“Yes.”
“Nothing further,” Alfrey said. “Your witness, counselor.”
“Just one question,” Thomas said. “Dr. Kintsch, were you aware that if you or any associates solved the message, you would thereby destroy your client’s patent?”
The cryptographer stared owl-eyed at the lawyer. “Really? I had no idea!”
Thomas grinned. “Nothing further.”
Dr. Kintsch was excused. He bowed sternly to all and left the room.
“And that completes my testimony,” said Alfrey. “It’s only eleven thirty. I’d like to reserve my final half hour for dosing.”
“No objection,” Thomas said. He glanced at his opponent from the comer of his eye. The man radiated victory. Not so last, thought Thomas. It’s not over yet. The arbitrator looked about the room. “Seems a bit early to recess for lunch. Are you ready with your case, Mr. Thomas?”
Respondent’s lawyer was silent.
“Mr. Thomas?” repeated Grant.
“A moment please, your honor. I think—yes—”
There was a knock at the door. Everyone looked around.
Quentin Thomas called out, “Come in!”
The door opened, a girl in a checkered uniform entered, carrying a flat square box. The odor immediately filled the room. Her eyes connected with Thomas’s. She smiled. “Pizza, anyone?”
Betsy
Alfrey squinted hard at her. He tried to say something, but his larynx was apparently temporarily paralyzed. He gurgled. Gordio stood, wide-eyed, whispered something unintelligible. Judge Grant simply sat, looked quizzical, and waited.
Thomas spoke to her quietly. “Any trouble coming up?”
“No sir, not really. A man in a black suit stopped me in the hall. I told him Mr. Gordio had ordered the pizza, and he let me on by.”
“Very good. And now perhaps you’d better leave the pizza in the hall outside. We’ll get to it later.”
“Yes sir.” She reopened the door, put the box outside.
Alfrey demanded sternly, “Mr. Thomas, you know this young woman?”
“I do.”
“Then get her out of here!”
“Gentlemen,” queried Grant, “what’s going on?”
“Your honor,” Thomas explained, “may I introduce Ms. Hatfield. She is here on official business. She is in fact my one and only witness.”
“Witness? Witness?” demanded Alfrey. “What are you talking about? What could she possibly testify to? How to make pizzas? Your honor, how can you permit this mockery? I demand that you act! Call Security!”
“Sit down, Mr. Alfrey. Ms. Hatfield, are you here to testify?”
“I am, your honor.”
“Objection!” called Alfrey.
“Your honor,” Thomas said, “I think I can throw some light on Ms. Hatfield’s presence here.”
“Please do.”
“Somewhat over a year ago my client sent a messenger to ATCC in Rockville, Maryland with a biological specimen subsequently identified as ATCC 06 327, plus details of a process for isolation, culture, and use of the material. If matters had gone as planned, the messenger would have left the process document at ATCC along with the specimen, well more than a year before Catley-Torgsen filed its patent application, and such deposit would have constituted a bar to the patent under 35 USC 102. The messenger left the biological specimen but not the document, and he has now disappeared. A replacement document was eventually sent to Rockville, but too late to invalidate the patent.” He paused and studied Gordio from the corner of his eye. The C-T executive was squinting thoughtfully at Ms. Betsy Hatfield. Yes, thought Thomas, the disguise worked, she got through, and now you’re wondering whether you ought to be worried. Yes, Big John, you ought to be worried.
He continued. “Though we had left no printed description with the specimen, for the sake of completeness and in an excess of caution a Gruen scientist had encoded the culture details in the specimen itself, and she intended that this information be readily comprehensible to one skilled in the art. We had expected to prove this readability by a witness, a virologist coming up from Atlanta. He was to have flown up last night, but we received information at the last minute that he was the victim of a hit-and-run accident on his way to the airport. He is presently in traction in an Atlanta hospital.” He looked briefly at John Gordio. The man’s face was inscrutable. You bastard, thought Thomas. Would you have killed the man?
He resumed. “While we had no reason to anticipate foul play—and indeed, we accuse no one, nevertheless we thought best to play it safe, and be ready with a back-up witness. To ensure her safe passage, Ms. Hatfield comes to us under the cover of her actual employment, a delivery girl for Checkers Pizza. If she is permitted to testify I believe we can wrap up this arbitration within the hour.”
“And we still object,” declared Alfrey. “She’s obviously not qualified. The whole thing is a farce!”
Grant rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Should youth and a uniform disqualify her? I say no. She’s eligible. A question remains, however. It’s now nearly twelve. Shall we recess for lunch, or shall we play on through?”
“Respondent can stay,” Thomas said.
Alfrey and Gordio conferred. “We too,” the lawyer said. “But Mr. Gordio wonders if he could have the pizza?”
She brought the box back in and presented it to the executive with a curtsey.
Grant said, “Will the reporter swear the witness.”
She was sworn in, then took the witness chair.
Thomas said, “State your full name and city of residence.”
“Betsy Hatfield, Columbia, Maryland.”
“Age?”
“Seventeen.”
“Are you employed?”
“Yes sir, I’m a delivery girl for Checkers Pizza.”
“Full time?”
“No sir, just certain hours. I’m going to Howard County Community College full time.”
“How did you and I meet?”
“One day the Finance Officer at the college called me into her office. You were there.”
“I told you why I was there?”
“You said you were looking for a student—male or female—who had had biology in high school and who could do some homework and then testily about it in a patent case. You gave me a sheet with a lot of letters on it. You said it was a description of a biological specimen deposited with the American Type Culture Collection, and that it was in code. You asked me if I thought I could decode it. I said I didn’t know anything about codes. The whole thing looked pretty doubtful. Also, Mr. Thomas, meaning no disrespect, I couldn’t figure you out. I thought maybe you were actually… after… oh never mind.”
Thomas smiled. “So what happened next?”
“You said, take the paper home, think about it, call you if I wanted to tackle it. You said, if I solved the code, your client would pay my college expenses.”
Alfrey was up and objecting. “Your honor! You hear this? She’s barely out of high school. This witness is obviously not a qualified cryptanalyst. She cannot be permitted to testify in this very complicated matter.”
“Overruled. This is interesting—let’s listen.”
“So you took it home?” Thomas said.
“Yes sir. I called you that night and read off the solution to you. Somebody at Gruen called the Finance Office next day. For which I thank you, Mr. Thomas.”
“The pleasure is ours, Ms. Hatfield. Now then, did I give you any help? Any tips, like try this, or try that, or try’ such and such a system?”
“No sir. You said I had to do it all on my own, no help, no coaching, or it wouldn’t count. I was even afraid to use my P.C.”
“But you solved it. So explain how.”
“Yes sir. Well, I looked at the text. There were four different letters, G, U, A, and C. And since it’s a biological material, that translates to guanine, uracil, adenine, and cytosine. The ‘U’ means we’re looking at RNA, and a string of RNA nucleides. RNA synthesizes proteins in the cell. It does this by stringing together amino acids. There are twenty amino acids in our cells. Each amino acid is called up by its own special set of nucleides in the RNA. These sets are called codons, and each codon is made up of three nucleides. For example, the codon UUU calls for phenylalanine, UCU for serine, UAU for tyrosine, and so on. There are more codons than there are amino acids, so some amino acids are coded by several different codons. Also, one codon means ‘start’, and several mean ‘stop’.”