“Good and bad,” he said. “Human trials are often games to see which lawyer is best able to use the law, the jury’s beliefs and prejudices, and his own theatrical ability to win. There’s talk about justice, of course, but if a murderer has a good lawyer, he might go unpunished even though his guilt is obvious. If an innocent person has a bad lawyer, he might lose and pay with his life or his freedom even though people can see that he’s innocent. Our judges are our elders, people who have lived three, four, five centuries. They sense truth more effectively than people my age, although I can sense it, too.”
He settled me more comfortably against him. At least I was more comfortable.
“The problems arise when friendship or family connections get in the way of honest judgment. That can happen to humans and to us. That’s why there are so many on a Council. And that’s why everyone on the Council is related to both sides.”
“Is a Council ever wrong?” I asked.
“It’s happened.” He drew a deep breath. “And when it happens, everyone knows it. It’s usually a result of friendship or loyalty causing dishonesty. Or the problem might be fear and intimidation. That kind of injustice hasn’t happened for over a thousand years, but I’ve read about it. It dishonors everyone involved, and everyone remembers. Members of the families that profit from it have difficulty getting mates for their young. Sometimes they don’t survive as families.”
“They are punished?” I asked.
“They are ostracized,” he said. “They might survive, but only if they move to some distant part of the world and manage to find mates. Today, with communication so improved, even moving might not work.
“But you need to know procedure and propriety for this trial. Will you remember what I say? Do you have any trouble remembering new things?”
“None at all,” I said.
He looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “You will speak after everyone is welcomed and the proceedings are blessed. Preston will welcome them as host and moderator. Then the oldest person present will offer blessing. Then you’ll speak. You’re making the accusations, so you’ll need to tell your story. You must be tired of doing that, but you’ll do it one more time, very thoroughly and accurately. No one will interrupt you, and most will remember exactly what you say. The Council will listen. Some of them will just want to learn enough to make a decision based on the truth or falsity of what you say. Others will want to find reason to doubt you so that they can better attack you and defend the Silks. And
then there are those who will want to defend you against attack.” “Why should I need to be defended? The Silks need to be defended.” “They will be. And their advocate will probably—”
“Wait a moment. Their advocate? Who’s that?”
“You and the Silks will both be asked to choose an advocate from among the Council members. You should think about who you’ll want. I suggest you consider Joan Braithwaite, Elizabeth Akhmatova, or either of the Leontyev brothers. We won’t know for sure which member of each family will be on the Council until the first session.”
“I haven’t met Elizabeth Akhmatova at all.”
“She’s smart, and she was a good friend of your eldermothers’. She or one of the others will help you if anyone on the Silks’ side tries to show that because of your memory loss, you may be lying or confused or perhaps not even sane.”
I frowned, feeling pulled toward several questions. “Even if I were all those things, it would not make the
Silks less responsible.”
“But it could, Shori. It could mean that you might not know the difference between lies and truth. You might be delusional, for instance, and able to tell lies that you actually believe. If you’re delusional, if you could be shown to be delusional, then anything you say becomes suspect. Anything you’ve sensed or done may not be as it seems. Tell the complete truth, and remember what you’ve said.”
“Of course. I would have done that anyway. But what about the Silks’ lies? If they say they didn’t do it, even though they did, how could my being delusional matter?”
“It might not. But you’re one small person, one child, and the Silks are a large and respected family. There may be people on the Council who are sorry that your two families are dead and who see the guilt of the Silks, but who don’t want to see a third Ina family destroyed. You can count on us—my whole family—to back you up on what almost happened here at Punta Nublada and on what we learned from the prisoners, but you must represent your mothers and your father. You must bring them into the room with you and stand them beside you whenever you can. Do you understand?”
I frowned. “I think so. I wonder, though, if the Ina way is so much better than the one the you say the humans have.”
“It’s our way,” he said. “It’s the system you must work within if you’re to be safe, if you’re to keep your symbionts safe, and if, someday, you’re to keep our children safe.”
I took one of his long hands and held it in my lap. “All right,” I said.
“And don’t lose your temper. There will be a lot of questions. Tomorrow, after you’ve told your story, you’ll be questioned by whomever the Silks choose as their family representative, you’ll be questioned by the advocate of the Silks, and you’ll be questioned by any other member of the Council who chooses to question you. It won’t be easy. You shouldn’t make it easy on them either. You get to ask questions,
too. And you can—should, in fact—call on us to support your memory of what happened here. On the first night, you and the Silk representative will be the ones asking and answering questions. On the second, both of you can call others to support what you’ve said, and they will be questioned. On the third, the Council will ask any final questions it has, and a decision will be made. This can be flexible. If you or the Silks need to ask more questions on the third day, you can. But that’s the way it will go in
general.” He hesitated, thinking. “It will probably provoke the hell out of you. The Council members can question you or the Silks’ representative or anyone either of you call for questioning. So if you get asked the same question ten times or twenty or fifty, give the same answer, briefly and accurately, and don’t let it bother you.”
“I won’t.”
“And never answer an accusation that hasn’t been made. Even if you believe someone is hinting that you’re delusional or otherwise mentally damaged, don’t deny what they say unless they make the accusation out-right.”
“All right.”
“Someone might offer you pity and sympathy for your disability. Make them state the disability. Make them say what they mean. Make them support it with evidence. If they say that you’re delusional or mentally deficient or too grief stricken to know what you’re saying—which, I believe, you definitely would be if your memory were intact—make them explain how they’ve come to that conclusion. Then, by your questions and your behavior, prove them wrong. If, on the other hand, they can’t say what it is they’re pitying you for, they must be the ones who are confused. You see?”
“I see.”
“Someone might pretend to misunderstand you, might misstate what you’ve said, then ask you to agree with them. Don’t let them get away with it. Pay attention.”
“I will.”
“Everything will be recorded. Every Ina family gets to see and hear Council proceedings these days. It didn’t used to be that way, of course, but now that we can keep an accurate audio-visual record, we do. That means you can ask for a replay if anyone tries to insist on a misstatement of anything you’ve said.”
“How likely is that?”
“I don’t know. Most of us have excellent memories. That’s why your amnesia will cause some Council members to distrust you at first. Just be yourself. They’ll know your intellect is all right as soon as they’ve heard your story. Anyway, it’s dangerous for anyone to lie about someone else’s questions or answers. I’ve seen it happen, though. People feel that things are going against them. They’re afraid. We have no prisons, after all.”
I thought about that and found that I knew what prisons were. Humans often locked up their lawbreakers in cages—prisons. “No Ina prisons? Why?”
“None of us are willing to spend our lives in prison with the lawbreakers. Maintaining a prison isn’t quite as unpleasant as being a prisoner in one, but it’s bad enough. And levying fines would be meaningless. It’s too easy for us to get money from the human population. For lesser crimes, most likely we amputate something. An arm, a leg, both arms, both legs . . . If the sentence is death, we decapitate the lawbreakers and burn their bodies.”
“Decapitate?” I stared up at him. “Amputate . . . ? Cut off people’s heads, arms, or legs?”
“That’s right. Amputations and executions are also recorded. Amputations are punishments of pain, humiliation, and inconvenience. Limbs grow back completely in a few months, maybe a year or two for legs taken off at the hip. Of course, when it’s done, people are given nothing for the pain, and the pain is terrible. It hurts for a long time, although once people are returned to their families, the families can help
them with the pain. They’re permitted to, not required to.” “You’re sure that arms and legs cut off . . . grow back?”
He held his left hand in front of me. “I was in a traffic accident ten years ago. I lost three fingers and part of my hand. In about a month and a half, I had a whole hand again.”
“That long?” I hesitated, then asked, “Did you eat raw meat?”
“At first. I don’t digest it well, though. If I had been able to eat more of it, I probably would have healed faster.”
“You probably would have,” I said. And I wondered if he would heal more quickly once he was mated with me. I thought I would like to give him that.
He continued: “The Silks won’t be having anything amputated, though. What they’ve done is too serious for that. If the Council condemns them, they’ll either be killed—the adults will be killed, I mean—or they will be broken up as a family. Their youngest members will be
