Гарднер Дозуа - The Good Old Stuff

Alen said politely, “Your Honor, I am a stranger to many of the ways of Lyra, but our excellent College and Order of Heralds instructed me well in the underlying principles of your law. I recall that one of your most revered legal maxims declares: ‘The highest crime against man is murder; the highest crime against man’s society is breach of promise.”

Purpling, the judge snarled, “Are you presuming to bandy law with me, you slippery-tongued foreigner? Are you presuming to accuse me of the high crime of breaking my promise? For your information, a promise consists of an offer to do, or refrain from doing, a thing in return for a consideration. There must be the five elements of promiser, promisee, offer, substance, and consideration.”

“If you will forgive a foreigner,” said Alen, suddenly feeling the ground again under his feet, “I maintain that you offered the parties in the dispute your services in awarding the victory.”

“An empty argument,” snorted the judge. “Just as an offer with substance from somebody to nobody for a consideration is no promise, or an offer without substance from somebody to somebody for a consideration is no promise, so my offer was no promise, for there was no consideration involved.”

“Your Honor, must the consideration be from the promisee to the promiser?”

“Of course not. A third party may provide the consideration.”

“Then I respectfully maintain that your offer was a promise, since a third party, the government, provided you with the considerations of salary and position in return for offering your services to the disputants.”

“Watchmen, clear the room of disinterested persons,” said the judge hoarsely. While it was being done, Alen swiftly filled in the trader and Chief Elwon. Blackbeard grinned at the mention of a five-against-one battle royal, and the engineer looked alarmed.

When the doors closed leaving the nine of them in privacy, the judge said bitterly, “Herald, where did you learn such devilish tricks?”

Alen told him: “My College and Order instructed me well. A similar situation existed on a planet called England during an age known as the Victorious. Trial by combat had long been obsolete, there as here, but had never been declared so—there as here. A litigant won a hopeless lawsuit by publishing a challenge to his opponent and appearing at the appointed place in full armor. His opponent ignored the challenge and so lost the suit by default. The English dictator, one Disraeli, hastily summoned his parliament to abolish trial by combat.”

“And so,” mused the judge, “I find myself accused in my own chamber of high crime if I do not permit you five to slash away at each other and decide who won.”

The wine-shop keeper began to blubber that he was a peaceable man and didn’t intend to be carved up by that blackbearded, bloodthirsty star trader. All he wanted was his money.

“Silence!” snapped the judge. “Of course there will be no combat. Will you, shopkeeper, and you, watchmen, withdraw if you receive satisfactory financial settlements?”

They would.

“Herald, you may dicker with them.”

The four watchmen stood fast by their demand for a hundred credits apiece, and got it. The terrified shopkeeper regained his balance and demanded a thousand. Alen explained that his black-bearded master from a rude and impetuous world might be unable to restrain his rage when he, Alen, interpreted the demand and, ignoring the consequences, might beat him, the shopkeeper, to a pulp. The asking price plunged to a reasonable five hundred, which was paid over. The shopkeeper got the judge’s permission to leave and backed out, bowing.

“You see, trader,” Alen told blackbeard, “that it was needless to buy weapons when the spoken word—”

“And now,” said the judge with a sneer, “we are easily out of that dilemma. Watchmen, arrest the three star travelers and take them to the cages.”

“Your Honor?” cried Alen, outraged.

“Money won’t get you out of this one. I charge you with treason.”

“The charge is obsolete—” began the Herald hotly, but he broke off as he realized the vindictive strategy.

“Yes, it is. And one of its obsolete provisions is that treason charges must be tried by the parliament at a regular session, which isn’t due for two hundred days. You’ll be freed and I may be reprimanded, but by my head, for two hundred days you’ll regret that you made a fool of me. Take them away.”

“A trumped-up charge against us. Prison for two hundred days,” said Alen swiftly to the trader as the watchmen closed in.

“Why buy weapons?” mocked the blackbeard, showing his teeth. His left arm whipped up and down, there was a black streak through the aim-and the judge was pinned to his throne with a black glass knife through his throat and the sneer of triumph still on his lips.

The trader, before the knife struck, had the clumsy pistol out, with the cover off the glowing match and the cocking piece back. He must have pumped and cocked it under his cloak, thought Alen numbly as he told the watchmen, without prompting, “Get back against the wall and turn around.” They did. They wanted to live, and the grinning blackbeard who had made meat of the judge with a flick of the arm was a terrifying figure.

“Well done, Alen,” said the trader. “Take their clubs, Elwon. Two for you, two for the Herald. Alen, don’t argue! I had to kill the judge before he raised an alarm—nothing but death will silence his breed. You may have to kill too before we’re out of this. Take the clubs.”

He passed the clumsy pistol to Chief Elwon and said, “Keep it on their backs. The thing that looks like a thumb safety is a trigger. Put a dart through the first one who tries to make a break. Alen, tell the fellow on the end to turn around and come to me slowly.”

Alen did. Blackbeard swiftly stripped him, tore and knotted his clothes into ropes and bound and gagged him. The others got the same treatment in less than ten minutes.

The trader holstered the gun and rolled the watchmen out of the line of sight from the door of the chamber. He recovered his knife and wiped it on the judge’s shirt. Alen had to help him prop the body behind the throne’s high back.

“Hide those clubs,” blackbeard said. “Straight faces. Here we go.”

They went out, single file, opening the door only enough to pass.

Alen, last in line, told one of the liveried guards nearby, “His honor, Judge Krarl, does not wish to be disturbed.”

“That’s news?” asked the tipstaff sardonically. He put his hand on the Herald’s arm. “Only yesterday he gimme a blast when I brought him a mug of water he asked me for himself. An outrageous interruption, he called me, and he asked for the water himself. What do you think of that?”

“Terrible,” said Alen hastily. He broke away and caught up with the trader and the engineer at the entrance hall. Idlers and loungers were staring at them as they headed for the waiting wagon.

“I wait!” the driver told them loudly. “I wait long, much. You pay more, more?”

“We pay more,” said the trader. “You start.”

The driver brought out a smoldering piece of punk, lit a pressure torch, lifted the barn-door section of the wagon’s floor to expose the pottery turbine and preheated it with the torch. He pumped squeakily for minutes, spinning a flywheel with his other hand, before the rotor began to turn on its own. Down went the hatch, up onto the seats went the passengers.

“The spaceport,” said Men. With a slate-pencil screech the driver engaged his planetary gear and they were off.

Through it all, blackbeard had ignored frantic muttered questions from Chief Elwon, who had wanted nothing to do with murder, especially of a judge. “You sit up there,” growled the trader, “and every so often you look around and see if we’re being followed. Don’t alarm the driver.