Chapter Text
CURRENT TRIAL: The defendant is charged with the first-degree murder of Doctor Ryland Grace, American citizen.
“After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.””
-- Genesis 22: 1-2, “The Sacrifice of Isaac”
Relativity was one of the few concepts that had managed to breach Eva Stratt’s non-sciencey bubble for many, many years. It was just so compelling; spacetime curving around the matter it directed, and that was infinitely confusing and horrifying and fascinating on its own, but then the word had led her down a rabbit hole of definitions in other fields.Perspective, that one thing may seem like fact from one perspective and fiction from another, was something every history student had to take a good hard look at, both from their sources and from their own brains -- Eva had gotten very familiar with it quite quickly.
All of this to say, for most other members of the court, this line of questioning was basic, run of the mill, barely worth their time. For her legal team, it was a valiant bright spot in an extremely difficult and convoluted case. For the prosecution, it was negligible, or at the very least to be presented as such.
For Stratt, it was one of the largest discoveries of her life, which was saying something.
They were hearing witness testimony, and her defense had called up Carl, Grace’s personal bodyguard, to the stand. He was in his finest, which is to say his work uniform; she was simultaneously surprised and validated that he’d always dressed for the importance of the job during the Project.
They’d gone over routine questions about Carl and Grace’s relationship; Stratt assigning him to the case, picking Grace up at his school, the expenses and safety measures that followed. It had only taken a few hours, more as groundwork than anything. Carl, Stratt was sure, was going to have a trial or two of his own.
She wondered if he had made this next decision (for it had already been made; Carl would never come unprepared) with the fear that she would drag him down with her if he didn’t corroborate her. She hoped not. Eva Stratt had never needed to drag people down for her decisions -- at first because nobody could catch her, and now because her sole purpose was to take the hits. He wasn’t looking at her, just as he hadn’t looked at her the whole time. Many witnesses didn’t, though a few had spat or glared or yelled their grievances during their time in front of the judge.
The moment was here; she could feel her lawyer gearing up for it as he recounted the harrowing hours before Grace’s “volunteering”.
“Would you please read Section 25, paragraph 15, Mr. Smith?” Her lawyer asked, and Carl nodded and looked down at the papers in front of him.
“After three hours of private deliberation,” he started evenly, “Dr. Grace reported back to Director Stratt’s office to volunteer to be sent on the Hail Mary spaceship as the sole science officer.”
“And were you with him during those three hours?” Stratt’s lawyer said. She had been around him long enough to hear the near giddiness in the man’s tone, which she almost pitied. If he thought that he could win this case, he was an unsalvageable fool. Then again, his efforts in the face of such doom may be amount to respect in the legal world. She had no idea.
“I was surveilling Dr. Grace from a reasonable distance as per my instructions.” Carl said, looking up from his paper neutrally. “He made it clear that he wanted time alone to collect his thoughts appropriately. We did not speak.”
“He didn’t even know I was there.” Carl told her, standing stiffly in the doorway. “I just left him. He’ll be here any minute.”
“Thank you, Mr. Smith.” Stratt said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. She knew she had failed when Carl didn’t reprimand her for using his last name.
“I’ll be commanding my team from outside as requested. Just walkie me.” He said, and she swallowed harshly before waving him away.
“Let’s just hope that won’t be necessary.”
“And nobody approached him during that time or in any other way threatened or coerced him?” Her lawyer asked, bringing her back to the present. But then again, was there really a difference from her present to her past? There she was, sitting at a table, waiting for the decision of a man in front of her, with an idea of what his answer would be.
“That is correct. He was isolated.” Carl confirmed, and Stratt’s hand curled on the table for a second before she forced it to release.
“For the record, Mr. Smith, you are confirming that Doctor Ryland Grace, to the best of your knowledge, volunteered to join the Hail Mary mission physically in space as an astronaut and scientist, knowing fully the risks and suicidal conclusion of said mission?”
Her chest was tight, but not how it had been back then. There was no grief lining the walls of her stomach, crawling up her throat to sicken her. No, a new emotion was tightening her chest, one that she had been resolutely not feeling for a long while, one that even now she got a white-knuckled grip on and wrested away. Today was not the day for Eva Stratt to feel shame, of all things.
She didn’t know why, but she looked back at Carl’s face, and for the first time all day they locked eyes. It was brief, and painful, and she felt the burning feeling again, like a string of shame was pulled taut between their hearts, visible only to them and the God that Eva believed in and was no longer sure believed in her.
“Yes.” Carl was as direct and blunt as ever, but his eyes flickered away from hers, as if unable to hold onto the thread of shame any longer. “Dr. Grace was then put into an early coma as per request in order to maximize his safety and comfort. I was personally in the room when the sedative was administered. He was calm, relaxed, and resolute. He believed in the Hail Mary.” The last line lodged itself right into Eva’s stomach even as the monologue of other perjury floated past her with little impact. A half-truth, she supposed. Grace had always believed that she could do it. Just not in himself.
“His breath mists upon the air
But his eyes shimmer in the heat.
He doesn’t know what to say to me.
Had he hoped that I would see God?
That God’s angel would answer my questions
And restore my spirit?
Does he hope even now
That God will break
The silence that lingers between us?”
-- “The Day to Live” by Christine on Faith in grey spaces
It’d been so many days in court that Stratt had stopped trying to count them.
She could, of course; her ability to keep score had not faded with her power -- but she found the motivation needed to be lacking. She has just enough to get dressed in the morning and return to the dreary courtroom, listen and process every horrible thing said against her, and bear the burden back to where she was being held. The importance of how many days it had been of this routine faded as it stretched on and on.
She’s up on the witness stand, staring directly at the prosecuting lawyer. He is all sharp angles and fast talking; she can tell that he thinks he must be very special to have been chosen for this position, and he may be right. This is the flashier of the two charges to be legislated on American soil; Dr. Shapiro’s death by negligence is bland in comparison to the question of whether she had made someone a potential savior of the world by murdering them. He did not have to try as hard as he did, she thought passively. It was not as if his stance was unpopular. It had been quite the struggle to find impartial jurors for this trial at all, assuming that they’d even succeeded.
The questions had been routine thus far, nothing that she hadn’t been expecting. The story that she had set out had already been corroborated by all relevant witnesses; now her motive and emotions were in the spotlight. Well, what they thought were her emotions. Eva recoiled internally at the idea of trying to explain to this man how it felt to run the world as it died. And beyond that… she was still a person, was she not? Surely she was entitled to some privacy. Some emotions that belonged only to her and the dead.
“Ms. Stratt,” the lawyer said, standing still and staring her dead-on in the way that meant he thought he had a particularly news-worthy moment ahead of him, “what exactly was the nature of your relationship to Doctor Ryland Grace?”
Apparently, this man did not agree with her fanciful notions of privacy. Eva stayed exactly as still as she had been, not letting the ripple of shock that passed through her shake her exterior. For a moment, she thought that there would be an objection, but either no legal professional could find a reason for one, or they didn’t care to.
Her and Grace’s relationship, after all, had been subject to rumor and speculation for years, even back on the ship. The Director and her lapdog, had teased those who were favorable to the pair. The Scalpel and the kind face that distracted you while you were gutted, muttered those who were not. She had heard it all, though never to her face. She remembered staring at the latter assessment in a printed report from Eileen, a security guard who had overheard a group speaking in the dining hall. She’d felt it settle deep in her stomach, cutting through all of her careful defenses like the blade she was being compared to. It was the first time that she had registered the reality that Ryland’s reputation would be tarnished by her presence. Not for the last time, she pushed his wellbeing down the list of her priorities, though it always seemed to bob up against the suffocating waves of responsibility again and again.
Now, in the courtroom, she stares at the man who is trying to stain her reputation with an accusation about the two. Because of course, it was a detriment to a woman if she had been in an inappropriate relationship, but it would have assuredly been a tragedy if Grace was on the stand instead.
What could she say? She could try to tell the truth, but they would never understand it. Even those operating in good faith had misjudged them, back in the day. Most of the time, they hadn’t even had the words themselves. I loved him, she could say without perjury, and now he’s gone away. But that would only bring questions and assumptions that she did not want to face.
“We were coworkers.” She started, deciding that restating an old fact would be a good base. The man’s face twitched slightly, almost imperceptibly, but she could sense the derision in the movement. “We worked well together; he was Chief Science Officer and was a co-collaborator in many decisions I made for the Taskforce. I often went to him for assistance in relevant fields, and I approved resources for him as needed.” She could tell that the man was about to press further, and with a flash of emotion that she decided was frustration at the informality of the questioning (and definitely not anger and protectiveness over her Grace), she decided to jump ahead of it.
“We were always cordial, but over the process of the Project, I grew to consider Doctor Grace a good friend of mine, if only through the lens of work.” She finished with a firm stare at the lawyer. He pressed his lips together, obviously miffed that she had remained more collected than he would have liked, and whirled around to consult with his team. Stratt did not glance at her counsel, did not show any affectedness or weakness, and took a moment to internally compose herself. By the time that the lawyer returned with follow-up questions, she had tucked Ryland Grace back into the small pocket of her heart where he resided and locked him in.
“I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There’s nothing more to say.
The poem ends,
Soft as it began,—
I loved my friend.”
-- “Poem” by Langston Hughes
DECISION: Defendant is guilty of deliberate and premeditated murder of the first degree.