Trial of the Century
Contents
Copyright
Title Page
Trial of the Century
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Copyright
TRIAL OF THE CENTURY
© 2013 by Lawrence M. Schoen
This book is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, in part or whole, by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from both the copyright owner and the publisher.
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Cover Art ©2013 by Rachael Mayo
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“Trial of the Century” appears in the anthology World Jumping, published by Hadley Rille Books.
This ebook edition published by Paper Golem LLC.
Find us on the web at www.papergolem.com
(ebook version 3.0)
Trial of the Century
“Why Humans don’t use garlic as currency and seize control over the rest of the galaxy astounds me,” said Malsh from across our makeshift dinner table.
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard such sentiments from aliens — though it was the first instance involving garlic — and, while I like to take pride in the accidental accomplishments of my home planet as much as the next Earther, I’d sampled enough extraterrestrial cuisine to know that the galaxy had plenty of tastes as good or better. But most of the attendees in the big galactic party had never been anywhere near Earth yet. We were the new kids on the block, and that always added an extra spice to things.
I smiled around a mouthful of something quite like scampi and raised my glass in salute to my dinner companion. It denied that any of its people had ever visited Earth, though they could have done so without detection. Malsh was a member of an ancient alien species that looked for all the world like two-meter-tall haystacks, provided you didn’t look too close. In actuality, what seemed to be golden hay with just a whiff of alfalfa was some variation on hair: hundreds of thousands of stiff strands that had more in common with cilia than vegetation, rigid when passive and flexible as fishing line when in use. A hundred or so of these strands had meshed together in an approximation of fingers and curled around the stem of a wine glass while a few dozen others crept over the rim to dip inside and sip.
“So you’re saying we should have held out, and traded a few bulbs for spaceships or transit portals?”
“Planets, Conroy,” said Malsh, its voice emanating from its entire body like a convention of miniature pipe organs. “My people would have given you fully developed planets for it.”
I laughed. “You told me you’re one of the last of your kind and that your home planet was destroyed centuries ago.” I had a brief vision of Earth being invaded by legions of haystacks only to be met by angry farmers with pitch forks and bailing machines.
The haystack chuckled back at me. “That’s what we tell people. Actually, we traded it for some magic beans that another newly discovered species offered to us. If only we’d met your people first.” A thousand or so strands interwove into a trio of tendrils that delicately picked at the shrimp-like bits on its plate, slicing them with razor edges too fine for human eyes to perceive and ingesting the resulting fragments.
I was traveling aboard The Mumby, an interstellar, luxury cruise ship that had only recently left the solar system. Malsh and I dined in an alcove of the infirmary, a surprisingly soothing environment with few right angles to the architecture, textile surfaces to the walls in a slow but ever-changing flow of pastel colors, and soft lighting. For our dining table, Malsh had employed an examination platform with a hastily draped tarp that I could pretend was a tablecloth, though I suspect it typically served some medical need. My haystack companion had the distinction of being the ship’s senior physician, with a staff of several dozen doctors, nurses, and interns, all charged with maintaining the health and well-being of the eighteen-thousand odd passengers and crew currently onboard. In the arcane hierarchy of life on the ship, Malsh ranked about fourth. I, on the other hand, as an entertainer, was probably about fourth from the bottom when I’d come onboard; that put me well below all of the ship’s personnel and its passengers (who were paying customers after all). Worse still on that first day, to a crew that had never really encountered Humans, my type of entertainment completely mystified. I was a hypnotist.
The ship’s purser had started me out performing matinees during the alterday shift in the vessel’s tertiary, lesser lounge. My contract had been renegotiated three times, upwards twice to reflect the favor that my act had found with the entertainment-hungry passengers, and then back downward a touch to assuage the egos of the star performers who had expressed a desire that I be kept in my proper place. It wasn’t a racial thing. The galaxy’s a big place, and rare are the entertainers and talented professionals who venture into it without an open mind and at least a touch of delight in the variety of peoples to be found there. No, it was a dues thing. Because of the popularity of my work, after three contract bumps I’d been enjoying a place at the captain’s own table in the main dining room. Once the headliners had seen fit to nudge me down a peg, I’d taken my meals in rotation among various passengers’ seating, a similar system employed by the ship’s officers, which in turn had led to my meeting Malsh. A particular rotation had put us at the same table, and the rest of our dinner companions — several Carlysle and Hresht — were more interested in one another than either of us. Despite the vast differences in our respective physiologies, the doctor and I had discovered a common passion for food. From such a culinary foundation our friendship blossomed. I learned that my new friend had spent several human lifetimes studying the biologies of hundreds of alien races and the fauna of thousands of different worlds.
After we finished dinner, I cleared the table while Malsh shifted its stack over to the corner where Reggie, my buffalo dog, lay in my carpet bag curled up amidst several thick and fluffy towels. To the casual observer he appeared deeply asleep, frolicking in dream fields and eating bits of metal and stone to his heart’s delight. Malsh and I both knew better. Several weeks earlier, Reggie had fallen into a coma and had yet to awaken.
Four days ago I’d brought Reggie to the ship’s infirmary and explained the situation. Malsh had latched onto the case with gusto, having once corresponded with another physician who had treated a buffalito, and eager for some firsthand experience. The doctor assured me it would do all it could to fix things and had canceled or delegated all its other appointments since in a nonstop attempt to diagnose and resolve the problem. We’d taken to dining there every night since, and every night after our meal it updated me on the progress. Or rather, the lack thereof. Tonight it brushed several hundred strands across the buffalito, the tips slipping past fur and skin, but only barely. The creature was made of denser stuff than medical science or even alien doctors could penetrate to gather anything more than the most superficial data. As the doctor turned back to me it became clear something had changed. It made a throat-clearing noise that I had to assume was part of the repertoire of physicians of all species because, as far as I knew, it didn’t have a throat.
“Based on what you told me, that your creature had been exposed to the combined stresses of suffocation and volcanic pressure and heat, I’d originally assumed his current status was a response to systemic shock, and that his natural defenses had called forth a state of healing estivation.”
“And now?” Whatever buzz I’d gotten from the meal’s wine slipped away leaving me completely sober. I just wanted my dog back.
“I can’t detect any physical injuries. If he was damaged, his body has repaired itself, and I cannot find any signs of previous injury at all. Either he sustained none, or his healing process is so thorough it leaves no sign behind.”
“That’s good, right? It means he should be waking up soon?”
The haystack shifted, and I needed a moment to realize this was Malsh’s equivalent of shaking its head. “I’ve applied a wide range of stimuli to him, any of which would awaken a creature engaged in normal sleep and many prized for having the same effect on life-forms engaged in restorative states. They’ve all failed. Moreover, his mass has dropped considerably in the few days I’ve been observing him.”
“Well sure, it makes sense he’d lose weight. He hasn’t eaten.”
“Conroy, I am far from an expert on these creatures’ physiology, but even I know that eating is what buffalo dogs are all about. It’s a very bad sign if they stop.”
“What are you saying?”
“I believe Reggie is dying, my friend. Slowly, but from the projections I’ve run, I estimate he will be gone in twenty or so days. And that’s a tragedy for you, I know, but there is worse.”
“I don’t understand. You’re saying he’ll be dead in three weeks. How could anything be worse?”
“Part of what makes buffalitos desirable is their ability to consume anything and convert all of it to oxygen. While the mechanism isn’t understood, it’s widely agreed they possess some kind of organic, nuclear furnace. That internal mechanism is breaking down. When Reggie’s time comes, he won’t pass quietly. His metabolic processes are collapsing in a cascade effect that is slowly accelerating. He won’t simply die, he’s going to explode.”
I knelt and lifted Reggie out of the carpet bag. Though still asleep, some part of him knew I was there and he snuggled against me. He didn’t feel like he was dying, and he certainly didn’t feel like a bomb. “Malsh, I know he’s not a sapient being, but there’s no more important creature in the galaxy for me. Isn’t there anything you can do?”
Large portions of its mass shifted and rose in a shrug-like gesture. “There is surprisingly little information about Arconi buffalo dogs in any of the medical databases. Physically, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t have woken up. He is responsive to external stimuli — he reacts to his name, to various smells, to touch — much as if he were in a light sleep. But my analysis shows he’s entered the initial stages of cascade failure and I don’t know how to change that.”
I hadn’t realized how much hope I’d been pinning on Malsh until that moment when it dashed all hope. I felt cold all over. My throat constricted and my eyes burned with tears. You didn’t need to be a physician with expert knowledge of thousands of biological systems to see that I was a hair’s breadth away from completely losing it.
“Conroy, wait! Just because I am out of options does not mean that a cure doesn’t exist.”
“What do you mean?” My voice croaked, but Malsh chose not to notice.
“Prior to your own intervention, the Arconi have had an exclusive hold on the buffalo dogs throughout the galaxy. Surely they have seen this condition before. Even if they haven’t documented it for outsiders, they must know how to deal with it.”
“I’m not exactly on speaking terms with the Arconi,” I said. “That ‘intervention’, you mentioned. They weren’t happy with it.”
“I can imagine. But tonight wasn’t the first occasion where you indicated that nothing was more important than effecting a cure for Reggie, and so I’ve made a few attempts to reach out to the Arconi myself. While not precisely xenophobic, they have little love for communicating with other races. Still, I believe I’ve been able to contact people who in my estimation will be able to resolve the problem.”
“You found an expert?”
“In a manner of speaking. I’ve spoken to the captain, impressing upon her that I have reached the limits of my vast medical expertise and that, unless she wants to be responsible for more dire outcomes, she should honor the referral I’ve suggested. Under the circumstances, she has agreed to release you from the daily demands of your contract for as long as circumstances warrant. A medical leave of absence.”
“What? Why? What am I supposed to be doing?”
“Joining me for a meeting with the Arconi. I called in a few favors and, despite the expense, they’ve agreed to send a courier ship to rendezvous with us in a few days. They’re sending some kind of planetary officer to meet with us and assess the problem. I believe they said his name is Loyoka.”
I should probably have looked pleased. I’d come to think of Malsh as both generous and humble, and if it indicated the need to call in favors on my behalf, that meant no small thing. But the name he’d spoken extinguished the tiny flame of hope that my friend had begun to kindle within me. I knew that name all too well.
*
Loyoka. Maybe it was a common name for them, but I doubted it. For six long years, ever since I’d acquired Reggie and created the only competition for them in the galaxy,
the Arconi had tried to shut me down. Loyoka had led the charge, taking it all very personally. Not that he didn’t have good reason. My entire operation could be traced back to the fertile buffalito I’d smuggled off one of their worlds, and I’d done it on his watch. Reggie had sired the litter and I had used the resulting pups to build Buffalogic, Inc. and break the Arconi monopoly on the lease and sale of the animals.
The Arconi had had the last laugh though. One of my employees had betrayed me, and while Reggie had been busy falling into a volcano, Arconi customs officials seized every single buffalo dog I had on Earth, leaving me with nothing more than the tuxedo on my back and a comatose companion in my carpet bag.
It had been a wild ride, but in the end the Arconi took away everything I’d built. And now Loyoka was coming and the only thing left to take was Reggie. There was no way I’d let that happen, and yet… Malsh had tried everything. What if the only hope Reggie had was at the hands of the Arconi?
“Conroy, what’s wrong? I thought you’d be pleased.” A bundle of tightly wound fibers shaped like a friendly arm reached out and patted my shoulder, stirring me from my reverie. “This is a good thing. It’s astonishing, actually. The Arconi almost never venture outside their own space.”
I looked up, staring at the haystack in front of me, focusing on a spot where eyes might belong on a more familiarly-shaped alien. “I know,” I said, my brain moving again, sluggish and numb. “It’s that truth-telling telepathy of theirs. Makes it difficult for them to play well with others.”
“You know about that? Well, I suppose that only makes sense. How else would you have Reggie if you hadn’t had dealings with the Arconi?”
“Dealings. Yeah, you could say that. I’ve had dealings.” I’d had plenty of time to play out the scenario a thousand ways in my head. All of them ended with Loyoka taking Reggie away from me.
“Good. That’s good. They can be tricky. You wouldn’t think that seeing everything as either black or white would be trouble — and among their own kind it probably isn’t, but to the rest of the galaxy… Well, that’s why I’ve taken the liberty of arranging an introduction for you. I assume you have not met the other Earther onboard?”
There was another Human on The Mumby? “Excuse me?”
“He does not socialize and takes all his meals in his room. He calls himself Pilot.”
“Pilot? Does he fly?”
“Mmm. That was my question to him as well when I treated him for a minor ailment. He assured me it meant something else. A name, he said, not something that translated into the Traveler speech. Perhaps it will make more sense to you; I’ve asked him to meet you in your dressing room after your next show.”
“I don’t understand. Why would you think I’d want to meet this Pilot? Just because we’re both Human?”
Dry laughter emerged from the haystack across from me. “What? No, nothing like that. He’s going to help you prepare to deal wit
h this Loyoka fellow.”
“How is he going to do that?”
“It’s what he does. He’s a professional liar.”
*
I’d boarded The Mumby because I needed to get out of the solar system, because my career as a billionaire CEO had come to a brutal end, because the only thing I needed in life was my animal companion and I needed to find a way to help him to wake up again. The ship had been there when I needed it, and in my despair I’d seen it as a bright bit of serendipity as I returned to my true calling of stage hypnosis. It was a good enough gig. I had an adequate stateroom, free meals, and a minor per diem of credit that could be spent anywhere onboard, all in exchange for performing four shows every five nights. Hypnosis proved utterly unknown to the dozens of aliens races cruising this corner of the galaxy. That novelty ensured my shows were always packed, even on nights like this one where I’d been assigned to perform in the ship’s largest lounge. Despite my preoccupation with the meeting Malsh had arranged, the show had thus far gone well. If The Mumby’s only other Human occupant was somewhere in my audience, I couldn’t tell and it didn’t matter.
Even with so many passengers onboard and only a small chance that anyone would catch a repeat performance, I’d kept changing the elements of my act with almost every performance. I’d brought eight subjects up on stage and had already played with the usual variants of hypnotically induced catalepsy and memory gaps. I’d convinced a couple of them of their own invisibility, handed out memory gaps to a couple others, produced a touching family reunion among the entire lot though none were related and they represented several different alien races. It was always interesting to see how traditional hypnosis acts from Earth would work the further I traveled from Human Space. I’d just killed with an old classic, the ‘Hindu rope trick’, and I was finishing up with something new I’d put together for my last two subjects.
I dropped back to stage left as the nebular worm prince leveled a photonic blaster at the time-traveling insurance adjuster. Never mind that the weapon bore a profound resemblance to a pepper mill, the way in which he brandished it left no doubt as to its ability. “You will honor the claim, bureaucratic scum!”