“Healthy day, Adjudicator,” said the woman, sitting on a saddle-seat behind a kidney-shaped table.

“Healthy day,” said Sard. “I wish to access the alibi archive of Ponter Boddit, a physicist from generation 145.”

The woman nodded and spoke into a computer. The machine’s square screen displayed a series of numbers. “Follow me,” she said. Sard and the others did just that.

For all her bulk, the keeper had a sprightly step. She led them down a series of corridors, the walls of which were lined with niches, each containing an alibi cube, a block of reconstituted granite about the size of a person’s head. “Here we are,” said the woman. “Receptacle number 16,321: Ponter Boddit.”

The adjudicator nodded, then turned her wrinkled wrist with its own Companion to face the glowing blue eye on Ponter’s cube. “I, Komel Sard, adjudicator, hereby order the unlocking of alibi receptacle 16,321, for just and appropriate legal inquiries. Timestamp.”

The eye on the receptacle turned yellow. The adjudicator stepped out of the way, and the archivist held up her Companion. “I, Mabla Dabdalb, Keeper of Alibis, hereby concur with the unlocking of receptacle 16,321, for just and appropriate legal inquiries. Timestamp.” The eye turned red, and a tone sounded.

“There you are, Adjudicator. You can use the projector in room twelve.”

“Thank you,” said Sard, and they marched back up to the front. Dabdalb pointed out the room she’d assigned them, and Sard, Bolbay, Adikor, Jasmel, and Megameg walked over to it and went inside.

The room was large and square, with a small gallery of saddle-seats against one wall. Everyone sat down, except for Bolbay, who moved over to the wall-mounted control console. It was only within this building that the alibi archives could be accessed; to protect against unauthorized viewing, the archive pavilion was completely isolated from the planetary information network, and had no outside telecommunications lines. Although it was sometimes inconvenient to have to physically come to the archives to access one’s own recordings, the isolation was considered an appropriate safeguard.

Bolbay looked at the small group that had assembled here. “All right,” she said. “I’m going to call up the events of 146/128/11.”

Adikor nodded in resignation. He wasn’t sure about the eleventh day, but the 128th moon since the birth of generation 146 sounded right.

The room darkened and an almost invisible sphere, like a soap bubble, appeared to float in front of them. Bolbay evidently felt the default size wasn’t dramatic enough for her purposes: Adikor could hear her snapping control buds out, and the sphere’s diameter grew until it was more than an armspan across. She plucked more controls, and the sphere filled with three smaller spheres packed together, each tinged with a slightly different color. Then those spheres subdivided into three more each, and those ones subdivided again, and on and on, like sped-up video of some alien cell undergoing mitosis. As the overall sphere filled with progressively smaller and smaller spheres, those smaller spheres took on more and more colors, until, finally, the process stopped, and an image of a young man standing in a positive-pressure thinking room at the Science Academy filled the viewing sphere, as though it were a three-dimensional sculpture made of beads.

Adikor nodded; this recording was made long enough ago that the new resolution enhancements weren’t available. Still, it was eminently watchable.

Bolbay was evidently operating more controls. The bubble spun around so that everyone could see the face of the person being depicted. It was Ponter Boddit. Adikor had forgotten how young Ponter had looked back then. He glanced at Jasmel, sitting next to him. Her eyes were wide in wonder. It probably wasn’t lost on her that here was her father at just about the age she was now; indeed, Klast had already been pregnant with Jasmel at the time these images were recorded.

“That, of course, is Ponter Boddit,” said Bolbay. “At half his current age—or what would be his current age, if he were still alive.” She quickly pushed on before the adjudicator could berate her. “Now, I’m going to fast-forward …”

The image of Ponter walked, sat, stood, puttered around the room, consulted a datapad, shimmied against a scratching pole, all at frenetic speed. And then the airlock door to the room opened—the positive pressure kept out pheromones that might distract one’s studying—and a young Adikor Huld entered.

“Pause,” said Adjudicator Sard. Bolbay froze the image. “Scholar Huld, will you confirm that that is indeed you?”

Adikor was somewhat mortified to see his own face; he’d forgotten that for a brief time he’d adopted the affectation of shaving off his beard. Ah, but if that were the only folly from his youth that had been recorded … “Yes, Adjudicator,” said Adikor, softly. “That’s me.”

“All right,” said Sard. “Continue.”

The image in the bubble started running forward again at high speed. Adikor moved around the room, as did Ponter—although the image of Ponter always stayed in the center of the sphere; it was the space around him that shifted.

Adikor and Ponter seemed to be talking amiably …

And then talking less amiably …

Bolbay slowed the playback to normal speed.

Ponter and Adikor were arguing by this point.

And then—

And then—

And then—

Adikor wanted to close his eyes. His own memories of this event were vivid enough. But he’d never seen it from this perspective, never seen the expression that had been on his face …

And so he watched.

Watched as he clenched his fingers …

Watched as he pulled back his arm, biceps bulging …

Watched as he propelled his arm forward …

Watched as Ponter lifted his head just in time …

Watched as his fist connected with Ponter’s jaw ….

Watched as Ponter’s jaw snapped sideways …

Watched as Ponter staggered backward, blood spurting from his mouth …

Watched as Ponter spit out teeth.

Bolbay froze the image again. Yes, to his credit, the expression now on the young Adikor’s face was one of shock and great remorse. Yes, he was bending over to help Ponter up. Yes, he clearly regretted what he’d done, which of course had been …

… had been coming within a hair’s-breadth of killing Ponter Boddit, staving in the front of his skull with a punch backed by all of Adikor’s strength.

Megameg was crying now. Jasmel had shifted in her chair, moving away from Adikor. Adjudicator Sard was shaking her head slowly back and forth in disbelief. And Bolbay-

Bolbay was standing, arms crossed in front of her chest.

“So, Adikor,” said Bolbay, “should I play the whole thing back with the sound on, or would you like to save us all some time and tell us what you and Ponter were fighting about?”

Adikor felt nauseous. “This isn’t fair,” he said softly. “This isn’t fair. I’ve undergone treatments to help me control my temper—adjustments to neurotransmitter levels; my personality sculptor will confirm that. I’d never hit anyone before in my life, and I never have since.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” said Bolbay. “What were you fighting about?”

Adikor was silent, slowly shaking his head back and forth.

“Well, Scholar Huld?” demanded the adjudicator.

“It was trivial,” said Adikor, looking down at the moss-covered floor now. “It was …” He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “It was a philosophical point, related to quantum physics. There have been many interpretations of quantum phenomena, but Ponter was clinging to what he knew full well was an incorrect model. I—I know now he was just goading me, but …”

“But it proved too much for you,” said Bolbay. “You let a simple discussion of science—science!–get out of hand, and you got so angry that you lashed out in a way that might have cost Ponter his life had you hit him just a fraction of a handspan higher.”