mplaint court; Lieutenant
Lunt, as a police magistrate, had only the most limited powers.

"You saw how far they got, didn't you?"

"I hope we don't wish they'd succeeded," Rainsford said gloomily.

"What do you mean, Ben?" Brannhard asked. "What do you think they'll do?"

"I don't know. That's what worries me. We're threatening the Zarathustra
Company, and the Company's too big to be threatened safely," Rainsford
replied. "They'll try to frame something on Jack."

"With veridication? That's ridiculous, Ben."

"Don't you think we can prove sapience?" Gerd van Riebeek demanded.

"Who's going to define sapience? And how?" Rainsford asked. "Why,
between them, Coombes and O'Brien can even agree to accept the
talk-and-build-a-fire rule."

"Huh-uh!" Brannhard was positive. "Court ruling on that, about forty years
ago, on Vishnu. Infanticide case, woman charged with murder in the death
of her infant child. Her lawyer moved for dismissal on the grounds that
murder is defined as the killing of a sapient being, a sapient being is
defined as one that can talk and build a fire, and a newborn infant can do
neither. Motion denied; the court ruled that while ability to speak and
produce fire is positive proof of sapience, inability to do either or both
does not constitute legal proof of nonsapience. If O'Brien doesn't know
that, and I doubt if he does, Coombes will." Brannhard poured another
drink and gulped it before the sapient beings around him could get at it.
"You know what? I will make a small wager, and I will even give odds, that
the first thing Ham O'Brien does when he gets back to Mallorysport will be
to enter _nolle prosequi_ on both charges. What I'd like would be for him
to _nol. pros._ Kellogg and let the charge against Jack go to court. He
would be dumb enough to do that himself, but Leslie Coombes wouldn't let
him."

"But if he throws out the Kellogg case, that's it," Gerd van Riebeek said.
"When Jack comes to trial, nobody'll say a mumblin' word about sapience."

"I will, and I will not mumble it. You all know colonial law on homicide.
In the case of any person killed while in commission of a felony, no
prosecution may be brought in any degree, against anybody. I'm going to
contend that Leonard Kellogg was murdering a sapient being, that Jack
Holloway acted lawfully in attempting to stop it and that when Kurt Borch
attempted to come to Kellogg's assistance he, himself, was guilty of
felony, and consequently