"Can it prove anything further one way or the other?"
"I think so."
An unseen conference. "Very well. Dispensation granted. What is your information?"
I took a deep breath. "John Hastings viewed his wife on Earth from one of the planets of Alpha Centauri."
"That is correct."
My tongue was dry; my hands wet.
"Alpha Centauri is four years, four months distant, measuring in light years. Therefore, in his travel, John Hastings lost three of those months, but when he turned his instrument backward, he was looking at light images which had started from the Earth long before he ever left it. He was looking at—"
"At ... what happened four years ago...." John Hastings had finished the sentence for me. He was looking at something as if it were the first sunrise he had ever known.
Speculation brought the amphitheatre to its feet. For the only time during the trial, the mob found its voice. Uncertainty, relief and surprise mingled, ebbed and flowed.
The voice called for attention. "Quiet, please, quiet. The information is correct," and the storm was over.