She looked up at the attendant who had been watching the whole process with a bemused look on her face.
“Well?” she demanded. “Am I decent now? Can I go into court?”
“Yes…” The woman nodded, a look of grudging respect on her formerly sneering face. “Yes, I think you’ll do—barely. You can go in.”
Imani didn’t thank her. She just grabbed her crumpled skirt, her remaining papers and the tiny drive the Kindred operative had given her and finally entered the courtroom.
Six
“All rise for the honorable Judge Thoughtgood,” another female attendant dressed like a stripper was announcing just as Imani slid into her seat at the front of the courtroom. She looked around as she stood, but didn’t see her client anywhere. Had they not brought him out yet? Where was he?
She couldn’t ask anyone because just at that moment, a female judge with bright blue hair entered the courtroom. The hair in question was done into an elaborate, massive up-do that towered three feet above her head and was decorated with all manner of jewels and sequins and flowers.
Her outfit was equally splendid—a pale blue, diaphanous silk gown which was completely see-through and encrusted with tiny diamond and golden flowers. Beneath the gown it was apparent that she had pierced nipples with large diamond drops hanging from each taut peak.
Wow, Imani thought. She had never dreamed she’d see a judge dressed in such a fashion, but then, this was Yonnie Six, she reminded herself, where apparently anything was possible.
There was no jury, she saw, dragging her eyes from the judge, but there were three people sitting opposite her on the prosecution’s side of the courtroom. One was a woman with bright lemon-yellow hair, done up in a series of elaborate ringlets that framed her face and made her look older than she probably was. She was wearing a pink gown with the top cut down to her navel. The other was a professional looking woman with short, electric-green hair and an abbreviated bikini-type top and bottom, not unlike Imani’s new look.
She must be the lawyer for the Prosecution, Imani thought and was glad her new “outfit” wasn’t that different.
The third person sitting on the prosecution’s side—if it could be called a person—was yet another one of those damn pink praying mantises. What the hell was going on with those things? Imani wondered. Nobody at the Mother Ship had warned her about them and they seemed to be everywhere she went. Were they indigenous to Yonnie Six? If so, why had no one told her about them?
“All right, you may be seated,” Judge Thoughtgood said, as she settled herself behind the high podium at the front of the room. “Bailiff?”
“This is the case of the City of Opulex vs the Nightwalker Kindred bodyslave, J’are Tanlor, who is accused of murdering his Mistress, Lady Zangelo,” the bailiff announced in a bored-sounding voice. “The honorable Judge Thoughtgood presiding.”
“Thank you, Bailiff.” The judge nodded, her mountain of bright blue hair quivering with the gesture. “Now, I understand we have a Defender from the Kindred people here to represent the murderer—is that right?”
“Here, your honor.” Imani raised her hand. “But I must object to your honor’s calling my client a murderer when the case has yet to be decided. It is our position that J’are Tanlor never murdered anyone.”
“He most certainly did murder her!” the woman with the lemon-yellow hair exclaimed. “My good friend, Tanta Zangelo, would still be alive if it weren’t for that horrible Kindred!” She began to sob noisily while the green-haired lawyer tried to comfort her.
“Well, that has yet to be adjudged, as the Kindred Defender has pointed out,” Judge Thoughtgood said dryly, apparently not impressed with the other woman’s waterworks. “Who would like to speak first—the Defense or the Prosecution?”
“The Prosecution can speak first, your honor,” Imani said quickly. She still hadn’t had a chance to go over the details of the case—hopefully the Prosecution would at least give her the highlights and let her know what she was working with.
“Very well.” The judge nodded, her hair-tower quivering again. Looking at the green-haired lawyer she said, “Prosecutor, please proceed.”
“Very well, your honor.” The lawyer rose. “First a bit of background—it is our belief that J’are, the Nightwalker Kindred bodyslave, was not always the stone-cold killer he is today. He was raised from childhood by the kind but eccentric Lady Hownow, who told all her friends that she had always wanted male progeny—that is, a ‘son.’”
This drew a frown from the judge and Imani was reminded that the Yonnie elite took care that they would only have daughters. Apparently they went to conception centers to get pregnant where the sperm was sorted so that only female embryos resulted. But Judge Thoughtgood only made a gesture with one hand and said,
“Go on.”
“After Lady Hownow’s death—of natural causes—it was a condition of her will that the Kindred be set free and that he inherit her assets. Essentially, she wanted him to be her heir.”
“A male heir? That’s unheard of!” the judge said, frowning.
“Exactly, your honor. My aunt was senile at the time she wrote that will,” the lemon-haired woman said quickly, before the Prosecutor could speak. “Why, no one in their right mind would simply set such a valuable slave free and leave all her possessions to him!”
Judge Thoughtgood raised one bright blue eyebrow.
“So you contested her will?”
“I did.” The woman nodded. “As her niece and closest living relative, all of her other possessions went to me—I felt that the Kindred bodyslave should also be mine.”
“I see.” The judge nodded impassively. “But you apparently did not keep him?”
“He was completely unmanageable!” The lemon-haired woman fluttered her hands expressively. “He wouldn’t walk on a leash, he snapped and
