer. He’s positively identified as the man who sold each of the... victims their sugar. By the time we had a positive ID on him he had taken the zoom-tube back to Brit-Cit.

‘Whatever he’s selling, isn’t sugar. It looks like pure crystals, apparently tastes like the stuff. But it’s deadly. Probably alien. I want him brought back to Mega-City One, and I want the source – whatever it is – of this stuff put out of action for good. On that basis I need the full co-operation of the Brit-Cit Judges.’

Chief Judge Jones got up, revealing himself as quite overweight, something that Hershey had never seen in a Judge before. He stared out of the window. The lights of Brit-Cit flickered and twinkled beneath them.

‘I take it that I will get that co-operation, sir?’

Jones didn’t look at her. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘You do, and you don’t. It’s not that we don’t want to give you all the help we can. But you’re a Mega-City One Judge. And this is Brit-Cit. We do things differently here.

‘I’m assigning you to Judge Armour. You two can work together on this case. You can use Brit-Cit Justice Department Facilities.
But
while you’re here you take orders from Armour. And from me. And none of this charging into places, Lawgiver blazing, damaging property and putting the wind up our citizens! You aren’t in Mega-City One now, lass.’

‘No,’ said Hershey. ‘I can see that I’m not.’

‘Right then,’ said Chief Judge Jones. ‘That’s all that needs to be said then. Good luck.

‘Just remember. We’ve got a saying over here.
Softly softly catchee perp
. Right then. Good morning.’

TV NASTIES

Clute had done five years in an Iso-Cube when he was twenty. The hologram of him taken then showed Hershey a weasely little man, short, prematurely balding, with little cherubic lips.

Since then he had been on the move. Severian Clute was just one of the half-dozen names he had used, a minor confidence man and compulsive liar who had informed on the Brit-Cit underworld just enough to keep in circulation. No record of sugar dealing until six weeks back, when he had left his job handling transit passengers at the Space Port, abandoned his apartment, and gone underground.

There were no leads as to his current whereabouts.

Hershey sat in her hotel room, and reviewed the files again and again, hoping to pry some clue from Clute’s shifty little face, from the list of dates and places. No go. She paced the room. Flipped on her communicator.

‘Armour? Hershey here. Got anything?’

‘’Fraid not. I’ll contact you as soon as I have.’

She sighed. ‘I can’t sit around forever! I’ll go nuts!’

‘I’ll call you as soon as there’s
any
word. Really, in the meantime why don’t you watch the box?’

‘Huh?’ Why couldn’t the man speak in English?

‘The television. Armour out.’

Hershey activated the television, flipped the channels. BCB1 was showing a historical drama about the Second Elizabethan Era. A woman named Thatcher – played by a remarkably attractive young actress – whom Hershey took to be the Chief Judge of that period, was riding her horse down a freeway, in company with an army of punk rockers.

‘
If Hitler is to be defeated,
’ she told her troops, ‘
we must declare this to be The Summer of Love!
’

Hershey flipped channels.

‘
Don’t move perpy, ’cos I am the Law!
’ shouted a wild-eyed young man. There was a burst of canned laughter. ‘
It’s Dudd!
’ said someone. ‘
Don’t talk to me about crime in Brit-Cit. I left my bicycle by Tony Hancock Block last week, and when I got back that evening it was still there!
’ ‘
The bicycle?
’ ‘
No, blah-face! The Block!
’ More hysterical laughter.

Hershey thought seriously about heading down to Brit-Cit Broadcasting and arresting the lot of them. Instead she turned the television off.

‘Be a good citizen,’ a recorded message implored her. ‘Please destroy your television set now. Support local obsolescence.’

Hershey had never destroyed public property in her life. She walked to the far side of her hotel room, took out her Lawgiver, and fired at the TV set.

Her communicator crackled.

‘Hershey? It’s Armour here–! What’s that noise? I thought I heard a shot!’

‘It’s just the television,’ she explained.

‘Oh gosh – it sounded so real! Anyway, one of our Judges thinks he may have a lead. Meet you downstairs.’

As she left the room a new television set slid up from the floor.

There was another Judge waiting with Armour, whom he introduced as Judge Pratchett. Hershey had never seen a Judge with a beard before. She found it vaguely obscene. Judge Pratchett was holding a middle-aged woman with a runny nose; he had her arm twisted as far up her back as it would go without actually breaking anything.

‘Now then, chummy,’ said Pratchett, ‘tell this Judge what you told me. And none of your lip this time, sunshine, or I’ll add on another year to your sentence.’

‘All I know,’ squealed the terrified woman, ‘is that Clute’s been hanging around Speaker’s Corner. Near the Legalise Sugar stand. I bought some stuff off him yesterday.’

‘Have you taken any yet?’ said Hershey quickly.

‘Oh no. I was saving it for a cup of tea. There’s a bloke I know said he could put a few tea bags my way, you see.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Judge Pratchett, cheerfully. ‘Well, well, well, tea as well is it? You’re a regular little den of iniquity, my girl. It looks like you’re going to be helping us with our enquiries for quite some time to come, eh?’

Hershey got on her Lawmaster. ‘Speaker’s Corner?’

‘Follow me.’ They headed off into the misty Brit-Cit morning, Judge Pratchett’s muffled ‘Mind how you go, now!’ echoing after them.

ROCKS IN CONCERT

Hyde Park was a smallish car park, not more than a hundred and fifty storeys high, covering less than five square miles. The top floor had been turned into some kind of park. In the centre a Rock Group – an alien species of intelligent granite, top musicians all, on a galaxy-wide tour – were being hooked up to huge loudspeakers. According to the painted legend on their sides they were called the Growling Stones. Hershey had heard a little rock music in Mega-City, but didn’t like it.

In one corner a knot of people had gathered.

‘That’s Speaker’s Corner,’ said Judge Armour. ‘We’ll leave the Lawmasters here by the gate, and go over on foot. We’ll be less conspicuous.’

As they drew closer the wind blew snatches of speech over to Hershey. She was not sure she believed what she was hearing.

‘...of course Judges are evil. The system is an evil, corrupting system...’

‘...all right, so if you can grow your own tobacco, what’s wrong with smoking it – in your own home of course...’

‘...sure we’re robots. But why should we be treated as second class citizens? A neuronic brain is...’

‘...so what’s wrong with a little mutie-bashing, I should like to know? I mean they aren’t like us...’

The speakers were all men and women (and in two cases robots) who stood on chairs and boxes, in the middle of the crowd. Around them people cheered or heckled, made suggestions or cracked jokes, moving from speaker to speaker by osmosis.

Hershey stopped. ‘These people... what they’re
saying
! Shall we round them up now? They’ll get ten years in an Iso-Cube.’