‘Why have you done this to me?’ I cried. ‘This is inhuman!’
She turned in the door, her face blank as she stared at me. ‘You are the person who committed the crime. The whole person, now. This is your sentence. The sentence you tried to avoid. Justice has prevailed.’
The orderly pressed the infuser against my neck. I screamed, my mind crying out to the rest of me, to help me, to comfort me. There was no answer.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER
Nelson Sheldon was waiting in the entrance hall of the Justice Directorate as Paula came out of the lift. ‘How did it go?’ he asked.
‘Successfully. The true Dimitros Fiech is now serving his sentence.’
‘Shame about the rest of him.’
‘Not really.’
‘Oh?’
‘When suspension was first introduced, the Justice Directorate examined the idea of leaving convicts aware while their bodies slept. It was abandoned almost immediately. The experience was too much like sensory deprivation. The minds went insane very quickly under such circumstances.’
‘So how does that help us?’ Nigel asked curiously.
‘Dimitros Fiech is now unaware of his predicament. He’ll sleep soundly for the next two and a half millennia, and he’ll be offered extensive therapy when he gets out — assuming the Commonwealth is still around. Meanwhile on Merioneth…’
‘Ah. Svein Moalem’s nest knows part of him is in suspension. And as an Immortal…’
‘He’ll endure those two and a half thousand years aware of the Fiech body’s state. The punishment is shared. Or rather, it isn’t, because it’s all his. Just experienced in different ways.’
Nelson smiled. ‘We can live with that.’
‘Good, because I have no intention of returning to Merioneth.’
‘Thank you for going in the first place,’ Nelson said. ‘The Dynasty is most grateful. We don’t forget who are friends are.’
Paula grinned back shrewdly. ‘I’ll remember that.’
MANHATTAN IN REVERSE
It was five days after Easter, and Paris was soaking up the heat from an unseasonably bright sun. Paula Myo, Deputy Director of the Intersolar Commonwealth’s Serious Crimes Directorate, slipped her shades on as soon as she emerged from the marbled archway of the Justice Courts. Her escort squad pushed past the unisphere reporters crammed on the broad stone stairs. The clamour of shouted questions merged into a single unintelligible burst of noise. Even if she’d wanted to comment on the verdict she would never have been heard. It always amazed her how stupid reporters were, as if any one of them could have gained an exclusive under this kind of circumstances.
Not that her opinion would’ve been welcomed by the large crowd of protestors shouting and jeering behind the cordon which the city gendarmes had thrown up across the big boulevard outside. They’d certainly picked up on the Easter theme. Glaring holographic placards demanded RESURRECT OSCAR NOW. FREE THE MARTYR. OSCAR DIED FOR US, SAVE HIM FOR OUR SINS.
Her deputy, Hoshe Finn, was standing beside the Directorate’s dark Citroen limousine which was waiting at the foot of the broad stairs. ‘Congratulations, Chief,’ he muttered as the malmetal door curtained open for her.
Paula took one last glance at the snarling faces of the protestors, all directing their venom at her. It wasn’t what she was used to. Disapproval and not a little bigotry because of what she was, certainly. As the one person from Huxley’s Haven, otherwise known as The Hive, to live in the Greater Commonwealth she had long since accepted her own notoriety. Like all of Huxley’s residents she was genetically profiled to excel at her job, which in her case was police work, a profession which normally brought a decent amount of approval for the conclusion of a successful case.
Not this time.
The long Citroen turned smoothly into the Champs Elysees, and headed for the Place de la Concorde.
‘You know, even I’m wondering if I did the right thing,’ Paula said quietly.
‘I doubted,’ Hoshe said, ‘until you brought the families into the office to prepare our case. You were right when you said time doesn’t diminish the crime. Their children still died, a real death, not just bodyloss.’
‘Yeah,’ Paula said. Doubt unsettled her. It wasn’t what she was supposed to feel, not with her psychoneural profiling. Everything should be clear-cut, with no room for messy little emotional distractions.
Ten minutes later they drove down into the modern underground garage that had been cut out below the ancient five-storey building which housed the Directorate’s Paris office. Secure gates unfurled behind them. She wasn’t really worried about anyone trying to physically confront her; although the number of displaced from the worlds lost during the Starflyer War was still alarming now, eleven months after the war had ended. The amount of homeless and destitute people roaming the streets was too high, despite the city authority’s sincere efforts to find them places in restart projects on the fresh worlds.
A lift took them up to the fifth floor and the open-plan office she commanded. Her team were all behind their desks, which was unusual enough. They shot her concerned looks, as if they were sharing a collective guilt.
Alic Hogan was rising to his feet. ‘Sorry, Chief,’ he said. ‘He didn’t have an appointment, but we couldn’t really say no…’ Alic trailed off with a subdued glance over at Paula’s own office.
The door was ajar, showing her someone sitting in front of her desk.
Paula was quite pleased with herself as she went in and shut the door behind her. There weren’t many people in the Commonwealth who could walk into the Directorate building without being invited, let alone get all the way up to the fifth floor. And fewer that would want to. She’d narrowed the probables down to a list of three — Wilson Kime was the second.
‘Admiral,’ she said cautiously.
Wilson rose and shook her hand courteously. But then he was over three and a half centuries old, with manners from a bygone era; she wasn’t expecting an angry altercation. ‘So it really is true,’ he said ruefully. ‘You always get your man.’
‘Do my best,’ she said, annoyed with herself for sounding defensive. She was what she was, why should she ever apologize for that? ‘Though your lawyers were good.’
‘Best that money could buy. But you threw up a hell of a case, Paula.’
‘Thank you.’
‘That wasn’t exactly a compliment. Oscar Monroe sacrificed himself so the human race could survive a genocidal attack. Doesn’t that count for anything with you?’
‘Yes. But not at the intellectual level which I work at. I can’t allow that to influence me.’
‘Jesus,’ Kime muttered.
‘I did recover his memorycell myself,’ Paula reminded the old war hero. She didn’t go into how risky that had been. Kime’s own sacrifices during the final showdown with the Starflyer were at a level far above hers.
Millions had suffered bodyloss on the worlds invaded and obliterated during the conflict. Clinics across the
