Дэймон Найт - Orbit 4

He almost forgot Dopher. What? he wondered. Or— who?

“Laura . . . ?” Oliver Godwin, struggling out of his chair, mustaches trembling like questing antennae, had whispered the word. It was at once a statement and a question, fluttering, broken-winged, desolate. It made the hair stand stiff on Edmonds’ neck.

Dopher’s pistol arm swiveled to the new target. Paralyzed, Edmonds watched the fist squeezing, the dead aim. He heard, unbelieving, the deafening crack, then the reverberations.

Godwin did not fall. Edmonds knew he was untouched, and that a leaden pellet was somewhere sailing, lonely forever in stranger time and space. He turned back to the grotesque figure in the center aisle struggling between the two sergeants-at-arms.

Roland Burke now stumbled to his feet and leveled a shaking finger at Dopher. “You! Did you kill President Cromway? Answer me!”

“Don’t answer that!” Thunder exploded from the throat of Oliver Godwin. He seemed to stand nine feet tall. “In this Court, the rights guaranteed by the Constitution will be respected. I admonish you, sir, to remain silent until you have die benefit of counsel. Be that as it may, Mr. Dopher, if such be your name, I now place you under arrest, on suspicion of murder of President Cromway, and for attempted murder here. We have no place of detention in this building, but in a moment I rather believe the District Police will arrive and transfer you to the District Jail, there to hold you for further proceedings in accordance with law. Mr. Sickles, will you accept Mr. Dopher as your client, until one of you shall request to the contrary?”

“Indeed yes, your honor. And I move that the Court impound and preserve this safe, camera, film, and all associated materials.”

“Unless my brothers have any objection—” he did not even look at his colleagues. “So ordered.”

As Dopher was led out into the main hall, Godwin turned to the Chief Justice. He was at this moment the reincarnation, the fusion, and the voice of all the great justices who in decades past had guided the flow of American legal thought. He was the great Marshall; he was Taney; he was Hughes. He was the immortal Holmes. “I apologize to my Brother Burke for interrupting him, and to the other members of this court, and most especially to my Brother Pendleton for any undue presumption of authority.” But now he stood silent a moment, looking about the great room, wistful, searching. His body bent over a little, and he put a hand on the bench to steady himself. When he spoke again, the few reporters left in the front row had to strain to hear him.

“God’s blessing on this place ... on these, my brothers . . .” He looked up at Pendleton. “With the leave of the Court, I beg leave to retire.”

Pendleton nodded to the clerk. “Adjourn the court.”

The reporters, attuned to a generation of Washington arrivals and departures, caught it instantly. “It’s real. He doesn’t just mean retire, he means— retire. Godwin’s finally retiring!” They were on their way to phones even as the crier was intoning, “All rise . . .”

I think it not improbable that man, like the grub that prepares a chamber for the winged thing it never has seen but is to be—that man may have cosmic destinies that he does not understand.

—Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Thank all of you for coming,” said Chief Justice Pendleton to the assembled justices. “After the events of this past noon, I thought it best for one last, highly informal conference, to tie up loose ends on Tyson. You’ve seen the afternoon papers?” He passed the copies around. “There seem to be all kinds of speculation. The Evening Star thinks Dopher’s companions took the picture and got it into the safe somehow, and so betrayed him. The Daily News sees it as a plot to assassinate the Supreme Court. They demand a Congressional investigation with full TV and press coverage. Only the Post seems to have noticed that we released Tyson and simultaneously preserved Dopher’s constitutional rights. They don’t applaud either. But at least we need not be concerned further with Dopher. He’s been extradited and is on his way to New York.”

“And he’ll bring the identical question right back here, evidence obtained by clairvoyance,” said Moore.

“Not necessarily,” said Pendleton cheerfully. “I think each and every member of this court is automatically disqualified to participate in any future cause of Dopher v. New York. We were all witnesses. If we ever get a petition for certiorari, we would have to deny.”

“So New York will have to handle it all by itself,” said Helen Nord thoughtfully. “This time, with a confession in open court, in front of several hundred witnesses, how can Winters lose?”

“Especially if he won’t have to worry about an appeal to this court,” murmured Blandford.

“Why are we here, Mr. Pendleton?” asked Roland Burke.

“Well, I thought we’d have sort of a post-mortem discussion. And when we finish that, I’d like your signatures on a memento for Oliver Godwin. His resignation was effective at the close of court this afternoon.”

“High time,” breathed Burke.

Pendleton looked at him sharply, then cleared his throat. “A great deal has happened in this case that some of us do not understand. A picture has appeared as if by magic. Two pictures, as a matter of fact.”

Burke sat up suddenly. “Two pictures?”

Pendleton peered at him noncommittally. “Yes, two. I’ll come to that later on. I don’t know what it all means, not really. Either we are faced with the most colossal fraud of our careers, a fraud that involves a number of people of good repute, or else ... we have just experienced a three-ring circus of psi. A pistol was fired pointblank at Godwin. But the bullet, if there was a bullet, vanished in midair. Yes, there seems to be a great deal going on around me that I don’t know about, and probably wouldn’t understand if I did. I want to leave it alone. I will not inquire further. None of this need interfere with, nor is it truly relevant to, the continued performance of this Court. And therefore, in closing, let me assure you that I reprimand no one. Quite the contrary. I think we all owe a great debt to someone, or perhaps to several. Finally, I am very glad we are all alive.”

Mr. Justice Burke was perplexed. “You mean that’s the end of it? That we went through all that, and we’re still not going to decide anything? What kind of logic is that? Shouldn’t we withdraw our opinion, pull the whole case back for rehearing, and decide something?”

“And just what would we decide?” said Pendleton. “Should we take judicial notice that psi exists?”

“Of course not. You’re twisting it all around. All I mean is, we can’t dodge it forever. This is only the first case. Next term we’ll have half a dozen.”

“Exactly what do you think we ought to do, Brother?” asked Blandford.

“I don’t know. I do know you’re all against me.” He stood up. “I would like to be excused from this conference.”

“Just one more thing, Mr. Burke.” Almost diffidently Pendleton turned around and picked up a portrait folder from the cart behind his chair. He passed it down to the justice. “This is the little farewell memento I mentioned earlier for Oliver Godwin. We wanted to give him a banquet and a suitable gift, but he flatly refuses. It’s a photograph, with a signature card on the inside fold. We all plan to sign. Since you are now the Senior Associate Justice, we thought you might like to be the first.”

“Of course. Very thoughtful.” He opened the boards . . . and stared. “What on earth! Hands? A photograph of somebody holding hands?” He got out his fountain pen and unscrewed the cap, then looked over at Pendleton. “It’s an old man’s hand—in a black silk sleeve. It’s Godwin, in robes, isn’t it?”