Harry Turtledove - A Different Flesh

That assessment shattered the black's cheery mood. "We ain't won yet, then?"

"A skirmish," Douglas shrugged. "You aren't back in the fields, are you? But no, we haven't won. The real fight is just starting."

When Jeremiah's case reconvened, the courtroom was even more packed than it had been before. At the bailiff's command, the people who had managed to gain seats rose to honor the judges. Those at the back, blacks again, mostly, had been standing for some time already, and would keep on until court adjourned.

Judge Kemble rapped for order. Slowly, silence descended. Kemble nodded to Zachary Hayes. "You may begin, sir."

"Thank you, your excellency," Hayes said, rising. I regret the necessity of belaboring the obvious, I still it may not be amiss to remind some of the citizens of the Federated Commonwealths of the principles upon which it was built."

He sent a sour glance toward Alfred Douglas before continuing, "I shall not even attempt to cite the precedents sanctioning slavery.

Suffice it to say they are both numerous and ancient, dating back on the one hand to the Old Testament, the foundation of our faith; and on the other hand to the history and institutions of the wise and noble Greeks and Romans, upon whose usages we have modeled our own."

Listening, Jeremiah fdt his heart sink. Hayes sounded too knowledgeable, too self-assured. The black's nails bit into his palms.

He should have run while he had the chance. All Douglas wanted to do was show off how bril iant he was. why not? If he lost the case, it would not hurt him any. He would not be the one hauled away in chains.

Douglas might have been reading his thoughts. He leaned over and whispered, "Don't give up just yet. He's not saying anything I didn't expect him to."

"Al right." But Jeremiah remained unconvinced.

Hayes was saying, "At first glance, it might seem strange that the Federated Commonwealths, whose pride is in upholding the freedom of their citizens, should also countenance slavery. Yet when properly examined, no inconsistency appears. More than two thousand years ago, Aristotle demonstrated in the Politics that some men are indeed slaves by nature, and that it is only proper for them to serve so that, by enjoying the fruit of their labors, the rest may be truly free.

"How may we judge those who are slaves by nature? Whenever two groups of men differ widely, so that the inferior group can do no more than use their bodies at the direction of their superiors, that group is and ought to be slaves by nature: they reason only enough to understand what they are told, not to think new thoughts for themselves.

"Finally, for us a kindly providence has distinguished this class of individuals by their dusky skins and other features different from our own, to make display of their servile status. This being the case, I trust your excel encies shal soon bring an end to the farce we have seen played out here, and that you shall return this nigger Jeremiah to the station God has intended for him." Conscious of a job well done, Hayes sat.

"Mr. Douglas, you may reply," Judge Kemble said.

"Thank you, your excellency," Douglas said, slowly getting to his feet,

"although I naturally hesitate to do so when my learned opponent, as he has demonstrated, is on such intimate terms with the Almighty."

Judge Scott's gavel crashed to stifle the small swell of laughter in the court; Hayes gave Douglas a distasteful look.

The younger lawyer brushed a lock of his thick, dark hair back from his forehead. He went on, "I should also like to congratulate Mr. Hayes for the scholarship and energy he has expended to justify the ownership of one man by another. I only find it a pity that he has wasted so much

- ingenuity over an entirely irrelevant result. 'The mountains labor, and bring forth a ridiculous mouse."

" This time, all three judges used their gavels, though Jeremiah saw Judge Hardesty's mouth twitch. Hayes sprang out of his chair as if he had sat on a pin.

"See here, your excellencies he cried. "If this mountebank has a case to make, let him make it, instead of mocking mine."

"The entire proceeding of the defense has skated on thin ice," Judge Scott observed.

"Your excellency, I hope to demonstrate otherwise, "

Douglas said hastily; not all the sweat that beaded on his face came from Portsmouth's humid heat. "If the court will indulge me, I believe I can do so by summoning two individuals to the witness-box. One is currently in the courtroom; the other, whom I should like to cal first, is just outside."

The judges conferred briefly among themselves. "Bunch of damned nonsense!" Jeremiah heard Judge Scott say. He saw the jurist's powdered wig flap indignantly. But after a few minutes, Judge Kemble said,

"You may proceed."

"I thank you, your excellency," Douglas said. "I should like the bailiff to fetch in a certain Rob, whom he will find, I expect, sitting against the wall opposite this courtroom."

Bearing a martyred expression, the things half-smart lawyers put him through!, the bailiff went out into the hallway. Jeremiah heard him cal , "Rob?" He returned a moment later, his face now frozen.

Accompanying him was a male sim, the hair on its head and back and chest grizzled with age.

"Mr. Douglas, I do not know what you are playing at, but I assure you I am no longer amused," Judge Kemble snapped. "You know perfectly well that no testimony by a sim is valid in a court of law, they being incompetent to understand or take oath."

"Yes, your excellency, I am aware of that," Douglas answered. "It was for that very reason that I summoned Rob (who belongs to a friend of mine) before you. The presence of sims on these shores, you see, has a vital impact on the question of slavery."

"Why? Are you planning to liberate them next?" Judge Scott asked.

Such sarcasm from the bench was dangerous. "No, your excellency,"

Douglas replied at once. "I believe it just that they serve mankind.

But their just service points out the injustice of forcing men to similar servitude."

"I fail to see how," Scott grumbled.

"Then let him show us, if he can," Judge Hardesty suggested softly. His partner's face did not clear, but Scott kept to himself the protest he still plainly felt. After glancing at Judge Kemble, Hardesty said to Douglas, "You may proceed."

"Thank you, your excellency." Douglas pointed toward Rob, who sat calmly in the witness-box, looking rather bored and working its massive jaws to help pass the time. 'Here we have a being gifted with intelligence, "

"Not much!" someone called from the audience, which raised a laugh and made the judges pound loudly for order.

A judge spent the next several minutes looking down at the table in front of him, until he trusted his control over his features once more.

Douglas, he knew, had paid the fel ow three denaires for that interruption.

The lawyer's face revealed nothing of his machinations.

", gifted with intelligence," he repeated, "though of a lesser sort than our own. Its existence is not to be denied; in the wild, sims craft crude tools of stone, and attempt to imatate ours, in a fashion no brute beast could match.

"But as most of you know, they have no language of their own, and most fail to master the English tongue. Can you speak, Rob?" Douglas asked, turning to the sim.

Its previously placid face grew tense as it struggled against its own slow wits and balky muscles. "Y-y-y-yess," it got out at last, and sat back, proud and relieved. Speak bad, it added with signs.

"So you do," Douglas acknowledged. He concentrated on the judges again.

"Had I bid the sim read to us from the amplest children's primer, of course, it would have been helpless, as it would have been to write its name. No man has yet succeeded in teaching sims their letters."