Funadormi gestured to the left and then halted their progress at the second door on the left, which bore the legend “Grand Felony Court 256.”

  Killashandra reeled against Lars Dahl, Trag behind him placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and Olav straightened his lean frame against the imminent testing of a scheme that had been entered rather lightheartedly.

  Funadormi thumbed open the panel and entered. It was not the sort of chamber Killashandra would have recognized as judicial. She did recognize the psychological testing equipment for what it was, and the arm-bands on the chair beside it. Fourteen comfortable seats faced that chair and the wall screens and a terminal which bore the Judicial Seal. A starred flag of the Federated Sentient Planets bearing the symbols indicating the nonhuman sentient species was displayed in the corner.

  The door panel whooshed shut behind them and Funadormi indicated that they were to be seated. He faced the screen, squared his shoulders, and began the proceedings.

  “Bailiff Funadormi in Grand Felony Court 256, in the presence of the accused, Lars Dahl, remanded citizen of the planet Optheria; the arresting citizen, Trag Morfane of the Heptite Guild; the alleged victim, Killashandra Ree, also of the Heptite Guild; and witness for the accused, Olav Dahl, Agent Number AS-4897/KTE, present at this sitting. Accused is restrained under Federal Sentient Planet Warrant A-1090088-O-FSP55558976. Permission to proceed.”

  “Permission is granted,” replied a contralto voice, deep and oddly maternal, definitely reassuring. Killashandra could feel her muscles unlock from the tenseness in which she had been holding herself. “Will the accused Lars Dahl be seated in the witness chair?”

  Lars gave her hand a final squeeze, smiled with a cocky wink at her, rose, and took the seat. The Bailiff attached the arm cuffs and stepped back.

  “You are charged with the willful abduction of Heptite Guild member Killashandra Ree, malicious invasion of the individual’s right to Privacy, felonious assault, premeditated interference with her contractual obligation to her Guild, placing her in physical jeopardy as to shelter and sustenance, deprivation of independent decision and freedom of movement, and fraudulent representation for purposes of extortion. How do you plead, Lars Dahl?” The voice managed to convey an undertone of regretful compassion, and an invitation to confide and confess. Highly sensitized to every nuance, Killashandra wondered if, by some bizarre freak, the Judicial Branch might actually be guilty of a subtle use of subliminal manipulation in that persuasive voice.

  “Not guilty on all counts,” Lars answered quietly, and firmly, as he had rehearsed.

  And, Killashandra reassured herself, he was not, by the very wordage that Trag and Olav had cleverly employed.

  “You may testify on your own behalf.” The request was issued in a stern, uncompromising tone.

  Although Killashandra listened avidly to every word Lars said in rebuttal and in explanation, tried to analyse the terse questions put to him by the Judicial Monitor, she was never able to recall the next few hours in much detail.

  He was completely candid, as he had to be, to discharge the accusations. He explained how Elder Ampris, superior to Lars Dahl, student in the Conservatory and as a ruling Elder of the Optherian Council, had approached him, citing the dilemma about Killashandra’s true identity and the request to wound her, resolving the quandary. His reward was the promise of reconsidering Lars’s composition. The point that Lars had been coerced to perform a personally distasteful act by an established superior was accepted by the Court. To the charge that the abduction was premeditated, Lars explained that he had come upon the victim unexpectedly in an unprotected environment and acted spontaneously. He had, it was true, rendered her unconscious but without malice. She had not even suffered a bruise. She had been carefully conveyed to a place of security, with tools and instructions to provide daily food and shelter, so that she had been in no physical jeopardy. As she had left the premises of her own volition, she obviously had not been denied independence of decision and movement. He had not fraudently represented himself as her rescuer for she had not required rescue, and she had requested his continued presence as a safeguard against further physical violence from any source on Optheria. He had not premeditated any interference on her contractual obligation to her Guild for he had not only assisted her in repairing the damaged manual, her preemptive assignment, but he had also provided her with conclusive evidence to resolve the secondary assignment. He therefore restated his innocence.

  After Lars gave his testimony, Killashandra was called to the chair and had to exercise the greatest degree of control to suppress signs of the stress she felt. It didn’t help to know that the sensitive psych equipment would record even the most minute tremors and uncertainties of its subject. That was its function and the results which the Monitor then analyzed against the psychological profile of each witness. Objectively she was pleased that her voice didn’t quaver as she supported Lars’s testimony on each count, managing to publicly absolve him from felonious assault as he was, in fact, acting even when he abducted her in her best interests, contractually and personally. She kept her answers concise and unemotional. Subjectively she had never been so terrified of any experience. And the equipment would record that as well.

  Trag and Olav had their turns in the witness chair. Each time the subliminal manipulation was mentioned, there was a significant pause in the flow of questions, though there was no hint of how this information was being received and analyzed by the Judicial Monitor, since, in point of law, this part of everyone’s testimony was irrelevant to the case at hand.

  When Olav resumed his seat between Trag and Lars, the Bailiff approached the screen. They could all see the activity of the terminal but the pattern of its flashing lights disclosed nothing. Killashandra, holding Lars’s hand, jumped an inch above her chair when the contralto voice began its summation.

  “With the exception of felonious assault, the charges against the accused, Lars Dahl, are dismissed.” Killashandra swallowed. “Criminal intent is not apparent but disciplinary action is required by law. Lars Dahl, you are remanded into the custody of the Judicial Branch, pending disposition of the disciplinary action. You are further remanded for examination of the charge of subliminal manipulation against the Elders of Optheria. Olav Dahl, you are seconded to assist these investigations, which have now been initiated. Trag Morfane, Killashandra Ree, have you anything to add to your recorded testimonies on the charge of subliminal manipulation by the Elders of Optheria?”

  Having already been as candid as possible, neither crystal singer could expand on the information already on record. And Killashandra did not quite understand the matter of disciplinary action for Lars and the remand orders.

  “Then this session of the Grand Felony Court of Regulus Sector Federation is closed.” The traditional crack of wood against wood ended the hearing.

  Perplexed by the legal formulas, Killashandra turned to Lars and his father.

  “Are you free, or what?” she demanded.

  “I’m not quite sure,” Lars said with a nervous laugh. “It can’t mean much. Everything else was dismissed, wasn’t it?” He looked to Olav and was sobered by his father’s solemn expression.

  “He has been remanded,” the Bailiff explained kindly, taking Lars by the arm. “I interpret the judgment to mean that the Court has dismissed all charges but Lars Dahl’s physical assault on you in the matter of your abduction. Disciplinary action is always short term. On the second remand charge, the Court requires further discussion of the allegations about the use of subliminal conditioning by the Optherian government. If these are proved correct, then it is likely that the disciplinary action will be suspended. I can give you hard copy of the precedents involved, indeed of the entire trial, if you wish.” When Lars nodded a perplexed affirmation, “Then I shall program them for your quarters. If you gentlemen will come with me?”

  A panel at the back of the seating area opened and it was toward this that Funadormi gestured Lars and his father.

  “Come with you?” Lars cried, trying to break from the Bailiff’s grip.

  Shock and surprise briefly immobilized Killashandra and before she could make a move to reach Lars, the Bailiff, securely holding her lover, had him nearly to the open door.

  “Wait! Please wait!” she screamed, falling over the chairs in her haste.

  “You two have been dismissed. Justice has been served! Arrangements for your transport have been made and the ground vehicle programmed to take you to the appropriate site.”

  “But—Lars!” Killashandra’s cry of protest was made to the immense back of the Bailiff which was disappearing through the aperture, totally eclipsing Lars. Olav hurried anxiously after, adding his protests. “Lars Dahl!” she screamed, every fear alerted to his unexpected departure. The panel closed with a final thuck just as Killashandra reached it.

  “Justice has been served?” she shrieked, beating the wall with impotent fists. “What justice? What justice? LARS DAHL! Couldn’t they let us say good-bye? Is that justice?” She wheeled on Trag who was trying to silence her tactless accusations. “You and your foolproof verbiage. They’ve charged him after all. I want to know why and what does disciplinary action mean for a man who’s put himself on the line for a whole benighted fardling useless planet?”

  “Killashandra Ree,” and both crystal singers turned in astonishment as the voice issued unexpectedly from the wall. “During your evidence, your psychological reactions exhibited extreme agitation and apprehension—unusual when compared to your official profile—which have been interpreted as fear of the accused, despite your generous testimony to his actions against you. Disciplinary action will prevent the accused from any future acts of felonious assault.”

  “WHAT?” Killashandra could not believe what she had heard. “Of all the ridiculous interpretations! I love the man! I love him, do you hear, I was frantic with worry for him, not against him. Call him back. There’s been a dreadful miscarriage of justice.”

  “Justice has been served, Killashandra Ree. You and Trag Morfane are scheduled to leave this Court and this building immediately. Transport awaits.”

  The silence after that impersonal order provoked a thunder of tinnitus in her skull.

  “I don’t believe this, Trag. This can’t be right. How do we appeal?”

  “I do not believe that we can, Killashandra. This is the Federal Court. We have no right of appeal. If there is one available to Lars, I am certain that Olav will in-voke it. But we have no further right. Come. Lars will be taken care of.”

  “That’s what I’m fardling afraid of,” Killashandra cried. “I know what penalties and disciplines the Judicial Branch can use. I had Civics like any other school-child. I can’t go, Trag. I can’t leave him. Not like this. Not without any sort of a …” Tears so choked her that she could not continue and a sudden disastrous inability to stand made her wobble so that Trag only just kept her from falling.

  She didn’t realize at first that Trag was supporting her out of the room. When she found them in the hall, she tried to wrench herself out of Trag’s grasp but there was someone else by then, assisting Trag and between the two of them, she was wrestled into the lift. She struggled, screaming imprecations and threats, and although she heard Trag protesting as sternly as he could, she was put in padded restraints. The ignominy of such a humiliating expedient combined with fear, disappointment, and her recent physical ordeal sent Killashandra into a trembling posture of aggrieved and contained fury.

  By the time they reached the shuttle transport to the Regulus transfer moon, she had exhausted her scant store of energy and crouched in the seat, sullen and silent, too proud to ask for her release from the restraints. She let Trag and the medic lead her where they would, and didn’t protest when they undressed her for immersion in a radiant fluid tank. Legitimate protest and recourse denied her, she submitted to everything then, despairing and listless. Over and over she reviewed her moments in the witness chair, when her body, the body which had loved and been loved so by Lars, had betrayed them both with false testimony. She was appalled at that treachery, and obsessed by the horrifying guilt that she, herself, her anxieties and idiotic presentiments, had condemned Lars on the one count which had not been dismissed by the Court. She could never forgive herself. Somehow, sometime, she would be able to face Lars, and beg his forgiveness. That she promised herself.

  All the way back to Ballybran, she said not a single word to anyone, nodding or shaking her head in answer to the few questions that were put directly to her by officials. Trag supervised her meals, immersed her in radiant fluid whenever such facilities were available, and remained by her side during her wakeful hours. If he resented her silence or intepreted it as an accusation, he gave no indication of regret, remorse, or penitence. She was too immersed in her obsession with the outrageous circumstance of Lars’s betrayal to try to explain the complexities of her depression.

  By the time she and Trag had completed the long journey to Ballybran’s surface, Killashandra was completely restored to physical health. She paused only long enough in her quarters to check, as she had begun to do toward the end of the trip, with galactic updates. There was no further word on the Optherian situation beyond the original bulletin announcing the arrival of Revision troops on the planet to “correct legislative anomalies.” She refused to consider what that statement might mean for Lars. Dumping her carisak, she changed into a shipsuit. Then she headed for the Fisherman’s bailiwick and, with a voice grown gruff from disuse, demanded her sonic cutter. While waiting for him to retrieve it from storage, she checked with Meterology and, with a twinge of satisfaction, learned that the forecast predicted a settled period of weather for the next nine days.

  She backed her sled out of its rack herself, though she could see the wild protesting signals of the duty officer trying to abort her precipitous departure. As soon as she was clear of the Hangar, she poured on the power and, in an undeviating line, fled for the Ranges.

  It was all part of the miserable web of ironic coincidence that she found black crystal again in the deep, sunless ravine in which she had hoped to bury herself and her grief for the reason and manner of her parting with Lars Dahl.

  Stolidly Killashandra watched, arms folded across her breasts, as Enthor reverently unpacked the nine black crystal shafts. “Interstellar, at the least, Killashandra,” he said, blinking his eyes back to normal vision as he stepped back to sigh over the big crystals. “And this is all from that vein you struck last year?”

  Killashandra nodded. Not much moved her to words these days. Working the new claim, she had quickly recouped her losses on the Optherian contract; Heptite rules and regs had required her to part with a percentage of that fee to Trag. She accepted that as passively as she had accepted everything since that day in Court on Regulus. Not even Rimbol had been able to penetrate her apathy, though he and Antona continued their attempts. Lanzecki had spoken pleasantly to her after her first return from the Ranges, complimented her on the new black crystal vein but their early relationship could never have been revived even if Lanzecki had persisted.

  She didn’t see him. She saw no one but Lars, a laughing Lars, garland-wreathed, his blue eyes gleaming, teeth white in his tanned face, his bronzed body poised on the deck of the Pearl Fisher. She woke sometimes, sure she felt his hand on her hip, heard his voice in the whisper of the wind in the deep ravine, or in the tenor of warming crystal at noon, when the sun finally touched the cliff. She made two attempts to succumb to crystal thrall but each time the symbiont had somehow pulled her back. Not even that enchantment was powerful enough to break through her emotions, obsessed as she was by the guilty betrayal of her body in the witness chair on Regulus.

  She had kept informed of the situation on Optheria and often, on the nights brilliant with crystal song, she composed letters to Lars, asking to be forgiven that betrayal. She wrote imaginary letters to Nahia and Hauness, knowing that they would be compassionate, and intercede for her with Lars. In her better moments, common sense dictated that Lars would not have held that bizzare psychoanalysis against her for he, of them all, knew how much she treasured and admired him. But he had not heard her impassioned plea to the Court, and she doubted if “I love you” had been included in the hard copy of the hearing transcript. And he had other plans for the rest of his life.

  She frequently entertained the notion of returning to Optheria to see how he was getting on, even if she never made actual contact with him. He might have found another woman with whom he could share his life on Optheria. Sometimes she returned from the Ranges, full of determination to end her wretched half-life, one way or another. She had more than enough credit for a fiercely expensive galactic call: ironically through some of the black crystal she had herself cut. But would she reach Lars on Optheria? Maybe, once he had completed that disciplinary action and his subordination to the Federal investigation of Optheria, he had found another channel for his abilities and energies. Once he discovered his freedom to travel the stars, they might have won him from his love of the sea.

  At her most rational, she recognized all the ifs ands and buts as procrastinations. Yet, it was not exactly an unwillingness to chance her luck that restrained her: it was a deep and instinctive “knowing” that she must remain in this period of suspension for a while yet. That she had to wait. When the time was right, action would follow logically. She settled down to wait, and perfected the art.

  “You’re in early, too, you know,” Enthor was saying to her. “Storm warnings only just gone out.”

  “Aren’t those good enough?” Killashandra asked. “No need to risk life and limb, is there?”

  “No, no,” Enthor hastily assured her.

  Killashandra had, in fact, answered the storm warning her symbiont had given her. She was used to listening to it because it so often proved the most accurate sense she had.