TORCH SHIP BRUDNOY
“Had a bit of a scrape out there, eh?” asked Professor McFergusen as he poured a stiff whisky for himself.
Molina was sitting on the curved couch of the Brudnoy’s well-stocked lounge, his wife close beside him. Two tall glasses of fruit juice stood on the low table before them. No one else was in the lounge; McFergusen had seen to it that this meeting would be private.
McFergusen kept a fatherly smile on his weather-seamed face as he sat down in the plush faux-leather chair at the end of the cocktail table. He and the chair sighed in harmony.
’You’re all right, I trust?” he asked Molina. “No broken bones, as far as I can see.”
“I’m fine,” Molina said. “It was just a little accident. Nothing to fuss over.”
Mrs. Molina looked to McFergusen as if she thought otherwise, but she said nothing and hid her emotions by picking up her glass and sipping at it. Fruit juice. McFergusen suppressed a shudder of distaste.
“I think the entire affair has been exaggerated,” said Lara. “From what Victor tells me, he was never in any real danger.”
McFergusen nodded. “I suppose not. Good thing that Alexios fellow was there to help out, though.”
“That’s why the safety regulations require that no one goes out onto the surface alone,” Molina said, a bit stiffly.
“Yes. Of course. The important thing, though—the vital question—is: did you find any more specimens while you were out there?” Now Molina grabbed for his glass. “No,” he admitted, then took a gulp of the juice.
McFergusen’s bearded face settled into a worried frown. “You see, the problem is that we still have nothing but those specimens you collected your very first day on the planet.”
“There must be more,” Molina insisted. “We simply haven’t found them yet.”
“We’ve searched for weeks, lad.”
“We’ll have to search further. And more extensively.”
The tumbler of whisky had never left McFergusen’s hand. He took a deep draft from it, then finally put it down on the table. Shaking his head, he said firmly, “Yamagata’s putting pressure on the IAA. And, frankly, I’m running out of excuses to send back to headquarters. Do you realize how much it costs to keep this ship here? And my committee?”
Molina looked obviously irritated. “How much is the discovery of life on Mercury worth? Can you put a dollar figure on new knowledge?”
“Is there life on Mercury?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?”
“Some of my committee members think we’re here on a fool’s errand,” McFergusen admitted.
“They’re the fools, then,” Molina snapped.
“Are they?”
Molina started to reply, but his wife put a hand on his arm. Just a feather-light touch, but it was enough to silence him.
“Wasn’t it Sagan” she asked, in a soft voice, “who said that absence of proof is not proof of absence?”
McFergusen beamed at her. “Yes, Sagan. And I agree! I truly do! I’m not your enemy, lad. I want you to succeed.”
Lara immediately understood what he had not said. “You want Victor to succeed, but you have doubts.”
“Worse than that,” McFergusen said, his tone sinking. “There’s a consensus among my committee that your evidence, Dr. Molina, is not conclusive. It may not even be pertinent.”
Molina nearly dropped his glass. “Not pertinent! What do you mean?”
Decidedly unhappy, McFergusen said, “I’ve called a meeting for tomorrow morning at ten. I intend to review all the evidence that we’ve uncovered.”
“We’ve gone over the evidence time and again.”
“There’s something new,” McFergusen said. “Something that’s changed the entire situation here.”
“What is it?” Lara asked.
“I prefer to wait until the entire committee is assembled,” said McFergusen.
“Then why did you ask us to join you here this evening?”
Looking squarely at Molina, the professor said grimly, “I wanted to give you a chance to think about what you’ve done and consider its implications.”
Molina’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“All to the good, then,” said McFergusen. “If you’re telling the truth.”
“Telling the truth! What the hell do you mean?”
Raising his hands almost defensively, McFergusen said, “Now, now, there’s no sense losing your temper.”
“Is somebody calling me a liar? Are any of those academic drones saying my evidence isn’t valid?”
“Tomorrow,” McFergusen said. “We’ll thrash all this out tomorrow, when everyone’s present.” He gulped down the rest of his whisky and got to his feet.
Molina and his wife stood up, too.
“I don’t understand any of this,” Lara said.
McFergusen realized she was just as tall as he was. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have met with you this evening. I merely wanted to give you a fair warning about what to expect tomorrow.”
Molina’s face was red with anger. His wife clutched at his arm and he choked back whatever he was going to say.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at ten, in the conference room,” McFergusen said, clearly embarrassed. “Good evening.”
He hurried out of the lounge and ducked through the hatch into the ship’s central passageway.
Lara turned to her husband. “At least he didn’t have the effrontery to wish us pleasant dreams.”
Molina was too furious to smile at her attempted humor.
TRIBUNAL
Molina could see from the expressions on their faces that this was going to be bad. McFergusen sat at the head of the conference table, his team of scientists along its sides. What bothered Molina most was that Danvers and his two young acolytes were also present, seated together toward the end of the table. The only empty chair, waiting for Molina, was at the absolute foot of the table.
They all looked up as Molina entered the conference room at precisely ten o’clock. A few of them smiled at him, but it was perfunctory, pasted on, phony. Obviously McFergusen had ordered them to come in earlier, most likely because he wanted to go over their testimony with them. Testimony.Molina grimaced at the word he had automatically used. This was going to be a trial, he knew. Like a court martial. Like a kangaroo court.
The conference room fell into complete silence as soon as he opened the door from the passageway and entered. In silence Molina took his chair and slipped his data chip into the slot built into the faux mahogany table.
“Dr. Molina,” said McFergusen, “I presume you know everyone here.”
Molina nodded. He had met most of the scientists and knew of their reputations. Danvers was an old friend, at least an old acquaintance. The two other ministers with him were nonentities, as far as Molina was concerned, but that didn’t matter.
The conference room was stark. The narrow table that lined one of its walls was bare; no refreshments, not even an urn of coffee or a pitcher of water. The wall screens were blank. The room felt uncomfortably warm, stuffy, but Molina was ice-cold inside. This is going to be a battle, he told himself. They’re all against me, for some reason. Why? Jealousy? Disbelief? Refusal to accept the facts? It doesn’t matter. I have the evidence. They can’t take that away from me. I’ve already published my findings on the nets. Maybe that’s it. Maybe they’re pissed off because I didn’t send my findings through the regular academic channels to be refereed before putting them out for all the world to see.
McFergusen ostentatiously pressed the keypad on the board built into the head of the table. “I hereby call this meeting to order. It is being recorded, as is the usual practice.”