Chapter 8: Hearing

I was on stage. A curtain of light—footlights, overhead floodlights, spotlights from the balcony directly ahead—hid the audience from me. I thought I detected some shimmering as well, an energy field separating me from those in the audience. I had been told that this was a hearing and not a trial. They hadn't told me what the hearing was about. Paxlyn Domain citizens don't know the nightmare of appearing naked on stage—and often, at school—because they grew up naked and on stage. When I think about it, I wonder if Council—the artificial intelligence or master computer running Paxlyn Domain—put me at ease, or if being nude for over a month in a spanking new body and constantly on display had inured me to being gawked at. Males here were rare—less than a thousand in a million.

"This is a hearing, Nolan," Mother Regina had accompanied me on stage. She was naked, too—by choice. Adult women generally wore clothing to display their status. Mother Regina had volunteered for 100 standard years of nudity in order to guide me back to manhood. "You are not on trial. Some of your questioners are going to attempt to discredit you. Just tell the truth."

"Yes, mum," I replied. "I shall tell the truth. I shall do my best."

"Here," Mother Regina knelt because of our differences in height. She guided my mouth to one of her nipples, sighed when I sucked. I liked it too. All too soon Mother Regina pushed me away, her eyes half-lidded. "It's time, son."

I was exhibiting most of the symptoms of an 'unstable personality.' I heard voices in my head—Council and others, via implants, but still, I heard voices in my head. I believed that I was under constant surveillance. Never mind that I was under constant surveillance! By Paxlyn Domain standards I was a pervert—which I could excuse based upon my alien origins, but still I was not properly sexually socialized. Paxlyn Domain was a lesbian planet. Children grew up female and naked—after a century or so as an adult woman, she might become one of the males, the one-in-a-thousand Paxlyn Domain citizens who were male.

The voice of Council, the computer network that ran Paxlyn Domain, entered my head—complete with images. I was questioned on why I committed violence.

"They would have killed my sisters," I said. "There was forty or fifty kilos of explosives in their bomb. That much explosives would have made identification of the corpses difficult. I recognized the detonation system."

If I had a similar detonation system hooked up to the Intruder star ship Futile Gesture, I would be dead right now. The regular systems had been sabotaged by my captain, now called Justine. Don't ask me ages. Many of the naked 'little girls' on Paxlyn Domain's streets were born centuries ago.

Council stopped me when I got too far into the technical details. My secondary profession was star ship navigator. My primary profession was Special Security Officer—assassin, really. It wasn't often that I had an opportunity to lecture on field fabricated explosive devices and I just got carried away by youthful enthusiasm. Or perhaps it was just professional enthusiasm in a field that was classified as a Cosmic Armada secret?

Next, I was ordered to narrate the events twice, once from memory, and once while the surveillance videos were played in front of me. The videos paused when I had extended explanations—such as how I managed to circumvent the user proprietary biometric reader (also called "smart gun") and shoot the second man when he entered the Orientation Center and raised his beamer. Bad mistake on his part. If he had surrendered—to a naked boy—he'd still be alive; alive and regretting it, just like his five partners in crime. As it was, I had to aim for the head—the hand beamer packs a punch, but he was wearing body armor that might have permitted him to shoot. A head shot producing a no-reaction kill--

ENOUGH DETAIL FOR NOW, NOLAN. That was the voice inside my head identified as Council. NO NEED TO NAUSEATE EVERYBODY ELSE.

Note to Paxlyn Domain readers: bringing people face-to-face with their own mortality nauseates everybody! It has to do with fear reactions, the fight or flight—lecture mode off! I can go from zero to boring instantly...

There was more—like how I was able to instantly recognize that a hostage situation was developing. One tip-off was that men were rare in Paxlyn Domain society. Step-by-step I went through the situation until it had to be obvious to anybody. I concluded with a question: "Is that acceptable behavior for males on Paxlyn Domain?"

I was asked if my big sisters had disappointed me.