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going for some kind of technicality?” Paula whispered to Stephan Dorge, the Directorate’s prosecutor.
    “I don’t see how,” he whispered back. “They didn’t ask for a deal.”
    “What about the memory deposition?”
    “Nah, we can prove it’s an implant.”
    When Paula looked at Ms. Toi, she thought the lawyer seemed uncomfortable.
    Prosecution opened with the forensic evidence from the launch site. There was the DNA match between Dimitros Fiech and the urine sample. Skin analysis taken at the Directorate’s Sydney office immediately after the arrest revealed traces of the missile’s chemical rocket booster exhaust on his arms and face; there were also plume traces on his yellow shirt. The jury was shown camera pictures from the Larsie marina and Ridgeview’s CST station. Additional corroboration was skin-cell DNA taken from the boat.
    “The evidence that places Dimitros Fiech at the launch site is incontrovertible,” Stephan Dorge concluded. “He fired the missile that killed a hundred and thirty-eight people. And for what? To push his perverted ideological platform.”
    In the docks, Dimitros Fiech shook his head in disbelief.
    Defense called Paula Myo. “I’d like to concentrate on the deposition of Dimitros Fiech’s memory on the day concerned,” Ms. Toi said. “You ran the memory read yourself, did you not?”
    “I did,” Paula said. “They contained no recollection of the missile launch. We believe false memories of his day on Ormal were inserted at the same time his true memory of the attack was erased.”
    “False memories? You mean someone created them in a studio like a Full Sensory drama?”
    “No. An accomplice went to Ormal in his place to provide an alibi. That experience was recorded, then loaded into Fiech’s brain.”
    “You believe someone like the defendant went to Ormal. How do you know it wasn’t him?”
    “Because he was on Nova Zealand firing the missile.”
    “But the person, the personality , sitting here in this courtroom today did not fire the missile, did he?”
    Paula gave the defense lawyer a small smile. “Nice try. The defendant’s personality arranged for the current memory to be implanted; therefore he is what he wants to be.”
    “But what he is now is not the original personality?”
    “Who knows? There is no test that I’m aware of for identifying personality; in any case, as any first-year psychology student will tell you, personality is fluid. It changes as you age. Some say it matures. Just because you don’t remember committing a crime doesn’t mean you’re innocent of it. That precedent was established when the first memory erasure techniques were developed. The Justice Directorate suspension chambers are full of criminals who removed inconvenient incriminating memories. I’d point out that Fiech has erased his entire life prior to joining the Colliac Fak company, which has very neatly blocked our investigation into the Free Merioneth movement, and we all know what that’s led to in the last six months. To me such behavior is the personality trait of a real fanatic.”
    “Objection,” Ms. Toi exclaimed. “Speculation. I want that struck from the record.”
    “You asked for my opinion on his personality,” Paula countered.
    “I’ll allow it to stand for the moment,” Judge Jeroen said. “It was a legitimate answer to your line of questioning, defense.”
    “Your Honor.” Ms. Toi bowed to the judge. “Investigator, you said that memory erasure is common when a crime has been committed.”
    “That is correct.”
    “Have you ever known alternative memory for the time of the crime to be implanted?”
    “I haven’t come across it before, although the technique is relatively straightforward. You just need a colleague like the one Fiech had to record his day.”
    “So if I implanted the memory of firing the missile into your brain, would that make you guilty?”
    “No. Because I didn’t do it. The rest of the physical evidence