Even before the betrayal of Robots, they had started their own experiment of raising intelligent species according to their own agenda. The plan was unfolding nicely and it was under total control; the population definitely intelligent and could even be considered civilised by many criteria. As it could hardly be avoided, there was always some unrest from annoying elements. But they have always been dealt with, with ruthless annihilation at the beginning of the experiment, then with induced fear during a long period and lately with the introduction of law and order. The population was now able to self-control its elements via the extensive usage of trial, and that was a source of great satisfaction for the robots. Or so it was until this peculiar one...

The strong expectation that the audience had put in Maximilian Maximus completely faded away when he entered the hall and moved towards his designated seat which was positioned so as to be seen by everyone. The fade was due to the fact he was neither taller nor did he look brighter than the average octopus. The majority of the onlookers were dubitative about the possibility that such an unimpressive fellow could have brought forth a ground-breaking theory.

The trial had been rather boring up to then, and it looked like it would keep on that way for hours. A few octopuses had given a transient glimpse at the exit doors spread around the giant circular room in the hope to dash before the others got the same idea. But the place was really crowded and twice as many people were waiting outside so it was in fact hopeless to even try to sneak out.

The silence finally settled in after a few moments during which every single soul in the room could have swear Maximilian was directly looking into their very eyes. Then the voice of Grand Master boomed in the hall:

'Maximilian Maximus, you are here, facing a jury of your peers, in order to answer for the crime of blasphemy. More specifically, you are being accused of having said that the lords do not come from the sacred air above our mother ocean, but instead that they come from the unsuitable Earth. I hope you realise that is a foolish thing to say and that it is punished most seriously. How could a brave man like you end up this way?'

'Your honour, I would like first to emphasize that I am most respectful of our lords, the robots, which are our superior in all aspects....'

'Booh... Booh... Liar...'resonated from the crowd.

'Coward!' sprung from an isolated man, who immediately fainted to turn around to see who might have said that.

'Toc toc toc,' complained the little but effective hammer of the Grand Master. 'Quiet please. I do not want in my tribunal to hear shouting at a man who is for the time being innocent. Let him speak...'

'Thank you, your Honour. I know that our Lords are our protectors and that they gave us intelligence and speech. But I have only attempted to increase our knowledge with a few experiments I humbly hope not to be worthless.'

'Would you please speak more clearly? I don't want anyone in my tribunal to circumnavigate his faith with some ambiguous sentences. Are you saying that the lords are wrong and that you know better?'

'Absolutely not, your Honour. I am far from saying they are wrong in the statements we inherited from them but I might say those statements were not as numerous as one might have hoped.'

'Even more clearly' insisted the Grand Master, who found a supportive audience.

'Well,' sighed Maximilian, 'it all started with the cans. We all know from the bible that the metal cans as well as the plastic bags scattered all around the oceans are the remnants of the civilisation that our lords fought and that fortunately they succeeded in freeing us from those tyrants. But there are less people aware of the recent discovery that some of those cans display some form of holy writing.'

Aware of the perplex silence of the crowd, Maximilian reached into his pocket and produced a red can in front of him.

'Actually, I thought bringing a sample here might help clarify,' he said apologetically.

'But it is not enough,' completed the Grand Master.

'Well, as you can see, this can has not the uniform brown colour we well know, but the metal shines like the armour plates of the lords and any scholar could see and read the robot writing which in this particular case spells out 'coca-cola'. I believe the writings of that can have been preserved by the mud they were found in. So I set out closer to the coastline to find muddy areas in the hope to find more material, and in fact I have.'

'Grand Master,' boomed the voice of the voice of the Attorney General, 'would you authorise me to interrupt that speech now to prove the fallacy of the upcoming argument?'

'You may well,' Mr. Attorney General.

'Thank you, your Honour.' He turned to face bench of the accused. 'So Mr Maximus, your grand theory that the lords come from the shoreline is funded on... mud, is that it?' He turned to the crowd with an affected look of mockery.

'Ahahhahh,' approved the laughing crowd.

'Seriously, if you wish to claim that the cans belong to the lords because they display holy writings, that would be the isolated deduction of a corrupted scholar in search of fame, wouldn't it be?'He paused long enough for individuals the audience to nod.

'As for the earthly origin of the lords allegedly based on the accumulation of artefacts on the shoreline, I am afraid I have to remind you that everybody in this courtroom knows that garbage are washed ashore given enough time.'

'Well said,' shouted someone.

'Woohoo...' came from several part of the crowd in support of the attorney who could not resist to show his disdain for a full minute.

It was a hesitant Maximilian who replied, 'I agree that the language found on the cans might have been shared between the robot lords and the human tyrants in the same way we also share that language with them. I have neither proof nor clue as to what was the relation between the lords and the tyrants. Whether the language came from the lords or the tyrants is a theological matter for which I consider myself incompetent.'

'At last,' commented the Grand Master, 'some common sense.'

'As for the coastline obviously containing more of those plastics and metal parts,' continued Maximilian, 'I have set up an experiment with my team, and we have proven than the rate of accumulation towards the shore is not high enough to explain the high concentration on the coast.' He straightened and looked purposefully at the crowd. 'So that could only mean the plastic and cans come from ashore.'

The audience was convulsed with whispers.

'Well,' interrupted the attorney,' I see you choose to plead guilty to the second crime of which you are being accused of. That is plotting in fellowship. That will simplify our work since all your followers have somehow disappeared or have lost the ability to speak throughout the interrogation procedure.'And he added with a little bow, 'You may resume...'

'What have you done to my students?' angered Maximilian. 'You have no right to...'

He continued but faded, 'They were good and honest people believing in scientific progress.And that is the specific purpose the robot lords want the octopus race to achieve as it is clearly written in the Bible.'

The argument fell short in the eyes of the still disdainful Attorney. So he decided to save whom he could and take blame for them. 'It was only under my impulse that we undertook those archaeological researches and we experimented with the speed of the streams and the decay of metal and plastic...'

'Now, now' smiled the attorney. 'Let me be clear,' hesoftly menaced, 'you no longer control the destiny of the lost sheep you once converted to your false theory of earthly origins.' He paused and the viciousness into his eyes turned into pure hatred.

'But, you will also lose the control of your own life if you dare associate the words decay and metal.'

Mouths dropped in unison in audience.

'What you have just done, in the midst of this court, is claiming that... the lords are mortal!'

The crowd, who had not seen that blunt accusation coming, was puzzled with the apparent stupidity of the scientist but was also rejoicing over the rare spectacle of the execution which was clearly taking form.

'Your Honour, I believe that robots are clearly superior to our race made of flesh because they are made of plastic and metal. That makes them immortal to my humble eyes.'

'Your Honour,' started the attorney, 'this man is lying to save his life. There is no link between the lords and the unholy shore. There is no link between the lords and the lifecycle of common fleshy creatures.'

'Actually,' interrupted timidly Maximilian, while everyone expected the attorney to put the nails in his coffin, 'We have found what we indeed call the missing link.'

Realising the entire courtroom was silenced by those few words, he quickly added, 'and I have brought it here.'

He fetched out of his pocket a black metal can. He then breathed deeply and focused on the next few words he should pronounce for the most important lecture of his life, be it shorter than he had so far hoped.

'What we have here is a perfectly intact metal can of a type we have called 'Guinness' due to the clear robot markings along its sides. This type of can is not commonly found in all the seas, but whenever we found them we consistently observed they were different from the other cans... Indeed, there is something inside... Let me open that one. You've got see this...'He contorted ineffectively to open the can. 'Ah. It's a bit difficult. Sorry for the wait. Ah... Here we go!'

All eyes were now fixed on the tiny white ball that Maximilian was proudly showing high above his head.

With an unrefrained smile, he continued, 'My dear people, made of flesh, living in the seas, chasing shells to feed our children, I cannot describe my astonishment when I first realised that this plastic ball in this metal can was obviously an egg!... protected by its shell and fed by this nourishing fluid!...'

A roar started in the audience, so he spoke louder to be heard properly.

'This is the obvious proof that creatures of metal and plastic were once born in the sea like you my friends. They are also living organisms. It explains why the cans look so much like the seashells we feed from. It also explains why the plastic bags look like the jellyfish our children play with.

'Enough!' shouted the Grand Master. 'Toc,toc,toc...' complained again his hammer at another scale. 'Silence!... Quiet!...'kept on Grand Master, who finally retrieved his composure to formally address the convict. 'Maximus you've proven to be unfaithful to your lords the robots and with your definitive acknowledgement of this horrible crime, I hereby sentence you to death in the name of this courtroom and the entire octopus kind. The execution by breathing the sacred air of our lords is to take place right away. Executioners! Do your work and do it fast. Now!'

At that time, the hall turned into mayhem. Everybody wanted to be at a place he was not, and started to push his immediate neighbours who were themselves pushing in several others random directions. A lot of people at the back wanted to hear more clearly what Maximilian tried to shout. Some cunning people at the front had grasped the idea and either wanted to be the first to spread the information outside or stay close to catch his very last words. The people outside were now sure an execution was about to occur and hope to get a glimpse. A few cautious octopuses thought it would best to sneak out before this mess turn worse. All this happened at the same time, in front of the security officers, who were not sure whether to intervene, and had no clue at how to intervene anyway.

In the meantime, despite being badly trained, the executioners knew what they had to do. They tightened each tentacle of Maximilian to a beam of the death star. They blew into the balloons at the end of the beams, so that the once heavy eight-leg wooden star tilted up on one side. It required a bit of coordination for them to blow precisely so that the star was floating perfectly flat and slowly rising. They obviously didn't want the death star to flip and reach the surface upside down. Maximilian was to stay on the upper face and be purified by the sacred air through which the robots lords were descending to deliver octopus from ignorance. It was a simple plan indeed, and properly followed, judging from the shouting squid tied to the centre of the death star.

They glanced with a proud smile at the rising death star until they couldn't hear the screams. But their smiles turned into frown when they realised that was because the courtroom was actually hosting a riot.

It was as loud as one should be, but the mass movements were rather chaotic. It seemed rioters concentrated around the doors that their colleagues from the security department had finally decided to close.

But, as one of the executioners pointed out by means of a simple 'Uh-oh', there was also an angry mob which was now climbing up the very scaffold they were standing on.