as one bulky shape
under a cloth cover that seemed to be the air-car and another
cloth-covered shape that looked like a fifty-mm dual-purpose gun.
Smaller exhibits, including a twenty-mm auto-rifle, were piled on the
friends-of-the-court table. The prosecution table was already
occupied--Colonel Hickock, who waved a greeting to me, three or four men
who looked like well-to-do ranchers, and a delegation of lawyers.

"Samuel Goodham," Parros, beside me, whispered, indicating a big,
heavy-set man with white hair, dressed in a dark suit of the cut that
had been fashionable on Terra seventy-five years ago. "Best criminal
lawyer on the planet. Hickock must have hired him."

There was quite a swarm at the center table, too. Some of them were
ranchers, a couple in aggressively shabby workclothes, and there were
several members of the Diplomatic Corps. I shook hands with them and
gathered that they, like myself, were worried about the precedent that
might be established by this trial. While I was introducing Hoddy Ringo
as my attache extraordinary, which was no less than the truth, the
defense party came in.

There were only three lawyers--a little, rodent-faced fellow, whom
Parros pointed out as Clement Sidney, and two assistants. And, guarded
by a Ranger and a couple of court-bailiffs, the three defendants,
Switchblade Joe, Jack-High Abe and Turkey-Buzzard Tom Bonney. There was
probably a year or so age different from one to another, but they
certainly had a common parentage. They all had pale eyes and narrow,
loose-lipped faces. Subnormal and probably psychopathic, I thought.
Jack-High Abe had his left arm in a sling and his left shoulder in a
plaster cast. The buzz of conversation among the spectators altered its
tone subtly and took on a note of hostility as they entered and seated
themselves.

The balcony seemed to be crowded with press representatives. Several
telecast cameras and sound pickups had been rigged to cover the front of
the room from various angles, a feature that had been missing from the
trial I had seen with Gail on Friday.

Then the judges entered from a door behind the bench, which must have
opened from a passageway under the plaza, and the court was called to
order.

The President Judge was the same Nelson who had presided at the Whately
trial and the first thing on the agenda seemed to be the selection of a
new board of associate judges. Parros explained in a whisper that the
board which had ser