I said, “ ‘The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for . . .’ ” I shut my eyes trying to remember. “ ‘. . . for treasons, stratagems,’ and something-or-other.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s a quotation. From Shakespeare.”
“If you’re talking about me,” Zena said, “I like music well enough.”
I held up the pennywhistle. “Well, this is music.”
“You ought to practice it in private until you can play it better.”
I bounced up, put the pennywhistle away, then hopped over Zena on the floor to get to the vid. “It’s time for the Assembly, anyway.” I turned on the general channel of the vid.
Zena gave a sour look. “Do we have to watch that old thing?”
“Jimmy and I are supposed to,” I said.
“Is that Jimmy Dentremont?”
“Yes.”
“You spend a lot of time with him, don’t you?”
“We’ve got the same tutor and we’re in the same Survival Class,” I said.
“Oh,” Zena said. She began stacking the dolls together. “Do you like him? He always seemed too full of himself to me.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He is bright. I guess I can take him or leave him alone.”
I flopped on the floor and leaned my back against the bed. The vid showed the Assembly about ready to be called to order.
“If the Assembly doesn’t turn out to be interesting, we can always turn it off,” I said.
We watched the Assembly for the next two hours. It seemed that just about everybody had a firm grasp of the basic questions beforehand. It remained for spokesmen for both sides to state their cases, for questions to be put from the floor, for witnesses to be called, more questions to be put, and a final vote. Daddy, as Chairman, didn’t involve himself in the argument.
Mr. Tubman put the case for the Ship. Another member of the Council, Mr. Persson, made the plea for the other side. Witnesses included the Ship’s Eugenist, a lawyer giving the point of law at stake, Alicia MacReady speaking in her own behalf, and a number of character witnesses who spoke for her.
The Council and witnesses sat at a table at the base of the amphitheatre. Every adult presently aboard Ship had an assigned seat in the circle above and could speak if he so desired. Potentially the Assembly could have dragged on for hours, but it didn’t. This was Daddy’s job. He conducted the Assembly, putting witnesses through their paces briskly, cutting the garrulous off, giving both sides an equal share of time. As Ship’s Chairman, it was his job to be fair and impartial, and as nearly as I could see he was, though I did know in this case what his real opinions were. Mr. Tubman was speaking for him.
In truth, the MacReady side had no case. All they could do was make a plea for leniency. Alicia MacReady cried when it was her turn to speak, until Daddy made her stop.
Mr. Persson said, “Once we all agree that it was a stupid thing to do, what more is there to say? Alicia MacReady is a citizen of this Ship. She survived Trial. She has as much right to live here as anyone else. Granted that she did a foolish thing, it’s a very simple thing to abort the child. You all watched her crawl for you. There isn’t any question of this sort of thing happening again. It was a mistake made in a wild moment and heartily repented of. Can’t we say that this public humiliation is punishment enough and drop the whole matter?”
When Mr. Tubman had his chance to speak, he said, more crisply than I was used to hearing him speak, “If nothing else, there are a few corrections I would like to make. If what Mr. Persson chooses to call ‘this public humiliation’ is a punishment, it is a self-inflicted one—discount it. Miss MacReady’s case could have been settled before the Council. Bringing it before an Assembly was her own choice. Secondly, her so-called repentance. Repentance when you are found out is much too easy—discount it. ‘A mistake made in a wild moment’? Hardly. It took more than a month of deliberate dodging of her APPs for Miss MacReady to become pregnant. That is hardly a single wild moment—discount it. Corrections aside, there is something else. There is a matter of basic principle. We are a tiny precarious island floating in a hostile sea. We have worked