AGGRAVATED VEHICULAR GENOCIDE

Arachne was a spiderweb spinning in space. Her strands were fullerene wire, cylindrical molecules of pure carbon a trillion trillion atoms long. The spin of the highly conductive web spawned a magnetic field megameters wide, which sucked in the hydrogen ions produced when Arachne's vast lasers illuminated the cosmic gas before her in her path. Concentrated by trillions in the silvery engine core at the center of the web, the dense, hot hydrogen was fired to still greater temperature by reaction with minute specks of antimatter, producing a fulminous spear of high-velocity exhaust plasma which drove the vessel on her long, lonely flight through interstellar depths.

An hour ago, Arachne had been coasting at 95.1 percent of lightspeed, her ramfield and lasers at low power, deflecting gas and debris away from herself rather than pulling it into her belly. Her crew had slept soundly in her cryogenic embrace, and she had maintained her vigil over them, looking in to ensure their lifesigns remained stable, looking out to ensure their path remained clear.

But then something had dragged Arachne to a dead stop.

* * *

Stephen Jacobs-Wong briefed the crew as best he could in the minutes remaining before the aliens docked. Cecilia LoCarno captained the ship, but Stephen led the colonists, so they looked to him as they sought to understand what had brought about their premature awakening one-point-six parsecs and one-point-eight time-dilated years short of their intended destination, Gamma Leporis V. The crew was split up between three habitat modules in case of disaster, but those not physically with him were listening via the intercom.

"Arachne woke the captain when she first noticed us slowing -- and then noticed the alien ships," Stephen told them. "According to Captain LoCarno, we went from point-nine-five c to practically zero in a matter of minutes." He strove to remain calm as he relayed this, to project that calm on the crew. Brown-skinned and Asian-featured, Stephen had the kind of handsome charisma that made people naturally want to follow him. It had served him well in his efforts to organize this expedition, to convince these forty people to risk the journey to a destination as remote as Gamma Lep. But the thing about waking up from nine years in cryosleep was that you looked and felt like you'd been asleep for exactly that long. The crew looked up at him blearily, like a mass advertisement for intravenous coffee. Stephen felt much as they did, but he strove to keep his gaze clear and reassuring. His outright shock at what had happened did a lot to keep him awake.

"From the Doppler shifts she observed in the starlight," he went on, "Arachne thinks the aliens hit us with some kind of gravity beam. Like a huge tractor beam."

Chaim Silbermann, the chief engineer, shook his head in awe. "The power expenditure must be incredible. Whoever they are, they really wanted us to stop."

One of the exobiologists, a small, delicate woman named Zena Bhatiani, asked a question that hadn't occurred to him. "Will we be able to talk to them?"

Arachne herself answered that one. "The alien computers established an interface with me several minutes ago," the ship reported over the intercom. "A translation program was initiated, but then terminated. This suggests that the computer recognized our language as one already in its database."

"Not too surprising," mused Silbermann. He was a stocky, bearded man in his robust seventies, just past middle age. "We've been broadcasting into space for centuries."

"Arachne, did you learn anything about them while you were interfaced?" Stephen asked.

"Only about their cybernetic designs and protocols. Nothing about the aliens themselves. They seemed reluctant to provide information."

"That's not good," opined one of the crew -- an opinion others echoed.

"We shouldn't jump to any conclusions," Stephen cautioned. "We don't know anything about them yet."

"We will soon," Arachne interjected. "They're sixty-eight seconds from docking."

"Zena, Chaim, I think you should come with me," Stephen said with the tone of a suggestion and the authority of a command. "The rest of you should stay here. Arachne will keep you posted."

"But what if they're hostile?" someone asked. "I mean, they dragged us to a dead stop without permission, without a word. That's hardly a friendly act. So shouldn't there be more of us there, just in case?"

"Look at us," Stephen countered with a sardonic grin. "We're just out of cryosleep, we can barely stand up. If they're hostile, the best thing we can do is try not to antagonize them."

"Forty seconds," Arachne prodded.

Stephen nodded at Bhatiani and Silbermann. "Come on."

* * *

Arachne had no docking port per se, since an interstellar vessel headed for an uninhabited system wouldn't be expected to take on passengers. But there were maintenance airlocks on the habitat modules. The alien ship -- which Arachne indicated was only one of numerous such vessels surrounding her -- attached a docking port of its own to the lock, after using some sort of gravity drive to match Arachne's rotation. The light emanating from the rear of the ships was not rocket exhaust, but seemed instead to be high-energy particle emissions from annihilation reactors.

Arachne's supplies did include stunguns for dealing with any hostile Leporian wildlife the colonists might encounter; but those guns were all in the landing craft, stowed hundreds of meters away from the habitat modules. So Cecilia LoCarno and the others had to meet their gate-crashers unarmed, and pray that they intended no harm.

The airlock opened and the first alien entered the ship, its long body barely able to fit in the lock. It was a tailed biped with an almost kangaroo-like build; but its arms were nearly as long and powerful-looking as its legs, with two fingers and two thumbs on each hand. Through its helmet, Stephen could see a long-snouted, blue-skinned head with a crest of bristly hair, or possibly some sort of sensory cilia, running from the "nose" to between its bulbous, chameleon-like eyes, which were sheltered under large bony crests.

As a second alien began cycling through the lock, LoCarno steeled herself and strode up to face the lead alien. "I am Captain Cecilia LoCarno of the Human ramship Arachne, from the planet Earth. Identify yourselves, and explain your reasons for interrupting our voyage." Lanky yet strong-looking, her severely cut hair gold tinged with steel, the captain radiated a confident authority which Stephen envied. But he'd seen the look in her eyes when she'd told him about the aliens and their gravity beams. Cecilia was as frightened as he was. This should have been thrilling -- first contact with an alien civilization, a rare event in human history, an extraordinary privilege for an explorer. So why, Stephen thought, did it feel like being pulled over?

The alien remained silent for a moment, probably listening to a computer translation. Then it opened its mouth, revealing omnivore's teeth, and began to speak. The translation emanated from its pressure suit's speaker. "I am Rillial. We are the Chirrn. We are the survivors of the vessel Lesshchi. Explain your reasons for destroying the vessel Lesshchi."

Four pairs of human eyes widened in shock; the aliens, now four in number themselves, watched the unfamiliar anatomy curiously. "What?" Cecilia finally asked.

"Explain your reasons for destroying the vessel Lesshchi. Is there a translation problem?"

"No, it's.... There must be some mistake. We haven't destroyed any ships. We're colonists, not fighters. Besides, we've all been in cryogenic sleep until you captured our ship. The only person who could've done anything is the ship herself. And Arachne would have no reason to destroy an alien ship." Unless she knew that ship posed some threat, Steven thought, seeing the same thought in LoCarno’s eyes. But Arachne had mentioned no such action.

"The Chirrn vessel Lesshchi," Rillial countered, "was destroyed by several high-powered beams of collimated light tuned to the ionization frequency of hydrogen gas. Do you deny that your ionizing beams are capable of pinpoint focus?"

"No," interjected Silbermann. "Um, I'm Chaim Silbermann, the chief engineer. The, uh, the lasers can be focussed. If the defense systems detect an asteroid or comet in our path, the lasers can focus to vaporize it before it hits."

"Chaim!" LoCarno hissed, glaring at him.

Silbermann shrugged, then turned back to the Chirrn. "But... but we couldn't have destroyed your ship. The system checks for engine emissions and such before it locks on to fire. If your ship had been in our path, Arachne wouldn't have shot it. She would've vectored our thrust, tried to veer off."

Arachne spoke up. "Captain, I did fire on an obstacle shortly before the Chirrn captured us. But there were no emissions indicative of propulsive engines, and no indication of a lightsail. And I estimate the size of the object at twenty to thirty kilometers, which is far too large for a spacecraft."

Rillial's eyes swivelled to focus on LoCarno once more, but not before taking in all four humans. "The vessel Lesshchi did not have propulsive mechanisms as you would understand them. It was maneuvered gravitationally."

"But your ships have particle exhausts," Arachne observed. "No such exhaust was noted from the obstacle -- which was far larger than your ships in any case."

"The vessel Lesshchi was not a transport vehicle. It was our home. The Chirrn do not dwell on planets, as you do. We dwell in vessels which travel between the stars. Vessels which house thousands of Chirrn."

"Oh, Great Mother," Stephen breathed. "There is a translation problem. 'Vessel' doesn't just mean 'ship,' it means 'container.' Like something which contains an artifical environment. Cecilia, they're saying the Lesshchi was a space habitat!"

"Correct," Rillial said. "Lesshchi was habitat to over eight thousand seven hundred Chirrn. We survivors number less than three hundred fifty. All the rest--nearly eight thousand four hundred of my people--are dead."

"Eight... thousand people?" Stephen gasped. "And we... we killed them?" The shock overcame him in his weakened state. His legs folded beneath him, but Chaim Silbermann caught him and held him upright. Yet the engineer looked none too steady himself.

The captain showed no reaction, silently meeting the alien's accusing gaze. Finally she spoke. "I'll believe it when I see proof," she said coldly.

"Cecilia!" Stephen cried, stunned.

"And you shall see it," Rillial told her. "Your vessel will be towed to the site."

The captain nodded, then turned to meet Stephen's disbelieving gaze. In humanity's technically advanced society, where almost any physical evidence could be falsified, where only an expert forger or simulation artist could recognize a forgery or a simulation, the word of honor had become a precious commodity. Breaking one's word was a taboo on a par with rape, and questioning another's word was a heinous accusation. It was the only way society could survive when illusion became indistinguishable from truth.

"I know, I know," Cecilia whispered, as aware of this as Stephen was. "But they're aliens. Who knows how they think?"

Stephen expected that beings so much more technically advanced would have an even greater need for honor. And if Cecilia couldn't trust them, how could she trust their evidence? It didn't seem to make sense.

Then again, Stephen realized, he couldn't blame her for not wanting to believe the Chirrn's accusation. He didn't want it to be true either.

* * *

Words of honor aside, perfect forgeries aside, there was still nothing quite so potent as seeing a thing before your eyes. And Stephen could only wish he didn't have to behold this sight.

The Chirrn habitat had been a vast, rotating cylinder constructed from an asteroid, apparently using the same basic techniques that human spacers had used for over a century. Now it tumbled and drifted erratically through space, the sheer size of the habitat making its wild motions seem slow, almost stately.

One end of the iron-nickel cylinder had been blown completely open, the ragged, melted edges a testament to the sheer heat and power of Arachne's lasers. When the opening tumbled into view, Stephen could see the charred, lifeless remains of forests and fields; Chirrn-made lakes and riverbeds robbed of most of their water, with what remained glistening as ice; Chirrn cities burned, wrecked and devoid of light or movement. One city had been ripped clear through, its twisted, melted towers jutting from the open end of the mangled cylinder.

Stretching back behind the habitat was a long, expanding trail of debris, bits and pieces of an advanced civilization torn apart into meaninglessness. Stephen tried not to look too closely at the debris. He knew some of it was organic. Some of it was Chirrn. Some of it was children.

Rillial stood behind the captain and Stephen at the viewport, and spoke in a tone whose coldness was clear even through the barriers of mechanical translation and alien inflection. "Your beams hit near the southern end of Lesshchi and melted through in milliseconds. The air inside was superheated instantly, cooking us by the thousands. The pressure hastened the rupturing of the hull, and the outracing air blew the southern end completely away."

Arachne spoke, her synthesized tones lacking inflection. Perhaps she was too shocked to simulate human speech mannerisms. "I fired at one end of the perceived asteroid," she explained, "in the hopes that the catastrophic vaporization would provide enough pressure to propel the remainder out of our path." There followed what for a cyber was a lengthy pause. "Now that I think about it, the asteroid's subsequent acceleration suggested a much smaller mass than I'd assumed from its size. As though it were hollow."

After a pause (for no one knew how to respond to that), Rillial continued its tale. "Only those of us who were inside the infrastructure at the northern end were spared from the heat and the vacuum, but many of us were killed by the turbulence of the explosions and hull ruptures. Most of us who survived were already in our ships at the time; very few others were able to reach ships before death reached them." Rillial turned to spear the captain with its gaze. "A death for which you will be held responsible."

Cecilia glared at the alien angrily, but maintained her calm. "I agree this was a great tragedy... Rillial." They still didn't know whether the alien was a Mr. or a Ms. "But we did not do this knowingly. It was an accident."

"In space, accidents are usually fatal. To fail to guard against accident is intolerable negligence. Only a planet-dweller would claim accident as an excuse." Though it was hard to read the alien's emotions, Rillial seemed to say "planet-dweller" with considerable contempt.

But as Stephen stared out at the wreck of Lesshchi, he couldn't help but feel that contempt was justified. "Rillial..." he began hesitantly, "is there anything we can do to help you? To try to make up for what we've--"

"Stephen!" LoCarno warned sharply. She pulled him aside and spoke quietly, no doubt hoping the Chirrn translators wouldn't pick up their voices. "Don't say anything that would imply culpability on our part."

"But--"

"I'll make it an order if I have to. We have to think clearly. It's a horrible thing, yes, but we don't know what they plan to do to us. We don't want to say or do anything that would make it easier for them." She quailed at the expression in Stephen's eyes. "Don't look at me that way. I feel for them too. But my duty is to the passengers and crew of this ship, and to the hundreds of frozen embryos we're carrying. I have to place their interests first.

"What you were about to say could've been taken as a confession. And there's no telling what consequences that would have in their legal system. If they even plan to use their legal system, instead of just taking revenge. We don't know what they'll do. So we have to be on our guard, no matter what we may feel for their dead."

Stephen sighed heavily, but nodded. He'd been weakened by the cryosleep and the shock he'd faced upon awakening; but he was a leader, a pioneer, and he could accept cold realities. "Okay. So we need to find out what they plan to do next."

* * *

The next step, according to Rillial, would be a trial to determine the humans' culpability in the destruction of Lesshchi. The refugees proceeded to tow Arachne and her crew to the nearest intact Chirrn habitat. This took surprisingly little time -- less than a day, in fact. Perhaps the Chirrn habitats travelled in packs; perhaps their ships gravitically accelerated Arachne to within a very small fraction of lightspeed, time-dilating them by a factor of thousands; perhaps, for all Arachne's crew knew, the Chirrn had hyperlight drive. Not only would the Chirrn tell them nothing, but they confined the crew in windowless rooms and blinded Arachne's sensors.

Before towing Arachne, they had made her reel in the fullerene web and halt her rotation, leaving the crew in freefall. This gave the Chirrn guards a significant advantage, for their forms seemed finely adapted to life without weight. In microgravity they were sinuous and graceful--long, almost serpentine bodies sliding through the air, grasping handholds with fingers and toes, using their powerful tails and flexible spines to maneuver like cats twisting in midair. Now that contamination tests had proven it safe, the Chirrn had discarded their pressure suits, under which they wore only utilitarian vests; they had no sign of genitals in the usual place, so their sexes remained unknown. Behind their eye ridges, their bristly snout-hairs gave way to long, horselike manes which trailed elegantly behind them as they maneuvered in microgravity. Their skin colors were predominantly blues, often shading into violet or green. The manes seemed to come in all colors of the spectrum. Whether this was natural or cosmetic was unknown, for the Chirrn seemed unwilling to reveal anything about themselves to the humans they guarded.

Perhaps this was more than just secretiveness. The Chirrn made no secret of the fact that they blamed the humans for the deaths of their loved ones, the destruction of their homeland. It took barely an hour before a group of Chirrn guards snapped and attempted to beat their prisoners to death. Fortunately, most of Arachne's crew had been raised in Earth's high gravity and were able to defend themselves against the lighter Chirrn until Rillial arrived to impose order. Still, three of the crew, including tiny Zena Bhatiani, had needed serious medical treatment. And though Rillial reassigned the guards, the alien leader offered no apologies. "For myself," Rillial told them, "I would have happily joined them in killing you all. But there must be law. The tribunal will judge you."

* * *

As soon as the humans were brought into the Chirrn habitat named Shilirrlal, they were subjected to thorough medical examinations followed by a lengthy and unpleasant decontamination process -- stripped naked, then collectively herded through a series of chemical immersion baths, uncomfortably hot "room-temperature" plasma bursts, nanotech "cleansings" of their respiratory and digestive tracts, and unknown other processes before finally being handed simple, ill-fitting garments which the Chirrn had synthesized for them. It was unclear why this was necessary, since the aliens' own tests had shown Terran and Chirrn biochemistry to be too different for infection to occur.

Then the prisoners were brought out into the open. Hundreds of Chirrn were watching, fascinated by the sight of the humans, but remaining at a distance as though they were somehow unclean. Stephen looked up to see a live image of himself and his crewmates on a large holoscreen in a nearby plaza. He realized that their decontamination must have been broadcast to the public. The entire procedure had been symbolic, to reassure the citizens of Shilirrlal that they would not be contaminated by the impure aliens. Stephen blushed fiercely. He wasn't modest about being seen nude, certainly not by aliens; but the knowledge that so many had watched the humiliating procedure made him ashamed, on behalf of the entire crew. He looked at Cecilia, and saw her realizing the same things he had; but her expression was bitter cold.

Shilirrlal looked as Lesshchi must have before it was destroyed. Presumably it was a typical asteroid-built cylinder on the outside; but inside, it was uniquely Chirrn. Everywhere towers and terraces soared above the humans' heads, along with lattices stretching toward the central axis, climbed by vegetation and by Chirrn. It was an odd visual paradox; the architecture seemed to be striving for the sky, yet at the same time enclosed and introverted, for the sky was in the center of this wraparound world.

True to their kangaroid build, the Chirrn moved by hopping, keeping their bodies and tails horizontal as they leapt forward, assuming a vertical posture only at rest. They built large, to accommodate their long bodies and bounding locomotion. Stairways had only two or three steps between one story and the next; sometimes Chirrn would bound directly to a higher level, pulling themselves up with their arms like a cat leaping onto a high perch. Sometimes they climbed ladders and lattices with a brachiator's agility, grasping with fingers and toes.

A few hundred meters above ground level was a large, open framework forming an inner cylinder, the conduits over a meter thick and dozens of meters apart. Inside it, Chirrn soared in free fall from one tower, one terrace, one handhold to the next. Up ahead, Stephen saw a large globe of water jiggling through the air with small Chirrn swimming gaily through it. "Could that framework be generating some kind of antigravity field?" he asked Chaim Silbermann, speaking quietly so as not to antagonize the guards.

"Well, there's no real gravity to begin with, just rotation. In the air, it's the Coriolis winds that shove you sideways and out, toward the ground." The bearded engineer peered at one of the conduits as they passed underneath it. "I'd guess the framework's somehow isolating the air in there, keeping it still. Maybe their gravity technology; maybe just magnetic or optical particle manipulation. Who knows?"

"Well, whatever the reason, it's beautiful," Stephen said as he observed four brightly colored Chirrn flying intricate patterns around each other in what could be a sport, a piece of performance art, a mating dance or all of those. "This is what we destroyed, Chaim," he breathed, and his view of the aerial dance was blurred by tears.

There was a long pause. "I know," Silbermann finally said, almost too softly to hear.

* * *

Though Shilirrlal's rotation produced less than sixty percent of an Earth g, not all of the humans were able to traverse the Chirrn's high steps and climbing-lattices. The forty prisoners were taken up into the towering justice center by a cargo lift.

During their processing (Stephen wondered if "booking" was a fair analogy), they were provided with earplug translators. The devices were receive-only; presumably the Chirrn had their own earplug or implant translators already. "That's odd," Cecilia observed after they'd been confined. "They seem so isolationist, so disdainful of other races. You wouldn't expect them to use translators on a regular basis."

"I don't think it's all races they dislike," Zena Bhatiani told her. "They seem to have a specific bias against planet-dwellers. When the guards... attacked us...." Zena shuddered, understandably. Even after a day in a medbed, she still bore bruises and scars. "The things they said, the insults.... 'Ground-vermin.' 'Dirt-grubber.' 'Well-digger.' "

"'Well-digger'?" Cecilia asked.

"I guess like a gravity well. A planet." She tilted her head. "And maybe also because digging a well is something you can only do on a planet. Anyway, their use of translators suggests they do interact with other races. They just don't like ones that live on planets."

"That must narrow their list of friends a great deal," the captain said.

"I don't know. The number of humans who now live in space habitats instead of planets is close to a billion. And we've hardly met any aliens yet."

The discussion was interrupted by the opening of the cell door. An atypically stocky Chirrn, turquoise-skinned with a yellow-white mane, trotted into the large, austere chamber and surveyed the prisoners. "Are there any among you who are not of planetary birth?" was the being's first question.

Cecilia stepped forward. "Why do you want to know?" she asked.

"Are you of non-planetary origin?"

"No. I was born in Venezia on the planet Earth and proud of it. I also happen to be the captain of this group, so I'm the one you speak to. Now, just what have you got against planet-dwellers?"

The Chirrn looked around at the crew, ignoring her. "I am L'chellin. I have been assigned as your advocate for the tribunal. I advise you that it would be in your best interests to choose one not of planetary birth to speak for your crew. I repeat my query."

Cecilia moved before L'chellin, meeting its chameleon gaze firmly. "And I repeat, I'm the captain," she said sternly. "I speak for this crew, and you're going to have to accept it. Now, I asked you a question."

The alien made a sighing sound, its snout-bristles ruffling. "Very well. But you will have to live with the consequences of that choice."

"I'm waiting for an answer," Cecilia went on implacably. "We have a right to know -- are we going to be tried fairly, or persecuted due to our origins? We need to know just how deep this anti-planet bias of yours runs."

L'chellin rotated its eyes back into its head, like a human pressing one's eyes shut in weariness. "We believe ourselves to be a rational people," it said. "Our civilization has thrived for over ten thousand years." (Later, Silbermann would point out that the translator was handily converting base-eight numbers into their base-ten equivalents -- another indication that the Chirrn routinely interacted with other species, species with different numbers of fingers.) "But our... discomfort with planet-dwellers is deeply rooted in our history.

"Our primitive ancestors evolved on the planet Shayal. When the ability to enter space was devised, many of our ancestors left Shayal and became the first Chirrn, building their own worlds which proliferated throughout the system of the star Roj.

"But those who refused to leave Shayal failed to learn the responsibility for their ecosystem that space-dwellers must learn quickly. In their sloppiness they fouled Shayal, and came to depend on the Chirrn for support. Sadly, the Chirrn were subject to their rule, and were forced to submit to ever-greater demands." The advocate's recitation had the tone of a story learned in childhood and swallowed whole. "Finally the Chirrn rebelled against the tyranny of the Shayaln. The wars lasted for many decades, bringing great death.

"Naturally, the Chirrn had the advantage. Their resources were greater, not limited to what a single planet could offer. They could block the Shayaln's sunlight, reducing their energy supplies. And the Shayaln were at the bottom of a gravity well, where they could be easily bombarded. But the Chirrn held back, out of compassion for their planet-dwelling cousins.

"But the Shayaln's isolated, poor existence had twisted their morals. They showed none of the restraint of the Chirrn, attacking ruthlessly at every chance. Peace talks were used as opportunities for ambush. Medical ships were destroyed, biological weapons were used, against all laws and treaties." L'chellin lowered its head. "Finally we reached the point where we could not tolerate coexistence with the Shayaln. Many argued that we should crush them utterly. It would have been easy to bombard the planet with asteroids until it was barren of life. But we had more decency than that. Instead, we chose to leave the Roj system forever, and live among the stars.

"It proved the best decision we ever made. It liberated us. We were no longer restricted to the orbit of a single star. We could discover the universe without leaving our homes."

L'chellin looked back at the captain again. "So you can understand that to live on a planet, to trap yourself within a gravity well and spend your entire existence in one place, is inconceivable to us. It would be the worst form of imprisonment. And, given what the Shayaln did to our ancestors, we feel it must twist beings' minds and morals beyond the point where they can be civilized. To us, planet-dwellers are dangerous savages who must be avoided at all costs." L'chellin tapped its hands against its brow ridges, as though symbolically hiding its eyes; this seemed to be a gesture of unhappiness. "And what you have done to Lesshchi only reinforces this belief."

"Now wait a minute, mister or Ms. or whatever you are --"

"I am currently male."

Cecilia decided not to touch that one. "I thought you were supposed to be defending us in this trial."

"Do you deny that your collimated-light projectors destroyed Lesshchi?"

"No. But it was an accident. We didn't even know what Lesshchi was until its survivors dragged us out of relativistic. We're sorry for what happened. Deeply sorry. We try to be a peaceful people, to respect all life. But accidents happen.

"So the question, Mr. L'chellin, is: do you accept that it was an accident, and are you capable of doing your best to persuade this tribunal of that fact despite their anti-planetary biasses? Or is your role just a formality in a -- a show trial whose outcome is already decided?" For a number of reasons, she had chosen to avoid the phrase "kangaroo court."

The Chirrn's eyes swivelled to focus on hers. "I take my duties seriously. No space-dweller who executes one's duties sloppily can expect to survive for long. My role is to participate in the search for the truth and the determination of justice. I will not allow myself bias in that pursuit."

Cecilia stared searching into those alien eyes, seeing nothing she could recognize... save for his unwavering gaze. "All right," she finally said. "That sounds pretty much like the role of the attorney in our legal system, so I can accept it. Now how much time do we have to work out a defense strategy...?"

* * *

Another translation glitch: in the Chirrn legal system, the role of the "advocate" was not to speak for the accused, but merely to advise the accused in legal principles and procedures; the defendants were expected to speak on their own behalf. This, L'chellin explained, was why he had advised them to choose a non-planetary native as their spokesperson; such an individual would be seen more sympathetically by the tribunal.

The tribunal panel consisted of six Chirrn who sat behind a long, raised construct not unlike a judge's bench. The tribunes were elected by the people, but would serve the approximate role of a jury. Before them in the center was the arbiter, who would ensure that proper procedures were followed; this individual filled some of the functions of both judge and bailiff. Along the sides of the courtroom were witnesses' benches, and the rear contained limited audience seating.

It seemed to Stephen like a reasonable setup. He wondered if the Chirrn, like some human cultures, had gone through a period in their past when the courtroom had become an arena for combat between self-serving lawyers rather than a place to seek the truth. Perhaps the prominent position of the tribunes and the relatively subordinate role of the advocates was a reminder that the lawyers were there to serve the clients and the jury, not the other way around.

Perhaps in keeping with the diminished role of the attorney/advocates, there were no opening statements. The tribunal began with the arbiter briefly spelling out the basics of the case: the involved parties, the charges, and so on. It then proceeded directly to what was called the stating of grievances.

Rillial, as a representative for the aggrieved parties, spoke for the prosecution. The cobalt-skinned, mahogany-haired Chirrn (who, according to L'chellin, was "currently female") spent considerable time describing the exact details of the destruction of Lesshchi, including a listing of all the familial or clan groupings which had lost members or been exterminated in the event. LoCarno objected to this as prejudicial, to which the arbiter countered that it was necessary and proper to identify the aggrieved parties in a legal proceeding, normally by name and family, but in this case only by family due to the sheer number of victims.

Cecilia offered no more objections and asked no questions -- partly as a way of pointing out that she and her entire crew had been unconscious during the incident and thus had no perspective of their own to counter with. As Rillial continued her litany, her intense emotion barely hidden under her courtroom formality, Cecilia sat quietly, seeking to project an air of sorrow without guilt. Few others of the crew were able to maintain such reserve as Rillial spoke of the horrors which their ship's defenses had wrought. The Chirrn audience and witnesses were even more severely agitated, some seeming ready to attack the humans; so after Rillial's presentation, court was adjourned for several hours to give them time to calm down. (Apparently the Chirrn had no regular day/night cycle, since that was a planetary sort of thing; Chirrn slept when they had nothing else to do.)

When the tribunal reconvened, it was the defendants' turn to explain the circumstances under which they had become involved in the incident. This part was handled by Stephen. "My name is Stephen Jacobs-Wong," he told the tribunal. "Twenty-eight objective-time years ago, in the Earth year 2147, I organized an expedition to colonize the planet Gamma Leporis Five, which orbits the larger, yellow component of a binary star system twenty-nine light-years from Earth. An automated probe to that system had shown that planet to possess the right conditions to support terrestrial life forms, and had shown no sign of intelligent habitation of its land masses.

"Twenty-six objective-time years ago, we set out for Gamma Leporis in the starship Arachne, commanded by Cecilia LoCarno. In addition to forty live humans and our colonization supplies, Arachne carries frozen embryos and genetic matrices of many terrestrial organisms, including six hundred frozen human embryos, which we would gestate upon settlement, using both artificial equipment and the wombs of our female members."

"You forty," one of the tribunes asked, "would raise six hundred young?"

"Well, not all at once. The embryos would be used gradually to boost our numbers and help us build a stable, diverse population base. We anticipate it taking two or three generations before all six hundred are born.

"Anyway, in order to minimize power and resource expenditure on our voyage, it was decided that all the settlers would make the journey in cryogenic hibernation, and that Arachne would be provided with a fully sapient brain which would run the ship. The captain and necessary crew could be awakened if a crisis arose."

Ship's logs were produced as evidence that the entire crew had been in suspended animation at the time of Lesshchi's destruction. This was supported with the results of the Chirrn's own medical tests of the forty humans, which did show signs of recent awakening from cryosleep. Rillial countered that the accuracy of such tests was limited, especially with regard to a species never before encountered in the flesh, and that the same results could prevail if some or all of the crew had been awake before the "attack" on Lesshchi.

"I object!" Cecilia shouted. "There are no grounds for characterizing this incident as an attack, or an act of deliberate malice. The evidence clearly indicates that these events were not premeditated, and there is absolutely no basis for any contrary opinion.

"After all -- you Chirrn don't exactly go out of your way to make contact with planet-dwelling races. We had no idea you even existed before these events. So how could we possibly bear you any malice, or wish to attack you?"

"Because you're dirtballers!" came a cry from one of the Lesshchi survivors. Rillial and the arbiter urged quiet, but this merely triggered more shouting from the embittered Chirrn. The arbiter ordered another recess to allow calm to return.

Upon reassembly, the head tribune, a garnet-hued male with a sherbet-orange mane, spoke. "This panel concedes that there are no legitimate grounds for the assumption of deliberate malice on the part of the crew of the starship Arachne. All defendants, regardless of the circumstances of their origin, are subject to protection from unfounded charges. This issue will not be raised again.

"However," the tribune continued, "there remains the charge of culpability due to negligence. This issue will now be debated."

"Pardon me, Honored Tribunes." It was L'chellin, who stepped forward diffidently. There was some muttering from the audience; apparently it was unusual for an advocate to speak to the tribunes directly. "I speak on behalf of a defendant who is unable to attend. The starship Arachne has asked me to file a motion that the charges against the humans be dismissed. Since Arachne herself was the only individual conscious at the time of Lesshchi's destruction, and since the defense systems which destroyed Lesshchi are part of Arachne's own person, she contends that she is the only one who should be placed on trial for that destruction."

This motion piqued the tribunes' interest considerably, and they pulled together to debate the question. Cecilia turned to Stephen and spoke softly. "I wonder why I didn't think of that. Arachne may just get us off the hook with that one."

"At the cost of her own freedom," Stephen reminded her. "Who knows whether they respect cyber rights here? If she's found guilty, Arachne may be reprogrammed or even killed."

"I know," Cecilia told him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "What I mean is, I'm gratified by her courage, her willingness to sacrifice herself for us." She frowned. "Though if our ship's convicted of a crime, what does that do for our chances of reaching Gamma Lep?"

Stephen threw her a disturbed look, but before he could say anything, the head tribune spoke again. "Though it is true that Arachne was the only conscious member of the expedition, it is also true that she is officially a member of that expedition's crew. Is that not correct?"

"Yes, it is," Cecilia confirmed.

"Arachne's actions were thus committed in service to her human passengers. This makes her passengers liable for her actions. It is a basic principle of Chirrn law that superiors are culpable for the actions of their subordinates."

"Honored Tribunes," spoke up one of the Lesshchi survivors/prosecutors, a deep-blue, grey-maned individual named Churrlaya. "Our studies of human law, based on their ship's records and on the signals we have recorded from their system over the past two centuries, suggest numerous precedents for this view in their own legal traditions. There are instances of war criminals being held culpable for actions carried out by their subordinates."

"Noted," the head tribune said. "Therefore, by both Chirrn and human legal precedents, the ramship Arachne's motion is denied. She acted on behalf of the humans who stand before this tribunal; therefore those humans are the ones on which the ultimate blame, if any, will fall."

"Thank you, Honored Tribunes," Rillial said, one eye flicking around to leer triumphantly at the humans. "Rest assured, we will demonstrate the humans' guilt in this disaster."

"On what grounds?" Cecilia protested, taking full advantage of the rather loose procedures of the court.

"The grounds of criminal negligence."

"Honored Tribunes, there is no negligence here," Cecilia urged. "Just the opposite. As I will now show."

"Proceed," waved the arbiter.

"Consider the probabilities here. Two space vessels, each travelling its own course through interstellar space, each completely unaware of the other, just happen to follow intersecting courses -- and what's more, both arrive at the point of intersection simultaneously. Given the immensity of space, what are the odds of such a thing occurring?

"As a species with over ten thousand years of experience in interstellar travel, you must appreciate even better than we do how immensely improbable it is for two vessels to meet with each other except by conscious design and careful maneuvering. According to your own records, which our advocate is now providing..." and as she said this, L'chellin handed a data crystal to the arbiter, "only seven such incidents have ever occurred in Chirrn history, and in all of them the two unrelated ships only passed within communication or sensor range, not within collision range."

Cecilia next called Chaim Silbermann to explain the basics of Arachne's laser defenses. "The beams are spread out into a conical shape by Fresnel lenses," the engineer explained, "in order to ionize the maximum amount of interstellar hydrogen. What happens is that the beam hits the focus node, a convex mirror at the focus of a parabolic dish. The mirror spreads the beam out across the dish, which then sends it out straight again, but wider than before. It then hits the divergent Fresnel lens and spreads out. But if the sensors detect an obstacle, the focus node can become transparent, letting the beam straight through, un-diffused and very powerful. It can be directed by the node at any desired target. And, of course, there are six of them."

"Why do we need such a defense system?" Cecilia asked.

"Well, to destroy space debris in our path. Or to give it enough of a blast to push it out of the way."

"But what if it weren't space debris? What if it were, say, an alien ship?"

"Well, that's very unlikely."

"Yes, it is."

"Still," Silbermann went on, bringing a grin to Cecilia's face, "the designers did prepare for the possibility. We didn't want to cause any... well, anything like what happened.

"The defense computers are programmed to scan for signs that an obstacle is artificial -- like the reflection spectrum of diamite or aerogel or other synthetic hull coatings. Or for engine emissions, the radiation or particles you'd see from a fusion or antimatter rocket. Let's see, it also looks for the EM signature of a ship propelled by a particle beam. And of course it could spot a lightsail easily, from its reflectivity."

"And what happens if the sensors show the obstacle is artificial?"

"Well, we don't blast it. Instead, maneuvering thrusters are fired to turn the ship."

"But if the ship is travelling at ninety-five percent of lightspeed, you wouldn't have long to react before the obstacle reached you. If the object were twenty light-seconds away, you'd only have a second to respond."

"Well, our sensors can see much farther than that. And the computers can compensate for the timelag, extrapolate the true position of the obstacle. They're very fast. And at that speed, even a small change in direction would add up damn fast. We might not be able to clear the obstacle entirely, though; it might still hit the magnetic web. But odds are it wouldn't hit a laser or do any irreparable damage. Even if it did, we could probably limp along to our destination with a damaged web."

"So protecting the other ship is a higher priority than avoiding damage to our own."

"Well, of course."

Cecilia smiled again. "Of course. Honored Tribunes, we've established that an accidental collision between interstellar vessels is an event of vanishingly low probability. Yet nonetheless, the designers of Arachne went out of their way to protect against a tragedy that would almost certainly never occur, even at the risk of damage to the ship herself. This, Honored Tribunes, is the precise opposite of negligence. If anything, it is caution above and beyond what any reasonable being would find adequate."

"Yet clearly it was not adequate," Churrlaya interrupted. "Your sensory parameters did not prevent your defense system from destroying Lesshchi."

"That's because Lesshchi maneuvered using gravity control. That is a technology we don't have, aren't even close to having. It's impossible to expect us to prepare for encountering a technology we didn't know existed."

"But what if you encountered a spacegoing habitat which were not using any of its engines, even of the kinds you do have? Your defenses would then destroy it."

"No they wouldn't," Silbermann interjected. "A habitat like that would give off infrared, emit visible light through its star windows, broadcast in radio. But yours did none of those things. In fact, L'chellin here tells me that the Chirrn try to avoid giving off any radiations that might get them detected by planet-dwelling races. Says you don't want 'em getting curious about you, coming to take a look."

Cecilia pounced on that. "That's right! How could we possibly be expected to detect your habitats when you go out of your way to keep people like us from detecting them? And doesn't that place the culpability squarely on your shoulders?"

That, Cecilia realized, may have been a mistake. The insinuation that the Chirrn had caused their own death sparked an uproar in the court. One of the Lesshchi refugees screamed in fury and leaped forward, clear over Rillial's body, lunging at the humans. Several other refugees and some of the audience began to follow. The humans huddled together defensively. But in moments the Chirrn agitators had all been stunned by the baton-like weapons of the guards, who had acted quickly, realizing how little it would take to start a riot. The arbiter ordered another recess of several hours, and the prisoners were quickly taken to the relative safety of their cell.

* * *

The tribunal did not reconvene again for more than a day. When the next session finally began, the head tribune spoke. "The suggestion that our own secretiveness has contributed to this incident cannot be casually dismissed," he said gravely. The audience grumbled, but quieted under the glares of the arbiter and the guards. "We advise the Council to consider the installation of short-range beacons on Chirrn habitats."

"In that case, Honored Tribune," Cecilia spoke up, "I submit that the charge of negligence on our part has been disproven, and move that the case be dismissed."

"That would be premature," Rillial countered angrily. "The accused's contention that they have taken all reasonable steps to minimize risk is false. There is one fundamental risk they have taken that did not need to be taken at all. And that is their very means of transportation."

"You'll have to explain that," Cecilia said coldly.

"I shall," came the terse response. "A ramjet-driven spacecraft is an intrinsically hazardous form of transport. In order to gather the fuel necessary to accelerate to near-light speeds, it must use collimated-light projectors to ionize huge volumes of hydrogen gas so that it may be drawn into the ship by its magnetic field. A ramjet affects a volume of space much greater than the size of the vessel itself, exposing that volume to powerful optical and magnetic effects which could be disruptive at the very least to any nearby vessels.

"Additionally, the sheer velocity is a risk factor. At velocities so nearly approaching lightspeed, the craft's sensory beams barely precede the craft itself. Once an obstacle is detected, even the fastest computer barely has time to decide upon a course of action. Once one factors in the time for the sensory beam to travel out and return, the time for processing within the computer, the time for signals to travel along the web to the collimated-light projectors, the time for the focus node to change from reflective to transparent and to direct the beam to the desired target, and so on, there can be very little time remaining for the actual process of judgment in which the computer decides whether or not an object is inhabited. The risk is needlessly great."

"The risk is to our own ship at least as much as to anyone else's," Silbermann objected. "So we wouldn't take it if we didn't think it was reasonable. We took all those factors into account in our simulations, and there was still plenty of time left to make good judgments. Arachne's neural net is superconductive; her thought impulses travel even closer to lightspeed than she herself can. Plus, this technology's been tested and proven on more ships than just this one. It is safe, as safe as it needs to be."

Rillial whirled to face the tribunes, her tail almost knocking down Churrlaya. "That is the key question! Need. We must ask, did these humans need to travel this way at all?

"In ten thousand years, the Chirrn have encountered few species which employ ramjets. Generally, they do not engage in interstellar travel until they develop gravity control. Those that do usually employ lightsail or particle-beam propulsion, or vessels which travel at low fractions of lightspeed; or they employ the Chirrn method of creating their own worlds which spend generations travelling between the stars. This is because a ramjet is a highly inefficient technology. The faster it travels, the harder it must accelerate incoming hydrogen ions radially toward its axis. Meanwhile, the very magnetic field on which it depends to draw in the interstellar medium creates a drag against that medium.

"In fact, it is particularly surprising that we encountered a ramjet-using race where we did. The region of space we currently occupy was swept clean of most of its gas and dust by the waves of star formation and supernovae which swept through it in the distant past. In fact, it is the innermost of a cluster of four such bubbles, for which this region of the galaxy is well-known. Here, within this bubble, the gas density is roughly one-twentieth of the galactic norm. This makes ramjets far more inefficient here than they would be elsewhere in the galaxy. They must employ much larger collection fields, much more potent collimated-light projectors, to gather sufficient fuel. This is in fact the first time the Chirrn have encountered a ramjet within the Four Bubbles.

"Given the inefficiency of ramjets in this region, an inefficiency great enough to preclude most local species from using them at all... and an inefficiency of which the humans, by their own admission, are aware... we must ask why they have found it necessary to use them."

"The problems aren't insurmountable," Silbermann countered. "The lower density cuts the fuel supply, but it also reduces drag, so that compensates for the loss of efficiency. We also make the ships extremely light with the rotating web design, so we need less fuel. And the lasers' energy demands go down the faster we go, since we have to tune them down to compensate for blueshift. Plus we do the bulk of the acceleration with particle beams, really, using the web as a magnetic sail -- the ramjet's just to give us a few more percentage points of c, plus maneuverability if we need it."

"But why use the ramjet at all, when there are easier, if slower, ways to travel between stars?"

Stephen stepped forward. "While it's true that the resources of Sol System have made humanity wealthy, the planet Earth is still severely overcrowded. Not only does that put great strain on an ecosystem we're trying to restore to health, but it greatly increases the threat of plagues. Earth spends as much effort fighting the new virulent diseases that keep cropping up as it does restoring the environment.

"So the people of Earth consider it their highest priority to reduce the planet's population. Of course, we encourage emigration to the other settled planets and artificial habitats of Solsys... but we recognize that even Solsys has its limits. And many of us do yearn to live on a planet without needing to huddle under domes and stare out at a barren wasteland. So part of the population-reduction program is an active search for habitable worlds in other star systems which we can colonize.

"Now, once a colony's established, we'll want to allow more humans to migrate there, if it's close enough to be practical. We want to be able to send the ship back for more colonists. And we want that process to happen as quickly as it can, so we use ramjets. They're the only thing practically able to travel at relativistic speeds."

Rillial pondered this for a moment before speaking. "So... you live on one planet and want to live on another. You want to find a naturally habitable planet, and must look to other systems to find one. And you are thus willing to go to extraordinary lengths, to engage in construction projects of truly immense scale and expend astronomical amounts of power, in order to fulfill this urge.

"But why?" she continued, turning and raising her voice to address the tribunal at large. "You have over a century of experience in space colonization. Over a billion humans live in artificial habitats, most of which are not located on planetary bodies. This mode of existence has proven viable for humans for over a century. Indeed, the enormous undertaking of constructing non-gravitic interstellar vessels would be impossible if you were limited to the resources of one planet. If space colonization had not proven successful, indeed highly prosperous, you could never have built a ramjet.

"So you know that human beings can lead successful, prosperous lives in space habitats. You know that generations of humans have lived, and lived well, without ever setting foot on a planet. And yet your desire to live on a planet like your Earth is so great... that you found it necessary to employ a highly inefficient, costly and outright dangerous form of propulsion in order to accomplish it. A form of propulsion which killed nearly eight thousand four hundred Chirrn."

Rillial strode forward to look Stephen firmly in the eyes, her wide-set orbs swivelling inward to fix him from two directions, making him feel cornered, pinned down. "Why did those Chirrn die? Because you used a ramjet. Why did you use a ramjet? Because you wished to live on a planet.

"But did you need to live on a planet?" she hissed with anguish. "Tell me that, colony leader. Given all the alternatives, was there some vital need for you to ram your way recklessly through the cosmos merely to live the way your ancestors lived? Was your need to feel dirt beneath your feet so great, so overwhelming, that it justifies the slaughter of eighty-four hundred lives?"

Stephen opened his mouth -- and nothing came out but a soft choking sound. He remembered the devastation he'd seen. He remembered the bodies. And he could give no answer to Rillial's demand.

But Cecilia was not so speechless. "Now just wait a minute," she protested. "Just because you don't like living on planets doesn't make it immoral to do so. I refuse to allow my crew to be convicted due to nothing more than bigotry!"

Rillial glared at her. "It may not be immoral, but was it necessary? Living in a constructed world would not have killed you." She turned back to the tribunes. "But the humans' rejection of that option did kill eighty-four hundred Chirrn."

"We have a right to live in whatever way we choose!"

"The rights of one being do not include the right to destroy the lives of other beings!" Rillial cried, her voice ringing through the tribunal chamber. "You cite free choice as your only reason for choosing planets, for needing ramjets. But that is not enough reason to justify the destruction of an entire nation! It is not!" Rillial lowered her brown-maned head, covering her eyes with her hands, and struggled for breath.

This time, instead of a furor, a ringing silence filled the courtroom. The silence was finally broken by whispers between the tribunes and the arbiter, and then by the arbiter's voice: "The tribunes will now recess to deliberate this case."

* * *

When court resumed two hours later, the head tribune stared gravely down at the humans. "It is a basic principle in both Chirrn and human law that the rights of the individual cease to be absolute when they threaten the rights or safety of others," he said. "Thus, it is the finding of this tribunal that free choice of habitat is not sufficient cause to justify the killing of eight thousand three hundred eighty-seven adults and children and the destruction of their nation. There were other viable alternatives to interstellar travel by ramjet which the defendants could have employed. Therefore the destruction of Lesshchi was avoidable and unnecessary. Therefore the defendants are culpable for its destruction." He rose. "This tribunal will adjourn for eight time-units, after which we shall reconvene for sentencing proceedings."

As the chamber emptied, Cecilia stood rooted to the floor, eyes wide in outraged shock. Stephen stood beside her, just as immobile... but showing only resignation.

* * *

Cecilia paced out the limits of their cell like a caged tiger. "They can't do this!" she cried.

"Cecilia..." Stephen sighed. "They're ten thousand years more advanced than we are. They can do whatever the hell they want to us."

"I won't have that kind of defeatist attitude! And I won't let my crew be condemned as a result of the Chirrn's bigotry." She paced some more. "We need to contact Arachne somehow. If we can get her to focus her lasers on Shilirrlal--"

"Are you crazy?!" Stephen cried. "You want to commit eight thousand more murders?!"

Cecilia glared at him. "Neither accident nor self-defense is murder. Besides, only the threat will be needed. We wouldn't actually do it."

"And what if they call our bluff? And even if they don't, how will the Chirrn see us then? As conquerors, destroyers, willing to cut down anyone who impedes our expansion into the universe. What will they do to Sol System if they decide we're that dangerous?"

Cecilia took him by the shoulders. "Stephen, listen to me. I know you're upset by all that's happened. Your compassion for the dead of an alien race is admirable. But their deaths are not our fault. The tribunal's decision is wrong, immoral. They're condemning us just because our beliefs differ from theirs. And I can't sit still and accept that. I have a responsibility for the safety of my crew and the success of our mission."

"And what about your responsibility for your own ship's wake?"

"What?"

"Isn't a captain supposed to consider herself responsible for the consequences of her vessel's passage? Isn't she supposed to take responsibility for all beings affected by her command?"

"Stephen, accepting responsibility is not the same as giving in to persecution! They're wrong to blame us for this!"

"Or maybe you just want to avoid the blame for it!" He pulled away from her, then faced her again after a moment. "Frankly, Cecilia, I feel we are responsible for those deaths. The Chirrn are right! We didn't have to build a ramship and race through the universe at ridiculous speeds. There are other options. We could've built more habitats. They still are building more habitats. On Luna, Mars, the Belt, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn... there's enough room in Solsys to hold a hundred billion people or more! And people thrive in artificial environments. It shouldn't matter whether the horizon curves down or up. It's not a cause worth destroying a nation over. Is it?" He cried out to all the prisoners. "Is it?!" He was met with only the echoes of his own voice.

Cecilia glared at him in contempt. "It wasn't our fault, Wong. We weren't responsible."

He met her glare in kind. "Keep telling yourself that, Cecilia. Maybe someday you'll convince yourself it's true."

* * *

"We understand that you are unfamiliar with our principles of justice," the head tribune told the defendants gathered in the courtroom. "Rest assured that we do not believe in punishment purely for the sake of retribution. Meeting destruction with destruction is wasteful and pointless.

"Those who commit destructive acts are required to compensate for them by doing constructive service. By making positive contributions, they repay for the damage they have done.

"It is the judgment of this tribunal that the forty human personnel of the ramship Arachne shall be imprisoned for the remainder of their lives in a research institution, where they will be studied by Chirrn scientists. By thus providing knowledge, you will repay your debt."

"That's barbaric!" Cecilia cried. "You have no right to treat sentient beings as lab animals!"

A pair of guards approached her menacingly with stun-sticks. "The prisoner will remain silent," the arbiter ordered.

"Thank you, arbiter," the head tribune said, before addressing the humans once more. "The experiments will be nondestructive and largely sociological in nature. You will not be subjected to cruelty. You will, however, not be free to refuse the experiments or to leave the facility. But such is the nature of imprisonment.

"As to the ramship Arachne herself, she will be stripped of her potentially destructive components and will be studied by Chirrn cyberpsychologists, to explore the ways in which humans have developed the cybernetic sciences. She, too, will contribute to our knowledge of the universe. You will be allowed to communicate with her as you desire.

"These judgments will be carried out immediately. The humans will be transported--"

"Um -- Your Honor... Honored Tribunes?" Stephen interjected.

"Yes, Stephen Jacobs-Wong?"

"I wish to make a plea. Not on our behalf... but on behalf of the six hundred human embryos being carried on Arachne."

The tribunes looked at each other interestedly. "Please proceed."

Stephen took a moment to choose his words. "Each of those embryos has the potential to grow into a live human being, to live a full, normal life. None of those potential people has committed any crime. None of them has ever lived on a planet, except as an insensate cell. Surely they have a right to live, and to live in freedom. Surely they should not be prevented from being born, or born into captivity, because of our actions."

The tribunes discussed it briefly. "This is well said. We direct that the embryos shall be allowed to be born, under the guidance of Arachne, and raised on Shilirrlal."

"But that's not enough, Honored Tribunes. Our young are very dependent upon their parents for the first several years of their lives. They need human parents or parent-surrogates to help them develop their abilities, to provide them with basic socialization. Neither the Chirrn nor Arachne could fulfill this role sufficiently. Human children need human parents. And how would it affect them if the only others they knew of their own race were nothing but imprisoned criminals, or laboratory subjects?"

Stephen lowered his head. "Honored Tribunes, I do not seek leniency for myself. I was responsible for this mission, I was the one who started it all. I feel... profound guilt for every one of those eighty-four hundred lives, and if it were just me I'd willingly accept your punishment. But the embryos, our potential children... they need us. And they need us to be free to raise them in a healthy and loving environment. So... isn't there any arrangement that could be made?"

The tribunes discussed this for a long time. As this went on, Stephen looked over his crewmates. There was a wide range of emotions on display. Most showed signs of the same grief Stephen felt. It made him proud that so many of his fellow humans could grieve for aliens as much as for their own. Many of the crew showed renewed hope at Stephen's proposal, hope for their own freedom, hope for their children yet unborn.

But some glared at him bitterly, resenting his admission of guilt, his statement that he would accept their punishment were it only for him. Some showed fear at the aliens' power, anger at their imposition, dismay at the impending imprisonment. And none showed these emotions as intensely as Cecilia LoCarno, his good friend. As Stephen looked into her eyes he realized that friendship was probably gone forever.

Finally the tribunes addressed the chamber once again. "The finding of this tribunal was that the humans' planetary bias was the underlying cause of Lesshchi's destruction. Therefore: any humans who will renounce a planetary existence, who will sever all ties with planet-dwellers and those who associate with them, will be welcomed into Chirrn society. You will be given a homestead on Shilirrlal, or another Chirrn habitat as you choose, where you will be free to raise your children and contribute as equals to Chirrn society, thus repaying your debt. Those who do not renounce planetary existence will contribute instead as research subjects. You may have time to discuss this decision among yourselves."

As the humans gathered together, Cecilia glared angrily at the look on Stephen's face. "You can't actually be considering their offer! Win your freedom by renouncing your values and embracing theirs? What gives them the right to demand such a -- a Shylockian surrender?"

Stephen sighed. "Cecilia, they're not asking us to change our religion, just our residency. Besides, they're the only law around. The crime was committed in their territory -- hell, it was committed against their territory -- and that makes us subject to their laws.

"Look, I'm not happy about it. But we're convicted criminals under their law, and we can't expect to walk away scot-free. And this way, at least we get to raise our children in freedom. Just not where we expected. Personally, it feels like getting off easy. But I'm going to take their offer, for the children's sake."

He stepped forward to face the tribunes. "Honored Tribunes, I accept your proposal. For the sake of our children, I renounce my planetary existence and ask that you let us live with you among the stars. I ask anyone else who will make this pledge to indicate it by stepping forward to join me."

The first to join him was Zena Bhatiani, who stepped forward without hesitation. "Live among an ancient alien culture?" she whispered up to Stephen. "That's better than any wilderness planet for me."

Others stepped forward in a slow trickle, some singly, some in groups. After long moments of stepping forward and retreating, Chaim Silbermann finally advanced to join the others. "Someone's gotta be free to take care of Arachne," he shrugged. Finally, twenty-six others stood with Stephen, and only thirteen remained behind -- with Cecilia LoCarno at their center.

"The tribunal accepts that those who stand with Stephen Jacobs-Wong have renounced their planetary existence," said the arbiter. "They are now free to live among us. The others will be welcome to join them at any time in the future if they will make the same renunciation."

"Never!" Cecilia cried. "We have the right to live as humans!"

Stephen saw something snap in her eyes at that moment. Lunging forward, she snatched the stun-stick from a guard and swung it wildly, knocking down the guards near her. She made a run for the exit... but was promptly tackled from behind by the very guards she thought she'd stunned. As they dragged her forward before the tribunes, she was muttering weakly, "How...?"

"Cecilia..." Silbermann said softly. "They're ten thousand years ahead of us. Even we have weapons that only respond to their owners."

"You don't have to be so smug about it," she snarled, throwing him a savage look.

Silbermann gazed at her sadly. "I'm not. I wish you could see that."

"Please, Captain LoCarno," the arbiter said. "Do not make this difficult on yourself. You cannot escape us."

"But I'll never surrender to you! I won't throw away my humanity like these traitors!"

"Cecilia, please understand," Stephen begged. "It's for the children."

She shot him a look that should have vaporized him like Lesshchi. "It's for yourselves."

"No," Stephen whispered.

Her eyes went from deadly hot to deathly cold. "You're all traitors to your race. I want nothing more to do with you." She almost seemed glad when the guards took her away.

Rillial gazed after her curiously. "Pitiful," she said. "To be so fanatical in her planetarism."

"I don't think that's it," Stephen said sadly. "I think she just can't accept being responsible for the loss of eight thousand lives. It's just too big a tragedy; she can't live with the guilt. So she'll never be able to admit to guilt."

The refugee examined him. "But you can."

A tear came to Stephen's eye. "Barely. Rillial, I hope you can forgive me... forgive us for what we've done." He sighed. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive myself."

Rillial just stood silently for a long moment. Then she said, "The important thing now is to decide what to do about other human ramships that might be out there. It is more important to prepare for the future than to dwell on the past." Stephen nodded solemnly, recognizing that it was the closest thing to forgiveness that Rillial would ever provide.

The arbiter, having left his podium, joined them. "Are there many other human ramships in space?"

"Well," Silbermann answered, "there wouldn't be that many. We've only been using them for a few decades. I daresay you wouldn't find any more than... ten parsecs from Sol."

"Excellent," the arbiter said. "It should be easy enough to locate all such ships and warn other Chirrn habitats to avoid them."

"Wouldn't that take a long time? Even centuries?" Stephen asked.

"We do possess trans-lightspeed spacewarp drive," Rillial told him. "Our habitats drift slowly, but we travel between them routinely in transport ships." Apparently, now that the humans had joined Chirrn society, they could be let in on their secrets.

Silbermann's eyes widened like a child discovering the Planet of Chocolate. "Warp drive? Really? Oh, well, it should've been obvious, you've got gravity control, so why couldn't you warp space, but how do you deal with the negative energy problem? The horizon problem? Or is it the Alcubierre model at all, do you use some other--"

"Chaim!" Stephen chuckled. "Settle down. You'll have plenty of time to learn about it." But then his own eyes widened, and he turned to the Chirrn excitedly. "But this could solve the problem! If you went to Solsys, contacted them, shared your warp technology with them, it would eliminate the danger of ramjets completely! There wouldn't--"

"Take care," said L'chellin, who had joined them. "Remember, you have renounced all ties with Earth, and with all spacegoers who have ties with Earth. Do not forget so soon what that means."

"You must accept," the arbiter added, "that you are no longer a member of the human community. Their interests are no longer yours."

With that, the Chirrn left them. Stephen and the others stood there, alone in the echoing tribunal chamber, absorbing their new status in life. They were free to leave at any time, into a world they barely knew. For now, they remained.

"No longer members of the human community," Silbermann breathed. "Does that mean we aren't human anymore?"

"No," Zena Bhatiani said. "We're just not Terrans anymore. Not Solar humans, or planetary humans. We're star-people now."

Silbermann scoffed. "Sounds poetic, sure. But it's not by choice." He shook his head. "At least the captain still belongs. She may not have her freedom... but she's still a member of the human race."

"What good is it to be human without being humane?" Stephen whispered. "We've done this to repent for our crime, for causing a disaster we didn't have to cause. We owe it to the Chirrn to make up for the loss we caused them, by joining their society and helping them to build and grow.

"And, most of all, we've done this for the sake of the unborn humans in our care. This is the only choice we could make, for their sake. It's not an ideal situation... but it's the only one that I, for one, can live with."

Zena looked up at him searchingly. "But when our children ask where we came from... what do we tell them?"

"We tell them the truth," Silbermann said with certainty. "Just like my parents told me. My father's ancestors murdered my mother's ancestors in the Nazi Holocaust. They didn't keep that from me. No, they made sure I knew... so that I could make sure it never happened again."

After a long silence, Stephen spoke again. "Come on, my friends. We set out to build a new world for ourselves. And now it's time to begin."