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4: Temple Court
I was interrogated secretly by a group that included the Blue and Brown security chiefs, as well as two or three Council members. They did not use physical torture, thank Fire, but they did deprive me of sleep and had men shouting at me deep in the solitary confinement hole where they kept me. I managed to keep my wits and play dumb.
Chief Brown (Albin Wisser) of the Temple police sat across the table from me. He was a pale, ascetic man with sunken cheeks and burning eyes. His faith, as the saying goes, burned within him. His hands moved in rapid, unsteady darting motions when he moved them. It was as if his hands hurt from the flame burning inside him. It was a dangerous type of man to face in court, because he would stop at nothing to ensure that the Gods were not offended by anything or anyone. It was all in the name of religious purity and the greater common good in saving the Dome from divine wrath.
Chief Blue (Robel Tancher), who wore a dark blue jumpsuit and black leathers with cuffs, gun, and sap, was a blunter, rounder man. His heavy fists were overgrown with tiny black hairs as he alternately rubbed his chest or scratched his head or shuffled the plastic translifts before him with their digital reports from the main Dome database.
Scariest among those on the Court was a person wearing an electronic mask or emask of an unnatural pewter tone that made the features look barely human. I assumed it was a man, but you can't be sure. I'll refer to the person as 'he.' He was of medium build, wore a dark green suit and cloak, and had the telltale silver band around his neck that signals the person has masked his features with a close-fitting false face. This emask moves with the facial muscles, and lets the mouth talk and the eyes blink as they will. It's even possible for an emasked person to display overlays for the teeth and eyes, so that a blue-eyed person can disguise himself or herself as a brown-eyed one. The emasked person sat quietly, never commented, and only stayed one full day. I have reason now to think it was either Balesso or Voreill, but I have no proof.
It was Chief Blue's turn to grill me, and we'd been there hours already. "Brother Farr, you say you had no knowledge of the Heretic's presence beforetime?"
"No, Chief."
"The door timer in the utility plaza indicates that an hour and ten minutes passed between the time you entered to climb into the turret and the time the kitchen women saw you with the Heretic. How long were you with the Heretic?"
"It must have been ten minutes at most."
"Then what were you doing the other hour?"
"Securing the view plates high up. Meditating."
Chief Brown snored derisively. It was clear he'd already voted inwardly to condemn me. Chief Blue probed: "You were meditating while you bolted the plates? Is that permitted?"
"No, Chief, I bolted the plates while speaking the Directions out loud to make sure I did it right and did not endanger the Dome. Then, and then only, did I take time out to meditate."
"That is bunkum," interrupted Chief Brown. "If you were looking out through the glass, you had not yet bolted the plates tight. Why don't you try to get your story straight, Brother?"
"I misspoke," I said. Sweat broke out under my collar, not for the first time, and not for the last. It was a prickly, burning sweat that made me wish for a glass of water, but they tormented me about that.
Seeing me lick my lips out of thirst, Chief Brown gave that mocking smile again and his eyes twinkled with contempt. He saw it as an admission of guilt, a sign of my weaselry.
"The women say they saw you reaching up and touching his face," Chief Blue said. "What possible explanation for that could you have?"
"I told you a hundred times already, he was a childhood friend. I recognized him at that moment."
Chief Blue looked puzzled as he read his reports. "At that moment you were in the tower already over an hour. You say you were speaking with the Heretic for about fifteen minutes. But you say you only recognized him at the end of that time. What were you doing talking to a Triber when you should have run down or pulled an alarm?"
"I was afraid." No sense lying. I had to tell some of the truth now.
"Afraid of what?" Chief Brown said with a guffaw. "Go on, we're waiting."
"Afraid to be seen with him."
Chief Blue raised an eyebrow. "Afraid to be seen with him. Why would you be afraid unless you had something to hide?"
"I had nothing to hide. I was afraid someone like those stupid women would see us and misinterpret everything."
"What was there to misinterpret?" Chief Brown pressed.
"I had no idea who he was or where he came from, or what he wanted."
Chief Blue said: "It appears he flew to the tower, at just the right time to meet you, whether you knew he was coming or not. How would he know when to find you here unless you told him you would be there."
"Or," I added, "If someone in the Dome told him besides myself."
"That would imply a traitor among us," said Chief Brown. "Care to speculate who that might be, if you wish to press that charge?"
"I have no idea. I just know it wasn't me." I knew that if I pressed any charges, I would have to name someone, and this whole matter would become vastly more serious. Pressing a false charge could lead to my being disciplined, even expelled for life.
Chief Blue said: "We follow Sacred and Ancient Direction in our correct thinking, which dictates that we follow only the facts. That is to say, inductive reasoning does not allow us to assume that for which we have no evidence. So far, the simplest explanation is that you arranged to meet him at that time, in that place."
Chief Blue added: "There is very little privacy in Dome life, and that time and place was one of the least likely for you to be seen. Oh, by the way, did you leave the bolts undone for him to enter by that bolt hole?" He held up a bent, rusty little hand-jack. "We found this on a wall below the opening. "
On and on they went, hour after hour, twisting words and thoughts, withholding water, depriving me of sleep, while the Abbot and the Council members took turns silently watching and listening in. All the while, I pushed aside all thoughts of what Timony had told me. I was so harried that I had no time to think about it.
At last, after three days, the Abbot spoke up. "I have discussed this with the Council, and we have come to a decision. Chiefs, in all of your interrogations you have failed to establish any firm case against Brother Farr. You have tried hard to attack his honor and his credibility, but you have not succeeded in demolishing his argument that the Heretic broke in to communicated with him, and that they spoke of old times, and that your people burst in prematurely, causing the death of the Heretic before he could be captured and questioned. For that failure, we hold you responsible, Chiefs. In turn, we also find that Brother Farr's story does not entirely ring true, but we do not have sufficient grounds to discipline or terminate him. Therefore, you will remand the monk into my custody, and I will pursue this matter as a Temple matter until and unless I develop new information that would cause it to again become a civil matter."
That was pretty much the end of it—for the moment.
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