When the judge was finished, and was ready to turn them over to the prosecution for voir dire, Calhoun’s pulse quickened. Now he would make his big move, and blow the DA right out of the water. He stood. “Your honor, I object to this entire panel.”
“State your grounds, Counsel.”
“The 6th amendment of the US Constitution, Your Honor. My right is not merely to trial by jury but to trial by a jury of my peers. There is a similar guarantee made in the Texas Constitution, and in Article 1.12 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. This is purposeful discrimination. These people are not my peers.” He sat down. He felt smug. If the DA squawked he’d throw Batson v. Kentucky at him.
“Mr. Prosecutor?”
“Not my doing, Your Honor. The clerk followed the Texas law to the letter in selecting them. I had nothing to do with it. The accused waived indictment so the problem didn’t come up with the grand jury.”
“Mr. Calhoun?”
Calhoun stood, ready with a pat answer. He’d waived indictment specifically so the question wouldn’t arise. He wanted to spring this on the aliens cold, renew his motion for dismissal and get out of here. As he saw it, the aliens had no other choice unless they were willing to compromise their principles and kidnap enough humans to make up a panel. He was sure they wouldn’t do that. He decided this was the time to pounce. “Your Honor, I—”
“Just who do you consider your peers to be, Mr. Calhoun?”
Calhoun was annoyed at the interruption, nevertheless he kept his cool. “Why, people like me, Your Honor. Earth people, with the experience and emotions and habits of my own kind.”
“I see. The closer they come to your own personality and the more closely they resemble you the better?”
“Y-yeah, that’s about it.” Something about this discourse suddenly gave Calhoun the jitters. The judge was taking it all too calmly. This guy was up to something. Unfortunately, Calhoun had no idea what.
“You would not object to people who met these qualifications?”
“I didn’t say that. There might be other reasons why they weren’t suitable.” He paused, then added. “There are grounds that apply even in human courts, you know.”
“People who knew you and didn’t like you, perhaps? People who hated lawyers as a class? People like that?”
“Yes. People like that.”
“It sounds like you’re saying that your ideal peers would be twelve lawyers, just like you, Mr. Calhoun, people with precisely the same experiences in life as you’ve had. People with the same background, the same drives, the same personalities?”
“Well, uh, theoretically I don’t suppose I could object to that, but then you couldn’t find twelve people like that even on Earth.”
“We’d have to compromise, would we?”
“Well, sure.”
“Earth courts can’t be super-picky, either, then?”
Now Calhoun was sure he was being baited, he just didn’t know how. He stalled as long as he could and then he answered, “No.”
“All right,” the judge replied. He turned to the bailiff. “Bring in the next panel.”
The bailiff disappeared for tense moments. When he returned twelve new jurors followed him into the courtroom, past a stunned and speechless Calhoun. Calhoun’s lower jaw still rested against his chest when they were seated.
“Well, Mr. Calhoun, what do you think of this panel?”
“Mr. Calhoun? Mr. Calhoun, are you all right?”
“Uh—fine, Your Honor.” Calhoun reached his hand up to wipe his mouth. Calhoun was drooling. He gazed at the figures in the jury box, twelve identical human forms, each dressed in a black suit with a string bow tie, each, as far as he could discern, absolutely identical to himself. How the aliens had accomplished this he did not know, but, if the identification was as close in other respects they had wasted their time. The case was over. This was indeed a jury of his peers. These jurors would understand him as no others ever could. They would relate to him, sympathize with him. They would never condemn him.
“You may begin your voir dire, Mr. Prosecutor,” the judge announced solemnly.
Calhoun huddled in the hollow between two huge boulders, the folds of his tattered robe gathered around him against the chill of the wind. He longed for peaceful sleep but in this season the wind was as constant as the light of the three suns. Of all the things he’d left on Earth the night was what Calhoun missed most. Night had been his friend, concealing his secrets from prying eyes.
He would never see Earth again. That was his punishment. That and endless wandering over this alien world. “We misled you. We have not executed anyone within historical times. No survivor has exercised his right of revenge in more than a terrestrial millennium,” the judge had announced when he passed sentence.
“Death is not the punishment that life is. We have insured that you will have ample time to repent. We have cleansed your body of all its resident viri. Microbes which evolved among us cannot harm you; consequently, though you are not immortal, you may expect to live an extraordinarily long time. While you live our entire society will share the vengeance of your victim’s kinsmen.”
That, Calhoun soon learned, was literally true. Though he wandered where he would and no one harmed him, neither did they help him. No one spoke to him. No one gave him food, or water, or shelter. Wherever he went they were ready, and shut themselves up inside their houses until he was gone. If he tried to take something that belonged to them they simply took it back. There were always enough of them so that he was easily overpowered without any serious injury. It was maddening.
Worse, he had only himself to blame—literally. Having anticipated his demand and puzzled out his strategy the wary aliens had sprung their trap. It was an ingenious one, and he hadn’t seen the flaw in his reasoning until it was far too late.
Twelve cloned copies of him, twelve exact alter egos, copies of Calhoun correct in every essential detail, including his most minute memories, impressed upon them by some arcane means yet beyond the science of Earth. They were short-lived. They would survive only a couple of terrestrial years, but they had not been told this.
Calhoun had been allowed to test them during voir dire, and satisfy himself that up to the very moment of their creation these were absolutely identical. And then he took the bait.
In hindsight, he realized he should have been alerted by the prosecutor’s failure to object, and the court’s observation that in ancient English law, where the jury system had originated, acquaintance with the accused had initially been mandatory for jurors.
Something stirred to his right. He caught it in his peripheral vision. He was suddenly distracted by his everpresent hunger. Here on this accursed world he seemed always to just barely get enough nourishment to keep himself alive but never enough to satisfy the gnawing.
In a moment he had confirmed, this was an “edible,” a creeping repulsive-looking creature slow enough and stupid enough to be caught with the bare hands and that would yield a mouthful or two of foul-tasting protein and moisture.
Calhoun stalked it carefully, and at the propitious moment pounced. He gobbled it up without relish, then returned to his meager shelter between the rocks, back to the memory of his most monumental miscalculation.
The memory was vivid. Even now, years later, the fallacy still exerted a fatal attraction.
It had been a moment of elation. How could it miss? It was every defendant’s dream, to be judged if he must be judged, by himself.