IN THE MATTER OF THE ASSASSIN MEREFIRS
   
   The law is an instrument that some men play more deftly than others.
   
   KEN W. PURDY
   
   The judge enters the courtroom. Think of him as a man of middle age: a hundred and twenty-five or so. Being a judge, he has no name. See him going into the bench. (Nothing in the law is more fascinating than its persistence in looking backward; indeed, is not the law in its entirety based on backward-looking, the search for precedent? So we still call it the bench, although it is only a cube of flexibo big enough for one man, and judges wear around their necks a scrap of black, relic of the robes of ancient times. Such is the nature of things.) So, he enters, he sits, the bench rises soundlessly halfway to the ceiling, he stares down upon us, implacable, merciless, and he speaks.
   "The matter before this court," he says, "is the trial of the assassin Merefirs. The gavel has fallen."
   The persecutor is Dafton, flat-faced as a door, reedy, impalpable, a century of mediocrity behind him. His assignment is a doom-cry for Merefirs: Dafton draws only certainties, and has for years, since a boy barely sixty, a year out of law school, pinned him to the wall in an easy and insignificant first-degree mopery case. Well, legally insignificant, but alas for poor Dafton, a son of the then Regent was a principal, and Dafton's career was forever blighted. Such is the nature of things.
   "If the court will but indulge us," Dafton says, "the state will briefly review the crime for which the abominable Merefirs is to be put to maceration.
   "Azulno, or perhaps I should say, as all who were living on that tragic day know, the Regional Eminence Fallet was, while in the performance of his public duty, namely and twit, the dedication of the 101st National Euthenic Unit, in this mega, made dead by the assassin Merefirs. Of the commission of the crime, azulno, there is no shred of question: the affidavits of 246,744 actual witnesses have been deposited with this court, and I may say that I myself did see, before the said affidavits were put under seal, a convincing sampling of them. There can be no doubt that they are genuine affidavits in every particular. Further, the Media Communicative Authority has verified that on that day, indeed at the relevant millisecond, 196,593,017 citizens, and a lesser but still weightily significant number of humans, and rather more than a million sub-humans, in the categories of slaves, servants, sexers and so on, experienced the tragedy on the telfee. The assassin Merefirs is guilty beyond all question, and it is a mark of the mercy of the present Eminence that the state requires that his punishment be merely the mild one of six-hour maceration. Fibular disintegration would be a more fitting punishment, if I may intrude a personal view, and . . ."
   The judge clears his throat, a sound for all the world like the death rattle of a foggus.
   "You may intrude nothing, fool," he says. "You should yourself have been macerated decades since. Proceed."
   (Here we see the clear thread of modern jurisprudential connection with the ancient Anglo-Saxon law: the judge as impartial arbiter, friend of no one, no one's foe.)
   "If it please," Dafton says, "I most humbly agree. The state rests." The judge speaks.
   "We will hear, briefly," he says, "the attorney for the despicable Merefirs."
   This is Terravan, the legendary Terravan, savior of lost causes, snatcher from the brink, whose tongue, they say, is gold—and all the rest of him, too. Merefirs, a mere civil servant, could not afford the price of a nod from Terravan, much less a five-minute appointment with him. Terravan has taken the case without fee and out of sheer bravado because no one else in this mega, or any other, would have the temerity. It is a hopeless case, and not only that . . . the assassination of a Regional Eminence? Any other lawyer would well know that if by wild chance he won an acquittal, exsanguination within twenty-four hours would be the very best he could expect. Terravan is beyond all that, being famous, rich, and deeply knowledgeable, as we say, as to where the bodies are buried. Such is the nature of things.
   
   So Terravan rises, a short, heavy, feral-looking man, barely a century old, full of fire and ferocity.
   "If it please," he says, "I will not contest the statement of Persecutor, uh, hm-m-m, Persecutor, ah, yes, Dafter, Dafton. My client, the assassin Merefirs, did in fact kill, or make dead, the Eminence Fallett. Of course he did, and with premeditation, with every intention. His sole purpose in attending the dedication was to strike down the Regional Eminence, and he did strike him down.
   "But that is not the point, as I shall make clear. I call to witness the assassin Merefirs."
   Two men in the ruby-red uniform of warders wheel him in, strapped nude to the witness-stretcher. From the bright life-support box at the head of it the usual wires and tubes lead into him and out of him, serous fluid pump, heart-actuator, oxygen supply, renal filter, waste-exhaust, and so on. When they have him in place at the foot of the bench, they switch the litter to upright, and there he stands, more or less, clamped. The spectators spontaneously applaud, and I must say I myself join in. From head to toe, Merefirs is spectacularly multicolored, and the pattern of the bruises, from the merest blush of pink through mauve and yellow to deep purple, clearly shows, as if he had been signed, the work of the famous chief warder Toddi. Toddi's preliminary witness-beatings are the despair of his competitors, and well they may be. Aesthetics aside, however, Merefirs does not look well. As a human person, he does not look well. He is by no means whole, various parts of him are missing, his head is notably lumpy—he simply does not look well, although I must say I have seen witnesses in much less important cases, matters of mere civic accident, for example, who were worse off. But, to be sure, they had been in hands other than Toddi's. And I knew even before he spoke into the microphone that his voice would be strong and firm. Toddi can spend a day and a night at his work, and yet, the witness will always be able to speak clearly. It's a kind of art, I suppose. But I mustn't digress.
   Terravan puts his client through the standard preliminaries, age, birth lab, citizen class, and all that.
   "Now then, assassin," he says, "when you made dead the Eminence Fallett, your weapon was not a dessicator, a defbro, a B-kel or any other common killing device, is that true?"
   "That is true," Merefirs says. The judge speaks.
   "Terravan," he says, "every idiot in the planetis knows he did not use a common weapon. You are wasting my time. I will remind you—once—that my patience is not unlimited."
   "I humbly thank you," Terravan says. "And if no common weapon, assassin, what did you use?"
   "I used a crossbow," Merefirs says. "Describe it."
   "The crossbow was a weapon of the ancients of the planet Earth," Merefirs says, "a sophistication of the plain bow, which was a piece of wood—a fibrous material that once grew wild—bent by a cord, throwing a second piece of wood called an arrow. The crossbow came to its full flower in the Sixteenth Century, Earth Reckoning, so there are few who know of it now."
   "Why, assassin, did you choose this obscure weapon?"
   "Because I could be almost sure that no one would recognize it as a weapon. Therefore, I could freely carry it, and easily approach the Regional Eminence."
   "Tell me," Terravan says, "how could you be sure that this primitive device would be effective in your foul purpose?"
   "A crossbow of the ancient Earthians," Merefirs says, "would throw an arrow through a thick piece of strong wood and through a man behind it. Also, it would hit an object as small as the palm of a man's hand at a long distance, say a hundred tontas. It seemed in every way suitable for my purpose, and so I built a crossbow on the patterns of the ancients, known to me through study."
   The judge interrupts.
   "So you admit, wretch, that you read, you studied, as you say, outside the curricula prescribed for Class II citizens?"
   "Yes."
   Terravan waits for the judge to speak again. He will not.
   "So you made ready your weapon, you approached to within twenty-five tontas of the Eminence and you killed him," Terravan says. "Why?"
   "Because he was a heretic," Merefirs says.
   
   A gasp, a rustling of whispers runs through the courtroom.
   "Animal!" the judge says. "It is not enough that you assassinated the Regional Eminence, you now defame his memory. This trial is over. The sentence imposed by the persecution is now confirmed. The gavel has . . ."
   "If the court please!" Terravan shouts. His voice booms through the room. Clever man! And quick! If the judge had pronounced the word "fallen" the trial would in fact have been over, and no appeal would have been possible.
   "I most humbly beg the pardon of the court," Terravan says. "I throw myself upon your mercy, O Judge. But I must, in fulfillment of my obligation as defender of this despicable criminal, say to you that the question of the Regent's orthodoxy or the lack of it does in fact go to the heart of the matter, and I pray leave to develop it. I can cite ample precedent."
   "Terravan," the judge says, "one day, you will outrage this court past tolerance. You are a proceduralist. Your obsession with the rights of the accused, as against the rights of the persecution, will eventually, and properly, bring you to the macerator."
   "I humbly agree with the court," Terravan says, not being an idiot.
   "Against my will, and against all reason," the judge says, "I will be generous. You may attempt to cite precedent."
   "I thank you. I cite the case of State versus Hamill, 1186/6V, Archive 29, Volume 617, Page 113, in which the court found that the clearly heretical belief of the defendant in monogamous male-female relationship bore directly upon his crime, even though that crime was most heinous, being in fact arglebub in the first degree."
   "You reach a long way for your precedent, Terravan," the judge says. "State versus Hamill . . . that was in the year 2125. You cite ancient history."
   "True, O Judge," Terravan says. "But—you will forgive my making an absurdly obvious observation to so learned a jurist as yourself—for the record I must point out that the verdict of the court in State versus Hamill was never overturned, and no counterprecedent was ever established."
   "An oversight," the judge says. "However, what you say is true enough. You may proceed. Take heed, however. You have been warned."
   "I humbly thank you, O Judge," Terravan says. "Tell me, assassin," he goes on, "in what way did you conceive the Eminence to be heretical?"
   Merefirs clears his throat. "I appear to be dying," he says. "Perhaps if the oxygen level could be . . ."
   One of the warders fiddles with the life-support system.
   "Thank you," Merefirs says. "To answer the question, when the Regional Eminence Fallett came to office he did, azulno, appoint me his Primary Postilion, and in this capacity I was privy to his communication core. On the twelfth day of Hobe, in this subera, I learned of his heresy. I was making a routine run-down of the core when I heard the voice of the Eminence—and, I may say, in synch with his image—dictating what was clearly an entry in his private journal. Obviously, he had forgotten to null the fansponder. I was shocked by what I heard. I was stunned. I reran the core, and I committed the entry to memory."
   "Please repeat it," Terravan says.
   "The Eminence said: 'Today I took food with that moron Javil. It was all I could do to appear to eat, realizing that this specimen of evolutionary disaster is Secretary to the Planetary Council. He went on at great length about the Venusian war. He wants me, in my subcapacity as Obliterative Authority, to support his resolution to throw Venus out of orbit. This is flaming nonsense: we will lose at least a million useful slaves. And, truly vomitous, I will of course have to go along with him, and he knows it.' "
   "That is the end of the quotation?" Terravan asks.
   "Yes."
   "You were naturally horrified to find that your superior, a trusted official, would entertain, much less record, such evil concepts?"
   
   The dough-faced Dafton rises. "I suggest to the court," he says, "that the learned Terravan is coaching his witness."
   "True," the judge says. "Furthermore, I warn you, Terravan, do not outrage this court by attempting to present your bestial client in the role of savior of the state, armed in righteous wrath. I warn you!"
   "Not at all," Terravan says, "but I will point out that the Eminence did in fact support the Javil resolution, and that the planet Venus, azulno, was in fact deorbitized. Therefore, the Eminence's private reservations did constitute heresy and he was in fact a heretic."
   "Terravan," the judge says, "this has nothing to do with the case before us. Your client, a loathesome sneak who abused his place of privilege by memorizing his superior's journal entries, heretical or not, still acted illegally in assassinating the Eminence. Your point is totally irrelevant."
   "I beg to disagree, O Judge," Terravan says. "I will cite further precedent. In the year 1139, Earth Reckoning, the Second Lateran Council, a duly authorized, although secular, governing body of the time, formally outlawed the crossbow as a weapon, forbidding its use except—and this goes to the heart of the matter—except against the infidel. The term 'infidel' was understood to mean one who did not profess the accepted faith, in this case Christianity, one of the ancient religions. To be classified an infidel one did not need to reject the entire faith in its every tenet: the rejection of the smallest part of it would suffice. Clearly, therefore, an infidel was a heretic. And clearly the Eminence Fallett, in rejecting the official policy of this planetis, the Venusian deorbitizing, was heretical."
   "And what of it?" the judge says. "If the Eminence was a heretic, he should have been brought to trial and duly macerated in the regular way. All this has nothing to do with the assassin Merefirs."
   "Ah, but it does," Terravan says. "For, you see, if the weapon my despicable client used was one that might legally be used upon a heretic, then, in using it, he committed no illegal act!"
   There is no sound in the courtroom. No one draws breath. The audacity of it! The sheer brilliance of the man! And now, seeing the balance tip, he presses on.
   "I can cite further precedent," he says. "While the crossbow passed from general use as a military weapon after the Battle of Marignano, in 1515, E.R., it persisted as a hunting and target weapon, on Earth, well into the Twenty-first Century. And in the Twentieth Century, in one of the American principalities, called Usa, it was again outlawed, this time as a hunting weapon. In other words, it was forbidden to be used against animals, but, most significantly, not specifically forbidden to be used against men. I argue that this further strengthens my contention that, in killing the Eminence Fallett with a crossbow, the assassin Merefirs did not act illegally."
   Dafton comes to his feet. "I too have studied the precedents," he says, "and I would point out to Terravan that it is not wholly true that the principality of Usa forbade the use of the crossbow against animals. In its final form, just before World War III, Usa consisted of fifty-two individual subdivisions, called states, and only fifty-one of them forbade the crossbow."
   He sits, looking desperately pleased with himself.
   The judge looks at him with obvious loathing. "You are a formidable antagonist in a court of law, Dafton," he says. "Terravan is no doubt terrified. But, nevertheless, perhaps he will be able to go on. You have more to say, Terravan?"
   "I rest my case, O Judge," Terravan says.
   "The court finds as follows," the judge says. "The Regional Eminence Fallett was a heretic. The assassin Merefirs killed him. But by his choice of weapon, Merefirs, standing upon the precedents cited by his counsel, is found not guilty of assassination, although he did assassinate. So much for that.
   "Azulno, the common statutes of the planetis forbid disclosure by a civic servant of material made known to him in the course of his duty. To breach this statute is, upon the arguments and precedents here cited by Terravan, clearly heretical. Thus, Merefirs is a heretic. He should therefore be indicted upon that charge, tried and macerated. However, in the light of what we have learned today . . . Warder, do you understand the workings of this weapon, this crossbow?"
   "Me, O Judge?" the bigger of the two warders says.
   "You, idiot!" the judge says.
   "Yes, O Judge, in a way I do understand how the thing works."
   "Good. You may demonstrate," the judge says.
   The warder takes the crossbow from the exhibition rack. He stands it on the floor, puts his right foot into the stirrup and his hands on the string.
   "If it please the court," Merefirs says, "May I speak? The warder should put one hand on each side of the string, not both hands on the one side."
   The warder changes his grip, pulls up with all strength until the string falls into its notch.
   "Now," Merefirs says, "you lay the arrow—it is properly called a bolt, or a quarrel—into the groove, the blunt end tight against the string."
   The warder does that.
   "Stand across the room," thejudge says, "and let us see if you can strike the assassin Merefirs in the middle of his chest. Have no fear. As Terravan has so convincingly proved to us, you will be committing no crime."
   The warder lifts the crossbow, peers down the length of it. Suddenly, almost without a sound, the arrow, short and thick as your thumb, flies across the room, nearly faster than the eye can follow, and buries itself Thump! in Merefirs' gaudy chest. His chin drops. The violet light on the life-support box winks out. A yellow light comes on briefly, and then, the red. The second warder reaches up and flicks off the switches.
   "Well done, Warder," the judge says. "Terravan, I congratulate you. You conducted a brilliant and original defense most successfully. Indeed, there is the mark of your success." He nods toward the body of the assassin Merefirs, still upright, a streak of blood leaking out of the black hole where the arrow has gone. "The gavel has fallen."
   The bench drops silently to the floor. The judge stands.
   "Terravan," he says, "let us take food together."
   The warders trundle Merefirs down the aisle under the admiring eyes of the spectators. The miserable Dafton futilely shuffles his papers. The judge and Terravan go off arm in arm, happy as babes. Such is the nature of things.