Chapter 18 - Sentenced

As she expected, there were reprisals over her rejection of the "protection" of Tonio's gang. There were no humans involved in the raid on the House of Joy, only seven-foot high metal policebots. Five of them arrived to take Martha into custody charged, they said, with running a brothel and with forcing girls to work in it. She was, by this time, resigned to going to jail, perhaps for some years; at least she wasn't just being killed without warning, as the Director had been.

Eventually the aircar stopped and she was hauled out of the cell and pulled at a run through some corridors to a bare small room with one door and a light high up in the ceiling. The policebot left, closing the door behind it. She looked around and saw that the room was completely empty except for a small open box in the corner. In the ceiling was a utilitarian light fitting with an odd surround of what looked like small tubes, which she recognised as some sort of cleansing unit. A spotlight illuminated the box in the corner.

A mechanical voice from a loudspeaker somewhere said, "Martha Templeton, remove all your clothes for delousing! Place them in the box in the corner of the room."

Guessing what was coming, she hastily slipped off her tunic, trousers and underwear and put them in the box, as she was told.

A short while later the mechanical voice said, "Delousing commencing in fifteen seconds." Then the lid of the box slid shut.

When the sprays started up, Martha made no attempt to avoid them, but merely held her breath to avoid inhaling the odd-smelling cleaning gas.

Eventually the loudspeaker said, "Martha Templeton, you may replace your clothes."

The box which had protected them slid smoothly open and Martha dressed again.

Just then the door opened and a policebot said "Come on," and dragged her at break-neck speed down the corridor and pushed her through a small door which led to a large room, or rather into a glass box set in a large room. This must be the court room.

She looked about her but there didn't seem to be any people in the room. This seemed odd, since she had expected the court to be run by people who could, perhaps, be persuaded or bribed to help her; it felt a little frightening.

Suddenly a mechanical voice said, "State versus Martha Templeton. The charge is running a brothel known as the House of Joy, and forcing girls to work there unwillingly. How do you plead, Guilty or Not Guilty?"

"Yes, I ran the brothel; no the girls were not forced, they worked there willing," Martha answered, knowing it didn't make any difference what she said, or what the realities were.

There was a frightened girl somewhere who would claim to have been coerced into the brothel. The machine lit a panel on the wall that said GUILTY.

"Since you offer no defence, and plead guilty, the court finds you guilty as charged. As the crime was a major offence involving many other people, the sentence is imprisonment for life on a prison planet."

Martha was horrified; she had expected six months or a year, and then she could start again somewhere else. At forty-six or forty-seven years old when she came out of prison it was never going to be easy to start again, but this ... a prison planet ... for life.

The policebot fetched her away again and gave her a rough Hessian smock.

"Put this on and come with me," it said.

"But, I have my own clothes," she exclaimed.

"Put it on over your clothes," was the reply!

Wearing the rough smock, which barely reached her mid-thigh and would not have been any use if she had not had her own clothes, Martha was bundled into a cage just large enough for her to stand up in, with a solid floor and bars all round. It bore the number 22 in removable figures on a rack above the door and a datacube was slipped into a holder also on the door. It was then loaded, with some others, on to a transporter and darkness again fell when the doors were closed. There was some muttering from the other cages, but Martha remained quiet and only listened, but she did not learn anything useful.

When the transporter stopped, which seemed to be a long time later, the cages were taken out and mounted on some racking. A policebot came along with some tablets and each prisoner was told to take one. Martha was feeling quite resigned by now and took it without caring whether it was poison, medicine or what. Listening to the other prisoners talking, she discovered that these pills stopped all pissing and shitting for several days; the food they would be given had no waste products in it, so they would not be uncomfortable.