Austen was at the door, frowning. "I thought I heard a noise." His voice was a whisper.
Samson pulled out a gun. He glared at Dunlop. "If they followed you—"
The door gave way with a sudden blast that threw them all to the floor. In the smoking entrance a robot appeared. With an effort, Samson forced himself erect and leveled his blaster.
Before he could fire, Arthur leaped at the man, wrenched the weapon from his fingers. Then the robot was in the room, then another, and another, their forehead-rays ready for instant use. There was no escape.
"Arthur!" Julie cried hoarsely.
"There's your WBI man," Samson accused.
Arthur smiled crookedly and held on to the blaster in his hand. He did not look at Julie, for there was silent contempt and shame in her eyes.
The trial was short and simple, for justice had ceased to be a complicated thing and was governed by facts considered in the light of pre-established premises. To offset any possibility of human error, a great machine unemotionally sifted and weighed facts presented to it and arrived at a decision. Either those accused were guilty or they were not guilty, and obviously they were, so the trial itself and Arthur's testimony were matters of formality. The prisoners were, of course, duly convicted and sentenced to life on the Lunar Prison Colony, where life was rumored to be not long.
However, an unexpected development arose. The Court, it seems, had fed also into the machine various newly discovered facts concerning Arthur Dunlop, and the machine, with a figurative eye prefocused on State security, had arrived at a further pronouncement.