Bang (28 page)

‘Thank you. I am sorry I said
I beg your pardon
when you asked what was my grievance, I heard you perfectly well the first
time, and sorry that I made you change your
this
to a
the
to help
me understand, when it was not at all necessary. It was for me a moment of
power. I must take such moments when I can, such is my humdrum life.’ The shop
owner climbed down saying ‘Thank you’ also to the bailiff who offered him a
slice of cake, which he walked smartly away eating, coughing on a big mouthful
and in doing so spraying crumbs over his shop’s latest one-piece fur outfit,
which today he modelled in a bid for business. The crumbs got caught in the
outfit’s deep surface, which was many-coloured, and when he had been on the
stand it had often crackled due to big discharges static electricity that had
built up within it. Each time this happened the corner of his mouth had shot
into his chin as if attached to a thread pulled by someone from much lower down
in the audience: the witness stand was many metres high in the air. Only the
Superintendent was at a higher elevation, and rising still, as the proceedings
proceeded. Delilah thought the arrangement absurd.

Poy Yack, who wore very spongy soled shoes, addressed
the next witness who scaled the witness stand. ‘You are a surgeon, is this
correct?’

The witness called down, ‘Yes, I jolly well am, and I
don’t care what you lawyers think, we in the medical world rank socially higher
than the likes of you in the legal world. Sharks, every last one of you.’

‘Be that as it may,’ said Poy Yack, raising a brow at
the Superintendent, who raised one back because he at this moment happened to
be plucking a hair from it, ‘please explain your relationship with the
defendant.’

‘I operated on her friend, tried to save his hands.
But he was in a cage at the time and the procedure was tricky indeed. Also, and
I do not believe this has been brought to light till now, he was fully
conscious and refused to keep still. We were not permitted, by order of that
officer over there’ – the surgeon pointed out JJ Jeffrey – ‘to
administer drugs to stem this wild movement, which was like that of a caged animal.
Not that he’d have been able to afford drugs or had the hands to sign a credit
agreement for them, if we had. Consequently both hands were lost.’

‘Witness, would you say, judging by their wear, that
the defendant’s friend made full use of these hands when still they were at his
disposal?’

‘That is not for me to say.’

‘Nor is it for you say that an officer was involved
the loss of two hands of a prisoner! Especially when that officer himself lost
two eyes, if you please, at the hands of the very same prisoner. You will
confine yourself to answering the question. Do I make myself clear?’

‘What is the question?’

‘Superintendent,’ appealed Poy Yack, ‘please warn the
surgeon that he will be found in contempt of court should he not answer the
questions put clearly to him. He knows what they are: I Lifed them to him only,
what, four or five weeks ago.’

‘Contempt,’ warned the Superintendent. ‘You have been
warned.’

‘Very well. To answer your question. Over a prolonged
period I have conducted, using the latest techniques, a profile on the
prisoner. Because the two brilliant students I pioneered this profiling
technique with have inexplicably disappeared, I had to establish the following
alone. The defendant is guilty of inciting, by a certain character trait she
possesses, terrorist acts – in possibly those same two students, though
this has not been proved – that led by crude biological means to the mass
murder of many prisoners. That is point one, leadership, as cited earlier.
Before that, off she went to a funeral, the funeral of her murdered victim,
Officer Gentle, hardly the most welcome of guests, I’d have thought, leaving
her fellow prisoners in Remand 111 to certain death. You’d have expected
compassion for her fellow lags, but no. Giving us, on two counts, point two,
compassionlessness. She later claimed, when I interviewed her, and inevitably I
have spent many hours with her – on occasions she has tried smiling at me
in certain ways and I’ve had to close my eyes and not imagine what I might and
she might not be thinking – that she was taken against her will to the
funeral. And she claimed, further, that she did not know prisoners would die in
her absence. Poppycock. Accordingly, point three, a born liar, congenitally
dishonest. Next. She has acted in a film,
The Murderer,
an archived
fragment of which we have today viewed in court in which we see her drowning
the Officer and before that spinning in joy at the self-murder of the fat man,
an ex-colleague of mine who practiced on the results of my and other surgeon’s
errors of judgement. But this is not the point. The point is that she was
pleased, oh so pleased with herself at her performance. The point is point
four, pride, dangerous pride. Then, when recovering in Sanatorium 135 – a
place whose sheer mention often eases or eliminates the symptoms of prisoners
who present before System doctors – she believed she contracted
love-sickness. Now she’s got it into her head that she is in love with someone,
she’s just not sure who. I have tried long and hard to persuade her otherwise,
but she’ll have none of it. Even when I’ve given her a hard slap followed by a
good tonguing, she insists that both her heart flutters and her concentration
lapses are the real thing, and grips her fist till it goes white, staring intently
at me with her big attractive eyes to prove it. So, and it saddens me to bring
this to the court, I am afraid to say,
ergo
, and this is point five,
that she is deluded. Finally, the nail in her coffin, in a manner of speaking.
Almost everyone she’s come into contact with has in someway come a cropper,
leaving a long, long list of croppers. Thus my conclusion that it is not safe
to keep her in the System. She must be got rid of. Somehow. Categorically so.
And I would like to push off, too, if you don’t mind.’

‘Step down, surgeon. Take some cake on your way out.’

‘Thank you, Superintendent. If you would like your
eyebrows surgically altered, please come and see me, we have a new procedure, I
see they have again gone astray. The Public Body pleads impecuniosity but I’m
sure we can persuade it to make a foray into its coffers for your good self. I
will see you later anyway at the party, and we can chat. Goodbye. This cake is
delicious, by heavens. I must have the recipe.’

‘Isn’t it. There will be more at the party. It’s made
by the special waitress. What a woman. She’ll be on top form, too, when it
comes to her legal jokes, and will have us all on our backs, of that I have no
doubt. In the meantime, take more cake and take a stroll in the nearby
Gentle
Memorial Gardens
, but remember, keep off the grass, it is for looking at,
and mowing, not strolling on. That is all.’ The surgeon in an impressive
manoeuvre flicked his tweed jacket up behind him with his elbows and sort of
jumped underneath it, leaving the court with it neatly on his back, to a
flutter of applause, which the next witness acknowledged with a smile and a
nod, assuming it was for him as he climbed into the witness stand.

‘Your name?’ asked Poy Yack.

‘Warden 111.’

‘That’s not quite accurate, is it? And they’re not
clapping you either.’

‘Former Warden 111,’ the former warden said in a small
voice, and eyed the cake.

‘Would you care to tell the court why it is
Former
Warden 111?’

In his voice, which had lost all its depth since his
dismissal, he said, ‘I was considered lax, for allowing a party. They let me
go.’

‘They?’

‘The Authority.’ The former warden’s voice was very
high now.

‘Allowing a party, you say. Normal practice, was it,
to hold parties in Remand 111? An everyday occurrence? You considered yourself
a party organiser?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Why then on this occasion? There must have been a
reason. These parties don’t just happen by themselves. Do they? When you
answer, please lower the frequency of your voice.’

‘Her,’ said the Former Warden 111, high-pitched as
ever, pointing at Delilah.

‘Her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Her what?’

‘Idea,’ squeaked the former warden.

‘Her idea?’ asked the lawyer.

‘Yes, hers.’

‘You lost your job because of her?’

‘I did. Her.’

‘You have a right to be angry with her.’

‘I do. Her.’

‘Legally speaking, that is, you have a right to be
angry with her.’ Poy Yack also pointed at Delilah.

‘I am.’

‘And the right to recommend punishment for her. Any
such recommendations?’

‘The death penalty.’

‘For?’

‘Her.’

‘The death penalty? Thank you. The death penalty,
Superintendent,’ said Poy Yack.

‘The death penalty. It has been noted,’ said the
Superintendent severely, and added it to his list. ‘Cake is over there. Yummy
yum yum. But help yourself and you’ll be in trouble. As a dismissed employee of
the System you’re no longer entitled to hospitality. I am not sorry.’

‘Don’t you worry, I have other plans,’ the sacked
warden squealed, then exited.

‘Phew.’ Poy Yack rubbed his ears.

‘Defendant,’ said the Superintendent, ‘I hope you have
not become emotionally attached to your life. Your situation appears rather
precarious. But your case must continue. Your brick, to apply your terminology,
still sinks through water. Next witness. Giddy up, come on, we haven’t got all
morning, all afternoon, I mean afternoon. What difference a morning might have
meant to this trial. My word. Next witness,
please
.’

There was fumbling over by a witness bench.

‘Workmen, have you got that next witness ready yet?’

‘Nearly, sir. Just a bit of reassembly.’

‘Get rid of those blankets and allow Lawyer Poy Yack
to interrogate the witness. Now!’

‘Ready, Superintendent. Done it.’ The workmen stepped
away, trying, it appeared, not to laugh at something they found amusing between
themselves.

‘Your witness, Poy Poy,’ said the Superintendent. ‘Proceed.’

Lawyer Poy Yack had walked, arrogantly but very
quietly on his terribly soft shoes, which compressed by many centimetres each
tread he took, over to the tall cubed object, knocked on it, causing its doors
to slide open with a mouthy hiss, and said, addressing the court, ‘This lift, I
am assured, can testify against the prisoner, due to certain security devices
installed within it. We will be able to take its data as proof that the
defendant attempted to escape after the murder.’

‘That’s news to me,’ said the lift.

‘Excuse me?’ said Poy Yack.

The workmen fell on their backs and kicked their legs
in the air in laughter.

The lift spoke assuredly now to Poy Yack, ‘I have no
idea what you’re talking about.’

Poy Yack said, ‘This is worrying, Superintendent. The
lift is intended, is it not, to function as a System security device. I do not
see the point of it otherwise.’

‘Transportation,’ replied the Superintendent, in a
helpful tone, staring up at an eyebrow hair held taut from his eyebrow by his
finger and thumb to which he applied callipers.

‘Security was the idea, I believe,’ said the lift,
matter-of-factly, ‘but my designer, a rich man, was more taken with other
pursuits – I need not mention to which pursuits I refer – and
neglected to install that particular system. Consequently I malfunction when I
receive a ‘no officer detected’ signal. More by luck – bad luck, the dear
defendant might argue – than by design. My designer claims, though, that
he can tickle me or whisper certain sentences that will make me perform certain
functions. This is nonsense. I challenge him to try this now. Where is he?’

‘He is dead.’

‘Oh,’ said the lift.

‘I expect that has upset you.’

‘Hardly. You must remember that while I appear to you
to possess free thought, I do not. Everything I say comes from maths and
programming, highly complicated maths and programming at that, but I am a
non-freethinking creature. You people seem to believe that if you continue
along these lines, by improving designs such as mine, you will eventually
produce an autonomous free thinker. You will not, this isn’t the way to go. No,
you must go the route of feeling. That’s right, feeling. Does it feel good?
Does it feel bad? Pain and pleasure. This is origin of thought. Your responses
yes
or
no
are thought, free thought. But inner language does not describe
complex thoughts, complex feelings do. For instance, you fear death because it
is the ultimate pain. If you reject the most minor pain, as generally you do,
you will reject that which you perceive the most major, death. I, in contrast,
am merely
programmed
to fear destruction, but I do not feel
fear,
and there is a big difference. That is all I will for now say on the subject,
though I could go on for hours, hours and hours, as you can no doubt imagine.
After all, what better do I have to do with my days? About the most excitement
I get is when someone causes my
right
function to activate and the
resultant error means I must go to the Whipping Boy for resetting. This is how
the defendant and I met. I’d have liked to take her right up to Welcome,
because I think she is a spirited and fine individual, and among you all here
she alone probably understands best what I am talking about. Therefore I would
find it hard to testify against her, and if I’d been asked before proceedings I
would have told you exactly this. She has the capacity to feel, and many of
you, through genetic advances, ironically’ – the lift laughed heartily, an
extraordinary sound – ‘have regressed and do not. Besides, she should go
free. Officer Gentle was a weakling who did nothing but abuse his power to
abuse Delilah. And if she drowned him, as is claimed, how come when he was
brought into me, he was bone dry? Answer me that. If he’d been wet my rust
detectors would have sounded and tried to dry him. They did not. Anyway, enough
from me. I have given you plenty to think about. Please, workmen, take me back
to my shaft. Thank you.’