“When a guard went in to rouse him this morning, the cot, under the blanket, was found saturated with blood.  Kellogg had cut his throat, by sawing the zipper track of his shirt back and forth till he severed his jugular vein.  He was dead.”

“Good heavens, Marshal!” He was shocked.  The way he’d heard it, Kellogg had hidden a penknife, and he was prepared to be severe with Fane about it.  But a thing like this!  He found himself fingering the toothed track of his own jacket zipper.  “I don’t believe you can be at all censured for not anticipating a thing like that.  It isn’t a thing anybody would expect.”

Janiver and Ruiz spoke briefly in agreement.  Marshal Fane bowed slightly and went off to one side.

Leslie Coombes, who seemed to be making a very considerable effort to look grieved and shocked, rose.

“Your Honors, I find myself here without a client,” he said.  “In fact, I find myself here without any business at all; the case against Mr. Holloway is absolutely insupportable.  He shot a man who was trying to kill him, and that’s all there is to it.  I therefore pray your Honors to dismiss the case against him and discharge him from custody.”

Captain Greibenfeld bounded to his feet.

“Your Honors, I fully realize that the defendant is now beyond the jurisdiction of this court, but let me point out that I and my associates are here participating in this case in the hope that the classification of this planet may be determined, and some adequate definition of sapience established.  These are most serious questions, your Honors.”

“But, your Honors,” Coombes protested, “we can’t go through the farce of trying a dead man.”

“People of the Colony of Baphomet versus Jamshar Singh, Deceased, charge of arson and sabotage, A.E. 604,” the Honorable Gustavus Adolphus Brannhard interrupted.

Yes, you could find a precedent in colonial law for almost anything.

Jack Holloway was on his feet, a Fuzzy cradled in the crook of his left arm, his white mustache bristling truculently.

“I am not a dead man, your Honors, and I am on trial here.  The reason I’m not dead is why I am on trial.  My defense is that I shot Kurt Borch while he was aiding and abetting in the killing of a Fuzzy.  I want it established in this court that it is murder to kill a Fuzzy.”

The judge nodded slowly.  “I will not dismiss the charges against Mr. Holloway,” he said.  “Mr. Holloway had been arraigned on a charge of murder; if he is not guilty, he is entitled to the vindication of an acquittal.  I am afraid, Mr. Coombes, that you will have to go on prosecuting him.”

Another brief stir, like a breath of wind over a grain field, ran through the courtroom.  The show was going on after all.

* * * * *