Starship Armstrong - Season 2

Part 80 - The Trial Of Dr. Kang (XVI)

Dr. Kang's bankbook was effectively endless, and so therefore so was the barrel from which Diamond seemed to pull expert after expert. Over the course of a week of testimony he had called into question not just the veracity of T-Node logs, but the chain of evidence for the murder weapon, the identity of the second Dr. Kang, the identification of the body, the credibility of the entire Martian police force, the science of psychology, the ability of humans to measure time, and the concept of memory.

The court listened to four hours of testimony from an expert on multiverse theory. An alleged psychic, who had somehow been certified as an expert on "the paranormal" by several Martian courts, testified that Dr. Po was still alive and living on one of the Jovian colonies.

Diamond called every kind of witness imaginable. Except character witnesses. He really didn't want to open the door to character evidence.

The jury was starting to lose their patience and Diamond was running out of cards to play. This was an incredibly high profile case; it would not help his reputation any to lose it. This could even hurt his hourly rate if things kept going the way they were. He would need to come up with one of his characteristically genius last-minute ideas...

He decided he was just as likely to come up with the idea in his car as anywhere else. There was no reason why he had to go back to the office.

Technically Diamond was supposed to drop by his office after the trial, but he decided to head directly home. He could deal with whatever petty nonsense was going on over there on Monday. He needed time to think.

His car flew up from the third level of traffic and merged into the fourth. It didn't help much; traffic was nuts. Nobody was getting up past about 100 clicks.

Diamond cursed the short-sighted Luddites who kept blocking all the proposals to expand the airspace dedicated to car traffic. Their precious view was costing the city thousands of work hours a day from travel inefficiencies. It was enough to make someone want to lower themselves to taking the tubes.

His car chirped. It was his secretary calling. Diamond sighed. If he was going to skip the office he'd really have to take this.

"This is Diamond," he said, flicking on the call "What planet-shaking earthquake of an emergency do you have for me? Because if the next sentence I hear doesn't describe an emergency of the aforementioned severity I am hanging up."

"There was a package for you," said Montjoy, Diamond's secretary.

"This isn't shattering my planet. I'm hanging up," said Diamond.

"It was unaddressed so I opened it," said Montjoy "You're probably going to want to come down here and see this."

"This can't wait until Monday why?" asked Diamond "Be specific. My finger is hovering above the hang up button."

"I don't have a law degree or anything but I'm guessing you'll want to file a motion to amend the witness list before day's end."

"Is that so?" asked Diamond, with condescending sweetness "Why would I want to do that when my alternative is to drive home and bang my hot wife?"

"Because this Kang guy might be innocent," said Montjoy.

"By the stars, are you serious?" asked Diamond "What in the galaxy was in that package?"