Randall Garrett

“ But can't you see that Dan's obviously insane? He's allowing himself to be sentenced without even a protest! Can't he enter a plea of insanity?"
"The plea of insanity would not alter the judgment in any way, Mrs. Mannion. Rest assured that your husband's—ah—disturbed mental state has been taken into account in the decision. Whether he was insane or criminally possessed at the time of the mutiny makes no difference; the crime has been committed, obviously, and the guilty person is of no further value to society. Mnemonic erasure is not merely a punishment, Mrs. Mannion. ”

“ No prejudice against your body will be entertained for your mind's previous acts."
In the background, Mannion heard his wife's faint sobbing. "I hear and accept the sentence, sir," he said quietly.
"The act of erasure will be carried out immediately, in the Space Patrol's mnemonic laboratories on the 14th level of this building." The gavel rapped three times. "The case of Earth versus Daniel Mannion is hereby considered closed."
"No!" Virginia suddenly shouted. All eyes in the courtroom swivelled to focus on her as she rose from the audience to protest. "No, don't close the case yet!" ”

“ All his life he had been raised to obey authority, to accept the commands of his superior officers—
And now he was rebelling. He was threatening the destruction of one of Earth's most expensive pieces of equipment. ”

“ The androids respond automatically to a direct command from the superior officer, no matter what they're doing. Had I been free to give that command the mutiny would never have taken place. But Lieutenant Mannion prevented me from giving the command until it was too late. All of our men were dead and the Project set back more than a year. I placed Lieutenant Mannion under detention, put the androids in permafreeze, and returned to Earth. ”

“ Judge Harkness faced Dan and Virginia Mannion. "I don't understand why you didn't speak up, son."
"I—I assumed I was wrong, sir. I've always been trained to respect the word of an officer. If Commander Dubrow said I was guilty and I didn't remember—well, sir, he had to be right!"
Harkness chuckled. "You know differently now. We've had a mind-probe run on Dubrow. It seems he was bribed by a group of private contractors to wreck the Patrol's project on Iapetus so they could get the job instead. He figured he'd have you tried for the crime, leaving him in the clear. ”

“ But the probe bored its way through, drilled through the hard barrier of amnesia in his mind.
And suddenly he was back on Iapetus, in Project Headquarters.
He was saying, "Commander Dubrow, the androids running the atmosphere-generators are lying down on the job. They don't seem to be working."
Dubrow glared at him coldly. "Stick to your own job, Lieutenant Mannion. Coleridge is supervising the androids out there." ”