Rama 3 – The Garden of Rama by Clarke, Arthur C.

Nicole was silent for a moment. “Then is mere nothing we can do to convince them—”

She was interrupted by the triple buzz that indicated an incoming phone call was urgent. Nicole stumbled across the floor to answer it. Max Puckett’s concerned face appeared on the monitor.

“We have a dangerous situation here outside the detention compound,” he said. “There’s an angry mob, maybe seventy or eighty people, mostly from Hakone. They want access to Martinez. They’ve already terminated two Garcia biots and attacked three others. Judge Mishkin is trying to reason with them, but they’re in a nasty mood. Apparently Mariko Kobayashi committed suicide about two hours ago. Her whole family is here, including her father.”

Nicole was dressed in a sweat suit in less than a minute. Richard tried vainly to argue with her. “It was my deci-

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sion,” she said as she climbed on her bicycle. “I should be the one to deal with the consequences.”

She eased down the lane to the main bicycle path and then began to pedal furiously. At top speed she would be at the administrative center in four or five minutes, less than half the time it would take her by train at this time of night. Kenji was wrong, Nicole thought. We should have had a press conference this morning. Then I could have explained the decision.

Almost a hundred colonists were gathered in the main square of Central City. They were milling around in front of the New Eden detention complex where Pedro Martinez had been held since he was first indicted for the rape of Mariko Kobayashi. Judge Mishkin was standing at the top of the steps in front of the detention center. He was speaking to the angry crowd through a megaphone. Twenty biots, mostly Garcias but with a couple of Lincolns and Tiassos in the group, had locked arms in front of Judge Mishkin and were preventing the mob from climbing the stairs to reach the judge.

“Now, folks,” the gray-haired Russian was saying, “if Pedro Martinez is indeed guilty, then he will be convicted. But our constitution guarantees him a fair trial—”

“Shut up, old man,” someone shouted from the audience.

“We want Martinez,” another voice said.

Off to the left, in front of the theater, six young Orientals were finishing a makeshift scaffold. There was a cheer from the crowd as one of them tied a thick rope with a noose over the crossbar. A burly Japanese man in his early twenties pushed to the front of the crowd. “Move out of the way, old man,” he said. “And take these mechanical dolts with you. Our quarrel is not with you. We are here to secure justice for the Kobayashi family.”

“Remember Mariko,” a young woman shouted. There was a crashing sound as a red-haired boy struck one of the Garcias in the face with an aluminum baseball bat. The Garcia, its eyes destroyed and its face disfigured beyond recognition, made no response but did not give up its place in the cordon.

“The biots will not fight back,” Judge Mishkin said into the megaphone. “They are programmed to be paci-

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fists. But destroying them serves no purpose. It is senseless, inane violence.”

Two runners coming from Hakone arrived in the square and there was a momentary change in the focus of the crowd. Less than a minute later, the unruly mob cheered the appearance of two huge logs, carried by a dozen youths each. “Now we will remove the biots that are protecting that murderer Martinez,” the young Japanese spokesman said. “This is your last chance, old man. Move out of the way before you are hurt.”

Many individuals in me crowd ran over to take positions on the logs they intended to use as battering rams. At that moment Nicole Wakefield arrived in the square on her bicycle.

She jumped down quickly, walked through the cordon, and raced up the steps to stand beside Judge Mishkin. “Hiro Kobayashi,” she shouted into the megaphone before the crowd had recognized her. “I have come to explain to you why there will be no jury trial for Pedro Martinez. Will you come forward so that I can see you?”

The elder Kobayashi, who had been standing off to the side of the square, walked slowly over to the bottom of the steps in front of Nicole.

“Kobayashi-san,” Nicole said in Japanese, “I was very sorry to hear about the death of your daughter—”

“Hypocrite,” someone shouted in English, and the crowd began to buzz.

“… As a parent myself,” Nicole continued in Japanese, “I can imagine how terrible it must be to experience the death of a child.

“Now,” she said, switching to English and addressing the crowd, “Jet me explain my decision today to all of you. Our New Eden constitution says that each citizen shall have a ‘fan- trial.’ In all other cases since this colony was originally settled, criminal indictments have led to a trial by jury. In the case of Mr. Martinez, however, because of all the publicity, I am convinced that no unbiased jury can be found.”

A chorus of whistles and boos briefly interrupted Nicole. “Our constitution does not define,” she continued, “what should be done to ensure a ‘fair trial’ if no jury of

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peers is to be involved. However, our judges, have supposedly been selected to implement the law and are trained to decide cases on the basis of the evidence. That is why I have assigned the Martinez indictment to the jurisdiction of the New Eden Special Court. There all the evidence— some of which has never heretofore been made public— will be carefully weighed.”

“But we all know the boy Martinez is guilty,” a distraught Mr. Kobayashi cried in response. “He has even admitted he had sex with my daughter. And we also know he raped a girl in Nicaragua, back on Earth. . . . Why are you protecting him? What about justice for my family?”

“Because the law—” Nicole started to answer, but was drowned out by the crowd.

“We want Martinez. We want Martinez.” The chant swelled as the huge logs, which had been laid on the pavement soon after Nicole’s appearance, were again hoisted by the people in the square. As the mob struggled to set up a battering ram, one of the logs inadvertently crashed into the monument marking the celestial location of Rama. The sphere shattered and electronic parts that had indicated the nearby stars tumbled out onto the pavement. The small blinking light that had been Rama itself broke into hundreds of pieces.

“Citizens of New Eden,” Nicole shouted into the megaphone, “hear me out. There is something about this case that none of you know. If you will just listen—”

“Kill the nigger bitch,” shouted the red-haired boy who had struck the Garcia biot with the baseball bat.

Nicole glared at the young man with fire in her eyes. “What did you say?” she thundered.

The chanting suddenly ceased. The boy was isolated. He glanced around nervously and grinned. “Kill the nigger bitch,” he repeated.

Nicole was down the steps in an instant. The crowd moved aside as she headed straight for the red-haired boy. “Say it one more time,” she said, her nostrils flaring, when she was less than a meter away from her antagonist.

“Kill—” he started.

She slapped his cheek hard with her open hand. The smack resounded through the square. Nicole turned around

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abruptly and started toward the steps, but hands grabbed her from all sides. The shocked boy doubled up his fist—

At that moment two loud booms shook the square. As everyone tried to ascertain what was happening, two more blasts were detonated in the sky over the heads of the crowd. “That’s just me and my shotgun,” Max Puckett said into the megaphone. “Now, if you folks will just let the lady judge pass . . . there, that’s better . . . and then head on home, we’ll all be better off.”

Nicole broke free from the hands that were holding her, but the crowd did not disperse. Max raised the gun, aimed it at the thick knot of rope above the noose on the makeshift scaffold, and fired again. The rope exploded into pieces, parts of it falling into the crowd.

“Now, folks,” Max said. “I’m a lot more ornery than these two judges. And I already know I’m going to spend some time in this here detention center for violating the colony’s gun laws. I’d sure as hell hate to have to shoot some of you as well.”

Max pointed his gun at the crowd. Everyone instinctively ducked. Max fired blanks over their heads and laughed heartily as the people began to scurry out of the square.

Nicole could not sleep. Over and over again she replayed the same scene. She kept seeing herself walking into the crowd and slapping the red-haired boy. ‘Which makes me no better than he is, she thought.