is feet. A face smiled, almost kindly, in
understanding.

"They're waiting for you, Mr. Symmes. It's time to go."

More words. Walking from this place to that, mostly with a crowd of
people at his shoulders, pressing him in. Then a door ahead of him,
ornate in carving, a replica of the doors to the Roman Palace of Justice
many centuries before. Again his mind catalogued the impressions.

Then, like the faces of the people outside his cell, the pictures of the
bas-relief faded away, melted and merged into a pelagic blackness.

The doors opened and, with part of the crowd still at his side, he went
through. The people inside were standing; stick men, it seemed to him,
with painted balloons for faces. The sound of the rapping of a gavel
caught his ear. The people sat, and the trial began.

"This court will admit to evidence only those events and artifacts which
are proved true and relevant to the alleged crime."

An obsequious clearing of throats. A coughing now and then.

"... And did you see the defendant, Oliver Symmes, enter the apartment
of the deceased on the night of the Thirty-first of December, two
thousand and ..."

"I did. He was wearing a sort of orange tunic ..."

Someone whispered in his ear. Oliver Symmes heard and shook his head.

"... You are personally acquainted with the defendant?"

"I am. We worked for United Anthropological Laboratories before he ..."

"Objection."

"Sustained."

The blackness of the judge's robe puzzled him. A vestige, an
anachronism, handed down from centuries before. White was the color of
truth, not black.

"You swear that you found the defendant standing over the body of the
deceased woman on the night of ..."

"Not standing, sir. He was bending over, kissing ..."

"Your witness."

* * * * *

Days of it, back and forth, testimony and more testimony. Evidence and
more evidence and the lack of it. Smiling lawyers, grimacing lawyers,
soothing lawyers and cackling lawyers. And witnesses.

"You will please take the stand, Mr. Symmes."

He walked to the chair and sat down. The courtroom leaned forward, the
stick men bowed toward him slightly, as in eager applause of the coming
most dramatic moment of a spectacle.

"You will please tell the court in your own words ..."

He mouthed the words. The whole story, the New Year's crowd, his hunger
for her, his arrival, the other man and his babbling, the woman and how
she looked, his