Patriots

The military trucks picked up speed behind the tanks. Citizens still ran alongside, screaming hatred if they had nothing to throw. Soldiers fired into the air. They were using live ammunition. Mark saw a flash and puff of dust from a building's roof coping.

"A lawsuit is a normal business risk, madame," Holperin explained. "Quite a different matter. We can't fight the Alliance, after all."

"There's the hotel," Daniels said with satisfaction. "The Safari House. I was afraid it was going to be involved in the trouble, but the troops seem to be turning the other way, toward the Protectorate offices."

The aircar dropped onto the parking area on the roof of a building with a textured plastic facade. It looked like a twenty-story grass hut.

"Typical Zenith taste," Mark said. He was frightened by what he'd just seen. It's the same on Quelhagen…

"We'll have our first court appearance tomorrow," Elector Daniels said. "That's all we have to worry about for now."

"If things like that riot are happening," said Amy, "then we've got other things to worry about too. Everybody does."

Mark squeezed her hand in full agreement.

14. Zenith Law

Mark and Amy arrived at the courtroom after a morning of sightseeing in New Paris. The city was ten times the size of any place Amy had ever visited before. She wasn't involved in the case, and Mark didn't feel a need to arrive before the scheduled start of the proceedings at noon.

Court was held in half of the third story of the Civil Affairs Building. The remainder of the floor was the Council Chamber, and the walls between the rooms and the central foyer could be removed for exceptionally large assemblies.

Since they were on Zenith, Mark wasn't a bit surprised to see that the whole third floor was decorated in Ancient Egyptian style. The fat pilasters had papyrus-bud capitals; the shafts were red or green, with stylized yellow leaves springing from the bases. The walls were white but decorated with stiffly posed figures in garish contrasting colors.

"Oh, it's gorgeous!" Amy said, gazing around the big room.

Mark blinked. It struck him for the first time that Quelhagen's muted notions of what was attractive weren't universal. In fact, they might well be the minority view.

That was hard to imagine. Everybody on Quelhagen knows what good taste is, so how can so many other human beings be too stupid to feel the way we do?

And Amy isn't stupid.

"This way!" hissed an usher whom the investors had hired to guide the defendants during the court proceedings. The man wore a pink-and-gray-striped costume. The color combination was attractive, but the fellow had ruffs at his throat, waist, wrists, and ankles. He looked like an oddly patterned poodle.

The usher stared at Amy, checked her face against his array of air-projected holographic portraits, and said, "Not you! Find a seat in the gallery or get out."

Mark thought of hitting him. Amy nodded and patted Mark's hand before vanishing up the staircase to the visitors' gallery.

"Come on!" the usher said. He tugged Mark's arm.

Mark gently tweaked the usher's nose. The man gasped and staggered backward. Mark followed him to the defendants' section, on the left front of the courtroom.

The plaintiffs' enclosure, on the right, was as gorgeous as a flock of tropical birds. Hostile birds, too. Though there were more than twenty folk within the low railings-plaintiffs, aides, and attorneys-only two of them stood out. They, a plump fiftyish man in blue and gold uniform and a taller, slightly younger fellow in blue and red, glared at one another.

Mark had watched his father in court many times. The only times he'd seen equal anger and loathing between the parties was during contested divorces; this time he was viewing people on the same side.

Mark halted in the aisle. The usher glared and raised a hand to protect his nose.

"Who are they?" Mark demanded, nodding toward the Zeniths. "In uniforms."

The usher risked a look. He seemed still to be worried that Mark was going to sneak a hand under his guard. "Ah," the usher said. "Mayor Heinrich Biber wears the dress uniform of the New Paris Civic Watch. And Vice-Protector Berkeley Finch is commander of the Zenith Protective Association, a voluntary assembly of public-spirited citizens."

"The Zenith militia," Mark said bluntly. "And the two men are political rivals."

"I wouldn't be able to speak about politics, I'm sure, sir," the usher said. He started to give Mark a look of snooty superiority-then realized that the last thing he wanted to do was to call renewed attention to his snoot.

The usher cleared his throat. In a careful tone he went on, "I understand that the gentlemen may not be the best of friends, though, that's true. And as for a militia… Protector Giscard has declared any armed body of Zenith citizens to be illegal, so as I understand it the Protective Association ca

Mark bowed in acknowledgment. "Thank you, sir," he said. That seemed to surprise the usher as much as having his nose pinched had. He minced down the aisle toward the defendants' enclosure, looking worried.

Theoretically all spectators were supposed to be in the mezzanine gallery, while seats on the lower level were reserved for those who had official co

The visitors' gallery was by contrast only sparsely occupied. Mark saw Amy looking prim by the front railing. To Zenith society, sitting in the gallery meant you weren't of any importance.

Amy didn't care-shouldn't care, anyway-what a bunch of overdressed clowns thought was important. She had a better view from where she was, besides. Mark thought of waving but contented himself with a nod before walking on.

He was becoming uncomfortably aware of his clothes. Mark wore one of the two pairs of coveralls he'd brought on his journey to the frontier. They were neat and clean but absolutely utilitarian, in no way the sort of formal garb he'd worn to court back home.

His idea had been that he didn't want to stand out from his Greenwood fellow-defendants, whom he'd expected would dress in leather and coarse fabrics as they did at home. Boy, had that been a miscalculation.

Yerby's sparkling green coat and a pair of fluorescent peppermint-striped trousers that he must have bought last night in New Paris-and OK, he'd been drunk then but he was presumably sober now and he was wearing them-weren't the most dazzlingly ugly garments among the defendants. The prize went to Dagmar Wately, in a fur ensemble that made her look like a road-kill Frankenstein, pieced together from a number of planets. None of the animals who'd given their all to clothe her were native to Greenwood.

The other five defendants were in lesser degrees of holiday finery. They weren't quite as striking as Yerby and Dagmar, but all told they made the Zeniths in the rest of the courtroom look staid. Mark wouldn't have believed that was possible.

Elector Daniels, acting as chief counsel for the defendants, was within the enclosure with a half-dozen junior legal perso