The Sam Gunn Omnibus (101 page)

It took a while and a lot of
whacking of the stump of her gavel, but once order was restored to the
courtroom, the chief judge f
i
xed Sam
with a beady eye and asked, “Are you maintaining, Mr. Gunn, that there never
were indigenous life-forms on Europa?”

Sitting in the witness chair with
his hands folded childlike on his lap, Sam replied courteously, “Yes, ma’am,
that’s exactly what I’m saying. The whole story was a subterfuge, engineered by
the people who run DULL”

“This is outrageous!” Weatherwax
roared. Everyone in the courtroom realized that he was
the
man
who ran DULL.

The chief judge was a little more
professional. She turned to the prosecution’s lawyers, who were still standing
and fuming.

“Cross-examination?”

The Beryllium Blonde stalked out
from behind the table like a battle cruiser maneuvering into range for a lethal
broadside.

She stood before Sam for a long,
silent moment while the entire court held its breath. He stared up at her; maybe
he was trying to look defiant. To me, he looked like a kid facing the school
principal.

“Mr. Gunn,” she started, utterly
serious, no smile, her eyes cold and calculating, “the allegation you have just
made is extremely serious. What evidence do you have to support it?”

“The testimony of Dr. Anitra O’Toole,
of Johns Hopkins University’s biology department.”

“And where is Dr. O’Toole? Why isn’t
she here at this trial?”

Sam took a breath. “As far as I know,
she is still on Europa. They won’t let her leave.”

“Won’t let her leave?” the Blonde
registered disbelief raised to the nth power.

“She’s being held prisoner, more or
less,” Sam said. “That’s why Wankle put a security team on Europa: to see that
the scientists don’t talk and can’t get away.”

“Really, Mr. Gunn! And why isn’t
her husband demanding her return to Earth?”

“Because, as far as he knows, she’s
on Europa voluntarily, placing her career before their marriage. Besides, my
sources tell me the guy’s shacked up with a certain blonde lawyer.”

Her eyes went wide and she smacked
Sam right in the mouth. Hauled off and whacked him with the flat of her hand.
The crack echoed off the courtrooms stone walls.

A couple of spectators cheered. The
judges were so stunned none of them moved.

Sam ran a thumb across his jaw. I could
see the white imprint of her fingers on his skin.

With a crooked grin, Sam went on, “He’s
here in Selene City. I could have him subpoenaed to appear here, if you like.”

The Blonde visibly pulled herself
together, regained her self-control by sheer force of will. She put on a
contrite expression and looked up at the judges.

“I apologize for my behavior, your
honors,” she said, in a hushed little-girl voice. “It was inexcusable of me to
allow the witness’s slanderous statement to affect me so violently.”

“Apology accepted,” said the Toad.
The chief judge’s brows knit, but she said nothing.

So the Blonde got away with
slugging Sam and even made it look as if it was his own fault. Neat work, I thought.

She turned back to Sam. “Do you
have any
evidence
of your allegation
about the lichenoids, Mr. Gunn?”

“I have Dr. O’Toole’s statement on
video. I activated
Jokers
internal camera system
once I allowed her on board my ship.”

“Video evidence can be edited,
doctored, manufactured out of computer graphics—”

“Like the slides of the Europa
lichenoids we saw earlier,” Sam countered.

“You are defaming scientists whose
reputations are beyond reproach!” the Blonde exclaimed.

“Nobody’s reputation is beyond
reproach,” Sam said hotly. “You oughtta know that.”

Turning to the judges, he went on
without taking a breath, “Your honors, none of these scientists were trying to
hoodwink the public. They were drawn into a plot by the people who run Wankle
Enterprises, a plot to stake out a monopoly on the resources of the whole
Jupiter system!”

The chief judge answered sternly, “How
can you make such an allegation, Mr. Gunn, without proof?” But I noticed she
was eying the Toad as she spoke.

“Look, this is the way it worked,”
Sam said, ignoring her question. “DULL’s operation on Europa is funded by
Wankle Enterprises, right? Wankle’s people went to DULL more than five years
ago and suggested an experiment: they wanted DULL’s scientists to engineer
terrestrial lichen to survive in the conditions of Europa, living in the watery
slush at the bottom of Europa’s mantle of ice. The idea was to see how
life-forms would behave under extraterrestrial conditions.”

“Which is a valid scientific
project,” the Blonde said.

“Yeah, that’s what they told the
scientists. So the biologists engineer the critters and they send a team out to
Europa to see if they can actually survive there.”

The chief judge interrupted. “You
are contending, Mr. Gunn, that there were no native life-forms on Europa?”

“No native life-forms on or in or
any way connected with Europa. If they’d found native life forms they wouldn’t
have had to engineer this experiment, would they?”

“But DULL announced the discovery
of native life-forms.”

“Right!” Sam exulted. “That’s when
our slimy friend here sprung his trap. They announced that the scientists had
discovered native life-forms on Europa, instead of telling the media that the
lichenoids had been engineered in a bio lab in Zurich.”

“That is utterly ridiculous,” said
the Blonde. I noticed that the Toad was slumping more than usual in his chair.

“The hell it is,” Sam snapped. “The
poor suckers on Europa were caught in a mousetrap. They were stuck on Europa,
dependant on DULL and Wankle for transportation home. Dependant on them for air
to breathe! They couldn’t get to the media; they were surrounded by three dozen
DULL public-relations flacks and a Wankle security team. Even if they could
blow the whistle, it’d look as if they were in on the fraud from the beginning.
One way or another their careers would be finished. DULL would never let them
sweep the floor of a laboratory again, let alone practice scientific research.”

“Monstrous,” muttered the chief
judge. Whether she meant Sam’s allegations were monstrous or DULL’s actions, I couldn’t
figure out.

“Meanwhile, DULL’s communications
experts are putting the pressure on the scientists to go along with the
deception. After all, once the lichenoids adapt to the conditions under the ice
on Europa they’ll really be extraterrestrial organisms, right? The scientists
could announce their true origins in the scientific journals in a year or two
or three. Who’s going to notice, by then, except other scientists?”

The Blonde stamped her lovely foot
for attention. “But why go through this subterfuge? It’s all so pointless and
ridiculous. Why would reputable scientists, why would the directors and
governors of

DULL,
go through such an elaborate and foolish subterfuge? Mr. Gunn’s wild theory
falls apart on the question of motivation, your honors.”

“Not so, oh temptress of the
heavenly spheres,” Sam replied. “Motivation is exactly where my theory is
strongest.”

He paused dramatically. Two of the
judges leaned forward to hear his next words. Weatherwax looked as if he wanted
to be someplace else. Anyplace else.

“Once DULL’s public-relations
program announced that native organisms had been found on Europa, what did the
IAA do?” Before anyone could reply, Sam went on, “They roped off the whole
Jupiter system—the whole damned system! Jupiter itself and all its moons,
sealed off, embargoed. No commercial development allowed. Forbidden territory.
No go there, bwana, IAA make big taboo.”

“Mr. Gunn, please!” said the third
judge.

“No commercial development allowed
in the entire Jupiter system
,
” Sam
repeated. “Except for the company that was funding the Europa research station.
They were allowed ‘limited resource extraction’ to repay for their funding the
Europa team. Right?”

The chief judge murmured, “Right.”

“Who was funding the Europa
station? Wankle Enterprises. Who was allowed to develop ‘limited resource
extraction’—which means scooping Jupiter’s clouds and mining its moons? Wankle
Enterprises. Who has a monopoly on the thousands of trillions of dollars worth
of resources in the Jupiter system? Wankle Enterprises. Surprise!”

“Limited resource extraction,”
snapped the Blonde, “means just that. Limited.”

“Yeah, sure. What does ‘limited’ mean?
How much? There’s no definition. A billion dollars? A trillion? And what
happens if the environmentalists or some other corporation or the Dalai Lama
complains that Wankle’s taking too much out of the Jupiter system? Wankle
simply announces that the lichenoids on Europa weren’t native life-forms after
all. Ta-daaa! The scientists get a black eye and Wankle has established
operations running all over the Jupiter system. That gives them the edge on any
competition, thanks to the monopoly the IAA mistakenly granted them.”

Weatherwax stirred himself. “We’ve
listened long enough to these paranoid ramblings,” he rumbled. “I haven’t heard
a single iota of evidence to support Mr. Gunn’s ravings.”

“Call Dr. O’Toole back from Europa,”
Sam said. “Or watch the video I made of her in my quarters aboard
Joker.
Call Professor Fossbinder in from Zurich. Call Brandon O’Toole, for Pete’s
sake; he’s right here in Selene City. He knows that his wife was engineering
lichen before she shipped out to Europa. He’ll tell you all about it, if he isn’t
besotted by our Beryllium Blonde here.”

And he quickly raised his fists
into a boxer’s defensive posture.

The Blonde just stood there, her lovely
mouth hanging open, her eyes wide and darting from Sam to the Toad and back
again.

Weatherwax heaved an enormous sigh,
then croaked, “I move that we adjourn this hearing for half an hour while we
discuss this
new ...
allegation, in chambers.”

The chief judge nodded,
tight-lipped. We all rose and the judges swept out; the courtroom was so quiet
I could hear their black robes rustling. The audience filed out, muttering,
whispering; but Sam and I sat tensely at the defendants’ table, he drumming his
fingers on the tabletop incessantly, his head turned toward the prosecution’s table
and the Blonde. She was staring straight ahead, sitting rigid as an I-beam—a
gorgeously curved I-beam. Her four cohorts sat flanking her, whispering among
themselves.

After about ten minutes, a clerk
came out and told us that we were wanted in the judges’ chambers. I felt
surprised, but Sam grinned as if he had expected it. The clerk went over and
conferred briefly with the prosecution lawyers. They all got up and filed out
of the courtroom, looking defeated. Even the Blonde seemed down, tired, lost. I
felt an urge to go over and try to comfort her, but Sam grabbed me by the
collar of my tunic and pointed me toward the slightly open door to the judges’
chambers.

Weatherwax was sitting alone on an
imitation leather couch big enough for four; the other two judges were nowhere
in sight. He had taken off his judicial robe, revealing a rumpled pale green
business suit that made him look more amphibious than ever.

“What do you want, Gunn?” he
growled as we sat on upholstered armchairs, facing him.

“I want my ships released and my
business reopened,” Sam said immediately.

Weatherwax slowly blinked his
bulging eyes. “Once this case is dismissed, that will be automatic.”

Dismissed? I was startled. Was it
all over?

“And,” Sam went on, “I want full
disclosure about the lichenoids. I want the scientists cleared of any attempt
to hoodwink the public.”

Again
the Toad blinked. “We can always blame the PR people; say they got the story
slightly askew.”

Sam
gave a short, barking laugh. “Blame the media, right.”

“Is
that all?” Weatherwax asked, his brows rising.