It was only by chance that she discovered his surreptitious plans to
leave early. Presumably he would find his son's trial humiliating.
Anthrax's mother insisted he stayed and he begrudgingly delayed the
trip.
His father sat down, a bit away from Anthrax and his lawyer. The
lawyer provided a colourful alternative to the prosecutor. He perched
one leg up on his bench, rested an elbow on the knee and stroked his
long, red beard. It was an impressive beard, more than a foot long and
thick with reddish brown curls. Somehow it fitted with his two-tone
chocolate brown suit and his tie, a breathtakingly wide creation with
wild patterns in gold. The suit was one size too small. He launched
into the usual courtroom flourish--lots of words saying nothing. Then
he got to the punch line.
`Your worship, this young man has been in all sorts of places. NASA,
military sites, you wouldn't believe some of the places he has been.'
`I don't think I want to know where he has been,' the magistrate
answered wryly.
The strategy was Anthrax's. He thought he could turn a
liability into an asset by showing that he had been in many
systems--many sensitive systems--but had done no malicious damage in
any of them.
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