Stories: All-New Tales - By Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio Page 0,114

longer sounded, or looked, angry, but his voice was deadly serious. “You’re the defendant and the counsel for the defense, too. Ena’s the judge. She and I think that will be fair. What you think doesn’t matter. I’m going to put the case against you. You’ll be given an opportunity to rebut it. Ena will decide on your penalty.”

“If any,” Ena said.

“She’ll decide your penalty, if there is one. Do you understand?”

“I didn’t want to hurt any of you,” Leif said. He might have been talking to himself. “I just wanted to go back. Fuel’s forty-seven percent surplus. Food’s—”

Brennan raised his fist and looked at Ena.

She shook her head. “We used to be friends, Leif. I’d like us to be friends again. Like us to be friends right now.”

“All right.”

“Good. This is a trial. I am your judge. Do you understand that?”

“I’m not stupid. I just want to go back.”

“I know. Brennan?”

“He sabotaged our mission. Not by some accident. Not even by inattention. He did it deliberately. He brought his damned birds in. We don’t know how many there are, but there’s a lot. You and I will have to round them up and kill them. It may take years, and we may never catch them all.”

Leif started to speak, but Brennan silenced him. “He negated our last jump, and he’ll be a danger to us, and to the mission, for the next fifteen years. Say that we let him live. We’ll have to lock him up and feed him, just you and me, on top of all our other duties. We’ll have to make sure he stays locked up, because we can’t trust him out for a minute. One of us will have to walk with him in the spinner, and that will have to be me, because he might jump you. If—”

“I might jump you, too,” Leif said.

“Sure.” Brennan grinned. “Want to try?”

“He will try,” Ena said thoughtfully. “He might even succeed, if he catches you off guard. Now stop arguing with him.”

She pointed to Leif. “You’re to be quiet until it’s your turn to talk. We’ll tape your mouth if we have to.”

Brennan cleared his throat. “You’re right. I don’t think he’d succeed, but he’ll try. Sooner or later, he’ll try to jump me. If he does succeed, the mission is shot. Finished. Ruined. Six lives and billions of dollars, all wasted.”

Ena nodded.

“That’s not the only danger. This ship wasn’t built as a prison. No matter where we lock him up, he’ll have years to try to figure some way out. I’ve never wanted to kill anybody, and God knows I don’t want to kill Leif. We’re going to have to do it just the same. Can we keep him sedated for fifteen years? Have you got enough dope for that?”

Ena shook her head.

“For one year?”

“We might keep him lightly sedated for a year or more. Not for two.”

“How do you know lightly would be enough?”

“I don’t,” Ena said.

Brennan sighed. “Okay, you’ve got my case. Can he be killed, legally? I don’t know and you don’t either, but we both doubt it. So I’m not asking you to kill him or even help me to. I’ll do it alone. I’ll stick him in the airlock without a suit, and we’ll write it up in the log. Maybe they’ll try me for murder when we get home. Maybe they won’t. I’ll take my chances. Now let’s hear Leif.”

“I didn’t endanger the mission,” Leif began. “I’ve explained that already. There’s plenty of food and plenty of fuel. The air plant’s running fine. What I tried to do would have delayed the ship’s return to earth by a few days. No more than that. You two are perfectly capable of taking the ship back. If you were to die, it’s perfectly capable of taking itself back. The six of us were put on board to take care of emergencies, and because we’d be needed once the ship got to Beta Andromedae. We’ve done all that, or at least we’ve done it as well as three people could, taking pix, measuring the magnetic field, mapping, and all the rest of it.”

“You finished?” Brennan asked.

“No. You blame me for bringing the birds. If what you say were correct—it’s not, but if it were—I’d deserve a medal. Neither of you found alien life. Not a speck. Not a trace. I found it, and returned to the ship with live specimens. You won’t concede a thing, I know. But if your accusation were correct,