Individual calls from the audience were sounding now. “Let him talk!”
Cimon shrugged, “Go ahead.”
The captain said, sullenly, “What do you want to do?”
Sheffield said, “Act as my own lawyer and call Mark Annuncio as my principal witness.”
Mark stood up, calmly enough. Sheffield turned his chair to face the audience and motioned him down again.
Sheffield decided there was no use in trying to imitate the courtroom dramas he had watched on the sub-ether. Pompous questions on name and condition of past life would get nowhere. Better to be direct.
So he said, “Mark, did you know what would happen when you told the crew about the first expedition?”
“Yes, Dr. Sheffield.”
“Why did you do it then?”
“Because it was important that we all get away from Junior without losing a minute. Telling the crew the truth was the fastest way of getting us off the planet.”
Sheffield could feel the bad impression that answer made on the audience, but he could only follow his instinct. That, and his psychologist’s decision that only special knowledge could make Mark or any Mnemonic so calm in the face of adversity. After all, special knowledge was their business.
He said, “Why was it important to leave Junior, Mark?”
Mark didn’t flinch. He looked straight at the watching scientists. “Because I know what killed the first expedition, and it was only a question of time before it killed us. In fact, it may be too late already. We may be dying now. We may, every one of us, be dead men.”
Sheffield let the murmur from the audience well up and subside. Even the captain seemed shocked into T-wedge immobility while Cimon’s smile grew quite faint.
For the moment, Sheffield was less concerned with Mark’s “knowledge,” whatever it was, than that he had acted independently on the basis of it. It had happened before. Mark had searched the ship’s log on the basis of a theory of his own. Sheffield felt pure chagrin at not having probed that tendency to the uttermost then and there.
So his next question, asked in a grim enough voice, was, “Why didn’t you consult me about this, Mark?”
Mark faltered a trifle. “You wouldn’t have believed me. It’s why I had to hit you to keep you from stopping me. None of them would have believed me. They all hated me.”
“What makes you think they hated you?”
“Well, you remember about Dr. Rodriguez.”
“That was quite a while ago. The others had no arguments with you.”
“I could tell the way Dr. Cimon looked at me. And Dr. Fawkes wanted to shoot me with a blaster.”
“What?” Sheffield whirled, forgetting in his own turn any formality due the trial. “Say, Fawkes, did you try to shoot him?”
Fawkes stood up, face crimson, as all turned to look at him. He said, “I was out in the woods and he came sneaking up on me. I thought it was an animal and took precautions. When I saw it was he, I put the blaster away.”
Sheffield turned back to Mark, “Is that right?”
Mark turned sullen again, “Well—I asked Dr. Vernadsky to see some data he had collected and he told me not to publish it before he did. He tried to make out that I was dishonest.”
“For the love of Earth, I was only joking,” came a yell from the audience.
Sheffield said, hurriedly, “Very well, Mark, you didn’t trust us and you felt you had to take action on your own. Now, Mark, let’s get to the point. What did you think killed the first settlers?”
Mark said, “It might have killed the explorer, Makoyama, too, for all I know except that he died in a crash two months and three days after reporting on Junior, so we’ll never know.”
“All right, but what is it you’re talking about?”
A hush fell over everyone.
Mark looked about and said, “The dust.”
Sheffield said, “What do you mean?”
“The dust! The dust in the air. It has beryllium in it. Ask Dr. Vernadsky.”
Vernadsky stood up and pushed his way forward. “What’s this?”
“Sure,” said Mark. “It was in the data you showed me. Beryllium was very high in the crust, so it must be in the dust in the air as well.”
Sheffield said, “What if beryllium is there? Let me ask the questions, Vernadsky. Please.”
“Beryllium poisoning, that’s what. If you breathe beryllium dust, nonhealing granulomata, whatever they are, form in the lungs. Anyway, it gets hard to breathe and then you die.”
A new voice, quite agitated, joined the melee. “What are you talking about? You’re no physician.”
“I know that,” said Mark, earnestly, “but I once read a very old book about poisons. It was so old, it was printed on actual sheets of paper. The library had some and I went through them, because it was such a novelty, you know.”
“All right,” said Novee, “what did you read? Can you tell me?”
Mark’s chin lifted, “I can quote it. Word for word. ‘A surprising variety of enzymatic reactions in the body are activated by any of a number of divalent metallic ions of similar ionic radius. Among these activators are magnesium, manganous, zinc, ferrous, cobaltous, and nickelous ions, as well as others. Against all of these, the beryllium ion, which has a similar charge and size, acts as an inhibitor. Beryllium, therefore, serves to derange a number of enzyme-calalyzed reactions. Since the lungs have, apparently, no way of excreting beryllium, diverse metabolic derangements causing serious illness and death can result from inhaling dust containing certain beryllium salts. Cases exist in which one known exposure has resulted in death. The onset of symptoms is insidious, being delayed sometimes for as long as three years after exposure. Prognosis is not good.’ ”
The captain leaned forward in agitation. “Novee, is he making sense?”
Novee said, “I don’t know if he’s right or not, but there’s nothing absurd in what he’s saying.”
Sheffield said sharply, “You mean you don’t know if beryllium is poisonous or not.”
“No, I don’t,” said Novee.
“Isn’t beryllium used for anything?” Sheffield turned to Vernadsky, “Is it?”
Vernadsky said in vast surprise. “No, it isn’t. Damn it, I can’t think of a single use. I tell you what, though. In the early days of atomic power, it was used in the primitive uranium piles as a neutron decelerator, along with other things like paraffin and graphite. I’m almost sure of that.”
“It isn’t used now, though?” asked Sheffield.
“No.”
An electronics man said, quite suddenly, “I think beryllium-zinc coatings were used in the first fluorescent lights.”
“No more, though?” asked Sheffield.
“No.”
Sheffield said, “Well, then, listen, all of you. In the first place, anything Mark quotes is accurate. That’s what the book said, if he says so. It’s my opinion that beryllium is poisonous. In ordinary life it doesn’t matter because the beryllium content of the soil is so low. When man concentrates beryllium to use in nuclear piles or in fluorescent lights or even in alloys, he comes across the toxicity and looks for substitutes.
“He finds substitutes, forgets about beryllium, and eventually forgets about its toxicity. And then we come across an unusual beryllium-rich planet like Junior and we can’t figure out what hits us. It takes a Mnemonic to remember the old, forgotten data.”
Cimon didn’t seem to be listening. He said, in a low voice, “What does that mean, ‘prognosis is not good’?”
Novee said, abstractedly, “It means that if you’ve got beryllium poisoning, you won’t recover.”
Cimon fell back in his chair, chewing his lip.
Novee said to Mark, “I suppose the symptoms of beryllium poisoning—”