- 6 -
I was sitting in a cell, waiting for the judge.
The ship I'd been brought here in had landed on the roof of a building. I knew this because when they shuffled me out, I could see that I was in the middle of a very modern looking city. They took me to an elevator and we went down to the tenth floor, I noticed that there were sixteen floors according to the buttons. Once we got to the tenth floor, I was herded through a couple of doorways, into a small room where I was divested of all my belongings once again, put in a bright yellow jumpsuit that was neither warm nor comfortable. I was given a pair of slippers that might as well have been socks, and then taken to the cell I was now locked into.
The cell itself wasn't all that bad, it wasn't cold, the small cot along the wall was actually fairly comfortable, and someone had shown up just a minute ago with a plastic tray with more food on it than I'd seen since I'd gotten here, if you discounted the large bag of jerky.
I was surprised that they gave me a knife and a fork, but both were made from plastic and they weren't that strong. After I finished eating, the woman who had arrested me came into the room that my cell was in. There were eight cells here, and interestingly, I was the only one here.
She was an extremely attractive young woman, I'd guess that she was around my age, and now that she wasn't wearing any body armor, I could see that she filled out her uniform rather well, perhaps a little more athletic than the average woman I was used to, with long legs and slender hips. She had a killer butt however, and from the waist up, the uniform couldn't hide the fact that she was definitely a woman.
"Don't get a lot of crime, do you?" I asked motioning to the empty cells.
"This is where we stick the capital cases," she said pulling up a chair and sitting down on the other side of the bars, about five feet from them. "Most are either executed or moved to prison within twenty-four hours."
"Thanks for the food," I said and put the knife and fork on the tray and slid them out under the bars. "I haven't eaten that well in months."
"Well the life of a bandit is a hard one they say," she said and set the slate she had been carrying under her arm on her lap and it flashed to life, it was a computer tablet.
"I told you, I'm not a bandit."
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Paul."
"Do you have a last name, Paul?"
"Young," I told her and watched as she entered that.
"Where are you from?"
"Sacramento."
She looked up at me, "Where's that?"
I shrugged, "I have no idea anymore."
"And why not?"
"Because I'm not from anywhere around here? I have no real idea where I am, I've only been in this land for a few months. My superior decided to save his own ass when he led us here by accident and gave me to some Navajo tribe out west of here, then tried to murder me when I made him look bad.
"So, here I am. Wherever the hell this is."
She put down the tablet and stared at me a moment, then sighed. "If you don't want to tell me, you don't have to. You are not required to answer any of these questions."
I laughed and shook my head, "If I hadn't just spent the last four or five months living it, I wouldn't believe it either. Where am I, anyway?"
"You really don't know?" She asked looking at me skeptically.
"I wouldn't be asking if I did."
"You're in Havsue."
"Really? Wow, so this is a high tech area then?"
"Yes, it is."
"Can you answer something for me?" I asked her.
"I can try."
"Are you free for dinner tomorrow night?" And I gave her my best smile. She really was pretty cute now that she wasn't in the body armor and I hadn't so much as talked to a woman since I had gotten here. Back at the village they avoided us.
"I don't date criminals."
"Good, cause I'm not one. Any chance I can get a razor to shave?"
"You won't be alive that long, once the judge hears your case," she said.
"Uh-huh," I replied. "Just have that Sarah person there, they can tell you I was not part of any of it."
"We'll see," she said and getting up she headed for the door.
"When do I go to see the judge?" I called after her.
"Tomorrow," she said and leaving the room, she closed the door behind her.
I sat on the edge of the bed for a little while and thought about my circumstances and hoped I didn't get a hanging judge who really didn't care about what happened. I knew from my experiences as a troublemaker, when I was a lot younger, that judges tended to judge, and that you didn't just need a good story, you needed to be respectful, well behaved, well presented, and had to have some facts, or at least things that appeared to be facts, on your side.
The facts of what happened however probably wouldn't stand up very well in court. I doubt that they'd believe I flew here in a military jet from another world. Or that a goddess had brought me, and that Major Riggs was the 'chosen one' of the gods, sent here to save their people.
So I'd need a better story, but one that still had most of the facts. For all I knew, one of the released slaves could have turned up here, and if they somehow ended up in court, giving a story that contradicted mine would probably not be healthy. So, stretching out on the bed, I thought about what I'd say, and what I'd change, and after a while it all caught up with me, and I fell asleep.
"All rise, the Honorable Justice Hathorn presiding!"
I stood up without being prompted. After years of being indoctrinated into standing at attention whenever a superior officer walked into the room, the habit was kind of hard to break.
"Be seated," the judge said and looked at what I guess was a terminal.
"Paul Young?" He said looking up.
I stood up again, "Here, your Honor."
"You are accused of being a member of a gang of highwaymen. How do you plead?"
"Not guilty, your Honor."
"The evidence I have here from officers Mays and Wittner seems fairly conclusive,"
"Your Honor, I'm not from around here so I don't know how any of this works. Do I have any rights in this proceeding?" I asked him.
The Judge looked up at me from his terminal, "What kind of rights are you looking for?"
"Well, I'd like to see the report the officers made," I said nodded to the two officers who were sitting on the other side of the room, "and I'd like to be able to question them about it. I'd also like the people I'm accused of having attacked come here and testify. I came across the fight long after it was over, and well after the others had departed. I was carrying no weapons, and it was fairly obvious that I'd not been in any kind of fight, Sir."
"Have you studied the law, Mr. Young?" he asked looking at me.
"I only know the basics that were taught to me where I was raised," I said and shrugged, "I have no idea if those rules apply here or not, Sir."
"So your claim is that you came upon the entire scene, after it had concluded and the," he paused a moment and looked at the screen, "mercenary company had continued on."
"When I came around the bend, your Honor, I saw the members of what I guess were this Sarah person's group, doing something. They then mounted their horses and rode away. It wasn't until I got closer that I could tell that there were bodies and I gave them a wide berth and moved on quickly."
"Why didn't you call out to the group? Ask them for help?"
"Because I had no idea who they were, or what they were, your Honor. Another group had passed me earlier in the day, before this group did. For all that I knew, one group had caught up with the other, and a fight had ensued."
"But neither group had harassed you when they passed, had they?"
"That was because I hid in the trees and waited until they had gone by."
"I see, and just why were you traveling out all by yourself? And without any weapons?"
"Your Honor," the female officer who had arrested me spoke up, "he had two knives on him, I'd hardly call him unarmed."
"Please, Officer Mays, they were two pocket knives, not even very good ones," Judge Hathorn responded and turned back to me. "So?" he prompted.
"I was traveling by myself because I'd just escaped from a Navajo village, where I was being kept as a slave."
"Ah, I see. And just how did you manage to end up a slave?"
"I was betrayed by my superior, your Honor. We had gotten lost after a rather strange storm had forced us to change our direction and seek shelter. Eventually we were found by a hunting band, who brought us back to their village. My superior is part Navajo and speaks their language. There was some discussion that I did not understand, but when it ended, he had a place in the tribe and I was now a slave."
"So, you're saying he bought himself into the tribe with you as the payment?"
I shrugged, "He told me much later, when I couldn't beat him to death, that he did it to save my life."
"Did you believe him?"
"I threatened to kill him," I said angrily.
The Judge nodded and chuckled at that.
"So, how did you get away?"
"Someone who didn't care much for him, and who I'd helped, gave me back my things one night and left me a way out. So I took it." I shrugged then, "which is why I've been rather hesitant to meet with any strangers on the road."
The judge nodded again. "Court will be adjourned for an hour while Officer Mays goes and locates Miss Sarah Alder and her group and brings them in to testify. You can wait in your cell, Mr. Young; I'll have a copy of the officers' reports delivered to you."
The judge tapped a small wooden hammer on the desk, the bailiff said 'All rise' and we stood as the judge left.
"Don't get your hopes up," Officer Mays grumbled as she put wrist restraints on me, and then led me back to my cell.
"You really don't want to have dinner with me, do you?" I joked. "Trust me, a shower, a shave, a haircut; I'm really much better looking than this."
She just grumbled at me, and stuck me back in my cell, and then left. Two minutes later, officer Wittner showed up with some papers, which he handed to me. Thankfully the written language hadn't changed very much and except for a few written words that were now spelled a little differently, I was able to read through it fairly easily.
The whole of the officer's case was that I appeared near the bodies, and then ran after the departing group. If that was the standard of evidence around here, as well as the quality of police work, I wasn't sure I was going to be dating Mays. Jumping to conclusions was apparently something she was very quick to do.
An hour later and I was taken back out of the cell, by Wittner this time, and then led back to the small courtroom. Only this time there was a group of people in it, and I recognized the woman who had turned to look at me, as I was watching them from the woods.
"All rise!"
We stood and the judge came in, and tapped on the desk with his gavel.
"Court is in session, be seated."
We all sat down, and he turned to the group.
"Miss Alder, do you recognize this man?" Judge Hathorn said pointing at me. "Please stand, Mr. Young."
I was surprised to find out that Sarah was the woman who had looked at me from that second group that had gone by. She was also very attractive, with long dark hair, and slightly darker skin than most of the people in the room. She looked to be a little shorter than Officer Mays and a little curvier in a very pleasant way that she wasn't afraid to show, as she was wearing a nice dress that accented her charms considerably.
"Vaguely, your Honor," she said as I stood. "We passed him on the trail yesterday; he was hiding from us in the trees."
"Was he with the people who attacked you yesterday?"
"Oh, no, your Honor. He was on the road well ahead of us, and took cover only as we started to catch up with him."
"So he wasn't one of the ones you said got away?" Officer Mays asked from where she was sitting.
"I don't see how he could be, Heather," Sarah said scowling at Officer Mays. "Did I say that any of them were wearing a green jumpsuit with patches on the shoulders and their name on it?"
I was surprised that she'd seen that much of me, when I'd been hiding in the trees. I was also surprised that Officer Mays blushed at that.
"So, Officers Mays and Wittner, are there any other charges to justify holding Mr. Young any further?" the Judge asked.
"No, your Honor," they both said and shook their heads.
"Then return Mr. Young's belongings to him. You are free to go, Mr. Young. Case dismissed!"
He rapped his gavel again, and the bailiff called 'all rise' and Judge Hathorn departed.
I walked over to Sarah, the woman Officer Mays had thought I'd attacked, my yellow jumpsuit crinkling as I did.
"Thank you," I said and gave her a small bow.
"You're welcome," she said and waved a hand before her nose, "you really could use a bath you know."
I laughed, "And a haircut and a shave. But unfortunately I have no money, so," I shrugged, "I'm dependent on the charity of others until I can find a job."
"Heather," Sarah said turning towards Officer Mays, "why don't you take Mr. Young down to the showers and see if someone might loan him a razor after he's gotten clean?"
"Well, I, err," Mays said looking a little embarrassed.
"Really, Heather. After wronging this wonderful man, it really is the least you can do for him," Sarah said in a voice that was dripping with sarcasm.
"Yes, Sarah," Mays sighed. "Come with me, Paul."
"Thank you again, Miss Sarah, thank you very much," I said and gave another bow with a smile.
"Please, call me Sarah. Look me up sometime, maybe I can even help you find a job," she said with a wink.
I turned and followed Officer Mays out of the room. She first led me to a place where I could reclaim my belongings, then down six more floors via an elevator. There she took me into a large shower room.
"There's washing machines over there," She pointed towards a door, "and you probably should wash your stuff, it stinks about as much as you do."
"Thanks, what about soap?"
"I'll bring you some. The showers here are mixed, so don't act up if one of the female officers comes in."
I nodded, "Wouldn't dream of it."
I went to the washing machines while she went and got some soap. I tossed all my clothes in, plus the old blanket, which was probably the source of most of my stink. I set the nice one on top of the machine.
"Is that yours?" Mays asked as she came back with both detergent for the machine as well as soap and shampoo.
"The blanket?" I asked.
She nodded.
"The person who helped me escape gave it to me."
"Mind if I take a look?"
I shook my head, "No, go right ahead."
Mays picked it up and shook it out, so it unrolled. It was actually fairly large.
"Here, let me," I said and grabbing the edges I held it up, I was taller than her, and with my arms up, it was just clear of the floor.
"Wow, that's a nice one; you could get some money for that."
"Really?" I asked and started to fold it back up.
"Yeah, real Navajo blankets are always in demand, and the artwork on that one is very nice."
"Think you could help me sell it?" I asked her.
"Ummm," she said hesitating.
"I'll give you ten percent."
"Fifteen," she replied quickly.
"Sure, fifteen," I said and she stuck out her hand, so I shook with her on it.
"Well, now I don't feel so bad," she said and smiled, surprising me.
"Huh?"
"Court here is loser pays. If we had won our case, Wittner and I would have gotten your belongings, with twenty percent going to the courts after we sold it. But because you won, we have to cover the court costs, the cost of you being in jail for a day, as well as the costs of having Sarah come here to testify."
I looked at her, "You get paid on commission?" I asked, trying to wrap my head around that.
"We get our uniforms, weapons, and ammunition as part of the job, plus if we live here in the court building we get food and lodging. But beyond that, we have to work to earn our pay, which means bringing in crooks and criminals. What they get fined goes to us, after court fees, and any damage claims of course.
"That's why we were both in court with you today. We had a financial stake in the case."
"Oh," I said softly. Now I could see why they took me in. They probably figured it would be an easy win for them, and they'd make some money.
"No hard feelings?" she asked, looking at me a little embarrassed.
"Go out to dinner with me, and we'll call it even," I said smiling down at her.
"Umm, I'll think about it," she said, blushing.
"What do I do with this?" I asked picking at the jumpsuit.
"Oh, just toss it in the garbage, with the shoes. They're disposable."
I nodded and after stripping in front of her, I noticed she wasn't shy about looking; I bundled the coveralls up with the shoes and tossed them in the trash. Grabbing the soap and shampoo I headed off towards the showers.
"Um, Paul?" she asked as I walked away.
"Yes?"
"Dinner sounds fine," she said with a wink and giving me another looking over.