The Criminal Streak Read online

  Occasionally, he’d send back a case to be reviewed, not because he thought the person innocent, but because he needed something to break the monotony.

  Judge Jym smothered a yawn and looked down at the woman standing in the defendant’s docket. She was presenting her side in a precise, calm way not generally seen in his courtroom. Usually the attitude of an accused male was outrage at even being thought a killer or anger at being caught. The females, though, had a wider range of emotions. Some were devastated by the act of killing or by the way their lives had suddenly changed; some were delighted or relieved depending on whom they had killed and why; while others desperately tried to convince him of their innocence.

  “But the evidence points to you,” he said. “It was your purse and scarf found near the body, you have the victim’s blood on your clothes, and you say you don’t remember anything about where you were at the time he was killed.”

  “That’s because someone stuck a needle in my arm and I passed out.”

  “We only have your word on that.”

  “It’s true,” she said, forcefully.

  “Then you think someone is trying to frame you?”

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  That was different. He’d given her an opening to tell the long winded story she had made up that would explain everything, and she hadn’t taken it. Was it possible that what she said was true? After all, why would a well educated woman who held a prestigious position in the Space Organization kill someone she didn’t even know?

  “And you maintain that you had nothing to do with the other murders on Harlot Row.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you have an explanation as to why there were no killings while you were on your mission?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Again, she didn’t jump in with a fabricated tale. Maybe he should….

  The door swung open with a bang and a messenger entered the court. He walked up to the judge’s desk and slapped down a metal note.

  “For you.”

  Judge Jym was irked at the lack of respect the messenger showed, not asking permission of the court, not addressing him as Your Honor. But then, all the court staff coming to his Low Court were like that. They’d all heard the story and probably laughed at him behind his back.

  Judge Jym picked up the note. It was another summons from the Judicial Committee. He slammed his fist on the desk. Damn, what did they want this time? He hadn’t been careful on his visits to the row lately. There was no need. No one resented him getting this job.

  “Excuse me, Your Honour.”

  Judge Jym angrily looked down at the woman. What did she mean by interrupting him? Couldn’t she see he had other things on his mind right now? Didn’t she have any respect for him, for the court?

  “Guilty.” He banged his gavel, getting a little satisfaction. “Sentenced to the Ceriem for fifteen years.” And to the colony on the new planet, he thought. That’s where every criminal should end up.

  He stood and left the room ignoring the pleading and crying of the woman as she was dragged away by the court officials.

  * * *

  The long file of new prisoners straggled down the hallway of the space prison, Raydor. They each wore a thick metal ring on their heads that monitored a perimeter around them. If they stepped outside that perimeter the ring would send a jolt of electricity into their brain. One guard led the prisoners while two guards followed. The guards wore air masks; the new prisoners gagged on the smell. Jawn held his shirt over his face to try and cut the stench as he looked in the cages for his brother. It was all he could do not to cry at what had happened.

  “You won’t find him in there,” one of the guards yelled through his mask. “Those are the murderers.”

  Jawn’s shoulders slumped. He hadn’t seen Georg since their arrest. They’d been separated at the jail with Georg being taken into an office and Jawn put into a cell with Ruthi, Marc, and Tery. They’d all been in a daze, shaken that they’d been arrested even after making their payment to the police. Tery had wept over never seeing his wife again.

  Jawn had explained about the police officer, Curt, and how it looked like Davi had offered him more money than they paid. They’d spent the rest of the time in silence, each one cringing at what this meant to their lives. In court the next morning, they’d immediately been sentenced to the orbital prisons and were shuttled out within the hour. Now they were being taken to their cells.

  “Can’t you tell me where he is?”

  “He’s not on our list of new prisoners so he might have been sent to the Ceriem.”

  The line stopped and the metal ring was removed from the first prisoner’s head. The original door, of what had once been a small apartment, had been removed and one made of horizontal bars had been put in its place. The guard opened it and the prisoner stepped in. The line walked past the cell and Jawn glanced in. There were two sets of bunk beds and he could see the new prisoner settling onto a bottom one. At the next cell with space available Jawn saw Ruthi go in and Marc entered the one after. Then it was a long walk and three more stops before they reached the one that would be Jawn’s home.

  Jawn entered the cell, which was already occupied by four other guys. And since there were only four bunks he stood uncertainly just inside the door.

  “Sit on the floor in the corner,” the front guard said, roughly. “Someone will be around later with a mattress and a blanket.”

  Jawn sat with his back against the wall beside the door. Ahead of him were the two sets of bunk beds, one in each corner. The corner to his left was empty and to his right was the sink and toilet. There was a puddle of dark water around the base of the toilet.

  Jawn had a headache from the smell and he wondered how the prisoners endured it. He looked at the bunks and found the four men staring at him.

  “You a tobacco dealer?” one of them asked.

  Jawn nodded.

  “Where did you grow it?”

  “In the Tech Dump.”

  “The Tech Dump?” another asked in surprise. “No one has ever come in here from the Tech Dump. Someone turn you in?”

  “Someone bought off our police protection.”

  “You mean Georg’s officers turned on him?”

  Jawn nodded.

  “Well, well, well,” the first man grinned. “That must be the work of Davi.”

  “How did you know?”

  “That’s why I’m here, too. I refused to link my tobacco growing with his and next thing I know I’m being arrested and thrown in here.”

  “That’s what happened to us.”

  “Davi must be paying well. How many were caught with you?”

  “Three others, my brother Georg and me.”

  “Georg is here?”

  Jawn shook his head. “The guards said he was probably on the Ceriem.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jawn.”

  “I’m Beny and these are Tedd, Sonn, and Stev.”

  They all nodded at Jawn and he nodded back. There was the sound of footsteps and Jawn looked out the bars to see two guards dragging a small mattress. One of the guards yelled through his mask for Jawn to move away from the door. Jawn scrambled back just as the door opened. The mattress was tossed into the cell and Jawn had to grab it to keep it from landing in the puddle. A blanket was dropped on the floor and the door clanged shut again.

  Jawn watched the guards walk away then laid his mattress in the corner to his left and covered it with the blanket. Then he sat down and leaned his head against the wall. How he wished he would wake up from this nightmare.

  * * *

  “You may go in now.”

  Judge Jym lifted his head and straightened his shoulders. He had to put on a good show. He pushed open the door of the meeting room and walked in.

  “Good morning Evaluators One through Nine.” He bowed slightly to show respect.

  Evaluators One to Eight nodded. Evaluator Nine spoke and Judge
Jym knew he was in serious trouble. If the problem was minor Evaluator One communicated the information they’d received and meted out the discipline they’d decided on. As the offence increased so did the evaluator number and the punishment.

  “You know how important it is for everyone in the judiciary to maintain a high moral and ethical standard both at work and on their own time and yet you still seem to be taking the integrity of your office lightly. You are still visiting Harlot Row.”

  Someone was having him followed again. He didn’t go to the row dressed in his robes so he was sure none of the residents knew him as a judge. To them he was just another client. He occasionally recognized someone from the row in his courtroom but he didn’t worry about them. They were on their way to prison and could do him no harm.

  “We have had you watched for the past two weeks.”

  Judge Jym stood silently.

  “Do you have anything to say?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “You have been a great disappointment to us,” Evaluator Nine said. “We had plans for you when you received your judgeship and we thought you had plans, too.”

  Judge Jym did not respond.

  “We believe we have been very lenient with you. It is not our custom to fire judges—it gives the impression that we had poor judgement in hiring them. So you have two choices. You can either resign on your own with a small pension or you can volunteer to accompany the prisoners to their new planet and serve as the judge for the colony.”

  Judge Jym coughed in amazement. Those were his choices: a small pension and probably no prospects for a job, or a flight to a primitive planet?

  “What if I refuse to do either?”

  “I said it is not our custom to fire judges. I didn’t say we wouldn’t under the right circumstances.”

  “How long would I be there for?” he asked, stalling for time.

  The evaluators looked at each other. “Five years,” Evaluator Three said.

  “And what would be here for me when I return?”

  “A sizable pension.”

  “No judgeship?”

  “No. We can’t abide your behaviour now and our ethics won’t have changed in five years.”

  There was silence. Judge Jym had no more questions.

  “You may let us know your answer by this time tomorrow.”

  Judge Jym knew there was no need for that. He was foolish but he wasn’t stupid. There was only one answer he could give.

  * * *

  As part of his training Royd been taught the basic workings of the spaceships that had taken him to distant planets during his career. But it wasn’t enough to make him comfortable at inspecting the ships for the journey. So, he’d hired a technician, whose thorough inspection of each spaceship took most of a day. Although he was cheating the Global Alliance, Royd still wanted to make sure that the ships he purchased would handle the journey. After all, he would be riding in one of them.

  “This one is old but still in good shape,” the technician said, wiping his hands after checking the engines of a ship. “It should have no trouble making the trip.”

  Royd nodded and after arranging a price, added it to his file. The total number of passengers including the crews came to 3255. So far he had three ships of the Extraprobe Series that could hold 700 each. But there were no more of that type available. He’d have to look at other models and either find one large ship that could carry the remaining passengers or two more about the same size as the ones he had.

  He was at the third dealer on the list Zudo had given him. One of the others he’d been to had a large ship but it wasn’t in as good a condition as he would have liked. The deal on it, though, was tempting. He’d make more money buying it than on the other three put together.

  “I’m going back to the second dealer,” Royd told Thanis, the person who had become his constant companion since Zudo had returned to Pidleon.

  “Not that I don’t trust you,” Zudo had said, just before leaving. “But I’ll leave Thanis here to protect my interests.”

  Thanis merely nodded and followed Royd and the technician off the used sales lot. He said little but never left Royd’s side. He did record, however, the prices arranged for the ships.

  What disturbed Royd most about the large spaceship were its engines. The technician had said they were old and weren’t powered enough for it to keep up with the smaller ships. It was obvious Leader Four knew her spaceships and she would probably wonder why he had bought such an underpowered one. His explanation that it carried more passengers wouldn’t be appreciated when the object was to get the prisoners to the planet in the shortest time possible.

  “We have word that one of the space cruise companies is supposed to be trading in two ships tomorrow morning,” the salesman said when they arrived at his lot. “If you’d like to come back in the late afternoon we should have them ready for inspection.”

  Royd returned the next afternoon with Thanis and the technician. The ships were smaller than he’d expected. He wasn’t sure if they would hold over six hundred prisoners, guards and crew. While the technician checked them over for space worthiness, Royd walked through them to see how large the rooms and pleasure areas were.

  If he hung hammocks from the ceilings of the pleasure areas of all the ships he could squeeze more into them. The prisoners would be crowded, but then they should be used to that.

  “One is okay, the other really needs a good overhauling before it flies again,” the technician said, coming up to him.

  “How long would that take?” Royd asked.

  “Depending on what needs changing and how soon we can get parts, it could be a month.”

  “That’s too long. What would happen if it didn’t get the repairs?”

  “I wouldn’t want to fly very far in it.”

  Royd, followed by Thanis, walked over to the salesman. “My technician says one of them needs some work. I’ll have to continue looking.”

  “If you buy the good one I’ll give you the other one,” the salesman said.

  “The second one is no good to me,” Royd said.

  The salesman quickly listed a price.

  Royd shook his head but before he could say anything the salesman quoted another figure that was way below what Royd had paid for just one of the other ships. He fought the temptation to accept. His share would be more than he had thought he would make on the whole arrangement.

  “I think Zudo would approve,” Thanis said, quietly.

  “Oh, I’m sure he would,” Royd agreed, sarcastically. “But then he wouldn’t take into consideration the lives involved.

  “They’re murderers and drug dealers. What do you care about them?”

  “What about the guards and crew?”

  “The technician didn’t say it couldn’t fly.” Thanis shrugged. “And it doesn’t have to return.”

  He was right. The ship only had to make the trip to the colony planet. There would be enough ships to get the guards and crew home again. And there wasn’t much the Leaders could do when he returned. Spaceships broke down all the time.

  “I’ll take them if you give me a written report that both are in sound flying condition.” He would make sure he ordered double the normal replacement parts for the flight.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Curt walked down the hallway and paused at the doorway to room 211. He peered in. The room was full. He rechecked the number on the door. It was the right room. He’d been summoned into headquarters from his patrol for an important meeting but he’d assumed that, besides his superiors, he would be the only one attending.

  The room was too small for a gathering this large and the air was stuffy. No chairs had been provided so everyone stood, some in groups, some alone. The atmosphere was tense and conversation was strained, as if everyone sensed something unusual was about to occur.

  Curt pushed his way through the crowd. Everyone was in uniform and from the insignias he could see that they represented detachments from each lev
el of Megalopolis One. This puzzled him. All levels had their own administration and there had never been the need for a general conclave.

  Something big was happening. He continued his circuit but did not see a stage for a speaker, nor did he see any of his superiors. What was going on? He finally spotted two people he recognized.

  “What’s this about?” he asked.

  They shrugged. “No one seems to know.”

  Just then the metal door clanged shut. Conversation stopped abruptly. Everyone looked around expectantly but no one stepped up to claim the meeting. In the silence, the tension grew. Eyes were met; brows raised in question, shoulders shrugged in answer. No one dared speak.

  “Good afternoon,” a voice came at them from four different directions.

  Some jumped at the sudden noise and there was a general pointing to the four loudspeakers, with cameras, high in the corners. Most turned to face a speaker unit although there was no one to see.

  “As you know, now that a colony planet has been chosen, the relocation experiment is under way. Spaceships are being fitted for the convicts and their accompanying guards. The guards, however, will be returning home once the prisoners are settled. So what we are looking for is a police force to stay and maintain order in the colony. You have been chosen for that force.”

  There was a moment of silence as the news sunk in. Then suddenly a din rose from the room full of incredulous officers. Everyone hollered questions at the speakers or tried to get an explanation from someone nearby.

  “What do you mean, we’ve been chosen? We were never asked to volunteer!”

  “Why us?”

  “You can’t make us!”

  “What’s this all about?”

  “I’m not going!”

  “Quiet,” the voice said, but they kept up their questions. “Quiet!”

  In the following silence the voice continued. “What many of you don’t realize is that the Police Authority has been keeping track of your activities outside the regular limits of your jobs—activities such as taking bribes, dealing in drugs or tobacco, hustling, blackmail, and even working on Harlot Row. Many of you have been censured and others have received demerits. Some of you have actually been threatened with dismissal, but none of that seems to have stopped your ventures.”