Illegal Alien

Walters nodded sympathetically. "I’m sure you have. You’re free on two-million-dollars bail. What is your assessment of the American legal system?"

"You have a huge number of people in jail."

Walters seemed taken aback. "Ah, yes. I guess we do."

"I am told your country has set a record. You have a greater percentage of your population in jail than any other country — even those countries that are referred to as police states."

"My question was intended more specifically," said Walters. "I was wondering how the Los Angeles Police Department treated you?"

"It was explained to me that I was to be presumed innocent until proven guilty — and yet I was put in a cage, something my race does not to anything, and I had thought your race only did to animals."

"You’re saying you were treated poorly?"

"I have been treated poorly, yes."

"You mean, as a guest on our world, you should be accorded more respect?"

"Not at all. There is nothing special about my status. I imagine if you were interviewing a human being who had been wrongly accused of a crime, he or she would also decry the treatment. Have you ever been imprisoned, Ms. Walters?"

"Me? No."

"Then you cannot understand."

"No," said Walters. "No, I guess not. What is the justice system like on your world?"

"On my world, there is no such thing as crime; allowing a crime to occur would imply that God had ceased to be vigilant over the affairs of her children. Besides, we do not prize material things the way they are prized here, so there is no theft of objects. And everybody has enough to eat, so there is no theft of food, or the means to acquire food." He paused, then:

"It is not my place to say, but it seems that your legal system is designed backward. The root causes of human crime appear to my no-doubt-ignorant eyes to be poverty and your ability to become addicted to chemicals. But instead of treating these, you devote your energies at the other end, to punishing."

"Perhaps you’re right," said Walters. "But speaking of punishing, do you feel you can get a fair trial?"

Hask’s topknot moved in agitation while he mulled this over. "That is a difficult question. A human is dead — and someone must pay for that. I am not a human. It is perhaps easier to make me pay, and yet…"

"Yes?"

"I am different. But… but your race continues to grow. My lawyer is Dale Rice, and his skin is black. He has told me how his kind were enslaved, were denied the right to vote, to use public facilities, and so on. And yet, in his lifetime, much of that has changed — although I saw in jail that much of it remains, too, just below the surface. Can twelve human beings look upon an alien and judge without prejudice?" He shifted slightly, looking directly at the camera with his orange and green front eyes. "I think yes. I think they can."

"There’s been a lot of talk about what will happen if you are found guilty."

"I am given to understand that I may die," said Hask.

Barbara Walters pursed her thin lips, apparently disturbed by the baldness of the statement. "I mean, what will happen to Earth? What response will your government have?"

"It would be in my own interest to tell you that my people would descend on Earth and, because of the execution of one of their own, would wipe your planet clean of life." He paused. "Or I could simply tell you that the execution of me would result in the Tosoks leaving, never to return — a cutting off of all contact. But neither of these things is true, and so I will not claim them. As a people, the Tosoks believe in predestination. If it is my fate to be punished for a crime I did not commit, they will accept that.

But I tell you, Ms. Walters, I did not kill Cletus Calhoun — why would I? He was my friend. If I am found guilty, it will be an error, for I did not commit this crime."

"You’re saying we must find you innocent, then?"

"You will find me whatever God intends you to. But I am innocent."

Dale smiled broadly. Hask couldn’t have done better.

"Kelkad!" shouted a man from the Los Angeles Times as Dale, Hask, and Kelkad left the ABC studios. "Kelkad! What did you think of tonight’s broadcast?"

Captain Kelkad had his front hand up to shield his forward-looking pink and yellow eyes from the glare of the lights. "I thought my crew member presented himself well," he said.

The crush of reporters was overwhelming, but police were doing their best to keep them back.

"Kelkad," shouted a woman from CNN, "if Hask is found guilty, will your own people punish him as well?"

Kelkad continued to move forward through the crowd. "We would have to conduct our own investigation of the matter, of course."

"What have you done yourself about the murder?" shouted a woman from the CBC.