Toma had good instincts. He’d said that no matter what location I chose for the trial of Zhuan-Peng, everyone else in the fringes would be upset that it wasn’t being held where they were.
Earth was already upset that I’d absconded with their criminal – or so the newsfeeds were screaming.
So we would hold the trial right there in nomansland. The hall was ideal because it could hold a lot of people, and the CCTVs were everywhere, and wired into both serial and human networks.
The biggest headache I had was figuring out who should judge the trial. No matter who we considered, there were issues. A human might hesitate to make decisions against him because Zhuan-Peng was such a powerful man. A serial might be biased against the human on trial. Even the most self-aware serial would have prejudices hard-wired into them from a lifetime of thinking themselves inferior to humans.
In the end, we decided that two judges should hear the trial: a human and a serial. I tapped Georgina for that. She refused on the grounds that she couldn’t travel to Mars. I countered. “You can screen in. We’ll set up a hologram of you, right beside the other judge.”
“Trials can’t be held that way,” Georgina protested.
“Why not? In the future, judges could be anywhere, on any world. The farther away they are, the more neutral they will be about local crimes. We start as we mean to go on.”
Georgina frowned. “This isn’t a one-time thing, is it?”
“Not if it works the way I think it will,” I told her.
The other judge, the human judge, was more difficult to narrow down. Anyone of influence was part of a dynasty. There were no impartial people with a demonstrated ability to think clearly that anyone could come up with when we asked for suggestions.
We kept looking. Then we threw open the job and invited submissions from interested humans, quoting a decent price tag for the work.
The woman we selected was Melba Dufort, an orphan, and a professor of history, lecturing at a university in Minsk. “What is your preferred era to study?” I asked her when we were interviewing her.
“The Roman Empire,” she said with a smile, as if she had read my mind.
The jury was a simple matter. Six humans and six serials, drawn from a pot of tens of thousands of volunteers.
The lawyers were another problem.
“We can find smart people to act as lawyers,” Artur Roig had pointed out over dinner on the run up to the trial—for he was spending most of his time in nomansland, helping us plan and organize the event. “But they must have a set of laws to argue with. The fringes doesn’t have laws, only customs and socially acceptable practices. And Earth laws are…well, there are three hundred and two countries on Earth, all with their own laws. Or are you thinking you’ll shove GT laws down everyone’s throat, Jovan?”
“GT laws are simple and easy to understand,” I said. “But their application is limited.”
When we had our two lawyers chosen—a serial to represent Zhuan-Peng and a human to represent the people of Earth and the fringes—we sat down and carved out a set of laws for them to use to argue the case. We tossed all codified laws from all countries, but allowed that all common law was viable.
“Just every court decision made in the history of man,” Murka Lungu, the human lawyer, complained. “I’ve been practicing law all my life. This is like going back to school once more.”
Inkerlee Gustafsson, the serial we’d chosen, rolled her eyes. “I’m starting at the blocks the same as you.” She had been running a private school for nearly seventy years, teaching any subject the students were willing to pay for—or finding experts to teach them if she could not. “At least murder and extortion are already written into common law, or we’d have to make the law at the same time we were arguing it.”
“There’s that,” Murka agreed.
Toma glanced at me, and I nodded. These two would do.
With all the parts in place, we announced the date of the trial, only ten days on from the announcement itself. There was no point in extending the delay longer than that, even to cater to travelers rushing in from far flung places like Abbatangelo, because the tickets for public seats to watch the trial were sold out in six hours.
We had split the public seating tickets in half, reserving half for humans and half for serials, which Toma had argued against. “No humans will come to see the trail,” he said. “They’re pretending it isn’t happening.”
“We offer the tickets anyway,” I argued. “There can’t be any hint of favoritism.”
When all the tickets reserved for humans had sold, Toma shook his head ruefully. “You’re setting up a whole new riot, right here in nomansland.”
There was a chance of that. Emotions around the trial were running high. “We need police,” I decided. “Toma, can we supplement your security guards?”
Another call went out for applications for positions in the temporary police force—paid work to uphold the laws that were now in place for this event. We turned away more people than we hired.
“There is even a human among them,” Artur said, scanning the list of names. “Should we send her back home? Humans can’t suppress riots. They haven’t the gumption.”
“I accepted the submission,” I said. “Linda is a former Olympic wrestler. She wants the job badly enough to come to Mars in person to apply. Police don’t have to be aggressive. They have to be able to handle themselves and others physically, and keep their cool. She’ll do.”
“I don’t understand why people, humans and serials, are all so eager to get involved in this,” Artur said, his tone grumpy. “There are millions of humans staying back on Earth, bitching about how serials are taking this out of their hands. And there are millions of serials complaining about how what happens on Earth is none of our business. I expected that. But then there are thousands of everyone beating down our doors, trying to help. What is up with that?”
Toma sat back and grinned at me. He waved his hand, silently telling me to go ahead.
“The trial represents structure and civility,” I told Artur. “Those who understand that want it. They want to be a part of it, even just for a little while. It’s an ancient instinct to reach for order. For peace.”
“But we’re not at war with anyone,” Artur said.
“Except ourselves.”
Artur wrinkled his brow. “You’re talking about hope?” he hazarded.
“And a glimpse of an alternative,” Toma said.
“Well, whatever,” Artur said dismissively. “If this trial doesn’t go the way everyone wants, war will break out—and every human is hoping it goes the opposite way every serial wants it to go.”
“You have too little faith in serials and humans,” I told him.
“Neither have earned it,” Artur grouched.
“Let’s change that,” I said. “This trial is the beginning.”