The judge raised his eyebrows. “At very best that they were mistaken, Mr. Capra. I will grant you that their credibility is somewhat dented, and the lengthy testimony of Mr. Brenner should probably be subjected to a motion to strike.”
Capra nodded. “My feelings exactly, Your Honor. Now we come to the second alleged attempted murder: that of DI Carr. We have already established that the two officers in question may possibly also, at best, have been . . . mistaken, as to the door being smashed in before they arrived.”
“Objection!”
“On what grounds, Mr. Penquick?” the judge asked icily.
“Er. The defense is putting his own interpretation of events on the testimony of two respected officers!”
“He’s putting my words to their testimony. It is, in my opinion, a very generous interpretation. Continue, Mr. Capra.”
“Thank you, Your Honor. I’d like to call Dr. Liepsich of the HAR Institute of Technology as my first witness.”
An untidy, long-haired man proceeded to the stand, took the oath and scratched in his scraggly beard. Capra proceeded onward.
“Dr. Liepsich, you are head of the physics department at HARIT. I believe you are also chief consultant to the HAR defense force on Korozhet equipment. The soft-cyber and the slowshield particularly.”
The scientist grimaced. “For my sins, yes. Although I would have more luck explaining them to brain-dead first-year art students.”
Mike Capra persisted. “But you are the best expert on the function of the slowshields that the military issue to their troops.”
“Yep. Dead simple things, really. From the functional point of view. They harden if anything moving faster than 22.8 mph passes through the exclusion zone.”
“Can a soldier turn his shield off?” asked the defense attorney.
“Nope,” said the scientist. “They’re as idiot-proof as possible. They’re surgically implanted, draw power from the user’s electromagnetic field.”
Capra nodded. “And just what would happen if someone wearing one fired a pistol?”
Liepsich shrugged again. “Does the word ‘colander’ mean anything to you?”
The judge cleared his throat. “Could you stop speaking in riddles, Dr. Liepsich? Mr. Capra, what is all this about?”
The physics professor looked at the judge as a man might a beetle crawling out of his sandwich. “It means,” he said with an air of exaggerated patience, “that if your accused over there had shot the cop—as the other two cops testified he did—the ricochets inside his own slowshield would have killed him. It is a physical impossibility. He didn’t shoot anyone. He can’t. They lied. Is that clear enough?”
The prosecuting attorney had leapt to his feet. “Your Honor, I object to the witness drawing unsupported conclusions.”
The untidy professor looked at the attorney. “Meatball, when you have the intellect to manage elementary arithmetic without counting on your fingers, you can tell me I draw unsupported conclusions. In the meantime I suggest you go off and learn how to tie your own shoelaces.”
The judge was forced to resort to his gavel to quell the riot. “Dr. Liepsich, desist with abusing our learned friend. I caution you that if you do not moderate your tone, I might have to find you in contempt. What I meant was I wanted to know what this slowshield issue has to do with this case?”
Mike Capra cleared his throat. “M’lud, I don’t believe that the prosecution had seen fit to inform you that as of the fifth of last month, my client has been a volunteer, serving with the HAR defense force. He therefore has a surgically implanted slowshield. He therefore cannot have shot anyone on the afternoon of the seventeenth instant.”
The judge cocked his head. “He’s a member of the army?”
Capra nodded. “Yes, Your Honor. A private.”
The judge looked at the documents before him. “And he joined as a volunteer on the fifth?”
Capra nodded again. “Yes, Your Honor. It is a matter of public record.”
“Then I have no jurisdiction over this case. By the terms of Special Gazette item 17 of 11/3/29 he cannot be prosecuted for misdemeanors committed prior to this, while he is in the service. A foolish statute, in my opinion, but nonetheless, that is the law. And for any crimes he committed after that date, he should be tried by the military, not, thank goodness, by me. And anyway, it is my considered opinion that there is no case against this man.”