She knew it, but couldn't quite make the thought rise up to consciousness. That might have hurt a little too much.
The entire colony was on the beach as Robor floated into the bay. Cadmann drew his coat collar up around his jaw. The cold seemed more piercing somehow, as the mist rolling in off the ocean penetrated coat and shirt and skin. Around him, radios crackled. A dozen rifles were held in crossed arms.
Perhaps Death is aboard the Robor, he could almost hear them thinking. It was what he wondered. It was the fear that had lurked just beneath the surface of their loves and growths and actions, every day for twenty years. And now it had come home to roost.
The air was filled with the ocean's steady, rolling roar, the crackle of the radios, and no other sound at all. Then they heard the purr of skeeter engines. Out of the fog loomed Robor, like some great mythical beast bearing its dreadful, beloved cargo. Its gigantic red lips glistened in the mist. As soon as the lines dropped, colonists chased after them to tie them to the docking loops.
The mood was dark, probably the worse he had seen since...
Remember Ernst, Cadmann... ?
His memory didn't want to go over it again. And over it, and over it.
Someone yelled an instant before one of the docking lines slapped across his face, smashing his head back. His hands flew up to fend off the blow. His hands clasped the flagging rope as he pulled. His hands and shoulders ached. As Stevens and Carlos lent their weight to his line he reached up a trembling hand to feel his right cheek. His fingers came away bloody, and he said something ugly.
Robor touched down. The rampway opened.
Chapter 14
THE TRIAL
I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.
JOHN BROWN, Last Statement
There had never been much need for a formal courtroom. Most problems were handled in a counselor's office. Really severe cases, such as the time years before when Harlan Masters tried to horsewhip Carlos, were decided in the council meeting room off the main assembly hall.
It wasn't a very large room. Seven First Generation, four men and three women, sat at a dinner table with their backs to a bright window, so that it was hard for Jessica to see their faces. Everything had been done in a stilted formal manner that she wasn't used to. Like something out of an old Earth novel.
"Do you have anything to say in your defense?"
She couldn't even tell who had asked that. Probably her father. No one had slept for almost forty-eight hours, so that all the voices sounded alike, unbearably weary. The forensic reports, diagnostics on the mining apparatus, the computerized clarification of the death scene, depositions from each Biter and Scout... all of these had taken their toll.
"Yes," she said. "We were out of contact. I'm not going to lie to you about that. I know that it was against the rules."
"And what were you doing while you were out of contact?"
"I don't see what that has to do with my sister's death."
Cadmann's fingers were folded carefully, and he looked up and down the panel. "We are attempting to determine the cause of the disaster. Your delayed reaction time may well have been a contributing factor. If some of you had stayed behind, or been closer, or responded to your radio links... "
"What are you insinuating?"
"They might have tried to call you on their comm links!" Cadmann half stood. "She was your little sister. You should have looked out for her!"
"The camp was secured, dammit!"
"Yes," Cadmann sat back down. "It certainly was. I ask you again, what were you doing?"
We were sleeping it off, and I am damned if I'll tell you that. "We slept late. Grendel Scout graduation runs late, and there's an orgy after the ceremonies." She said that defiantly. "We weren't scheduled to be back earlier."
"You're right, of course," Cadmann said. "But it's a damn shame. More eyes, more rifles, you might have done something."
"Do you think that hasn't tortured me ever since we saw—what we saw?" she demanded. "Colonel, I plead guilty to the childish prank of being out of communication, but the fact is that we couldn't have got there in time to do or see anything to begin with."
"She's right," Zack said.
Silence. Somewhere outside, a tractor coughed to life. Zack said, "Can you think of anything else we ought to know? Thank you. That is all, for now."
Jessica looked defiantly from one of them to the other, and then lowered her voice. "No one here lost more than I did. No one. I loved her, dammit. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face, and I ask myself: Was there something I should have done? Is there anything I forgot? Is there... "
"Thank you, Jessica," Zack repeated. "I think that will be all. For now."
Jessica stared at Cadmann as if she was expecting him to say something else. Something more—anything more. She turned, and left the room.
Cadmann fought to keep himself focused on the moment. But it was all he could do to keep his mind away from that terrible moment when the oilcloth was carried down from Robor, and he had unwrapped it, carefully, gingerly, as if what lay within it could still be wounded by human effort.
One set of those bones had been his youngest daughter. The other, one of his oldest friends.
He had only known Joe Sikes for, what... ? A hundred and twenty years? And there was a thing that stood between them, but they'd recovered from that...
"This is an inquest, not a formal trial," Zack announced carefully. "I do warn you that anything said here may be used as evidence in a trial if this board of inquiry decides to file formal charges. Do you understand this?"
"Yes, sir."
"State your name."
"Aaron Tragon." There was the faintest hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. This was all being recorded, and there was no chance that Cassandra didn't know who he was, but the rules said that you state your name to begin formal hearings.
"Aaron Tragon, you were in charge of the children's expedition."
"No, sir. Justin was in charge. I was second-in-command," Aaron said carefully.
"Why do the younger Scouts say you were in charge, then?" Zack asked.
Aaron shook his head. "I guess because we don't make a big thing of it," he said. "Justin and I both know what to do, and it never came to any conflicts, so I suppose the kids didn't know."
"Or care?"
"Yes, sir, or care," Aaron said. "I'm sorry sir, but it just wasn't a big deal."
"All right, I can understand that. But you were second-in-command. You were aware that the communications cards had all been turned off?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why?"
"It was a tradition." Aaron said. "Maybe a silly one, but—this is
Graduation Night, something we Seconds do, and—"
"And you don't need no stinking First listening in?" Carlos prompted.
Aaron nodded. "Something like that. We wouldn't put it in quite those terms."
"You resent the First?" This was from Julia Chang Hortha, agronomist, nurse, counselor, and a minister of the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, the closest thing to a formal church they had.
"Well, sometimes, ma'am," Aaron said. "Not the Earth Born so much as all the rules."
"Rules are important," Zack said automatically.
"Sure they are, for—" Aaron cut himself off. "Yes, sir, under many circumstances rules can be very important."
"But not for you?" Cadmann asked carefully.
"Not always for us, no sir. Colonel, we are of age in any civilization you had on Earth. Full voting citizens entitled to full rights, including the right to live under laws we have consented to. Aren't we?"