"So this is somebody’s idea of the presidential limo, is it?

Kirsten eyes the APC pulled into the driveway with disfavor. Andrews sits behind the wheel, his red hair blazing even through the thick glass, even under the shadow of his uniform cap. Manny, similarly decked out in his blues, grins and shrugs. "Hey, we tried for a Rolls, but we couldn’t find any with armor plating. South Dakota isn’t exactly prime mob country, y’know."

"Obviously you just didn’t look hard enough." Kirsten keeps her voice flat and stern, her face set in her who-failed-to-clear-the-lab-bench expression. Manny almost buys it; she sees the fleeting alarm cross his face, leaving behind a grin.

"My unworthiness bows before Your Excellency." He opens the passenger door for her, offering a steadying hand as she scrambles unpresidentially into the back seat. It is not just that these vehicles are not built for dignity. A message from Fenton Harcourt, delivered just before the Inipi ceremony and left unopened until Koda was once again safely in the daylight world, informed her that he expected final arguments this morning. Jury deliberations should begin after the noon break. She is, therefore, attending in her official capacity as the person who will sign the condemned’s death warrants if the jury invokes capital punishment. Also therefore, she is wearing the closest thing the Base can offer to a power suit: a pair of blue uniform trousers half an inch too long and an officer’s jacket stripped of its insignia, complete with mid-heel pumps. The last she had accepted only at Koda’s urging. Unlike the pants, they are almost her size, and will prevent her tripping on her own cuffs. The rest is bearable, mostly, but the shoes have already begun to pinch.

"I’m going to pass a law against these damned things. I swear I am," she says as she twists around in the confined space and is finally able to sit down.

"What, APC’s?" Manny says as he settles into the front passenger seat with an M-16 across his lap.

"Shoes with heels higher than half an inch. Tell me some man didn’t invent these things."

For answer, Manny gives a short laugh, then speaks into the wireless microphone clipped to his tie. "Armadillo Two, this is ‘Dillo One. Come in."

The speaker he wears just behind his ear crackles to life, barely audible to Kirsten in the back. "’Dillo Two in position. Over."

"We have the supplies, ’Dillo Two. Rendezvous as planned."

"Roger. Out."

"The supplies," Kirsten knows, consist of herself. Armadillo Two is a second APC,

waiting now at the Base gate, that will run escort for her own vehicle. Maggie’s new security arrangements had been waiting for her along with the Judge’s note when she had emerged from the bedroom to take a look at Jimenez’ findings. She is not yet sure how she feels about them, even though she knows she would have acknowledged the practical necessity had they been set up for anyone else. Still, a neat five-shot automatic nestles in its holster at the small of her back. She is too accustomed to relying only on herself to take easily to trusting others, much less depending on them.

She has begun to make exceptions, of course. The memory of the last few days runs sweet in her blood. Kirsten has never given herself over to anyone as she has to Dakota, and that trust extends beyond her lover to Koda’s family, who have made a place for her within their bond as confidently as she had been born to them. It is not just that they honor Dakota’s choice; it is as herself that she feels welcome.

And that is something entirely new.

The MP on duty at the gate waves their small convoy out with a salute. The countryside streaks past Kirsten’s window in a blur. Fallow fields, still marked by the furrows of the last winter plowing, before the uprising lie green under the clear sky, overtaken by grass and early wildflowers that show as patches of yellow and lavender and rose. Trees, newly leafed out, march along the lines of windbreaks; here and there a hawk circles lazily, and Kirsten wonders if one of them is Wiyo. Once she is almost sure she sees a pair of mule deer drifting behind the screen of saplings that top a rise; another time, Manny points out a humping black shape too large to be anything but a bear. Wolves she fears no more than other dogs, bobcats and pumas no more than other cats. She is not, however, sure how she feels about having a three- or four-hundred pound carnivore with bad eyesight and a worse temper for a neighbor. At least, she reflects, they are too far south and east for grizzlies. So far.

The road into town stretches empty for the first two miles, save for a squad of soldiers in an M-60 equipped humvee whose job it is to keep it that way. Since the near-riot before the gates and the incident of the drunks pot-shotting at the she-wolf, access to the Base has been strictly controlled. Closer to town, they pass a wagon loaded with rolls of hay that tower over the driver and his two mules; close still, a woman on a bicycle pauses at a farm-road intersection to check her tires. In her panier baskets are a dozen small parcels, some in plastic bags, others wrapped in paper. The market square Kirsten has observed the half dozen times she has gone into Grand Rapids has firmly established itself as a thriving commercial and social institution.

As they pass the former Wal-Mart lot, Manny points out his window. "Hey, there’s Leksi."

Peering, Kirsten locates Wanblee Wapka’s buckskin jacket and long ponytail moving awy from her down one of the aisles. He is pushing a battered Vespa borrowed from the inventory of surplus vehicles belonging to Base personnel lost in the uprising or since; a new pickup might be too much of a temptation to thieves. While Rapid City has settled into an approximation civil order, there is still no real law enforcement, and scavengers

from outlying ranches and farms have periodically staged snatch-and-run raids on both townspeople and travelers. It is a problem that will have to be addressed sooner rather than later; Rapid City needs a mayor and a police force of its own. The MP’s do what they can, but their primary duty restricts them to Ellsworth.

At the courthouse, Manny and Andrews escort Kirsten past a small knot of civilians gathered just inside the doors A murmuring precedes her, and follows her as she passes; several of the onlookers smile or wave. A few scowl, one turning ostentatiously away. Kirsten follows Andrews’ gaze as he marks the man, and a shiver runs down her spine. It is not the potential danger that chills her. It is the assumption of danger as the default condition.

Inside, a crowd packs the courtroom from wall to wall. The windows stand open to admit the afternoon breeze, and one or two spectators perch precariously on the narrow sills. Among them are half a dozen women that Kirsten recognizes as released prisoners from the Rapid City Corrections Corporation of America facility, their faces hard and expectant. In a corner, as far away from the others as she can manage, Millie Buxton stands among an anonymous knot of citizens. Only her colorless skin and the deep blue smudges under her eyes mark her off from the rest. The four accused sit ranged behind the defense table, McCallum Kazen and Petrovich hunching forward in conversation with Boudreax. Buxton sits slumped and indifferent, his chair turned so that his back is to the jury box. Boudreaux seems to be breaking off every few sentences, repeating what he is saying to Buxton, who gives no sign of hearing. If he had been thin before, he is gaunt now, cheekbones jutting so sharply from the planes of his face that they seem about to break through his skin. As she moves into the seats reserved for her and her escort, Kirsten catches a glimpse of his eyes. Lightless, sunken, they give no sign of thought behind them, only the stubborn endurance of unbearable pain. For the second time, cold ghosts across Kirsten’s skin. Dead man walking.

On the other side of the gate, Major Alderson sits quietly, his hands folded on a stack of closely written yellow legal pads. His assistant appears to be checking bookmarks, opening volume after volume of the traditional red-and-black embossed legal volumes. Some of her activity, Kirsten is almost sure, is stage effect; there is no precedent in case law for the legal conundrum that faces the men and women in this courtroom. If anything, it will create the pattern of law to come.

The crowd stirs expectantly as she and her escort take the seats reserved for them, again as the door leading to the judge’s chambers opens a crack, closes. After a moment the Bailiff emerges, coming to stand in the well of the court and bellowing, "All rise!" As the assembly gets to its feet with a creak of folding seats and a shuffle of shoe leather, Harcourt enters to take his place behind his high bench, followed by the Clerk and another Bailiff. The jury files in last. The Bailiff gives tongue again, calling the court to order. "Oyez! Oyez! The Court of the Fifth Circuit of the State of South Dakota is now in session, the Honorable Fenton Harcourt presiding. God bless the United States and this honorable Court!"

When silence has settled over the court, Harcourt sits. He says, "Are Counsel prepared to

make their closing statements this morning?"

"Yes, Your Honor," Alderson answers firmly. With a quick, doubtful glance at Buxton, Boudreaux responds, "Prepared, Sir."

Harcourt leans back in his chair. "Very well. The prosecution may begin."

Alderson rises from his seat and comes to stand at the rail of the jury box. He says, measuring his words, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the men who stand accused before you today"—he points to each as he names them—"McCallum, Petrovich, Kazen, Buxton, are charged with a crime that has no precedent in the jurisprudence of the United States. Your verdict will make the law that will determine how cases like theirs are handled for the foreseeable future. That burden, which you did not ask for, is on your shoulders and on your shoulders alone. It is a task I do not envy you."

He pauses a moment, then continues. "Do not allow yourselves to be daunted by the prospect. You will be doing your fellow citizens a service which will be of benefit to other communities, in this state and in others, as the free people of America begin to reclaim their country from the androids who have wrought so much destruction. It is the destruction that comes with war, with civil war, because it was our own that rose up and attacked us."

Alderson points a second time. "These men, these four men, are charged with assisting the enemy in an uprising that appears to have destroyed as much as two-thirds of the population of the United States. Presumably the peoples of other nations have suffered as badly as we have. Perhaps they have suffered worse. We are dealing with a holocaust here of a kind that has not been seen since the two World Wars of the last century. It may be that nothing like it has been seen since the Black Death wiped out between a third and a half of the world’s population in the thirteen hundreds.

"These men are accomplices in those deaths.

"Oh, they may not have killed anyone with their own hands. But they bought their lives from the killers. They failed to resist the killers. They co-operated with the killers in a scheme which, to be honest, none of us yet understands. For some reason these killers do not desire to wipe out the entire human race. For some reason they took women—grown women and girls not yet even into their teens—to breed a strain of men for purposes of their own. And these four men, taken captive in the jail where they were already imprisoned for crimes ranging from embezzlement to murder, were the stud bulls in that breeding project."

Alderson pauses for a long moment. The strain is plain on his face; the honest disgust; the lack of comprehension that niggles at them all when they have tried to explain the uprising. "Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard the testimony of the women who were these men’s victims. They committed forcible rape upon those women, and they did it willingly. They did it knowingly, and they did it repeatedly and routinely." Alderson’s fist comes down on the rail of the jury box with each word "They enjoyed it. Not once did any of them attempt to spare his victim out of common humanity. Not once. Not. Even. Once.

"They say they acted under compulsion, or rather the defense says they were forced by fear for themselves. But they did have a choice, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Some crimes are so horrible that common decency demands that a decent man lay down his life before he will allow himself to be entangled in them. These men had the choice to die where they stood rather than aid the enemy. They had the choice to die rather than cooperate in the purpose that led the androids to come perilously close to wiping us out as a people. They had the choice to die rather than violate those women in the most brutal fashion imaginable.

"Ladies and gentlemen, those four men did not make the honorable choice. When you retire to deliberate, I ask that you consider the evidence that has been presented to you and that you find them guilty of the crimes with which they are charged. And when you have done that, I ask that you make the choice they refused, and assess against them the penalty of death. Thank you."

"Damn straight,’ someone behind Kirsten mutters, and another, "Preach it, brother." She cannot see their faces without twisting about conspicuously in her seat, but those she can see mirror their grim satisfaction with the prosecution’s summation. Unless the jury is cut from an entirely different cloth than their neighbors, and there is no reason to believe that they are, they are doubtless equally susceptible to Alderson’s unexpected eloquence. From behind her glasses, she sees the same hard determination in the narrowing of Manny’s eyes, the dangerous tightening of Andrews’ mouth in something that is not quite a smile.

Boudreaux stands as Alderson returns to his own seat. Compared to the Major’s, his stance seems less confident, his shoulders rounded in a scholar’s slouch rather than the precise right angles of his opponents. His hands clasped behind his back, he seems almost to wander into the center of the open space bounded by the judges’ bench and the tables, finding himself half-surprised to be facing the jury. He pauses for a moment, looking down at the floor, or his shoes. Then he says, almost softly, "You know, I was very impressed by Major Alderson’s summation just now. He makes a persuasive case for finding the four defendants guilty. Putting them to death, even. A sound case."

McCallum lets out a yell and comes halfway to his feet before the Bailiff stationed behind him shoves him back down into his chair. Harcourt says quellingly, "Mr. McCallum, you will sit down and be silent, or I will have you removed from this courtroom. I will have order, Sir!"

When silence falls again, Boudreaux smiles faintly. "Even Mr. McCallum makes a good argument against himself." He pauses again, gazing over the heads of the jury, then lowering his eyes to meet theirs. "But we can say so, ladies and gentlemen, because none of is in his position. Please God, none of us every will be.

"Because none of us can say what we would do when faced with our own deaths until we have been in that situation. Oh, we all want to think that we have the integrity and the strength to resist temptation. We want to think that we’d have the courage to say no. But then, we don’t have to answer that question in just that way, do we?

"But it gets worse even than that for one of the men who stand accused before you. For Harold Buxton, the question was not what he would do to save his own life. The question was what he could do to save his wife and his daughter from rape and possible death.

"And the answer to that question, tragically, was to harm others."

A small stir erupts in a back corner of the courtroom, and Kirsten turns to see Millie Buxton making her way toward the doors, her face white and frozen with grief. Her husband’s eyes follow her for perhaps half a second, then drop blankly to his hands. A murmuring ripples through the room, instantly squelched by the rap of Harcourt’s gavel. "This is a public proceeding, ladies and gentlemen, but it is not an occasion for public comment. Do not oblige me to clear the court."

Silence falls, and Boudreaux resumes. "What would you do, to protect your spouse? What would you do, to protect your only child from horror? Faced with a choice between harming someone you loved and someone you did not know at all, which would you mark out for suffering? When you consider the fate of Harald Buxton, ladies and gentlemen, ask yourselves these questions, and let your answers temper your verdict.

"In all four cases, ask yourselves whether we have not had enough of dying. Ask whether, in our present condition, with perhaps as much as seventy-five or eighty percent of our population dead or captive, we can afford to discard one more human life, even the life of a man who has committed abominable acts but who even so has not fallen so far as to murder. A life for a life, ladies and gentlemen, whether that life is taken or spared. Thank you."

Only the rustle of papers breaks the silence as Boudreaux makes his way back to his seat. At the bench, Harcourt sifts through half a dozen sheets of printout and a pair of legal volumes marked with so many small post-its in so many colors that it looks like the business end of an old-fashioned feather duster. When he has found the passages he wants, he lays the books open before him. "Does the prosecution wish to offer rebuttal, Major Alderson?"

Alderson half rises in his chair. "No, Your Honor."

"Very well. I will now charge the jury." Harcourt pushes his glasses up onto the high bridge of his nose and begins to read from one of the heavy embossed volumes. As he details the legal definition of rape, assault, battery and the other lesser included charges, Kirsten allows her attention to wander. She had hated the ceremonial and bureaucratic aspects of her position as a Cabinet officer, the endless meetings, the wrangling, the trading off, the paper-pushing. Her role here is largely ceremonial, too, and she would by far rather be at home working on the android code. Or, better yet, sitting with Dakota before the fire, Asi sprawled at their feet.

But the atmosphere in this courtroom is free of both the cyicism and the zealotry to be found in government. The people who fill the spectators’ seats—the women brutalized by the four defendants; surviving residents of Rapid City, most of them women, too; the ranchers with faces and hands burned raw by the wind rolling unimpeded over the plains off the Arctic ice cap—sit in quiet solemnity, patient with the workings of justice. This community has begun to feel its way toward a framework of order. Perhaps other remnants, elsewhere, are even now faced with finding solutions to the same problem these face; perhaps their solutions are completely different. How would the Shiloh community handle a trial on a capital charge? And how, if she is successful in shutting down the droids, will she manage to draw together a collection of far-flung and disparate townships, villages, communes, no two with the same experiences since the world has changed?

She has never put it to herself in quite those terms before; has never dared. A lump of ice forms in her chest, its cold running down her veins, sheeting along her skin. How will I manage? Gods . . ..

With an almost palpable wrench, she forces her attention back to Harcourt’s charge to the jury. He has finished with the legal definitions and has gone on to outline the panel’s options.

" . . .is perhaps the heaviest part of the burden your fellow citizens have asked you to bear. If you find the defendants guilty, and I cannot impress upon you too clearly that you must make four separate decision, then you must turn your attention to setting the punishment. And here we encounter a difficulty.

"Before the uprising, your choices would have been to sentence a guilty party to death or to a substantial term in a federal prison, given that the federal conspiracy charges would take precedence over the state jail felony of rape. The option of a federal prison is no longer available, nor is either the Ellsworth brig nor the Rapid City jail sufficiently staffed to handle long-term inmates. Imprisonment is not a viable option.

"It is at this point, ladies and gentlemen, that you must, in essence, make the law rather than follow it. We are in the Fifth Circuit of South Dakota, but we are also in the lands traditionally inhabited by the Lakota, the Cheyenne and other indigenous Nations. Under their traditional law, a violent offender is exiled rather than executed so that continuing undesirable, indeed potentially tragic, consequences, and I urge you to approach it with caution. We are in uncharted territory here, and the precedents we set may well become the foundations of future law. Let us take up our responsibilities as the ancient Book of Common Prayer admonishes those about to enter into matrimony: soberly, advisedly and in the fear of God.

"The jury will now retire. Court is in recess until a verdict is reached."

Kirsten rises to her feet, stretching, bracketed by Manny and Andrews. Wonderful. Siamese triplets. On their way out, she is not surprised to see Blind Harry, his guitar slung over his back, making his way toward the door, his white cane tapping out a path in front of him. She is pleased to see that his cotton shirt still has the creases from its package; he has made himself a comfortable place within the new economy as tale-teller and news-bearer. Whatever happens in the next few hours, he will have a song from it, and an audience.

Andrews says, "We’ve got some sandwiches in the truck. Anybody want to try to find a lemonade stand?"

*******

Two hours and a tour of the market later, the sun casts long shadows along the open space in front of the Judicial Building. . The shade under the trees where Kirsten and her escort have taken possession of a bench begins to grow chill, and only a few stragglers remain on the streets. Of all the strange things she has encountered since setting out on her journey across the continent, this is among the strangest, that the night is no longer human territory. A small crowd, though, still lingers on the courthouse steps, waiting patiently, stubbornly, for the jury’s decision.

"Are they going to sequester them for the night?" Manny asks, glancing at his watch. "It’s past five, and we need to be starting back."

Andrews shrugs. "Want me to ask?"

As he starts to make his way across the flagstones, the knot of people around the doors stirs, and one of the Bailiffs appears. Kirsten gets to her feet, followed by Manny. The Bailiff, spotting them, stops halfway down the stairs and beckons. "They’re in!"

*******

Filing back into the courtroom, Kirsten feels the silence like a pressure on her skin. The audience has thinned, the seats now less than half filled, the murmur and shuffle as the judge enters and takes the bench now muted. Kirsten’s eyes, like the others’, track the twelve men and women as they file into the jury box. Their faces, set and still, give nothing away, not to the spectators, not to the defendants. Kazen stares at his hands, clasped on the legal pad before him. Petrovich and McCallum seem distracted, eyes flickering down the row of jurors, back again. Only Buxton seems entirely unaffected, lost somewhere in his own mind, indifferent to this moment as he has been to the trial from the beginning.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," Harcourt asks, "have you reached a verdict?"

The foreman, a tall Cheyenne with grey braids, answers, "We have Your Honor."

"If you will hand it to the Bailiff, please, Sir."

The Bailiff receives the folded papers from him and carries it to the Judge. Harcourt unfolds and reads it in unbroken silence. Finally he says, "The defendants will rise."

When they have done so, he says, reading from the documents in front of him, "Eric McCallum. On the first charge, of forcible rape, as defined by and pursuant to the criminal code of the State of South Dakota, the jury has determined the following verdict: guilty. On the second charge, of conspiracy, the jury has determined the following verdict: guilty. On the third charge, of murder as defined by the law of parties, the jury has determined the following verdict: guilty. In consideration of the gravity of your crimes, the jury has assessed against you the penalty of death."

For Petrovich and Kazen, the findings are identical. As the verdicts are read, an MP moves to stand behind each man, handcuffs ready. The Judge continues, "Harald Buxton. On the first charge, of forcible rape, as defined by and pursuant to the criminal code of the State of South Dakota, the jury has determined the following verdict: guilty. On the second charge, of conspiracy, and on the third, of murder as per the law of parties, the jury has determined the following verdict: innocent. In consideration of the gravity of your offense, but in consideration also of the threats to your family employed to procure your co-operation, the jury has assessed against you the penalty of exile."

Harcourt turns to the jury box again. "So say you one, so say you all?"

The foreman answers, "We do, Your Honor."

Harcourt nods, turning back to the defendants. "Ordinarily," he says, "your sentences would automatically be appealed. Unfortunately, there is no longer a superior court to hear your case. Also unfortunately, neither the civil nor the military authority has the means of maintaining you for an extended period. It is therefore the order of this Court that, at an hour and place to be determined, the sentences against you shall be carried out within two calendar days from the instant. May God have mercy on your souls."

Kirsten, sitting almost directly behind him, sees the shudder that passes through Buxton’s gaunt body. With speed that seems impossible for a man honed down to bone, he pivots toward the military policeman behind him, feinting with his right hand toward the man’s face. In the fraction of a second it takes the officer to react, Buxton snatches the pistol from the holster at his right side. "No!" she cries, pushing up against the arms of her chair. And then she is sprawled face-down on the carpet, staring at the scuffed boots of the person behind her, while Manny’s bulk pins her to the floor and shields her from the shot that goes wild, shattering the glass shade of one of the ceiling lights. She hears a second shot, muffled; and a woman’s anguished scream, "Hal, no! Oh, God, no!"

Something wooden, perhaps a chair, strikes the railing that divides the a well of the court from the audience; something else, not hard, strikes the floor. There is the sound of a brief, violent, struggle, grunts, blows struck. Turning her head to the other side, Kirsten can see only Andrews’ brightly polished black dress shoes, the line of his trouser leg, the muzzle of his M-16 as he stands between her and whatever is happening at the defendants’ table. "Manny," she gasps, "let me up!"

"Not yet," he answers. "Not until things are back under control."

"The MP, Buxton—"

"MP’s fine," Andrews says from above them. "Buxton’s dead."

Above the rest of the noise, Harcourt’s voice booms out. "Remove the prisoners! Bailiff, clear the court!"

More feet, more rusling of clothes. Finally the weight above her eases, and Kirsten pushes herself up to her knees, then takes Manny’s proffered hand to rise to her feet. Except for Harcourt, themselves and one Bailiff, the courtroom is deserted. Only a spreading crimson stain on the floor marks the spot of Buxton’s death. Harcourt says, "I apologize, Madam President. I should have realized something like this might happen."

Kirsten shakes her head. "He wanted to be found guilty and executed with the others; we all assumed he would be."

"There are papers to be signed. I can bring them to you later if you’d rather."

"No. Better face it and be done with it."

Something that might almost be an approving smile touches Harcourt’s lips. "Come back to my chambers, then. The Clerk will have them ready very shortly."

Quietly, still bracketed by her two guards, she follows him across the well of the court and through the door to the comfortable room beyond. The door closes behind her, Andrews still at guard.

*******

The moon rides high in the west as the small convoy speeds back toward Ellsworth through the dark. Kirsten, leaning against the back of her passenger seat, has forced her mind to blankness. Shutting out the plain printout sheets that had been set in front of her, shutting out the scratch of her pen where she had scrawled her signature to the right of the Judge’s. Half turning, Manny says softly, "You okay back there?"

"Getting there."

"We’re almost home. Hang in."

It is a long almost. But when she walks through the front door, into Asi’s exuberant greeting and Dakota’s arms, she is as well as she has ever been in her life.

*******

And yet again, we come to the end of another episode of The Growing. Hope you enjoyed. Drop us a line, if you feel the notion, at swordnquil@aol.com . See you next week!

Continued - Chapter 36