The Peyti Crisis: A Retrieval Artist Novel: Book Five of the Anniversary Day Saga (Retrieval Artist series 12) by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

court, the one that sent chills through Salehi right now, “is that you can’t find your passion for the law any longer, so what’s the point. Now, right now, you seem to have quite a bit of passion about the legal case, and we haven’t even gotten to the heart of what’s happening on the Moon.”
    Salehi squeezed his fingers on the chair, focusing on the pain as his nails dug into the soft fabric. He repeated softly to himself: I won’t let Schnabbie get to me. I won’t let Schnabbie get to me. I won’t let—
    And then he felt himself snap. He called those moments his ah-fuck-it moments, the ones where he threw all caution to the wind. He’d won in court with ah-fuck-it moments, and lost clients with them, and had broken up with girlfriends, a wife or two, and lost half a dozen friends because at some point, he just didn’t give a damn.
    Or maybe he gave too much of a damn.
    He wasn’t going to analyze it, particularly when he was in the middle of such a moment.
    “You want me to defend a bunch of mass murderers?” Salehi said softly.
    “You want a clone law test case,” Schnable said. “I want one that will make this firm money. The Government of Peyla will pay all of our expenses and court costs while we organize the defense of several hundred Peyti. We probably won’t have to take this to court.”
    “But if we do, I have to argue that these assholes are property , and can’t make any decisions for themselves and that one particular person or Peyti or creature is responsible for what happened, and that the property—”
    “You could argue that it should be destroyed,” Shishani said quietly.
    Salehi dug his fingers even deeper into the chair. He felt betrayed. She had talked with Schnabbie about this before they had ever brought Salehi in.
    They were going after him in a concentrated way, a tag-team, like lawyers on an opposing case.
    “Or,” Schnable said, “you could force the Earth Alliance to look at what’s really going on here. Someone’s got to find the mastermind behind these evil attacks.”
    “You’re assuming there is a mastermind,” Salehi snapped.
    “It’s logical,” Shishani said. “Someone had to make the clones. Someone had to convince them to infiltrate the Moon.”
    “And someone had to give them the signal to attack everyone on the same day,” Schnable said.
    “Hell,” Shishani said, “someone had to provide the masks.”
    Salehi felt the logic of the argument, the appeal of the argument. It was always best, in a court, to have a single villain than it was to have hundreds. The others would plead down, turn against each other, help the prosecution in exchange for reduced sentences, but someone would pay.
    But he would be the defense attorney. His job would be to make certain that even that horrible mastermind—if there was one—had a fair trial.
    He wasn’t sure he could do that.
    “There are two ways to argue this,” Shishani said. “You know that when Peyti lawyers finally arrive, they’re going to go with the property argument. They’re going to try to get the killers off by declaring them property, and therefore not responsible for their actions.”
    “If you get them defined as Peyti, as actual members of the Earth Alliance, then they need to be tried like other sentient beings. And this becomes an Earth Alliance case, not a local Moon case.” Schnable shrugged. “Sounds interesting no matter how you play it.”
    “Play,” Salehi snapped. “This is not play—”
    “You know what I mean,” Schnable said.
    “What’s Peyla’s interest in this?” Salehi asked. “Why would the government foot the bill? It’ll be hugely expensive.”
    “That’s the first thing I asked,” Schnable said. “They’ve got state’s interest. As a species, they’re being blamed for this attack. Right now, all of their business interests and all of their personnel are banned from the Moon, even though it’s not an official ban.”
    “There are ways around