Odyssey

PART THREE

valya

chapter 35

Most people, other than politicians and CEOs, mean well. The problem is seldom with their intentions. It is rather with their tendency to sign on with a superorganism, a political party, a creed, a nation, a local action committee, and in its name to support deeds they would never undertake as individuals.

— Gregory MacAllister, “The Hellfire Trial”

Eric caught the eight o’clock flight from Reagan to Union. Valya was already there. She’d gone up on the Dawn Rider. He felt good about himself. Vaguely heroic. “Are we ready to go?”

Yes indeed. She gave him a hand with his bags, and he walked up the boarding tube and back into the ship. “It feels as if I’m coming home.”

“I guess it does,” she said. “We had two days on the ground, and here we are again.” She hesitated. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I couldn’t figure out why you went the first time. Sightseeing, maybe. Whatever, I surely have no idea why you’re here now, Eric. I asked Hutch, and she just said you wanted to go.”

“I enjoy taking flights with beautiful women.”

“Seriously.”

“I’m serious.” He let her see he meant every word. A few weeks ago he’d have been reluctant to say such things to her. “It also occurred to me there might be an attack. If there is, you could probably use some help.”

“To do what? Fight them off?”

He laughed. “The truth is, I just wanted to be there. In case something happens.”

“You’re going to be disappointed,” she said. “We’ll go out there and ride in circles for a week or so and see nothing. Then we’ll come home.”

“Maybe.”

“Come on, Eric, we both know the girl was scared. She was scared, and you and Mac were asleep.”

“Maybe.”

“I just think it’s a waste of time. But I’m glad to have you along.”

“Valya — ”

“Yes?”

“If you feel that way, why are you making the flight?”

“It’s my job, Eric. Hutch says go, and I go.” She went up onto the bridge, and he heard her flicking switches and talking to the AI and to the operations people. He went back to his old cabin and unpacked.

After about twenty minutes she warned him to belt down. He thought about joining her up front, but decided she’d be happier alone for the moment. He knew Hutch pla

He spoke into the commlink. “Valya?”

“Yes, Eric?”

They’d begun to move. “If there’s a time-space rip — ”

“A what?”

“A time-space rip. Do you know what that is?”

“It doesn’t sound good.”

“If it were to happen, could we outrun it?”

DOWNTOWN DERBY, NORTH Carolina, was awash with demonstrators carrying signs reading HELLFIRE HURTS and SAVE YOUR SOUL WHILE YOU CAN and FIRST AMENDMENT ON TRIAL. Others waved ba

Glock had sent MacAllister a pass he had to show three or four times to get to the courthouse. At the door, weary-looking officers inspected it again, compared it with his ID, and let him in. The courtroom was small and jammed. Imagers were set up so the proceedings could be sent around the world. He had lost his day with Valya, but it was almost worth it.

Glock, stationed up front, waved and pointed him to an empty seat near the defense table. Henry Beemer, the defendant, sat nervously beside his much taller lawyer. He was pale and thin, an introvert by appearance. Not married. MacAllister, appraising the man, decided it was not by choice. He looked like the kind of guy who takes authority seriously. And therein, Henry, he thought, lies your problem.

He pushed through the crowd and sat down. Glock leaned back and shook his hand. “Good to see you, Mac,” he said.

Every time the courtroom doors opened, the noise in the street, people yelling and ringing bells and singing hymns, spilled in. “The idiots are out in force,” MacAllister said. “What kind of judge do we have?”

“Maximum George. Despite the name, he’s okay. As I said yesterday, he won’t overturn the First Amendment, but he’s not unreasonable.”

The Reverend Pullman sat on the opposite side of the bench, wearing clerical garb and one of those unctuous smiles that proclaims a monopoly on truth.

There was no jury. Glock had opted to leave it to the judge, who was, he said, less likely to be influenced by the religious goings-on than a crowd of citizens, however carefully chosen.

At precisely nine A.M., Maximum George entered. The bailiff called everyone to attention, the judge took his place behind the bench and rapped his gavel twice. The crowd quieted, and the trial was under way.

After a few preliminaries, the prosecutor got up to make his opening statement. He was long and lean as a stick, with mid-Atlantic diction laid on over a Southern accent. He described the unprovoked assault on the unsuspecting Reverend Pullman. Mr. Beemer had approached the preacher in the Booklore bookstore, right across the street from the courthouse, Your Honor. He had accused the preacher of promoting the gospel. Not satisfied with the preacher’s response, he had begun pushing and shoving. And, finally, he had assaulted the puzzled victim with a book.

The book was lying on the prosecution table. MacAllister was unable to read the title but he knew it was Co

The prosecutor expressed his sincere hope that the street demonstrations would not detract from the essential, and relatively clear, facts of the case. And so on.

Finally, he sat down. Glock stood, explained that the defense would show that the attack was not unprovoked, and that the aggrieved party was in fact Mr. Beemer. “I think,” he concluded, “that will become very quickly evident, Your Honor.”

MacAllister’s attention drifted back to the book.

To Sir Boss.

To his attempts to bring nineteenth-century technology and capitalism to Camelot.

To the sequence he remembered most vividly: the Yankee, who has been sentenced to the stake, recalls a coming solar eclipse, which knowledge he uses to terrify Merlin, the king, and everybody else by a

“The prosecution calls its first witness.”

It was a leather-bound copy, red-brown with a red ribbon, the title in gold.

“Ms. Pierson, is it true you were on duty at the Booklore when the defendant wantonly and deliberately attacked the Reverend Pullman?”

“Objection, Your Honor. The prosecution has presented no evidence — ”

The pages were gold-gilded.

“Sustained. Rephrase, Counselor.”

“Attacked, Your Honor.”

It was all about gold.

THERE WASN’T MUCH to the prosecution side of the case. Four witnesses took the stand to describe how Beemer had been standing with a stack of books, about to check out, when he’d abruptly turned around and walked into the back of the store. One witness testified that he had clearly been following the Reverend Pullman. Two of them saw him come up behind the preacher, still carrying his books, and demand to know whether Pullman knew who he was. When Pullman demurred and tried to edge away, Beemer kept after him. “In a threatening ma

Glock made no serious effort to cross-examine the witnesses. He told the judge that the defense did not dispute that the attack had happened as described.

They broke for lunch. In the afternoon, Pullman took the stand. The prosecutor asked if he understood why he’d been attacked.

Pullman said no. “Mr. Beemer claimed to have been a student of mine years ago at the church school and said I’d ruined his life. He kept screaming at me.”

“Were you injured during the attack?”

“I was severely bruised. When the police came, they wanted to take me to the hospital.”

“But you didn’t go.”

“I don’t like hospitals. Anyway, I didn’t feel I’d been injured seriously. Although that was no fault of his. Not that I haven’t forgiven him.”

Glock stepped forward to cross-examine. “Reverend, you say that, at the time of the incident, you did not know what provoked the attack.”

“That’s correct.”

“Are you now aware why Mr. Beemer was upset?”

“I’ve been informed of what he said. And I should add that hundreds of children have attended our school, and this is the first incident of this kind.”

“No one has ever complained before, Reverend?”

“No. What is there to complain of? We teach the word of the Lord.”

“May I ask how old the students are who attend the school?”

“They are grades one through six.” He considered the question. “About seven to thirteen.”

“Reverend, what is the word of the Lord regarding hellfire?”

“That it is eternal. That it is reserved for those who do not accept the Lord and His teaching.”

The prosecutor objected, on the grounds that none of this had anything to do with the charges.

“We are trying to establish a rationale, Your Honor. The Reverend Pullman doesn’t understand why Mr. Beemer was upset with him. It’s essential that we all know what provoked a man with no history of lawbreaking, no history of violence, to attack a former teacher.”

“Very well, Mr. Glock,” said the judge. “I’ll allow it. But let’s get to the point.”

“Specifically, Reverend Pullman, hellfire sounds like a dire punishment, does it not?”

“It certainly does. Yes.”

“How hot is it, would you say?”

“The Bible does not say.”