“I question that.  Well, please be seated.  We have a great deal to discuss, I’m afraid.”

* * * * *

Mr. Chief Justice Frederic Pendarvis moved the ashtray a few inches to the right and the slender vase with the spray of starflowers a few inches to the left.  He set the framed photograph of the gentle-faced, white-haired woman directly in front of him.  Then he took a thin cigar from the silver box, carefully punctured the end and lit it.  Then, unable to think of further delaying tactics, he drew the two bulky loose-leaf books toward him and opened the red one, the criminal-case docket.

Something would have to be done about this; he always told himself so at this hour.  Shoveling all this stuff onto Central Courts had been all right when Mallorysport had had a population of less than five thousand and nothing else on the planet had had more than five hundred, but that time was ten years past.  The Chief Justice of a planetary colony shouldn’t have to wade through all this to see who had been accused of blotting the brand on a veldbeest calf or who’d taken a shot at whom in a barroom.  Well, at least he’d managed to get a few misdemeanor and small-claims courts established; that was something.

The first case, of course, was a homicide.  It usually was.  From Beta, Constabulary Fifteen, Lieutenant George Lunt.  Jack Holloway—­so old Jack had cut another notch on his gun—­Cold Creek Valley, Federation citizen, race Terran human; willful killing of a sapient being, to wit Kurt Borch, Mallorysport, Federation citizen, race Terran human.  Complainant, Leonard Kellogg, the same.  Attorney of record for the defendant, Gustavus Adolphus Brannhard.  The last time Jack Holloway had killed anybody, it had been a couple of thugs who’d tried to steal his sunstones; it hadn’t even gotten into complaint court.  This time he might be in trouble.  Kellogg was a Company executive.  He decided he’d better try the case himself.  The Company might try to exert pressure.

The next charge was also homicide, from Constabulary, Beta Fifteen.  He read it and blinked.  Leonard Kellogg, willful killing of a sapient being, to wit, Jane Doe alias Goldilocks, aborigine, race Zarathustran Fuzzy, complainant, Jack Holloway, defendant’s attorney of record, Leslie Coombes.  In spite of the outrageous frivolity of the charge, he began to laugh.  It was obviously an attempt to ridicule Kellogg’s own complaint out of court.  Every judicial jurisdiction ought to have at least one Gus Brannhard to liven things up a little.  Race Zarathustran Fuzzy!

Then he stopped laughing suddenly and became deadly serious, like an engineer who finds a cataclysmite cartridge lying around primed and connected to a discharger.  He reached out to the screen panel and began punching a combination.  A spectacled young man appeared and greeted him deferentially.

“Good morning, Mr. Wilkins,” he replied.  “A couple of homicides at the head of this morning’s docket—­Holloway and Kellogg, both from Beta Fifteen.  What is known about them?”