Entry: August 3-10, 654 A.E.

Daily Notes

The Trial

The trial itself became something unprecedented—a scientific inquiry into the nature of sapience. What does it mean to be a person? How do you prove it?

The Navy's psychologist, Lieutenant Ybarra, presented their findings. The Fuzzies had been studied extensively at Xerxes Base. Their brain patterns compared favorably with intelligent human children. They used tools, not just as extensions of their bodies, but as solutions to problems. They made tools to make other tools. They planned ahead. They communicated with language. They had culture—they taught their young, they created art for aesthetic pleasure, they buried their dead.

Most tellingly, they could imagine things that didn't exist and then work to make them real. Little Fuzzy had imagined a better life in the Wonderful Place with Pappy Jack, and he'd made that dream come true by bringing his whole family to live with me.

Ernst Mallin, under veridication, admitted what he'd known all along: the Fuzzies were sapient. He'd seen the evidence, worked with them using the ultrasonic hearing aids. The Company had known and had tried to suppress the truth.

Leonard Kellogg never testified. The night before he was scheduled to take the stand, he took his own life in his cell. Maybe he couldn't face what he'd done. Maybe he couldn't face admitting it under veridication. I'd like to think he felt genuine remorse for killing Goldilocks.

Chief Justice Pendarvis's ruling was unanimous: "Fuzzy fuzzy holloway zarathustra is in fact a race of sapient beings, entitled to the respect of all other sapient beings and to the full protection of the law of the Terran Federation."

The charges against me were dismissed. I'd killed Kurt Borch while defending a sapient being from murder. It was justifiable homicide.