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trial had gotten off to a dramatic start, with Juanita and the other marshals hauling the defendants out of the courtroom bodily, like so many screeching sacks of laundry. Afterwards, things settled down. Wallstone had gone with a low-key opening; by the time he’d finished explaining the treason statute for the benefit of the jury and American viewing public, it was almost dull.
    He’d save the verbal fireworks for his closing, Juanita guessed, working the theory that the last thing the jury heard was what would stick.
    Defense counsel came out heavier, preaching the fire and brimstone of ecological disaster, claiming that Knax and her followers were forced to take action to reverse climate change. Necessity defense, it was called. Apparently they hadn’t noticed it was the same tactic that failed to save Timothy McVeigh.
    Now the prosecutor was examining a young sailor who had been aboard Vigilant when the Alchemites sank it.
    As for Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Juanita Corazón, she spent the day with Sahara Knax in her squirrel cage, watching it all on closed-circuit TV.
    Deprived of an audience, Sahara slouched in her chair, toying with her restraints and pretending to listen to spirit voices. “You’re a pet of Judge Skagway’s, aren’t you?”
    “What makes you say so?” Juanita kept her tone neutral.
    “He’s fond, right? Perhaps … a sort of father figure?”
    “Pay attention to the trial, Knax.” She feigned boredom, hoping Sahara wouldn’t see she’d struck a nerve: Juanita didn’t want to think about the judge.
    She’d run into him yesterday morning, wheeling his way out to the fresh air, his racquetball gear in his lap.
    “Big show tomorrow, Corazón,” he’d said. “I want spit and polish. Show these jarheads we civvies understand discipline.”
    “Jarheads are marines, Your Honor. These are airmen—”
    He waved that off. “You think any more about after this? Law school?”
    “The way things are right now—”
    “Turmoil, shmurmoil. Life doesn’t stop, Corazón.”
    “I don’t know if I see myself as a lawyer.”
    “We get bad press, but it isn’t as bad as all that.”
    “I can’t imagine making the world a better place just by sitting on my ass all day.”
    It was an established joke between them, but it earned her a glare and a significant glance at the judge’s wheelchair from a passing clerk.
    “Spit and polish, Corazón.” With a bass rumble of laughter, the judge rolled on, leaving her aching with guilt.
    “I grew up without a father, too,” Sahara said, tone nostalgic. “I was jealous of girls who had dads.…”
    “Girls like Astrid Lethewood?” Juanita asked.
    A curl of the lip. “She put a chantment in my chest.”
    “A bottle cap—I was briefed. Keeps you from running away.”
    “It’s litter, Filthwitchery. An attack upon my divinity.”
    Can Sahara believe this crap? Does she really think she’s a god?
    “Astrid thinks she can contain me.”
    On-screen, the impossibly youthful sailor continued his testimony. “The mermaids were singing.”
    “In English?” Wallstone asked.
    “No, some other language. Knax gave us ten minutes to get to the lifeboats. I remember that one of my buddies laughed.”
    Several sailors had recorded the sinking, using their phones and cameras. Wallstone brought up a shot of Sahara, hanging in midair off the bow of the ship, borne on gigantic starling wings. “Did you take action?”
    “Yessir—we issued verbal warnings, then fired upon them.”
    “And?”
    “My weapon malfunctioned. Other guys, their bullets turned to flowers. Patricia Finch was shot, but one of the others put a hand on her and she stopped bleeding.”
    “What happened next?”
    “Knax, also singing, stabbed the flight deck with a rusty pocketknife. The air got cold, and the ship started falling apart.”
    “Falling apart?”
    “Deck plates buckling, bolts popping loose, metal rusting. Like it aged a thousand years in five