Jealousy -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Space travelers -- Fiction; Spouses -- Fiction; Trials -- Fiction
"We have seen the pictures, Captain Hastings, and we accept them. The
facts were presented as they happened. It is unfortunate that we can
show no evidence of what reached John Hastings' eye as he looked into
the electron-lightscope. Mechanical tabulations cannot be transmitted
to our screen, since its envisioning powers are limited to the sensory
memory patterns of the brain. We must therefore go to the defendant
himself for further evidence."
They had removed the heavy mesh, but the captain's head remained bowed.
"Do you swear, John Hastings, that by the power of the God whom we know
to be, and by the strength of your own mind, you will tell us what you
saw in that instrument?"
"I do so swear."
"You may proceed."
He drew himself together. "I found her at her mother's house. Even
though it's vacant now, she liked to go back there occasionally when I
was away."
The twelve other jurors were leaning forward in their boxes. I could
feel my body itching from the strain.
"You located her at her mother's house, at 4AH54 on the Third Level,
Eighty-first Sector, west of the Hudson?"
"I did."
"Continue."
"She was sitting on the lawn in front of the house, talking to a man.
His back was toward me."
"You could not see his face?"
"Not then."
"Go on."
"They talked for a while. Then he moved to her on the grass. She smiled
and they put their arms around one another. He kissed her."
"What happened then?"
"He lifted her to her feet, and I saw it was Charles Lathrop. They went
to the door, and she opened it." He found it hard to get the words past
his lips.
"Please proceed."
"When she got inside, she turned around and smiled. It looked as if
she was laughing at me. Then she reached out and touched his arm.
She--she--"
"Please speak louder. She what?"
"She took him inside and shut the door."
Heaped silence greeted the words. Men turned quietly and gazed at their
wives, their eyes asking a question for the bewildered, the undecided.
"John Hastings, we have checked thoroughly. Your wife did spend the
night of the fifteenth in the vacant house of which you speak. She
spent the night, however, alone. Her graphs show no disturbances, no
emotional exhilaration. You are perpetrating an untruth."
"I'm not. I saw it! I saw it as plainly as I can see the box in which I
am standing now."
"You could not have seen it."
"Before my God, I did! I saw every detail. The yellow pannier she wore.
The blue hydrangea bush on the lawn. That broken aneroid beside the
door. Every detail." His voice crescendoed.
"It is impossible."
* * * * *
He raised his fists in the air. "Say it's impossible if you like.
Repeat it a thousand times! But I saw her do it just the same!! I _saw_
it!"
Something inside me had pulled tight. Thoughts of the classroom flooded
into my mind. Long forgotten formulae, theories ... somewhere! The
voice droned on, charging the jurors:
"--having reviewed the evidence--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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