None Against (continued)

The Municipal Column, ruling house for the elected body of Nautilus' Potentates, had a jail in its basement. The MCP had established the block of cells to process convicts either to the mines at Perilous or He3 refineries on Earth's moon. Conviction rates proved so low, however, that the small population of prisoners became permanent residents.

For Consuela Fjalarsdottir-Rumi, who was serving a life sentence, the possibility of being shipped out was a distant possibility but not off the table. It was up to her arbitrators. If they could successfully argue her bad health before the MCP, Yumi's mother would remain at Nautilus. For the time being she would stay right where she was and have the possibility of transfer hang over her like a premonition of doom.

Shipping to any of the work camps was as good as a death sentence for Consuela, who craved an end to imprisonment by any means necessary: life itself was an iron maiden, offering punishment worse than any cell or camp could inflict.

A visitor's pass was simple to procure. The same day he applied, Ehud was allowed to see the convict in her cell.

"Don't I recognize you?"

"Yes, Mrs Rumi. I was on the jury at your trial."

"Thanks a lot." Consuela Fjalarsdottir-Rumi sat in the radium-lit dimness of a rectangular cell. There was no pillow on her tiny cot, a luxury granted only after one year. She had nine months to go, barring any bad behavior.

"I want to talk about your daughter."

"Have you seen her? How is she?"

"She's... it's hard to say. Yumi is going to a church that fills her head with bad ideas."

Shadows in the cell left the prisoner's head in darkness, so he could not see her expression as silence stretched.

"Don't blame the church," he heard her say finally. "She had a bad head to start with."

"But that's just it. Yumi wants to... she won't have it much longer."

Ehud grasped the horizontal bars. "They're going to transfer her into another body!"

"Good." No hesitation this time.

That didn't surprise him. Hadn't she tried to kill her own daughter? Anything that released Yumi from life was a step in the right direction.