The Devil's Nebula (8 page)

He wondered why he was being held here, instead of in one of the many judicial holding centres where criminals were more normally incarcerated while awaiting trial.

A sudden din sounded above him. He cowered instinctively, covering his head with his hands, and watched as first one sleek grey torpedo dropped from the ceiling, and then a second.

As he stared, the case of the first tube lifted to reveal a pair of dark, shapely legs and then an ill-fitting shift identical to his own.

Lania blinked, and a second later she was in his arms.

He eased her away, kissed her forehead like a father, and together they turned and watched as the case of the second tube lifted and Jed stared at him in amazement. He stepped off the disc into Lania’s embrace. Then Carew held the small man by the shoulders, staring into his eyes.

“I can safely say, my friends, that I thought I would never see your smiling faces again.”

Lania laughed. “I never thought I’d admit to missing you, Ed.”

Jed turned and stared through the viewscreen. “Where are we?” the engineer asked.

“A star station on the edge of disputed territory,” Carew said. “But precisely which one, I don’t know,”

Jed stared at him. “Not a judiciary holding station?”

“No. Very strange.”

“But stranger still, Ed,” Lania said, “is that we’re together. Why? I mean, I never expected to see you two reprobates again.”

Carew smiled. “A processing error? Or perhaps it’s another sadistic ploy, to make us think we’ll be allowed to stay together.” But he thought not. He shook his head. “No, this isn’t going by the book at all, my friends.”

Jed said, “Perhaps they have nothing on us, boss? They might not have seen us lift-off from Hesperides.”

Lania grunted. “Use your head, Jed. We were caught red-handed. And they have the
Poet
, remember? They’ll ream the smartcore and find out exactly where we’ve been every minute of the past ten years.”

Jed looked stricken. “Do you think they’ll know that I...?”

Carew said, “We’d better face the fact that they have enough on us to send us down for a few lifetimes.”

“If they don’t decide to execute us, one by one,” Lania put in helpfully. “Which is probably why we’re still together.”

“Sometimes, my dear, your pessimism is as welcome as a dose of Lyran bowel worms.”

Lania tipped an imaginary hat.

Carew looked out at the stars. In the distance, a salty scatter of far suns towards galactic north, he made out the territory of the Vetch.

“I’m sorry I dragged you into this,” he murmured.

Lania waved away the very idea and Jed said, “Where would I be if you hadn’t hired me, boss? I’ll tell you where – dead or clapped up in some stinking jail.”

“Jed’s right,” Lania said. “We’re with you because we chose to be.” She stopped there, though Carew had the impression that she wanted to say more.

Lania sat cross-legged in the centre of the room, and Jed slid down the wall with his legs outstretched before him. Carew remained before the viewscreen.

Jed looked across at Lania. “I don’t know whether I like you best in that,” he said, “or in your smartsuit. At least now I can see what your legs look like.”

Lania scowled at him. “I feel naked without the suit. You don’t know what it’s like.” She wrapped the hem of the shift tightly around her thighs, covering herself.

Carew smiled. He wondered why it was only now,
in extremis
, that he truly appreciated the company of his crew.

He was about to lighten the mood with a story about a tight spot he’d been in on Acrab V, fifteen years ago, when the hatch in the far wall irised open and an armed guard waved them out of the cell.

C
AREW HAD A
ploy he used when faced with minions in positions of authority, such as armed guards, police officers and the like. He would obey their commands, but at his own pace, and he would never establish eye contact. If he was accompanied, he would keep up a running commentary under his breath. It destabilised the power dynamic between captor and captive; it helped him retain dignity, and gave the impression that he was in some measure of control, and it often unsettled those in charge.

“Perhaps,” he murmured to Lania and Jed, “we’d better take up their kind offer of relocation. I found these quarters rather cramped, didn’t you?”

Lania smiled. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

Carew led the way out at a stroll. The six guards who escorted them from the cell and along a maze of white corridors were the usual bull-like drones, oiled body-armour clamped around bulky torsos. Only their heads showed, comically tiny between their hulking shoulder slabs. They carried enough fire-power to bring down a starship and were the ubiquitous face of Expansion authority. Carew had seen their like on every planet he’d visited, and their constant presence had filled him with despair.

“Lania, is the word
overkill
sufficient to describe our escort?”

She managed a laugh. “They obviously respect your prowess at unarmed combat.”

“Or Jed’s ability to evade the tightest security,” Carew said.

“Cut it out...” muttered Jed, spoiling the effect somewhat.

Ahead, a triangular door in a blank wall slid aside and they were marched into a great circular chamber like an amphitheatre.

One of the guards gestured.

“I think that means, in goon-speak,” Carew interpreted, “that we ought to install ourselves in the dock.”

They moved across to a rectangular holding pen, situated in the well of the amphitheatre, and seated themselves on a hard banquette. The guards manipulated controls on the side of the waist-high holding pen. Carew felt something hard and cold encircle his midriff, a metal band that pinioned him to the bench.

Lania grimaced down at the band at her waist, tugging at it futilely.

“And now we wait for the show to start,” Carew murmured.

She looked at him. “I’ve never seen you this light-hearted before. I’m worried.”

“I have a saying which I use in times of stress,” Carew said. “It’s this: reality is never as bad as you expect it to be.”

Jed stared at him. “Great. What if they execute us?”

Carew smiled. “They won’t, Jed.”

The guards had retreated out of sight. Carew suspected they were not far away. The chamber was perhaps fifty metres wide, banked with seats, and directly ahead of them a long viewscreen looked out into space. Below the screen was a raised platform on which were five chairs – more like thrones – and a long table.

Five minutes passed, then ten.

“Why are they making us wait like this?” Jed complained.

“Part of the softening-up process,” Carew said.

Jed looked at him. “We’ve had it, haven’t we? Be honest, boss. This is it, isn’t it?”

Carew thought about it, then said to Jed and Lania, “I’m not at all sure. There’s an old saying: I smell a rat.”

“A rat?” Jed said.

“A verminous rodent, once popular on Earth. To smell one was to suspect that all was not as it seemed.”

“How can smelling a verminous rodent,” Jed objected, “mean that you think that all is not what it seems?”

Lania snorted. “Jed, for pity’s sake.” She looked at Carew. “What do you mean?”

Carew held up his fingers. “One, the authorities didn’t separate us – they’ve kept us together. Two, we haven’t been summarily executed, which is how trespassers on Vetch-held worlds are often dealt with. Three, all this... If you’ve failed to notice, this isn’t your usual criminal courtroom.”

Lania muttered, “I’ll take your word for it.”

“Jed?” Carew prompted.

“Like nothing I’ve seen before,” Jed said. “But then it’s been six years or more since I was last arrested. Things might’ve changed.”

Carew looked around the amphitheatre, considering the possibility that judicial procedure had undergone a transformation. He dismissed the idea. Something was not right with what was going on, and his inability to work out what was wrong disturbed him.

A hatch to the side of the viewscreen sighed open and five robed men and women strode onto the platform and seated themselves behind the long table.

They touched controls in the table-top and screens appeared in the air before them. They gave their attention to the screens.

Carew leaned over to Lania. “It’s nice to see the faces of the opposition,” he said.

“Who are they?”

“Good question. I’ve no idea.”

But his suspicion that this was not a run-of-the-mill judicial session was heightened by the figure in the centre of the five, seated on a chair raised slightly above the others, who wore a military uniform beneath his silver cloak. He was a tall man – attenuated, as if hailing from a low-gravity colony world – whose skull appeared almost inhumanly narrow; it gave him the appearance of the creature Carew had mentioned earlier – a rat.

“For the record,” he said, “this session convenes at nine hundred hours on the thirty-second of St Jude’s, 1745, New Reckoning. Present are magistrates Dar, Matteo, Shor, Simmons, and myself, Commander Gorley.”

The rodent-faced Gorley stared at Carew. “Session convened to try the following citizens: Edward Tracey Carew, fifty-five Terran standard years, formerly of the colony Temeredes; Lania Tara Takiomar, twenty-eight, formerly of the colony world Xaria; Jedley Neffard, thirty-five, formerly of the Pederson trading station, Perseus Sector. The charge is wilful transgression of Vetch space, unlawful landfall on Hesperides, Vetch legal territory.”

The woman to the right of Commander Gorley leaned forward. “Further charges to be considered, pending.”

Commander Gorley inclined his head. “These will be considered following the initial charge.” He reached out and touched the screen before him, and all five turned in their seats and stared up at the viewscreen.

Carew shifted uneasily, as much as the constricting metal band would allow, and transferred his attention to the screen.

The scene of deep space flickered and was replaced by a view of their ship,
The Paradoxical Poet
, as it phased from void-space in orbit around Hesperides and began its spiraldown.

Jed hissed, “How the hell?”

“A drone, obviously,” Carew said.

He wondered if drones circled all Vetch-territory worlds now, waiting for the appearance of trespassing vessels, or if they had been betrayed and followed.

The viewscreen showed the
Poet
as it landed in the jungle south of Valderido. The viewpoint of the drone remained elevated, speeding through shots of the jungle canopy until the trio emerged in the city.

Commander Gorley waved at his screen and the image stilled. He stared at Carew. “The charge: transgression of Vetch space, unlawful landfall on Hesperides. How do you plead?”

Carew had another ploy he used, this time with dignitaries in command: far from refusing eye contact, he would attempt to out-stare them, holding their gazes until they relented and looked away.

He stared at Gorley and said, “How do I plead? I make no plea. I refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of any court upholding the aggressive annexation of Expansion territory by the Vetch.” His eyes bored into Gorley’s abnormally thin visage. The Commander held his gaze.

A small woman at the end of the table leaned forward and murmured at her screen. “Plea inadmissible.”

Commander Gorley said, “Lania Takiomar? How do you plead?”

Lania licked her lips. “I, too, refuse to acknowledge the charge.”

“Jedley Neffard?”

The engineer looked terrified. “Me too.”

Carew smiled across at Gorley, who looked away to consult his screen. He had scored a small victory.

The viewscreen flickered and the scene of deep space beyond the station resumed.

The woman beside Gorley began reading from her screen.

“The further charges, pending, on each individual run thus: Edward Tracey Carew charged with the transportation of one renegade telepath to the colony world of Xaranxa, Deneb III, in the year 1731; such transportation deemed illegal and likely to destabilise the political situation on Xaranxa. How do you plead?”

Carew said. “I refuse to acknowledge the right of this session to judge the lawfulness of my actions.”

The woman went on, “Lania Tara Takiomar, you are charged with, on the fourth of Jeremy, 1735, absconding from military custody on Blanchard’s World, Altair II and illegally obtaining a Jenson-Meers smartsuit from military stores. How do you plead?”

Carew saw Lania’s hands form into tight fists as she said, “Fuck you all.”

He smiled to himself. She had never mentioned her past, or rather had given him a sanitised version of how she had come to own the smartsuit, and he found himself wanting to know more.

He was overwhelmed by the notion that he might never now have the chance.

“Jedley Neffard, you are charged with, on the seventh Sacristian, 1739, absconding from police custody on High’s World, seriously injuring an officer of the law, and stealing an air-car. How do you plead?”

Jed stared defiantly at the woman. “Not guilty,” he said.

Commander Gorley was saying, “These are specimen charges, of more than twenty-five in total, with which the Expansion may try Carew, Takiomar and Neffard.”

The official to his right spoke in modulated tones. Gorley listened, nodded, then leaned forward, his hands clasped before his chin as he stared across at Carew. He spoke, and for the first time Carew received the impression that the man was not following a prepared script.

“For almost thirty years, Edward Carew, you have roamed the Expansion aboard your ships, first
The Grayling
and then
The Paradoxical Poet
, no doubt playing out, in your own imagination, the role of agitator,
agent provocateur
, champion of the oppressed. In reality, your actions have proved deleterious to the smooth running of the ordered, civilised society which the Expansion judiciary attempts to maintain. The list of your misdemeanours alone, without taking into account those of your accomplices Takiomar and Neffard over the course of the past ten and five years respectively, warrant the severest penalties. The crimes of Takiomar and Neffard, likewise, are such that only the most extreme sentences will serve in order to deter likeminded individuals from replicating your exploits.”