Say very often to myself, 'Alas!

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 look 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 individuals 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 analyze 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 Killashandras true identity and the request to wound her, resolving the quandary. His reward was the promise of reconsidering Larss composition. The point that Lars had been coerced to perform a forum digital camera best 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 fraudulently 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 didnt 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 didnt quaver as she supported Larss 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 everyones testimony was irrelevant to the case at hand. When Olav resumed his seat between Trag and Lars, the Bailiff approached the screen.

"What news? What news?" said bold Robin Hood;

the curve of exquisitely modelled eyebrows. "Are you sure that's wise?" The tone of her voice left little room for doubt as to her opinion. "Of course." I forced myself to be civil: bickering could reach intolerable proportions in a rigidly closed, mutually interdependent group such as we were likely to be for some time to come. "Why ever not?" "Opens the pores, dear man," she said sweetly. "I thought everyone knew thathow dangerous it is when you're exposed to cold afterwards. Or had you forgotten? Our cases, our night things in the planesomebody has to get these." "Don't talk such utter rubbish." My short-lived attempt at civility perished miserably. "Nobody's leaving here tonight. You sleep in your clothesthis isn't the Dorchester. If the blizzard dies down, we may try to get your things tomorrow morning." "But" "If you're all that desperate, you're welcome to get them yourself. Want to try?" It was boorish of me, but that was the effect she had. I turned away to see the minister or priest hold up his hand against the offered brandy. "Go on, take it," I said impatiently. "I don't really think I should." The voice was high-pitched, but the enunciation clear and precise, and I found it vaguely irritating that it should so perfectly match his appearance, be so exactly what I should have expected. He laughed, a nervous deprecating laugh. "My parishioners, you know . . . " I was tired, worried and felt like telling him what he could do with his parishioners, but it wasn't his fault. "There's precedent in plenty in your Bible, Reverend. You know that better than I. It'll do you good, really." "Oh well, if you think so." He took the glass gingerly, as if Beelzebub himself were on the offering end, but I noticed that there was nothing so hesitant about his method and speed of disposal of the contents: his subsequent expression could properly be described as beatific. I caught Marie LeGarde's eye, and smiled at the twinkle I caught there. The reverend wasn't the only one who found the coffeeand brandywelcome. With the exception of the stewardess, who sipped at her drink in a distraught fashion, the others had also emptied their glasses, and I decided that the broaching of another MarteU's was justified. In the respite from the talk, I bent over the injured man on the floor. His pulse was slower, steadier and his breathing not quite so shallow: I slipped in a few more heat pads and zipped up the sleeping-bag. "Is heis he any better, do you think?" The cf card digital cameras stewardess was so close to me that I brushed against her as I straightened. "Hehe seems a bit better, doesn't he?" "He is a bit, I think. But nothing like over the shock from the wound and the exposure, though." I looked at her speculatively and suddenly felt almost sorry for her. Almost, but not quite: I didn't at all like the direction my thoughts were leading me. "You've flown together quite a bit, haven't you?" "Yes." She didn't offer anything more. "His headdo you think" "Later. Let me have a quick look at that back of yours." "Look at what?" "Your back," I said patiently. "Your shoulders. They seem to give you some pain. I'll rig a screen." "No, no, I'm all right." She moved away from me. "Don't be silly, my dear." I wondered what trick of voice production made Marie LeGarde's voice so clear and carrying. "He is a doctor, you know." "No!" I shrugged and reached for my brandy glass. Bearers of bad news were ever unpopular: I supposed her reaction was the modern equivalent of the classical despot's unsheathing his dagger. Probably only bruises, anyhow, I told myself, and turned to look at the company. An odd-looking bunch, to say the least, but then any group of people dressed in lounge suits and dresses, trilby hats and nylon stockings would have looked odd against the strange and uncompromising background of that cabin where every suggestion of anything that even remotely suggested gracious living had been crushed and ruthlessly made subservient to the all-exclusive purpose of survival. Here there were no armchairsno chairs, evenno carpets, wall-paper, book-shelves, beds, curtainsor even windows for the curtains. It was a bleak utilitarian box of a room, eighteen feet by fourteen. The floor was made of unvarnished yellow pine. The walls were made of spaced sheets of bonded ply, with kapok insulation between: the lower part of the walls was covered with green-painted asbestos, the upper part and entire roof sheeted with glittering aluminium to reflect the maximum possible heat and light. A thin, ever-present film of ice climbed at least half-way up all four walls, reaching almost to the ceiling in the four corners, the parts of the room most remote from the stove and therefore the coldest. On very cold nights, such as this,

There were three rauens sat on a tree,

and magnetic storms, both of these being related to disturbances in the ionosphere. These disturbances can and, actually, almost invariably do interfere with radio transmission and reception, and when severe enough can completely disrupt all normal radio communications: and they can also produce temporary alterations of the earth's magnetism which knock magnetic compasses completely out of kilter." All of which was true enough as far as it went. "It would, of course, require extreme conditions to produce these effects: but we have been experiencing these lately, and I'm pretty sure that that's what happened with your plane. Where astral navigationby the stars, that isis impossible, as it was on a night like this, you are dependent on radio and compasses as your two main navigational aids: if these are knocked out, what have you left?" A fresh hubbub of talk arose at this, and though it was quite obvious that most of them had only a vague idea what I was talking about, I could see that this idea was finding a fair degree of ready acceptance, satisfying them and fitting the facts as they knew them. I saw Joss gazing at me with an expressionless face, looked him in the eye for a couple of seconds, then turned away. As a radio operator, Joss knew even better than I that, though there was still some sun-spot activity, it had reached its maximum in the previous year: and as an ex-aircraft radio operator, he knew that airliners flew on gyrocompasses, which neither sun-spots nor magnetic storms could ever affect in the slightest. "We'll have something to eat now." I cut through the buzz of conversation. "Any volunteers to give Jackstraw a hand?" "Certainly." Marie LeGarde, as I might have guessed, was first on her feet. "I'm by way of being what you might call a mean cook. Lead me to it, Mr Nielsen." "Thanks, Joss, you might give me a hand to rig a screen." I nodded at the injured pilot. "We'll see what we can do for this boy here." The stewardess, unbidden, moved forward to help me also. I was on the point of objecting -1 knew that this wasn't going to be nicebut I didn't want trouble with her, not yet. I shrugged my shoulders and let her stay. Half an hour later, I had done all I could. It indeed hadn't been nice, but both the patient and the stewardess had stood it far better than I had expected. I was fixing and binding on a stiff leather helmet to protect the back of his head and Joss was strapping him down, inside the sleeping-bag, to the stretcher, so that he couldn't toss around and hurt himself, phillips digital keychain camera driver when the stewardess touched my arm. "Whatwhat do you think now, Dr Mason?" "It's hard to be sure. I'm not a specialist in brain or head injuries, and even a specialist would hesitate to say. The damage may have penetrated deeper than we think. There may be haemorrhagingit's often delayed in these cases." "But if there's no haemorrhaging?" she persisted. "If the damage is no worse than what you think, what you see?" "Fifty-fifty. I wouldn't have said so a couple of hours ago, but he seems to have quite astonishing powers of resistance and recuperation. Better than an even chance, I would sayif he had the warmth, the food, the skilled nursing he would have in a first class hospital. As it iswell, let's leave it at that, shall we?" "Yes," she murmured. "Thank you." I looked at her, looked at the washed-out face, the faint blue circles forming under her eyes, and almost felt touched with pity. Almost. She was exhausted, and shivering with cold. "Bed," I said. "You're dying for sleep and warmth, Miss- I'm so sorry, I forgot to ask your name." "Ross. Margaret Ross." "Scots?" "Irish. Southern Irish." "I won't hold it against you," I smiled. There was no answering smile from her. Tell me, Miss Ross, why was the plane so empty?" "We had an 'X' flightan extra or duplicate charter for an overflow of passengersout from London yesterday. Day before yesterday it is now, I suppose. We just stayed the night in Idlewild and had to return after we'd slept. The office phoned up people who had booked out on the evening plane, giving the chance of an earlier flight: ten of them accepted." "I see. By the way, isn't it a bit unusual to have only one stewardess aboard? On a trans-Atlantic flight, I mean?" "I know. There's usually two or threea steward and two stewardessesor two stewards and a stewardess. But not for ten people." "Of course. Hardly worth stewarding, you might say. Still," I went on smoothly, "it at least gives you time for the odd forty winks on these long night-flights." "That wasn't fair!" I hadn't been as clever as I thought, and her white cheeks were stained with red. "That's never happened to me before. Never!" "Sorry, Miss Rossit wasn't really meant as a dig. It doesn't matter anyhow."