Dragon and Judge

CHAPTER 8

"Jupa Jack?"

Behind his closed eyelids, Jack frowned. What in the world—?

"Jupa Jack?" the call came again.

With an effort, Jack pried open one eyelid. There was a faint glow coming from the other room, but nothing any reasonable person would consider actual daylight. "I'm here," he called back. "What is it?"

"It is sunrise, Jupa Jack," the Golvin said. "Time to awaken and prepare for your duties."

Jack frowned. "What, already?"

"Most others are already awake and refreshed and going about their own duties," the voice replied reprovingly.

"Terrific," Jack muttered under his breath. "All right, I'll be right there."

"I will wait outside to escort you to the Great Assembly Hall," the other said, and Jack heard the subtle rustling of the fringe as the visitor exited.

"The Great Hall?" Draycos murmured from Jack's shoulder.

"The One said they'd be setting up a judgment chair for me next to his Seat of Decision," Jack told him. "Blast. The way Onfose was talking yesterday, I was hoping they'd take a few days first to translate all those case files into English."

"Or Broadspeak, as I believe they called it," Draycos said.

"Whatever," Jack said. "Maybe give us a chance to check out the mining area up there. But I guess we're kicking off the schedule today. I hope they're not expecting me to read that chicken scratching of theirs."

"I'm sure they've considered that."

"Maybe." Steeling himself, Jack threw off the covers and landed his feet on the floor. The stone was every bit as cold as he'd expected it to be. "Either way, I sure don't remember anything in the Essenay's encyclopedias about Judge-Paladins starting work before the birds are even up."

"Perhaps it's a local custom," Draycos said, peeling himself off Jack's back and leaping onto the floor. He stretched, cat-style, a quick shiver running through his scales. "I hope the clothing they gave you is warmer than it looks."

"I imagine the canyon will warm up once the sun is actually up," Jack said, heading for the bathroom. "I just hope this shower comes equipped with hot water."

"Is that likely?"

"It's possible," Jack said. "A lot of spaceship galleys and bathrooms are designed to be mostly self-contained—"

"Stop," Draycos said suddenly, his ears stiffening.

Jack froze in midstep, holding his breath. He didn't hear anything. "What is it?" he whispered.

Slowly, the K'da's ears went back to their usual angle. "I thought I heard a noise," he said. "Like someone scratching at the stone."

Jack looked toward the door. No one was visible. "Hello?" he called. "Is someone there?"

There was no answer. "I don't think it came from outside," Draycos murmured. "There was a faint echo to it."

Jack's skin tingled as he looked over at one of the white stones in its between-walls alcove. "One of the shafts?" he asked.

"Possibly," Draycos said. "At any rate, it's stopped now."

Jack took a deep breath. "Well, keep an ear out," he warned. He started again for the shower—"By the way, did I tell you I think I've figured out what sides and uprights are?"

"The sides are most likely the political or social groupings which tend to face off on issues concerning the administration of the canyon," Draycos said. "The uprights are possibly those Golvins who have generally proven honest and trustworthy in their testimonies in the past."

Jack made a face. "I don't know sometimes why I even bother to talk to you," he growled. "Go eat your breakfast mouse meat. I'll be out in a minute."

The shower turned out to be gratifyingly hot. The soap the Golvins had provided didn't seem very effective, but the towel was thick and strangely spongy. Jack washed up, threw on his shirt and jeans, and had a quick breakfast.

And now that he was thinking about it, the meat did taste much more like fish than rodent.

After breakfast, he went back into the bedroom, took off his other clothes, and dressed in the robe, sash, duster, and boots of his new office.

Despite the Golvin's concerns, the clothes seemed to fit reasonably well. The boots were a shade too big, but not enough to be a problem. "How do I look?" he asked, holding his arms out to his sides.

"Very noble," Draycos said.

Jack looked sharply at him. But if there had been any sarcasm in the comment, it wasn't visible in the K'da's face or posture.

In fact, the odd thought crossed Jack's mind that it was just the opposite. It was almost as if Draycos was seeing him for the first time.

Jack looked down his front at the strange clothing, a flurry of not entirely pleasant emotions chasing across his mind. Maybe he was seeing himself for the first time, too.

Or maybe not. "Kind of hard to move, though," he commented, swinging his arms experimentally from the shoulders. He could play all the dress-up he wanted, he reminded himself firmly, but underneath it all he was still only Jack Morgan, fourteen-year-old former thief.

"You look fine," Draycos assured him. "Shall I get your hat?"

"I'll do it." Crossing to the nightstand, Jack picked up the hat and set it carefully on his head. He took a deep breath, again forcing back the swirl of emotions, and held his hand out to Draycos. "Okay," he said. "Let's you and me go dispense some justice."

Two male Golvins and a female were waiting on the ground as he emerged from the apartment and made his way down the bridge. "Good morning to you, Jupa Jack," the female said gravely, touching the fingertips of both hands to her forehead, the gesture briefly covering her eyes. "I am Three-One-Six-Five Among Many. I will be your assistant and reader-of-records."

"I will be pleased to have your service, Thonsifi," Jack said. Briefly, he wondered if he should repeat her gesture, decided against it.

"I am honored to be of such service." Thonsifi waved a hand toward the Great Hall. "Your Seat of Judgment is prepared. Shall we go?"

She headed off along the narrow path that led to the Great Hall. One of the males walked behind her, with Jack and the other male bringing up the rear.

Many of the canyon's residents were already hard at work, Jack saw. Most were tending the cropland, while others arranged cloth and leather and metal goods on small tables around the bases of some of the pillars. From somewhere in the distance came the rhythmical clank of metal on metal.

About thirty Golvins were waiting inside the north end of the Great Hall. As promised, a chair had been set up for Jack in front of and to the right of the One's own Seat of Decision. "Jupa Jack," the One greeted him gravely from his chair as Jack stepped in front of him. "You are ready to begin?"

"I am," Jack said, eyeing the chair with fresh trepidation as he walked over to it. What in the world did he know about judging other people? For that matter, what gave him the right to even try?

But he was here, and there was nothing for it but do his best. Bracing himself, he gathered the skirts of his robe and duster around him and sat down.

Thonsifi stepped to the right side of the chair. "The first dispute lies between Three-Seven-Seven and Six-Nine-Naught," she said. "It is a question of irrigation and water rights."

Two older Golvins stepped forward out of the group, one of them glowering, the other practically radiating pride and self-righteousness. "Describe the situation," Jack said, studying them.

"The wall of the irrigation channel that separates their croplands has become chipped on Thsese's side," Thonsifi explained. "Some of the water that might otherwise go to Sinina's land is thus going instead to Thsese's land."

Jack frowned. This was a legal problem? "Why can't the chipped area simply be fixed?" he asked.

"It can," Thonsifi said. "But as I said, it is on Thsese's side."

"And?"

"It is on Thsese's side," Thonsifi repeated, starting to sound a little flustered.

Jack nodded as he finally got it. A Golvin whose name started with Three clearly outranked a simple Six, which probably meant no one could come onto his property to fix the channel wall without his permission.

And since he was getting more than his fair share of water as a result, he had no reason to fix the channel himself. "What about the people downstream?" he asked.

"They are all lesser numbers," Thonsifi said.

Which meant that although they were probably getting cheated as well, none of them had the rank to go fix the channel either. "And this damage occurred when?"

"Six seasons ago," Thonsifi said.

Jack blinked at her. "Six seasons?" he echoed, turning to look up at the One.

The One held his gaze steadily. "I rendered a decision," he said. "Thsese appealed to the higher authority of the Jupas."

"And the last time a Jupa was here . . .?"

"The last were Jupa Stuart and Jupa Ariel," the One said.

Jack grimaced. Eleven years with no Judge-Paladins in sight. No wonder Thsese had felt safe appealing his case.

Well, at least the game was over now. He'd simply order Thsese to let Sinina come over and fix the channel, and that would be the end of it.

But even as he opened his mouth to say so, he took another look at Thsese's expression. Radiating pride . . .

And suddenly he saw the trap he'd nearly walked into. These people had built their whole society on status and position, and on who could do what and with whom. Throw in their dependence on their limited crop area, and there was the potential here for long-term trouble. If he casually brushed their cultural legs out from under them, it would leave scars and resentment that would linger long after he was gone.

Still, even in places where status was king, greed was always queen. And if there was one thing Uncle Virgil had taught him, it was how to deal with both of those.

"Very well," he said, turning back to the complainants. "It's clear that through the extra water obtained for his crops, Thsese has been taking unfair profit from his neighbors."

"Yet I did not cause the rupture," Thsese put in stiffly.

"I understand that," Jack agreed. "Nevertheless, you did profit from it. I therefore decree that until the channel wall has been returned to its proper condition, twenty percent of your crops will be forfeit, to be divided between Sinina and the—"

"What?" Thsese all but screeched. He started forward, stopping only when one of the two silent males who had accompanied Jack stepped into his path. "This is outrageous!"

"To be divided between Sinina and the other landowners downstream," Jack continued. He gestured to his right. "The choosing and distribution of that twenty percent will be handled by my assistant, Thonsifi."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Thonsifi stiffen with surprise. Apparently, she wasn't looking forward to invading Thsese's territory any more than Sinina was.

But most of Jack's attention was on Thsese, and the resulting show was well worth it. The older Golvin's eyes widened, his skin wrinkling violently at this casual piling of insult onto injury. For a Three to have to allow a Thirty-One onto his land for the purpose of confiscating some of his crops—

"The channel will be fixed," he ground out.

"By sundown today?" Jack suggested.

Thsese sent a glare at the One. But he was stuck, and he knew it. "By sundown today," he agreed blackly.

"Good," Jack said. "Then I declare this case settled. Next?"

He spent the rest of the morning handling more water cases, a few land disputes, and one involving crops that had migrated from one plot to another. Most of them were quickly and more or less easily handled. A couple of them took a little more thought, and one was tricky enough that he decided to postpone it to the next day.

As the group in the Great Hall thinned, runners quietly left and rounded up the next batch of complainants.

There didn't seem to be any particular pattern to the cases. Jack wasn't being given the oldest complaints first, or those involving the highest-ranking Golvins. Certainly they weren't dealing with the most urgently pressing. His only guess was that Thonsifi had put some of the easier ones up front so that she and the One could see whether their kidnapped Jupa actually knew what he was doing.

Finally, thankfully, they broke for the midday meal.

"You're doing well," Draycos murmured from Jack's shoulder as the boy wandered along the edge of the Great Hall munching on a stalk of something sweet and crunchy he'd snared from the buffet table Thonsifi's people had set up.

"Thanks," Jack murmured back, glancing down at his shoulder before he remembered that the Judge-Paladin robe ran right up to his neck. "I hope you'll still be saying that when they start throwing the tricky stuff at me."

"Some of this morning's cases have been tricky enough," Draycos said. "You've had to deal not only with legal questions, but social and political ones as well."

"Actually, I don't think I'm doing much legal work at all," Jack said. "Mostly I'm just getting everyone to do what they should have done months or years ago on their own."

"Perhaps you're not so much a judge as a mediator," Draycos offered. "Your success here has been in bringing opposing sides together in a compromise."

"What I'm doing is finding the right levers to use on them," Jack corrected. "It's not a lot different from con work."

Draycos was silent a moment. "Some of the techniques may be similar," he said. "But the intent is far different. Under Uncle Virgil's direction, you used these methods to steal from people. Here, you use them to bring justice and harmony."

"Maybe," Jack said reluctantly. Draycos might be right, but he wasn't quite ready to agree that what he was doing was nearly so noble. It still felt way too much like what he'd been doing for Uncle Virgil all those years,

"I am concerned, though, by the fact that apparently no other Judge-Paladins have been here in all this time," Draycos went on. "You said they traveled in circuits through the less populated areas."

"I also said there weren't enough of them," Jack reminded him. "Actually, this whole planet probably qualifies as a less populated area. My guess is that any Judge-Paladin who's touched down on Semaline has stuck to the cities and towns. I doubt most of them even know this canyon is out here."

"I wonder how your parents found it."

"I don't know," Jack said. "Maybe we'll find out when we get a chance to go up to that mining area. I wonder if there are any cases that'll give us an excuse to do that."

"You believe that's where your parents died?"

"Look around," Jack said, turning around and leaning his back against the wall. "Well, no, I guess you can't. But this seems to be where Jupas judge, and there's no sign anywhere of any kind of explosion."

"It has been eleven years," Draycos reminded him. "They would surely have repaired any damage."

"If they did, they did a really good job of it," Jack said. "Don't forget, I've had a pretty good look at the building. It's all the same type of stone, and all the stone shows the same wear pattern. The floor stones in particular fit perfectly together."

"I'll accept your analysis," Draycos said, though Jack thought he could hear an unspoken for now. "But that brings up another possibility. If they were visiting the mine, could the explosion that killed them have been an accident after all?"

Jack chewed the inside of his cheek. That was a good point. Maybe there was no real mystery here, no hidden crime to be uncovered and avenged. "We won't know until we get up there," he decided. "Let's put our heads together and come up with some reason to go topside."

Finishing off the sweet stalk, he turned back toward his Seat of Judgment. "In the meantime, I've got more justice to dispense."

The afternoon's cases were pretty much a repeat of the morning's stack. Most of them involved water and crop problems, with a few apartment and neighbor troubles thrown in.

Most of the cases struck Jack as rather feeble, with the appeal to a higher authority in each case probably having been made by whichever side had been the loser under the One's original decision. Close to half the canyon, he reflected, had probably been rather annoyed when a new Judge-Paladin had actually shown up.

It was on the last case of the day, as the sky was beginning to darken overhead, that the pattern suddenly changed.

"This is Four-Eight-Naught-Two," Thonsifi said as a slightly bedraggled Golvin was brought forward. "He was discovered this morning sleeping in the flying transport of the Many."

"Really," Jack said, noting the bruising along the right side of Foeinatw's neck where Draycos had knocked him out. "Why didn't you simply sleep in your apartment, Foeinatw?"

The other didn't answer, his eyes focused on the floor in front of Jack's feet. "He claims to have been set upon by others," Thonsifi said. "At least one, possibly more. He further claims that these others damaged the flying transport's interior."

"I see," Jack said. Thonsifi's voice was steady and professional enough, but he could sense contempt lurking beneath the words. From some of the other neighbor-conflict cases he'd heard that afternoon he gathered that accusing someone of assault was a very serious charge among the Golvins. Doing so without proof was apparently even more so. "Can you name these assailants?" he asked.

"I cannot," Foeinatw said, his voice low.

Jack pursed his lips. Without proof of the assault, his logical legal course would be to assume Foeinatw was lying and come up with some punishment for sleeping in the shuttle and some compensation for damaging it.

But on the other hand, maybe this was exactly the right time for a little creativity. "Step forward," he ordered the Golvin.

Foeinatw hesitated, then shuffled a few steps closer. Jack leaned forward, peering closely at him. "Did these assailants strike you or merely lock your arms?" he asked.

"They struck me." Gingerly, Foeinatw touched his neck. "Here."

"Yes, I see." Jack leaned back again in his chair. "I will make inquiries among the Many," he said. "You are released for the moment without punishment."

Thonsifi turned to Jack, her skin wrinkling in surprise. "Jupa?"

"Clearly, he's been hit," Jack said, pointing out the bruise. "If he was assaulted and others did the damage to the flying transport, he cannot be held accountable."

"No, of course not," Thonsifi murmured. "Foeinatw, you may go."

"I thank the Jupa," Foeinatw said, his face as wrinkled with surprise as Thonsifi's. But along with the surprise, Jack could see a hint of puzzlement as well.

Small wonder. The Golvin had probably concluded that his attacker was Jack himself, or someone in league with him, and that his trial would thus be a complete sham.

Except that the Jupa had not only accepted his explanation, but had even let him off.

He would, Jack suspected, be doing a lot of rethinking tonight.

"That is the last case for the day," Thonsifi said, closing down her notebook as Foeinatw headed for the door. "It has been an honor to serve with you, Jupa Jack. I look forward to doing so again tomorrow."

"As do I," Jack said, standing up and stretching his shoulders. "How badly was the flying transport damaged, by the way?"

"Not badly," Thonsifi assured him. "Merely some torn cloth. It has been taken to the Fabric-Makers' shop for repair."

"Ah," Jack said. And as long as it was there, presumably, it wouldn't be available for Foeinatw to borrow again, which was good.

Unfortunately, it also wouldn't be available for Jack and Draycos to borrow should the need arise. That wasn't so good. "I trust it will be repaired soon," he added.

"Sooner than we will find Foeinatw's assailants, I expect," Thonsifi said, a hint of her earlier disapproval coloring her voice.

"I take it you don't think much of him?" Jack suggested.

Thonsifi's ears stretched out briefly. A shrug? "He is not one of the uprights," she said. "Far from it. I will say no more."

"I suppose every place has a few scoundrels," Jack said, a part of him noting the irony. A few months earlier, he would have qualified as one of the scoundrels himself. "If they didn't, we wouldn't need Judge-Paladins."

Thonsifi bowed her head to him. "And we are most grateful for your service and wisdom."

"You're welcome," Jack said, suppressing his automatic impulse to downplay his so-called wisdom. "Speaking of service, how many cases did we serve today?"

"Forty-one," Thonsifi said. "An excellent start."

"How many cases are left?"

She consulted her notebook. "Seven hundred ninety-two."

Jack suppressed a groan. Great. "I guess we won't be running out of work anytime soon, then," he said as cheerfully as he could manage. "Good night, Thonsifi. Good night, One Among Many," he added, looking at the One.

"Good evening to you, Jupa Jack," the One said gravely. "Your evening food is waiting in your apartment."

"Thank you," Jack said. He was, he suddenly realized, ravenously hungry. And he would bet that Draycos was even more so.

"Sleep well and peacefully," the One added. "I will see you tomorrow."