THREE WEEKS LATER
CHAPTER 15
They held a trial of sorts. Under Fuchs’s own prodding, the people of Ceres picked a judge by sorting through the computerized personnel files and coming up with a woman who worked for Humphries Space Systems as a contracts lawyer. A jury was selected by lot; no one picked was allowed to refuse the duty. For the defense, Fuchs represented himself. No less than the owner and barkeep of the Pub volunteered to prosecute the case.
The trial, held in the Pub itself, took all of forty-five minutes. Practically everyone in Ceres jammed into the rock-walled chamber. Chairs and two tables had been moved up to the bar to accommodate the accused and the counselors. The judge sat on a high laboratory stool behind the bar. Everyone else stood.
Six different witnesses told substantially the same story: Fuchs had asked Buchanan to go to Selene with him for a formal investigation of Ripley’s murder. Buchanan reached for the laser. Fuchs stabbed him with the power tool. Even Buchanan’s two companions admitted that that was the way it had happened.
Fuchs’s punctured beer goblet was presented as evidence that Buchanan had indeed fired his laser with intent to kill.
The only question arose when the prosecutor asked Fuchs why he had come into the Pub armed with the tool that eventually killed Buchanan.
Fuchs admitted openly, “I knew that he was a dangerous man. I knew that he had murdered Niles Ripley—”
The judge, sitting on a high stool behind the bar, snapped,
“That’s inadmissible. This trial is about you, Mr. Fuchs, not about Ripley’s death.”
With only the slightest of frowns, Fuchs said, “I was afraid he would be dangerous. I had been told that he had come to the Pub before and started a fight. And that he had several friends with him.”
“So you armed yourself with a lethal weapon?” asked the prosecutor.
“I thought it might be useful as a club, if it came to a fight. I had no intention of using it to stab him.”
“Yet that’s exactly what you did.”
“Yes. When he tried to shoot me I suppose I reacted without thinking of the consequences. I defended myself.”
“Very thoroughly,” the judge grumbled.
The verdict was never in doubt. Fuchs was acquitted, the killing called justifiable self-defense. Then the prosecutor displaced the judge behind the bar and proclaimed that there would be a round of drinks on the house for everybody.
Amanda was delighted with the outcome, but Fuchs was morose for the next several days.
“This isn’t the end of it,” he told her one night as they lay in bed together.
“Lars darling,” said Amanda, “you mustn’t let this get you down so. You acted in self-defense.”
“I really would have gone with him to Selene,” Fuchs said. “But I knew he would never do that. Never.”
“It’s not your fault that you had to kill him. It was self-defense. Everyone knows that. You mustn’t feel bad about it.”
“But I don’t!” He turned to face her. In the darkened room, lit only by the glow of the digital clock numerals in one corner of the wallscreen, he could barely make out the puzzled expression on her lovely face.
“I don’t feel bad about killing that vermin,” Fuchs said, in a low, firm voice. “I knew I would have to. I knew he would never listen to reason.”
Amanda looked surprised, almost fearful. “But Lars—”
“No one would do a thing about it. I knew I was the only one who would bring him to justice.”
“You knew? All along you knew?”
“I wanted to kill him,” Fuchs said, his voice almost trembling with fervor. “He deserved to die. I wanted to kill the arrogant fool.”
“Lars. . . I’ve never seen you this way.”
“What’s worrying me,” he said, “is Humphries’s reaction to all this. The negotiations for buying out Helvetia are obviously finished. Buchanan was part of his attempt to force us out of the Belt. What is he going to try next?”
Amanda was silent for a long while. Fuchs watched her adorable face, so troubled, so filled with care for him. He almost smiled. The face that launched a thousand spaceships, he thought. Well, at least several hundred.