"So you are a very important member of the crew?"

"On the contrary, I am the most expendable."

"The prosecution has suggested you had the opportunity to kill Dr. Calhoun.

Did you have that opportunity?"

"I was not alone with him at the time he died."

"But you can’t account for your presence during the entire window of opportunity for this crime."

"I can account for it. I simply cannot prove the truth of the account. And there are others who had equal opportunity."

"The prosecution has also suggested that you had the means to kill Dr. Calhoun. Specifically, that you used a monofilament carving tool to sever his leg. Would such a tool work for that purpose?"

"I suspect so, yes."

"But a murder conviction requires more than just opportunity and means. It—"

"Objection. Mr. Rice is arguing his case."

"Sustained."

"What about motive, Hask? Did you have any reason to want to se Dr. Calhoun dead?"

Ziegler was on her feet. "Objection, Your Honor. CALJIC 2.51: ‘Motive is not an element of the crime charged and need not be shown.’ "

"Overruled. I’ll present the jury instructions, counselor."

"Hask, did you have any motive for wanting to see Dr. Calhoun dead?"

"None."

"Is there any Tosok religious ritual that involves dissection or dismemberment?"

"No."

"We humans have some rather bloody sports. Some humans like to hunt animals. Do your people hunt for sport?"

"Define ‘for sport,’ please."

"For fun. For recreation. As a way of passing the time."

"No."

"But you are carnivores."

"We are omnivores."

"Sorry. But you do eat meat."

"Yes. But we do not hunt. Our ancestors did, certainly, but that was centuries ago. As the Court has seen, we now grow meat that has no central nervous system."

"So you’ve never had the urge to kill something with your own hands?"

"Certainly not."

"The tape we saw of you and Dr. Calhoun talking aboard the mothership implies differently."

"I was engaging in idle speculation. I said something to the effect that perhaps we had given up too much in no longer hunting our own food, but I have no more desire to slaughter something to eat than you do, Mr. Rice."

"In general, is there any reason at all you’d want to kill something?"

"No."

"In particular, is there any reason you’d want to kill Dr. Calhoun?"

"None whatsoever."

"What did you think of Dr. Calhoun?"

"I liked him. He was my friend."

"How did you feel when you learned he was dead?"

"I was sad."

"Reports say you didn’t look sad."

"I am physically incapable of shedding tears, Mr. Rice. But I expressed it in my own way. Clete was my friend, and I wish more than anything that he was not dead."

"Thank you, Mr. Hask." Dale sat down. "Your witness, counselor."

"Hask," said Ziegler, rising to her feet.

"Your Honor," said Dale, "objection! Mr. Hask is entitled to common courtesy. Ms. Ziegler should surely precede his name with an honorific."

Ziegler looked miffed, but apparently realized that any argument would just make her look even more rude.

"Sustained," said Pringle. "Ms. Ziegler, you will address the defendant as ‘Mr. Hask’ or ‘sir.’ "

"Of course, Your Honor," said Ziegler. "My apologies. Mr. Hask, you said you weren’t alone with Dr. Calhoun at the time of his murder."

"Correct."

"But you had been alone with him on other occasions?"

"Certainly. We took the trip up to the mothership together."

"Yes, yes. But, beyond that, hadn’t you and he spent time alone at the USC residence?"

"From time to time he and I happened to be the only people present in a given room."

"It was more than that, wasn’t it? Is it not true that you often spent time alone with Dr. Calhoun — sometimes in his room at Valcour Hall, sometimes in your own?"

"We talked often, yes. Friends do that."

"So it would not be at all unusual for him to admit you to his room?"

"Clete had singular tastes in music. No one else would join him there when he was using his CD player."

"Singular tastes?"

Hask made a sound very much like human throat-clearing, then sang, " ‘Swing your partner, do-si-do—’ "

The jury erupted into laughter.

"Thank you for that recital," said Ziegler coldly. "Mr. Hask, if you were often a guest of the deceased in his room, then why should we believe that you were not in his room when he was killed?"

"You should believe it because of the presumption of innocence, which is supposed to be the underpinning of your system of jurisprudence."

"Move to strike as nonresponsive," snapped Ziegler.

But Judge Pringle was smiling. "It seemed an excellent response to me, Ms. Ziegler. Overruled."

Ziegler turned back to Hask. "You admit, though, that you were frequently alone with Dr. Calhoun."

" ‘Occasionally’ would be a more correct word."

"Fine. You were occasionally alone with him. And on the night that he died, you chose not to go see Stephen Jay Gould."

"That is correct."

"Why is that?"

"I knew that I would likely shed my skin that evening."

"And you wanted privacy for that?"

"Not at all. But I have observed the incredible attention you humans give to us Tosoks, even under the most banal circumstances. I felt it would be rude to create a distraction during Professor Gould’s lecture by shedding my skin in public."

"Very considerate," said Ziegler sarcastically. "Yet you were not due to shed that day. How could you possibly know it was going to happen?"

"I had begun dropping scales earlier that day, and I was experiencing the itchy feeling that is normally associated with the shedding of skin. I grant that my shedding was unscheduled, but I was aware in advance that it was going to happen."

"And how do you explain the presence of objects resembling Tosok scales being found in Dr. Calhoun’s room?"

"Objection," said Dale. "Calls for speculation."

"I’ll allow it," said Pringle.

Hask’s topknot waved slightly. "I visited him earlier in the day; perhaps I dropped some scales then. Or perhaps I had dropped scales elsewhere in the dormitory, and Dr. Calhoun, intrigued by them, picked them up and took them to his room for study; they could have then been knocked to the floor from his desk during whatever melee might have accompanied his murder."

"What were you doing while Dr. Calhoun was murdered?"

"I believe the People have been unable to establish precisely when that occurred," said Hask.

"Very well. What were you doing between eight p.m. and midnight last December twenty-second?"

"From eight p.m. to eight-thirty p.m., I watched TV."

"What program?"

"I believe I was ‘channel surfing,’ if I understand the term. I watched a variety of programs." His tuft parted in a Tosok shrug. "I am a male, after all."

The jury laughed. Ziegler’s cheeks turned slightly red. "And after your channel surfing?"

"Meditation, mostly. And, of course, the shedding of my skin."

"Of course," said Ziegler. "The very convenient shedding of your skin."

"It is never convenient, Ms. Ziegler. I do not know if you are prone to any periodic biological function, but, trust me, such things are just plain irritating."

Judge Pringle was struggling to suppress a grin.

"The tool used to kill Dr. Calhoun," said Ziegler. "Was it yours?"

"It certainly looks as though he was killed with a Tosok monofilament, yes.

It could have been mine or that of any of the others; it is a common tool — we have dozens of them aboard our starship. But even if it was mine, it was hardly an item I kept under lock and key."

Dale allowed himself a small smile. Hask was being a wonderful witness — funny, warm, reasonable. It was clear that he was winning the jury over.