Sam got to his feet, grinning that naughty-little-boy grin of his. “And a fool for a lawyer, too, I guess.”
All three judges nodded in unison.
“Anyway,” Sam said, jamming his hands into the pockets of his baby-blue coveralls, “there are a couple of things I think the court should know in deeper detail.”
I glanced over at the Beryllium Blonde while Sam sauntered up to the witness box. She was sitting back, smiling and relaxed, as if she was enjoying the show. Her four colleagues were watching her, not Sam.
The witness was one of the DULL scientists who’d been on Europa, Dr. Clyde Erskine. He was a youngish fellow, with thinning sandy hair and the beginnings of a pot belly.
Sam gave him his best disarming smile. “Dr. Erskine. Are you a biologist?”
“Uh … no, I’m not.”
“A geologist?”
“No.” Rather sullenly, I thought.
“What is your professional specialty, then?” Sam asked, as amiably as he might ask a bartender for a drink on the house.
Erskine replied warily. “I’m a professor of communications at the University of Texas. In Austin.”
“Not a. biologist?”
“No, I am not a biologist.”
“Not a geologist or a botanist or zoologist or even a chemist, are you?”
“I am a doctor of communications,” Erskine said testily.
“Communications? Like, communicating with alien life forms? SETI, stuff like that?”
“No,” Erskine said. “Communications between humans. My specialty is mass media.”
Sam put on a look of shocked surprise. “Mass media? You mean you’re a public relations flack?” “I am a doctor of communications!”
“But what you were doing on Europa was generating PR material for DULL, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “That was my job.”
Sam nodded and took a few steps away from the witness, as if he were trying to digest Erskine’s admission.
Turning back to the witness chair, Sam asked, “We’ve heard fourteen witnesses so far. Were any of them biologists?”
Erskine frowned in thought for a moment. “No, I don’t believe any of them were.”
“Were any of them scientists of any stripe?”
“Most of them were communications specialists,” Erskine answered.
“PR flacks, like yourself.”
“I am not a flack!” Erskine snapped.
“Yeah, sure,” said Sam. He hesitated a moment, then asked, “How many people were on Europa?”
“Uh … let me see,” Erskine muttered, screwing up his eyes to peer at the stone ceiling. “Must have been upwards of three dozen. . . No, more like forty, forty-five.”
“How many of ’em were scientists?” Sam asked.
“We all were!”
“I mean biologists, geologists—not PR flacks.”
Erskine’s face was getting red. “Communications is a valid scientific field—”
“Sure it is,” Sam cut him off. “How many biologists among the forty-five men and women stationed on Europa?”
Erskine frowned in thought for a moment, then mumbled, “I’m not quite certain….”
“Ten?” Sam prompted.
“No.”
“More than ten?”
“Uh … no.”
“Five?”
Silence.
“More or less?” Sam insisted.
“I think there were three biologists,” Erskine muttered, his voice so low that I could hardly hear him.
“Yet none of them have testified at this trial,” Sam said, a hint of wonder in his voice. “Why is that, do you think?” “I don’t know,” Erskine replied sullenly. “I guess none of them was available.”
“Not available.” Sam seemed to mull that over for a moment. “Then who prepared all the slides and graphs you and your cohorts have shown at this trial?”
Erskine glanced up at the judges, then answered, “The communications department of the University of Texas.”
“At Austin.”
“Yes.”
“Not the handful of scientists who were on Europa and are now mysteriously not available?”
“The scientists gave us the input for the computer graphics.”
“Oh? They were available to help you prepare your presentations but they’re not available for this trial? Why is that?”
“I don’t know.”
Sam turned away from the witness. I thought he was coming back to our table, but suddenly Sam wheeled back to face Erskine again. “Do you have any samples of the Europa lichenoids?”
“Samples? Me? No.”
“Do any of the biologists have samples of them? Actual physical samples?”
“No,” Erskine said, brows knitting. “They were living under more than seven kilometers of ice. We were—”
“Thank you, Dr. Erskine,” Sam snapped. Looking up at the judges he said grandly, “No further questions.”
Erskine looked slightly confused, then started to get to his feet.
“Redirect, please,” said the Beryllium Blonde.
All three judges smiled down at her. I smiled too as she walked from behind the prosecution’s table toward the witness box. Just watching her move was a pleasure. Even Sam gawked at her. Beads of perspiration broke out on his upper lip as he sat down beside me.
“Dr. Erskine,” the Blonde asked sweetly, “which scientists helped you to prepare the graphics you showed us?”
Erskine blinked at her as if he were looking at a mirage that was too good to be true. “They were prepared by Dr. Heinrich Fossbinder, of the University of Zurich.”
“Dr. Fossbinder is a biologist?”
“Dr. Fossbinder is a Nobel laureate in biology. He was head of the biology team at Europa.”
“All three of ’em,” Sam stage-whispered loud enough to draw a warning frown from the judges.
The Blonde proceeded, undeterred. “But if you have no samples of the Europa life-forms, how were these computer images produced?”
Erskine nodded, as if to compliment her on asking an astute question. “As I said, the lichenoids were living beneath some seven kilometers of ice. We very carefully sank a fiber-optic line down to within a few dozen meters of their level and took the photographs you saw through that fiberoptic link.”
With an encouraging smile that dazzled the entire courtroom, the Blonde asked, “Was your team drilling a larger bore hole, in an effort to extract samples of the life-forms?”
“Yes we were.”
“And what happened?”
Erskine shot an angry look at Sam. “He ruined it! He came in with his ore-crushing machinery and chewed up so much of the ice that the entire mantle collapsed. Our bore hole was shattered and the lichenoids were exposed to vacuum.”
“What effect did that have on the native life-forms of Europa?” she asked in a near-whisper.
“It killed them all!” Erskine answered hotly. “Wiped them out!” He pointed a trembling finger at Sam. “He killed a whole world’s biosphere!”
The courtroom erupted in angry shouts. I thought the audience was going to lynch Sam then and there.
The Beryllium Blonde smiled at the raging spectators and said, barely loud enough to be heard over their yelling, “The prosecution rests.”
The chief judge banged her gavel and recessed for the day, but hardly any of the audience paid her any attention. They wanted Sam’s blood. A cordon of security guards formed around us, looking worried. But as we headed for the door, I saw that Sam was unperturbed by any of the riotous goings-on; his eyes were locked on the Blonde. It was as if no one else existed for him.
The outlook wasn’t brilliant that evening. The prosecution had presented what looked like an airtight case. I had no witnesses except Sam, and in our discussions of the case he hadn’t once refuted the prosecution’s testimony.
“You really wiped out the colony of lichenoids?” I asked him repeatedly.