e
back against the wall. I could see by the cruel glint in his eyes that
there was no warmth, no sympathy in his heart, that I was--"

"Objection!" Zeckler squealed plaintively, jumping to his feet. "This
witness can't even remember what night he's talking about!"

The judge looked startled. Then he pawed feverishly through his bundle
of notes. "Overruled," he said abruptly. "Continue, please."

The witness glowered at Zeckler. "As I was saying before this loutish
interruption," he muttered, "I could see that I was face to face with
the most desperate of criminal types, even for Terrans. Note the shape
of his head, the flabbiness of his ears. I was petrified with fear. And
then, helpless as I was, this two-legged abomination began to shower me
with threats of evil to my blessed home, dark threats of poisoning my
land unless I would tell him where he could find the resting place of
our blessed Goddess--"

"I never saw him before in my life," Zeckler moaned to Meyerhoff.
"Listen to him! Why should I care where their Goddess--"

Meyerhoff gave him a stony look. "The Goddess runs things around here.
She makes it rain. If it doesn't rain, somebody's insulted her. It's
very simple."

"But how can I fight testimony like that?"

"I doubt if you _can_ fight it."

"But they can't prove a word of it--" He looked at the jury, who were
listening enraptured to the second witness on the stand. This one was
testifying regarding the butcherous slaughter of eighteen (or was it
twenty-three? Oh, yes, twenty-three) women and children in the suburban
village of Karzan. The pogrom, it seemed, had been accomplished by an
energy weapon which ate great, gaping holes in the sides of buildings. A
third witness took the stand, continuing the drone as the room grew
hotter and muggier. Zeckler grew paler and paler, his eyes turning
glassy as the testimony piled up. "But it's not _true_," he whispered to
Meyerhoff.

"Of course it isn't! Can't you understand? _These people have no regard
for truth._ It's stupid, to them, silly, a mark of low intelligence. The
only thing in the world they have any respect for is a liar bigger and
more skillful than they are."

Zeckler jerked around abruptly as he heard his name bellowed out. "Does
the defendant have anything to say before the jury delivers the
verdict?"

"Do I have--" Zeckler was across the room in a flash, his pale cheeks
suddenly taking on a feverish glow. He sat down gingerly on the wi