"Why'd Jenny call this meeting if she isn't even going to come to it?" Esther muttered. She shifted nervously. Infinity knew how she felt. Being asked to sit in judgment of someone was bad enough. Being left in the dark about what was going on made it worse.
He linked into Arachne. The computer web acknowledged him. The silver slugs waited to accompany Chancellor Blades to the meeting, to guard him, to guard Arachne while he was free.
But Chancellor Blades refused to accompany the silver slugs.
Infinity let out a quick, sharp, incredulous laugh.
Jenny Dupre and Gerald Hemminge arrived at the amphitheater. Without the chancellor. Jenny looked furious and embarrassed, Gerald, as usual, carefully neutral and controlled.
Jenny did not even find a seat, nor did she state her name, then pause, as meeting etiquette required.
"He won't come out," she said angrily. "He's too cowardly to face his own trial." She sat down abruptly, sullenly, and folded her arms.
Gerald remained standing.
"Gerald Hemminge," he said, and waited. The assistant-now acting-chancellor never lost his kood manners, even when he was using them to be rude.
No one interrupted or challenged him.
"Chancellor Blades . . ." Gerald said. "The chancellor denies that you have a right to try or judge him. He . . . requests . . . that you return to Earth and hand him over to the authorities."
"The same authorities who sent him in the first place!" Jenny said bitterly.
Infinity wished she would at least follow meeting rules, especially since she was the person who had called it.
,,Ruth Orazio."
Across the amphitheater, the senator waited longer than the usual couple of seconds, as if she expected someone to object to her speaking.
"I know you all feel betrayed," she said. "Frankly, I do, too. What's happened is what always happens when decisions get made in back rooms and secrecy. But the justice system of the United States is public and open. If you do return to Earth, the chancellor will get a fair trial-"
"Will we?" Jenny said.
The senator continued as if she had not been interrupted.
11
-a fair trial, and the powers that controlled him will have to come out in the open and answer for what's happened."
Jenny started to speak again.
"Ms. Dupre," Gerald said.
Annoyed, Jenny rose. "Iphigenie Dupre," she said. "If I may-T'
Infinity did not blame her for being bitter and angry. But it hurt to see the change in her. During the first deployment of Starfarer's solar sail, her creation, she had glowed with joy. Stephen Thomas had broken out a
bottle of fancy champagne and let it loose, in the freefall of the sailhouse. Jenny had drunk one of the fizzing globules with a kiss.
"The U.S. constitution says the accused has a right to face the witnesses against him, and the U.S. insisted that we operate under their constitution. Fine. But we're here. We're willing to face him. I'm willing to face him. Nothing says he has to face us. But nothing says we can't make a decision about him even if he isn't here to listen to it.
Or to defend himself. If he could defend himself."
"He also has a right to legal counsel," Gerald said. "Is anyone willing to defend him?"
"I assumed you had that job reserved for yourself."
"Firstly," Gerald said, "I am not a barrister. Secondly, my defending the chancellor would be an inexcusable conflict of interest."
"J.D. Sauvage." J.D. paused, waiting her turn to speak. "I don't see how we can proceed if Mr. Blades won't come out. Maybe it's legal for us to proceed. But should we? I don't think so."
Infinity felt very grateful to J.D. for saying something that he, too, believed. He knew he was going to have to speak out later, and no one was going to want to listen to what he had to say.
"Do you think he should be allowed to get off free?" Jenny asked, disbelieving. "I thought Feral was your friend!"
"He was," J.D. said. "And I'd like to see justice done for him. Justice." "Chancellor Blades is innocent," Gerald said.
Jenny laughed. So did Stephen Thomas, and a few other people, coldly and without joy.
"So much for not defending him," Jenny said to Gerald.
"I can't defend him in a court of law," Gerald said. "Which, by the way, this is not. I didn't say I wouldn't speak for him."
"William Derjaguin." The senior senator from New Mexico stood up.
Infinity had powerful feelings about Derjaguin. Powerful, and mixed. Disappointment because of Derjaguin's implacable opposition to the deep space expedition. Admiration, because De~aguin had been one of the few people to oppose the weapons testing scheme that ended in disaster for the southwest, one of the few to stand up for land others called beautiful and valueless.
No one objected to letting him speak.
"I've talked to the chancellor, too," he said. "Not that it's easy, with a couple of lithoblasts threatening to dissolve me with acid if I go one step closer."
He had it wrong. The lithoblasts would block his way. They could physically restrain him. They might even put up a barrier of rock foam if he was persistent enough. But they would not dissolve him with acid. Only lithoclasts could produce acids and solvents. All the lithoclasts were outside working. People always thought of repair as building, but clearing away was at least as important.
Outside is where I ought to be, Infinity thought.
"The chancellor told me he was innocent," Senator Derjaguin said. "I have a great deal of experience at judging character. I believe him."
"What a load of bullshit," Stephen Thomas said.
"He doesn't believe he can get a fair hearing, on this ship with this crew."
Infinity hated to hear Starfarer referred to-especially by politicians-as if it were a military vessel and the people on board, its recruits. Starfarer was not a warship, and he was not a soldier.
"If he's innocent, he ought to be willing to stand up in front of us and say so," Jenny said.
Both Gerald and the senator reacted with indignation.
"You incited the mob that went after him!" Gerald said. "Who knows what might have occurred, had he not fled-!"
"I had to get him out of the web!" Jenny cried. "Do you blame me? Has anyone ever tried to kill you?"
Derjaguin moved, a quick, repressed reliving of the shock of an assassin's bullet.
"Yes," Derjaguin said.
Jenny had no reason to know the personal, even the public, history of a U.S. senator. He surprised her with his reply, but she continued.
"And how do you feel about the person who tried to kill you?"
"That person . . . is still at large," De~jaguin said. "I've reserved judgment."
"Noble of you," Jenny said.
"Jag," Ruth Orazio said, "you must understand how she feels."
"I do." He turned his presence and his considerable charisma back toward Jenny. "And I can understand your desire for revenge. I hope I never have the person who shot me at my mercy. That's what the judicial system is for. To dispense justice. To prevent revenge."
He must be used to seeing people blossom into eagerness, or wilt into compliance, under the light of his attention. But Jenny was immune. The solar sail designer was at least as renowned as he, and probably richer.
She did not fawn over celebrities. They fawned over her.
"I'm not convinced you've caught the right entity," Derjaguin said. "The crash could have been programmed in from the start. A Trojan horse."
Jenny challenged him.
"Have you looked at the evidence J.D. and Stephen Thomas found? Even looked at it? If you had, you wouldn't think Arachne crashed because of a horse!" J.D. rose again.