“And where is Dr. O’Toole? Why isn’t she here at this trial?”
Sam took a breath. “As far as I know, she is still on Europa. They won’t let her leave.”
“Won’t let her leave?” the Blonde registered disbelief raised to the nth power.
“She’s being held prisoner, more or less,” Sam said. “That’s why Wankle put a security team on Europa: to see that the scientists don’t talk and can’t get away.”
“Really, Mr. Gunn! And why isn’t her husband demanding her return to Earth?”
“Because, as far as he knows, she’s on Europa voluntarily, placing her career before their marriage. Besides, my sources tell me the guy’s shacked up with a certain blonde lawyer.”
Her eyes went wide and she smacked Sam right in the mouth. Hauled off and whacked him with the flat of her hand. The crack echoed off the courtrooms stone walls.
A couple of spectators cheered. The judges were so stunned none of them moved.
Sam ran a thumb across his jaw. I could see the white imprint of her fingers on his skin.
With a crooked grin, Sam went on, “He’s here in Selene City. I could have him subpoenaed to appear here, if you like.”
The Blonde visibly pulled herself together, regained her self-control by sheer force of will. She put on a contrite expression and looked up at the judges.
“I apologize for my behavior, your honors,” she said, in a hushed little-girl voice. “It was inexcusable of me to allow the witness’s slanderous statement to affect me so violently.”
“Apology accepted,” said the Toad. The chief judge’s brows knit, but she said nothing.
So the Blonde got away with slugging Sam and even made it look as if it was his own fault. Neat work, I thought.
She turned back to Sam. “Do you have any evidence of your allegation about the lichenoids, Mr. Gunn?”
“I have Dr. O’Toole’s statement on video. I activated Jokers internal camera system once I allowed her on board my ship.”
“Video evidence can be edited, doctored, manufactured out of computer graphics—”
“Like the slides of the Europa lichenoids we saw earlier,” Sam countered.
“You are defaming scientists whose reputations are beyond reproach!” the Blonde exclaimed.
“Nobody’s reputation is beyond reproach,” Sam said hotly. “You oughtta know that.”
Turning to the judges, he went on without taking a breath, “Your honors, none of these scientists were trying to hoodwink the public. They were drawn into a plot by the people who run Wankle Enterprises, a plot to stake out a monopoly on the resources of the whole Jupiter system!”
The chief judge answered sternly, “How can you make such an allegation, Mr. Gunn, without proof?” But I noticed she was eying the Toad as she spoke.
“Look, this is the way it worked,” Sam said, ignoring her question. “DULL’s operation on Europa is funded by Wankle Enterprises, right? Wankle’s people went to DULL more than five years ago and suggested an experiment: they wanted DULL’s scientists to engineer terrestrial lichen to survive in the conditions of Europa, living in the watery slush at the bottom of Europa’s mantle of ice. The idea was to see how life-forms would behave under extraterrestrial conditions.”
“Which is a valid scientific project,” the Blonde said.
“Yeah, that’s what they told the scientists. So the biologists engineer the critters and they send a team out to Europa to see if they can actually survive there.”
The chief judge interrupted. “You are contending, Mr. Gunn, that there were no native life-forms on Europa?”
“No native life-forms on or in or any way connected with Europa. If they’d found native life forms they wouldn’t have had to engineer this experiment, would they?”
“But DULL announced the discovery of native life-forms.”
“Right!” Sam exulted. “That’s when our slimy friend here sprung his trap. They announced that the scientists had discovered native life-forms on Europa, instead of telling the media that the lichenoids had been engineered in a bio lab in Zurich.”
“That is utterly ridiculous,” said the Blonde. I noticed that the Toad was slumping more than usual in his chair.
“The hell it is,” Sam snapped. “The poor suckers on Europa were caught in a mousetrap. They were stuck on Europa, dependant on DULL and Wankle for transportation home. Dependant on them for air to breathe! They couldn’t get to the media; they were surrounded by three dozen DULL public-relations flacks and a Wankle security team. Even if they could blow the whistle, it’d look as if they were in on the fraud from the beginning. One way or another their careers would be finished. DULL would never let them sweep the floor of a laboratory again, let alone practice scientific research.”
“Monstrous,” muttered the chief judge. Whether she meant Sam’s allegations were monstrous or DULL’s actions, I couldn’t figure out.
“Meanwhile, DULL’s communications experts are putting the pressure on the scientists to go along with the deception. After all, once the lichenoids adapt to the conditions under the ice on Europa they’ll really be extraterrestrial organisms, right? The scientists could announce their true origins in the scientific journals in a year or two or three. Who’s going to notice, by then, except other scientists?”
The Blonde stamped her lovely foot for attention. “But why go through this subterfuge? It’s all so pointless and ridiculous. Why would reputable scientists, why would the directors and governors of DULL, go through such an elaborate and foolish subterfuge? Mr. Gunn’s wild theory falls apart on the question of motivation, your honors.”
“Not so, oh temptress of the heavenly spheres,” Sam replied. “Motivation is exactly where my theory is strongest.”
He paused dramatically. Two of the judges leaned forward to hear his next words. Weatherwax looked as if he wanted to be someplace else. Anyplace else.
“Once DULL’s public-relations program announced that native organisms had been found on Europa, what did the IAA do?” Before anyone could reply, Sam went on, “They roped off the whole Jupiter system—the whole damned system! Jupiter itself and all its moons, sealed off, embargoed. No commercial development allowed. Forbidden territory. No go there, bwana, IAA make big taboo.”
“Mr. Gunn, please!” said the third judge.
“No commercial development allowed in the entire Jupiter system,” Sam repeated. “Except for the company that was funding the Europa research station. They were allowed ‘limited resource extraction’ to repay for their funding the Europa team. Right?”
The chief judge murmured, “Right.”
“Who was funding the Europa station? Wankle Enterprises. Who was allowed to develop ‘limited resource extraction’—which means scooping Jupiter’s clouds and mining its moons? Wankle Enterprises. Who has a monopoly on the thousands of trillions of dollars worth of resources in the Jupiter system? Wankle Enterprises. Surprise!”
“Limited resource extraction,” snapped the Blonde, “means just that. Limited.”
“Yeah, sure. What does ‘limited’ mean? How much? There’s no definition. A billion dollars? A trillion? And what happens if the environmentalists or some other corporation or the Dalai Lama complains that Wankle’s taking too much out of the Jupiter system? Wankle simply announces that the lichenoids on Europa weren’t native life-forms after all. Ta-daaa! The scientists get a black eye and Wankle has established operations running all over the Jupiter system. That gives them the edge on any competition, thanks to the monopoly the IAA mistakenly granted them.”
Weatherwax stirred himself. “We’ve listened long enough to these paranoid ramblings,” he rumbled. “I haven’t heard a single iota of evidence to support Mr. Gunn’s ravings.”