The Sam Gunn Omnibus (96 page)

“Hell hath no fury like a woman
scorned,” Sam said, sighing mightily at his memories. “Of course, we spent a
pretty intense time together before the doo-doo hit the fan.” He sighed again. “All
she was after was the rights to my hotel.”

“While you were truly and deeply in
love,” I wisecracked.

Sam looked shocked. “I think I was,”
he said, sounding hurt. “At least, while it lasted.”

“So she has a personal bias against
you. Maybe I can get her thrown off the case—”

“Don’t you dare!” Sam shrieked,
nearly jumping over the coffee table.

“But—”

He gave me his Huck Finn grin. “If
I’ve got to be raped, pillaged and burnt at the stake,” he said happily, “I couldn’t
think of anybody I’d prefer to have holding the matches.”

Had Sam given up?

I
DON’T KNOW
about Sam, but after the first two
days of testimony I was ready to give up.

Fourteen
witnesses—a baker’s dozen plus one—all solemnly testified that Sam had
deliberately, with malice aforethought and all that stuff, wiped out the
harmless lichenoid colony that dwelled under Europa’s ice mantle. And had even
bashed one of the DULL scientists on the head with an oxygen tank when the man had
tried to stop him.

The
spectators on the other side of the courtroom rail sobbed and sighed through
the testimony, hissed at Sam and groaned piteously when the last of the
witnesses showed a series of computer graphics picturing the little green
lichenoids before Sam and the empty cavity under the ice where the lichenoids
had been but were no longer—because of Sam.

“What
need have we of further witnesses?” bellowed a heavyset woman from the back of
the courtroom.

I
turned and saw that she was on her feet, brandishing
an old-fashioned rope already knotted into a hangman’s noose.

The
chief judge frowned at her, rather mildly, and asked her to sit down.

For
the first time since his profession of impartiality Weatherwax spoke up. “We
want to give the accused a fair trial,” he rumbled, again sounding rather like
a bullfrog. “Then we’ll hang him.”

He
made a crooked smile to show that he was only joking. Maybe.

The
chief judge smiled, too. “Although we haven’t yet decided how a sentence of
capital punishment would be carried out,” she said, looking straight-faced at
Sam, “I’m sure it won’t be by hanging. In this low-gravity environment that might
constitute cruel and unusual punishment.”

“Thanks
a lot,” Sam muttered.

THEN THE CHIEF
judge turned to me. “Cross-examination?”

The
scientist who had shown the computer graphics was still sitting in the witness
chair, to one side of the judges’ banc. I didn’t have any questions for him. In
fact, I wanted him and his cute little pictures off the witness stand as quickly
as possible.

But
just as I started to shake my head I heard Sam, beside me, speak up.

“I
have a few questions for this witness, your honors.”

The
three judges looked as startled as I felt.

“Mr.
Gunn,” said the chief judge, with a grim little smile, “I told you before that
you are represented by counsel and should avail yourself of his expertise.”

Sam
glanced at me. We both knew my expertise consisted of a gaggle of computer
programs and not much else.

“There
are aspects of this case that my,
uh...
counsel hasn’t had time to study.
I was on the scene and I know the details better than he possibly could.”

The
three judges conferred briefly, whispering and nodding. At last the chief judge
said, “Very well, Mr. Gunn, you may proceed.” Then she smiled coldly and added,
“There is an old tradition in the legal profession that a man who represents
himself in court has a fool for a client.”

Sam
got to his feet, grinning that naughty-little-boy grin of his. “And a fool for
a lawyer, too, I guess.”

All
three judges nodded in unison.

“Anyway,”
Sam said, jamming his hands into the pockets of his baby-blue coveralls, “there
are a couple of things I think the court should know in deeper detail.”

I
glanced over at the Beryllium Blonde while Sam
sauntered up to the witness box. She was sitting back, smiling and relaxed, as
if she was enjoying the show. Her four colleagues were watching her, not Sam.

The
witness was one of the DULL scientists who’d been on Europa, Dr. Clyde Erskine.
He was a youngish fellow, with thinning sandy hair and the beginnings of a pot
belly.

Sam
gave him his best disarming smile. “Dr. Erskine. Are you a biologist?”

“Uh ...
no, I’m not.”

“A
geologist?”

“No.”
Rather sullenly, I thought.

“What
is your professional specialty, then?” Sam asked, as amiably as he might ask a
bartender for a drink on the house.

Erskine
replied warily. “I’m a professor of communications at the University of Texas.
In Austin.”

“Not
a. biologist?”

“No,
I am not a biologist.”

“Not
a geologist or a botanist or zoologist or even a chemist, are you?”

“I
am a doctor of communications,” Erskine said testily.

“Communications?
Like, communicating with alien life forms? SET
I
,
stuff like that?”

“No,”
Erskine said. “Communications between humans. My specialty is mass media.”

Sam
put on a look of shocked surprise. “Mass media? You mean you’re a public
relations flack?” “I am a doctor of communications!”

“But
what you were doing on Europa was generating PR material for DULL, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,”
he admitted. “That was my job.”

Sam
nodded and took a few steps away from the witness, as if he were trying to
digest Erskine’s admission.

Turning
back to the witness chair, Sam asked, “We’ve heard fourteen witnesses so far.
Were any of them biologists?”

Erskine
frowned in thought for a moment. “No, I don’t believe any of them were.”

“Were
any of them scientists of any stripe?”

“Most
of them were communications specialists,” Erskine answered.

“PR
flacks, like yourself.”

“I
am not a flack!” Erskine snapped.

“Yeah,
sure,” said Sam. He hesitated a moment, then asked, “How many people were on
Europa?”

“Uh ...
let me see,” Erskine muttered,
screwing up his eyes to peer at

the
stone ceiling. “Must have been upwards of three dozen. . . No, more like forty,
forty-five.”

“How
many of ‘em were scientists?” Sam asked.

“We
all were!”

“I
mean biologists, geologists—not PR flacks.”

Erskine’s
face was getting red. “Communications is a valid scientific field—”

“Sure
it is,” Sam cut him off. “How many biologists among the forty-five men and
women stationed on Europa?”

Erskine
frowned in thought for a moment, then mumbled, “I’m not quite certain....”

“Ten?”
Sam prompted.

“No.”

“More
than ten?”

“Uh ...
no.”

“Five?”

Silence.

“More
or less?” Sam insisted.

“I
think there were three biologists,” Erskine muttered, his voice so low that I could
hardly hear him.

“Yet
none of them have testified at this trial,” Sam said, a hint of wonder in his
voice. “Why is that, do you think?” “I don’t know,” Erskine replied sullenly. “I
guess none of them was available.”

“Not
available.” Sam seemed to mull that over for a moment. “Then who prepared all
the slides and graphs you and your cohorts have shown at this trial?”

Erskine
glanced up at the judges, then answered, “The communications department of the
University of Texas.”

“At
Austin.”

“Yes.”

“Not
the handful of scientists who were on Europa and are now mysteriously not
available?”

“The
scientists gave us the input for the computer graphics.”

“Oh?
They were available to help you prepare your presentations but they’re not
available for this trial? Why is that?”

“I
don’t know.”

Sam
turned away from the witness. I thought he was coming back to our table, but
suddenly Sam wheeled back to face Erskine again. “Do you have any samples of
the Europa lichenoids?”

“Samples?
Me? No.”

“Do
any of the biologists have samples of them? Actual physical samples?”

“No,”
Erskine said, brows knitting. “They were living under more than seven
kilometers of ice. We were—”

“Thank
you, Dr. Erskine,” Sam snapped. Looking up at the judges he said grandly, “No
further questions.”

Erskine
looked slightly confused, then started to get to his feet.

“Redirect,
please,” said the Beryllium Blonde.

All
three judges smiled down at her. I smiled too as she walked from behind the
prosecution’s table toward the witness box. Just watching her move was a
pleasure. Even Sam gawked at her. Beads of perspiration broke out on his upper
lip as he sat down beside me.

“Dr.
Erskine,” the Blonde asked sweetly, “which scientists helped you to prepare the
graphics you showed us?”

Erskine
blinked at her as if he were looking at a mirage that was too good to be true. “They
were prepared by Dr. Heinrich Fossbinder, of the University of Zurich.”

“Dr.
Fossbinder is a biologist?”

“Dr.
Fossbinder is a Nobel laureate in biology. He was head of the biology team at
Europa.”

“All three of ‘em,” Sam
stage-whispered loud enough to draw a warning frown from the judges.

The Blonde proceeded, undeterred. “But
if you have no samples of the Europa life-forms, how were these computer images
produced?”

Erskine nodded, as if to compliment
her on asking an astute question. “As I said, the lichenoids were living
beneath some seven kilometers of ice. We very carefully sank a fiber-optic line
down to within a few dozen meters of their level and took the photographs you
saw through that fiberoptic link.”

With an encouraging smile that
dazzled the entire courtroom, the Blonde asked, “Was your team drilling a
larger bore hole, in an effort to extract samples of the life-forms?”

“Yes we were.”

“And what happened?”

Erskine shot an angry look at Sam. “He
ruined it! He came in with his ore-crushing machinery and chewed up so much of
the ice that the entire mantle collapsed. Our bore hole was shattered and the
lichenoids were exposed to vacuum.”

“What effect did that have on the
native life-forms of Europa?” she asked in a near-whisper.

“It killed them all!” Erskine
answered hotly. “Wiped them out!” He pointed a trembling finger at Sam. “He
killed a whole world’s biosphere!”

The courtroom erupted in angry shouts.
I thought the audience was going to lynch Sam then and there.

The Beryllium Blonde smiled at the
raging spectators and said, barely loud enough to be heard over their yelling, “The
prosecution rests.”

The chief judge banged her gavel
and recessed for the day, but hardly any of the audience paid her any
attention. They wanted Sam’s blood. A cordon of security guards formed around
us, looking worried. But as we headed for the door, I saw that Sam was
unperturbed by any of the riotous goings-on; his eyes were locked on the
Blonde. It was as if no one else existed for him.