BOOK ELEVEN - !BUSTED¡
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX - “THE TRIAL!”
Forty-five
minutes Hurtian after his interrogation, Turpin is
escorted by uniformed shurts into the cluttered
office of Dr. Hamanavisqoo, Regency Criminal
Psychiatrist… a doglike creature who gestures to him to lie on the couch.
“Don't
wanna lie down,” Turp
protests. “Don't wanna
be here, as a matter of fact… I ain't bool. I guess I
did what the shurts say, but I can say so standing
up.
“I'm
afraid it's protocol,” and the shrink gestures to the four shurts. “Make him comfortable…”
Two
of the shurts lay into him with clubs and a stungat, the other two wrestle him to the couch and secure
him with wrist and ankle restraints as the doctor activates a camcom.
“That's
better. Are you comfortable?” the Doctor inquires.
“Comfortable? They’re cutting me…” Turpin protests,
shaking his wrists and trying to kick out, “…what are these things made out of,
anyway, ground glass?”
Hamanavisqoo sighs. “Snaker Turpin, you
seem anxious? Are you sure that you're comfortable?”
“I
told you…” Turp begins, then looks over his shoulder,
seeing his attorney staring at the wall.
“Are you going to do anything about this?” he appeals.
Omar
the lawyer ignores him and moves closer towards the wall, where a small brown
bug is crawling upwards. His hand
flashes out, snatches the insect and pops it into his mouth.
“Are
you always so nervous?” the Regency psychiatrist asks him again. “So angry? Do you always feel other
people are out to do harm to you? Is that why you feel so hostile towards
authority and the law?
“Jam
the Regency!”
“Do
you always feel so hostile towards authority?” Hamanavisqoo
drones on, as if from memory. “Your
parents, for instance… did you ever wish you could do harm to your father?”
“Jam
you… he's been dead years! What does
this have to do with my jammin' case?” Turpin snarls.
“Subject
is prone to usage of foul language, often of a sexual nature,” the shrink
explains, turning the camcom onto himself, then back
at the prisoner. “Have you ever desired
sexual relations with your mother?”
“You
jammin' veeb…” Turpin cries
out, straining against his fetters, “jammin' pile of rawth…”
“Is
it these feelings of persecution that make you feel entitled to flout the law?
“I
ain't lootootootie, you
are!”
“Might
be!” Hamanavisqoo smiles. “But I'm the Doctor… and you're the criminal!”
He
gestures again to the shurts who lay into him with
their weapons, all four of them, this time.
An
hour later, Rateyes and Turpin… both of whom have
been beaten and electroshocked into barely conscious pulp… slump in the dock in
Judge Spavery’s court with Omar, the lawyer standing by,
licking his withered lips at all of the tasty bugs inhabiting the Yellow
Palace. The Prosecutor is a tall, white-haired plud; alcoholic fumes wafting from his breath with his
every word as he lays out the basics of the case and every time he answers a
question from the Judge. Seated on the
public side of the bench are Crandall, Pimm,
Dr. Hamanavisqoo
and the witnesses against the accused… including the Sailors' Relief lady, Gif Maloom and Junkyard Tony.
“Has
the Regency’s advocate anything to add?” Spavery
finally asks, after the gorler has gorled and the witnesses have lied.
“No,
Your Honor,” the Prosecutor. We do note probable complicity of defendants and
perhaps others, yet to be apprehended, in other unsolved criminal acts -
including the disappearance of the gangster Ras Sihree and presumably retaliatory actions from
“Well
those charges subscribed to are sufficient, I would believe… unlawful entry
into a Regency Electromagnetic Preserve, vandalism to and theft of historical
resources, other incidents of theft and fraud, as attested to by the witnesses,
resisting arrest and destruction of Regency Probes, the murder of one Davis
Clegg the Fourth, vandalism to and theft of components of the… uh… medicinal ilaam, causing the death by misadventure of Dr. Kollucks in the course of criminal action… also a capital
felony… do you have anything to say for yourselves, boys? Counselor?”
“The
defense rests,” Omar fires back.
“Hai
Johanna we do!” Rats summons up the clams to speak out. “This trial…”
Two
of the shurts waddle in, shocking and beating the
defendant back into oblivion.
“Ain't talkin' to you, or you
either muckhead,” Spavery
frowns at Turpin. “I repeat… you have
been duly charged and indicated and the jury will render its verdict. Is there anything of a constructive or mitigatory nature that either defendant wishes to tell this
Court before sentencing? If I may be specific,”
he coaxes, “the identity of the so-called Collector, or the fourth member of
your crew… and we all know that such persons exist. Mister Turpin?”
Turp shakes his head.
“Frobisher?”
Rats
opens his eyes and then his mouth, from which a torrent of blood spurts. “Your Honor…” he
gurgles after a moment…
“Yes?”
replies the Judge. “I’m waiting.”
“Jam
yourself and the jammin' Regents.”
Shavery, smirking, shakes his
head and the shurts fall back. “So noted,” he says, banging his gavel down
to end the proceedings. The jury shall now determine, and I shall pronounce,
sentence.
With
a theatrical flourish, Crandall yanks the shroud off a Regency computer that, although
plasmic, is theatrically designed to resemble twelve
small humanoid heads. The computer
within whirrs and pronounces the verdict on a ribbon of tickertape that the
designers have incorporated to simulate the aura of a device hundreds of years
old.
Judge
Spavery reads the verdict to the defendents…
“Percival
Ray Frobisher, having duly and justly examined evidence and heard testimony,
the Regency finds you guilty of two counts of capital murder, theft and lesser
crimes… finding no mitigation and probable implication in many, many other
felonies, it sentences you to Tammawt, the death of
deaths. You shall be probed… your memories extracted to detect those with
memories of you who shall also have those memories excised; only then will you
be discorporated. Have you anything to say before
this Court?”
“Jam
the Regency! Rawth forever and will always be…”
A
nod from the Judge prompts Pimm to jam his club into
the prisoner’s midsection, muddling his words into inaudible groanings and grunts.
“About
as expected,” Shavery sighs again, wearily. “Timur Turpin, the
Regency also finds you guilty, but being of feeble mind, acting under the
influence and duress of defendant Frobisher, you have been adjudicated an
accessory, hence you are to be sentenced to imprisonment for the remainder of
your natural life in the Gileast Stockade, ineligible
for pardon or for parole. Have you anything to say?”
Turp glances at the limp,
bleeding Rateyes, spits blood of his own. “Nothing, sir!”
Al here. In my younger
days, at the Patent Office, I knew my way around Regency Law… hid behind it, to
tell the truth. A demise like Kollucks' wasn't
murder, shouldn't have brought even mawt by common dematting, let alone Tammawt. If
Percy Ray Frobisher, the thief and gambler, passed from the memory of men, many
yet cherish and remember Rateyes, the dreamer and bon
vivant who made hummucks of the Regents in death, and
never gave up a friend.
All in all, however, Rats and Turpin got the justice they
expected, if not deserved.
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