at's right."

I picked up the 20-mm auto-rifle--it weighed a good sixty pounds--from
the table, and asked him if this weapon could have inflicted such
wounds. He agreed that it both could and had.

"This the usual type of weapon used in your New Texas political
liquidations?" I asked.

"Certainly not. The usual weapons are pistols; sometimes a hunting-rifle
or a shotgun."

I asked the same question when I cross-examined the ballistics witness.

"Is this the usual type of weapon used in your New Texas political
liquidations?"

"No, not at all. That's a very expensive weapon, Mr. Ambassador. Wasn't
even manufactured on this planet; made by the z'Srauff star-cluster. A
weapon like that sells for five, six hundred pesos. It's used for
shooting really big game--supermastodon, and things like that. And, of
course, for combat."

"It seems," I remarked, "that the defense is overlooking an obvious
point there. I doubt if these three defendants ever, in all their lives,
had among them the price of such a weapon."

That, of course, brought Sidney to his feet, sputtering objections to
this attempt to disparage the honest poverty of his clients, which only
helped to call attention to the point.

Then the prosecution called in a witness named David Crockett
Longfellow. I'd met him at the Hickock ranch; he was Hickock's butler.
He limped from an old injury which had retired him from work on the
range. He was sworn in and testified to his name and occupation.

"Do you know these three defendants?" Goodham asked him.

"Yeah. I even marked one of them for future identification," Longfellow
replied.

Sidney was up at once, shouting objections. After he was quieted down,
Goodham remarked that he'd come to that point later, and began a line of
questioning to establish that Longfellow had been on the Hickock ranch
on the day when Silas Cumshaw was killed.

"Now," Goodham said, "will you relate to the court the matters of
interest which came to your personal observation on that day."

Longfellow began his story. "At about 0900, I was dustin' up and
straightenin' things in the library while the Colonel was at his desk.
All of a sudden, he said to me, 'Davy, suppose you call the Solar
Embassy and see if Mr. Cumshaw is doin' anything today; if he isn't, ask
him if he wants to come out.' I was workin' right beside the
telescreen. So I called the Solar League Embassy. Mr. Thrombley took
the call, and I asked him was Mr. Cumshaw a