That worried me. Nobody wanted to appear on Sam’s behalf; there were no witnesses to the alleged crimes that weren’t already lined up to testify for the prosecution. I couldn’t even dig up any character witnesses.
“Testify to Sam’s character?” asked one of his oldest friends. “You want them to throw the key away on the little SOB? Or maybe you expect me to commit perjury?”
That was the kindest response I got.
What worried me even more was the fact that several hundred “neutral observers” had booked passage to the Moon to attend the trial; half of them were environmentalists who thirsted for Sam’s blood; the other half were various enemies the little guy had made over his many years of blithely going his own way and telling anybody who didn’t like it to stuff his head someplace where the sun doesn’t shine.
The media sensed blood—and Sam’s blood, at that. He had been great material for them for a long time: the little guy who always thumbed his nose at authority and got away with it. But now Sam had gone too far, and the kindest thing being said about him in the media was that he was “the accused mass-murderer of an entire alien species, the man who wiped out the harmless green lichenoids of Europa.”
If all this bothered Sam he gave no indication of it. “The media,” he groused. “They love you when you win and they’ll use you for toilet paper when you don’t.”
I studied his round, impish, Jack-o’-lantern face for a sign of concern. Or remorse. Or even anger at being haled into court on such serious charges. Nothing. He just grinned his usual toothy grin and whistled while he worked, maddeningly off-key.
Sam was more worried about the impending collapse of Asteroidal Resources, Inc. than his impending trial. The IAA had frozen all his assets and embargoed all his vehicles. The two factory ships on their way in from the belt were ordered to enter lunar orbit when they arrived at the Earth-Moon system and to stay there; their cargoes were impounded by the IAA, pending the outcome of the trial.
“They want to break me,” Sam grumbled. “Whether I win the trial or lose, they want to make sure I’m flat busted by the time it’s over.”
And then the Toad showed up, closely followed by Beryllium Blonde.
We were sitting at the defendant’s table in the courtroom, a very modernistic chamber with severe, angular banc and witness stand of lunar stone, utterly bare smoothed stone walls and long benches of lunar aluminum for the spectators. The tables and chairs for the defendant and prosecution were also burnished aluminum, cold and hard. No decorations of any kind; the courtroom was functional, efficient, and gave me the feeling of inhuman relentlessness.
“Kangaroo court,” Sam muttered as we took our chairs.
The crowd filed in, murmuring and whispering, and filled the rows behind us. Various clerks appeared. No media reporters or photographers were allowed in the courtroom but there had been plenty of them out in the corridor, asking simple questions like, “Why did you wipe out those harmless little green lichenoids, Sam?”
Sam grinned at the them and replied, “Who says I did?”
“The IAA, DULL, just about everybody in the solar system,” came their shouted response.
Sam shrugged good-naturedly. “Nobody’s heard my side of it yet.”
“You mean you didn’t kill them?”
“You claim you’re innocent?”
“You’re denying the charges against you?”
For once in his life, Sam refused to be baited. All he said was, “That’s what this trial is for; to find out who did what to whom. And why.”
They were so stunned at Sam’s refusal to say anything more that they stopped pestering him and allowed us to go into the courtroom. I was sort of stunned, too. I was used to Sam’s nonstop blather on any and every subject under the Sun. Sphinx-like silence was something new, from him.
The courtroom was settling down to a buzzing hum of whispered conversations when the three black-robed judges trooped in to take their seats at the banc. No jury. Sam’s fate would be decided by the three of them.
As everybody rose to their feet, Sam looked at the three judges and groaned. “Buddha on ice-skates, it’s the Toad.”
His name was J. Everest Weatherwax, and he was so famous that even I recognized him. Multi-trillionaire, captain of industry, statesman, public servant, philanthropist, Weatherwax was a legend in his own time. He had helped to found DULL and funded unstintingly the universities that joined the consortium. He was on the board of directors of so many corporations nobody knew the exact number. He was also one the board of governors of the IAA. His power was truly interplanetary in reach, but he had never been known to use that power except for other people’s good.
Yet Sam clearly loathed him.
“The Toad?” I whispered to Sam as we sat down and the chief judge—a comely gray-haired woman with steely eyes—began to read the charges against Sam.
“He’s a snake,” Sam hissed under his breath. “An octopus. He controls people. He owns them.”
“Mr. Weatherwax?” I was stunned. I had never heard a harsh word said against him before. His good deeds and public unselfishness were known throughout the solar system.
“Just look at him,” Sam whispered back, his voice dripping disgust.
I had to admit that Weatherwax did look rather toad-like, sitting up there, looming over us. He was very old, of course, well past the century mark. His face was fleshy, flabby, his skin was gray and splotchy, his shoulders slumped bonelessly beneath his black robe. His eyes bulged and kept blinking slowly; his mouth was a wide almost lipless slash that hung slightly open.
“God help any fly that comes near him,” Sam muttered. “Zap! with his tongue.”
Weatherwax’s money had founded DULL. He had saved the ongoing Martian exploration company when that nonprofit gaggle of scientists had run out of funding. He had made his money originally in biotechnology, almost a century ago, then diversified into agro-business and medicine before getting into space exploration and scientific research in a major way. He had received the Nobel Peace Prize for settling the war between India and China. Rumor had it that if he would only convert to Catholicism, the Pope would make him a saint.
As soon as the chief judge finished reading the charges, Sam shot to his feet.
“I protest,” he said. “One of the judges is prejudiced against me.”
“Mr. Gunn,” said the chief judge, glaring at Sam, “you are represented by legal counsel. If you have any protests to make, they must be made by him.”
Sam turned to me and made a nudging move with both hands.
I got to my feet slowly, thinking as fast as I could. “Your honor, my client feels that the panel might be less than unbiased, since one of the judges is a founder of the organization that has brought these charges against the defendant.”
Weatherwax just smiled down at us, drooling ever so slightly from the corner of his toadish mouth.
The chief judge closed her eyes briefly, then replied to me, “Justice Weatherwax has been duly appointed by the International Astronautical Authority to serve on this panel. His credentials as a jurist are impeccable.”
“Since when is he a judge?” Sam stage-whispered at me.
“The defense was not aware that Mr. Weatherwax had received an appointment to the bench, your honor,” I said as diplomatically as I could.
“Justice. Weatherwax received his appointment last week,” she answered frostily, “on the basis of his long and distinguished record of service in international disputes.”