“You told them I’m your fiancé,” he said.
“Yes, I did.”
“Am I? I mean, really?”
Raven smiled warmly. “Yes, Tómas darling. Really and truly.”
TRIALS (1)
“This proves nothing,” said Gordon Abbott.
Zworkyn and Gomez were sitting before Abbott’s spotlessly clean desk. Nothing on it but a phone console, a fancy pair of pens and an ancient wire in-basket, conspicuously empty. The viewscreen that covered the wall to their right showed a display of Uranus and its moons.
“Nothing?” Gomez bleated. “It shows that Uranus was knocked into its present orientation two million years ago, not four billion!”
“By mysterious alien invaders,” said Abbott, irony dripping from his lips.
“It’s what the available data shows,” Zworkyn said calmly.
Abbott shook his head. “It’s all conjecture, Vincente.”
“Conjecture?” Gomez screeched.
“Nonsense,” Abbott insisted.
“It’s what the available data shows,” Zworkyn repeated.
Abbott shook his head. “It’s conjecture, pure and simple. You started with a premise and you’ve arranged the available evidence to make things work out the way you want them to.”
“No,” Gomez countered. “That’s what the available evidence shows.”
“It couldn’t have taken place only two million years ago. That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s what the evidence shows!”
“It’s what the evidence you’ve selected to deal with indicates,” Abbott insisted. Unconsciously tugging at his moustache, he added, “Good heavens, man, you’re flying in the face of established astronomical fact.”
“Not fact,” Gomez insisted. “Conjecture. Blaming everything on the Late Bombardment is where the conjecture lies.”
“And what is inventing an alien invasion of the solar system? Where are the facts supporting that piece of fantasy?”
Zworkyn said mildly, “I recall hearing a line that some twentieth-century astronomer spoke: ‘Just because an idea is crazy doesn’t mean it’s wrong.’”
“It doesn’t mean it’s right, either,” Abbott snapped.
The office fell silent. Zworkyn and Gomez sat on one side of the desk, Abbott on the other, glaring at one another.
At last, Abbott asked more moderately, “Do you have any evidence that proves your hypothesis? Anything that undeniably shows you’re right and the rest of the astronomical community is wrong?”
Zworkyn shifted uneasily in his chair. “Well…”
“Undeniably,” Abbott emphasized.
“I think I can get it,” Gomez said.
“You can?”
His hands trembling excitedly, Gomez said, “If we can use Big Eye—”
“The lunar Farside telescope?”
“Yes. The moons that were ejected from Uranus’s orbit, if we can locate one of those moons, would that satisfy you?”
Abbott stared at the younger man for a long, silent moment. Then he murmured, “And the data shows that its current position agrees with the idea that it was tossed out of Uranus orbit only two million years ago.…”
Brightening, Gomez added, “If it was ejected during the Late Bombardment, it’ll be too far away even for Big Eye to pick out.”
“It’s a long shot,” Zworkyn murmured.
“But if it works, it’ll prove we’re right,” said Gomez. Then he turned to Abbott. “If we can get a few hours on Big Eye.”
Abbott started to frown, but eased into a slow grin instead. “I’ll get Big Eye for you… if you come up with a reasonable approximation of where your errant moon should be.”
Gomez nodded enthusiastically. “I will! Or bust a gut trying.”
TRIAL (2)
Kyle Umber wore his usual spotless white suit as he entered the conference room. Raven, Gomez and Waxman got to their feet as the minister went to his chair at the head of the oval table.
“Where’s Mr. Dacco?” Umber asked, as he sat down.
“He should be here,” Waxman said, his brows knitting. “He was released from the hospital earlier this morning.”
The conference room was small, almost intimate. Its walls were smooth, bare, gray floor-to-ceiling viewscreens, all blank at the moment. The ceiling glowed with glareless lighting.
Umber’s usually smiling face pulled into a frown. “We can’t hold this hearing without—”
The door that connected to the passageway outside slid open and Noel Dacco limped in. He leaned heavily on a cane and his head was swathed in bandages.
“Sorry I’m late,” said Dacco as he hobbled to the empty chair at the foot of the table.
Waxman asked, “How are you, Noel?”
With a rueful grin Dacco said, “I’m one of the walking wounded. The medics said my knee will heal in a few days. My concussion is only a slight one, nothing to worry about.”
“You could have been killed,” Waxman said.
Gomez, tense as a hunting cat, muttered to himself, “He should have been.”
From the head of the table, Umber said in a carefully modulated tone, “Now that we’re all here we can begin. We are here to determine what happened two nights ago that led to Mr. Dacco’s injuries.”
Waxman said, “Violent assault.”
Umber seemed to ignore the comment. Looking down the length of the conference table, he said, “Mr. Dacco, you are accusing Ms. Marchesi and Dr. Gomez of attacking you.”
Dacco nodded, wincing.
Turning to Raven, Umber continued, “And Ms. Marchesi, you are accusing Mr. Dacco of sexual assault.”
“He would have raped me if Tómas hadn’t intervened.”
Dacco objected, “We were engaging in some bedtime fun when he”—pointing at Gomez—“burst in and attacked me.”
“He was trying to rape me!” Raven cried.
“You can’t rape a whore,” said Dacco, smirking.
Tómas bolted up from his chair.
“Sit down!” Umber commanded, in a voice of sudden thunder.
Tómas stared at the minister, but dropped back onto his chair, his face red with anger.
Patiently, Umber listened first to Dacco’s version of the night’s happenings, then to Tómas’s.
Turning to Raven, he asked gently, “And what do you have to say, Ms. Marchesi?”
Her face still bearing a slightly bluish bruise, Raven replied, “I had dinner with Noel at Evan Waxman’s request. He said he would shut down the boutique Alicia Polanyi and I had just recently opened if I didn’t.”
“I never said that!” Waxman objected.
Ignoring the remark, Raven continued, “Noel walked home with me from the restaurant. I said goodnight to him out in the passageway, in front of my door. But he forced his way into my quarters, pawed me, tore my dress and carried me into the bedroom. I tried to fight him, but he was too strong, too powerful. If Tómas hadn’t come in, he would have raped me.”
Umber turned to Gomez. “You just happened to pop into her quarters.”
His voice trembling, Tómas answered, “Raven is my fiancée, sir.”
“Utter bilge!” Waxman exploded. Jabbing a finger toward Raven, he went on, “She’s got him wrapped around her little finger! He’ll say anything she tells him to!”
“Quiet, Evan,” Umber said. Returning his focus to Gomez, he asked, “What did you see once you entered Ms. Marchesi’s quarters?”
With a murderous glance at Dacco, Tómas replied, “He was on top of her, on the bed. She was struggling and shouting. I pulled him off her.”
“He dislocated my knee and she gave me a concussion,” Dacco grumbled.
Umber closed his eyes momentarily. When he opened them he looked down the table toward Dacco. “Unfortunately, we have no visual or even audio record of what took place inside Ms. Marchesi’s quarters.”