“Why do you think Star Ventures never went back to Pixie, in spite of the terrific chemical feedstock they brought back on the first visit? Because they traded for some of them, and if the truth ever gets out, ISLA will fine them trillions, that’s why.
“But thanks to you and your insanity, Mighty Mite will declare bankruptcy an hour after we establish radio contact. That goes for you too, boy! You may think you own the copyright on your plog, but the creditors will seize that as well, or tie it up in the courts for a hundred years. We’re all flat broke together.”
Seth ignored all the angry glares directed at him. “You too, sir?”
“Including me, yes.”
What? For a moment Seth was stumped, and then he saw the way out. “But your wife is wealthy? Are your children?”
Still JC could not refuse to answer. “They have property, yes. What the hell have you done to me? I don’t feel well…”
“I have done nothing to you, sir. We’re discussing what you have done to us. Remember when we started, when we all dreamed of bringing back things of great value from Cacafuego, things big enough to make the expedition a roaring success. Were you planning to cheat us out of our cut?”
JC shrank back like a cowed dog. He swallowed a few times and nodded, growing older by the minute. He could not resist the truth compulsion. “Yes.”
The audience sat up straighter on their chairs. Jordan opened her mouth but Seth raised a warning hand and plunged ahead.
“How? Cheat us how?”
“Greenhorn Corporation. It’s a privately owned company that loaned Mighty Mite some of its start-up money. It has first call on any and all discoveries that we make. Mighty Mite is a worthless shell. Greenhorn would have taken all the profits and none of the debt. But that isn’t going to happen, you idiot! If you’d left that woman to die and ignored the centaurs, Mighty Mite could have staked Cacafuego and then Greenhorn could have stripped it of everything it had. You had to go and play knight in shining armor. Now ISLA claims all samples, living or dead. We’re still broke.”
“True,” Seth admitted. “Who owns Greenhorn?”
“Several people.”
“How much do you control?”
JC looked around despairingly. “Twelve percent. It doesn’t matter now.”
Jordan said, “But it could have mattered very much. This was fraud you were planning! You were hoping to cheat us, and Mighty Mite’s shareholders, and the banks and funds that had loaned it money?”
“A lawyer could call it that. My lawyers wouldn’t. And I would have seen you each got a reasonable reward.”
“You would have defined the ‘reasonable’ part of course.”
Silence: Seth had made a statement, not asked a question.
Meredith chuckled, although she wasn’t smiling. “I’m waiting to hear a motion that you be put outside to walk home, Mr. Lecanard.”
“Control is still recording,” JC said quickly. He, too, must smell the bloodlust in the air.
“So it is,” Jordan said softly. “And since you have confessed to attempted fraud, you could now sell each of us two percent of this Greenhorn Corporation for the sum of one dollar and our promise not to sue. That is to say the six of us will pay you six dollars for your entire holdings. We could make that legally binding, couldn’t we?”
Choke… Gasp… “Yes.”
“Yes, let’s do that,” Hanna said. Her face was flushed as red as Betelgeuse and her fingers were hooked like claws. “Just on principle.”
It took a little while to get the wording right, but Control pulled some precedents from its archives and approved the final brief text. Crushed, JC appended his sig, and so did the others.
“Commodore,” Jordan said, “You are confined to quarters for reasons of health.” Several people nodded, as if to confirm that strangulation was a definite health hazard. “You may go now.”
Crushed, JC rose and crept out of the room. The captain moved to the head of the table.
“Control, I terminate this meeting and reverse its classification as the official wake. We will schedule a proper wake for tomorrow.” She stared hard at Seth. “What have you seen that the rest of us haven’t, Prospector?”
Seth grinned. No one else did, but he was feeling very good now.
“I’ve seen what Commodore Duddridge saw. As JC guessed, Duddridge had seen that Cacafuego did offer a hugely profitable discovery. You have just seen it start to pay off!
“Remember the first day we met, ma’am? We agreed that Ship’s Rules should specify monkeys not monks, because people always play sex games. We also agreed that power games are popular too. Well, both sorts of games depend on telling lies. In the last few days, I have found myself in several very embarrassing conversations.” He glanced around the table and saw that he had not been the only one.
“Eventually I realized that the mysterious infection was making it impossible for us to tell lies, even little everyday white lies. Duddridge talked with both Meredith and Mariko while they were infected. Meredith told me that he asked all sorts of personal questions.” Seth glanced at her. “So you answered them, and you insulted him to his face, even though he held your life in his hands?”
“When I get my hands on him,” she said, “Duddridge will be even dudder than he is now.”
“He was supposed to be planning how to rescue her from certain death,” Seth explained. “So what was he doing prying into her sex life? He had discovered that she could not refuse to reveal the most intimate details, as any normal person would, especially at a time like that. Of course, she had gone on record as saying that the centaurs were sentient, so he had an interest in making her sound irrational. But I think he had noticed what I noticed, that one of the signs of the prion infection was in an inability to lie. That would be disastrous for normal human relations.”
“Yes, you would miss that,” Jordan said drily.
“I have missed it,” he admitted, “these last few days. I was frightened we had all suffered permanent brain damage. But yesterday I discovered I had recovered my lying skill as my health returned.”
“That was when you told me Meredith wasn’t much of a lay?”
“I hate you, Jordan Spears.”
Jordan joined in the laughter. The mood of the meeting had made a dramatic about-turn. “Lying or not, keep talking.”
“The real brainwave came when Reese told us about the prion. A prion really isn’t living or dead, is it, Doctor?”
“No,” Reese said. “It’s an organic chemical. But it came from Cacafuego. ISLA will still claim it.”
“No,” Seth said. “You told us it is also terrestrial, a deviant form of one of our own brain proteins. Our brains did not originate on Cacafuego. You are one of the world’s foremost biologists. By the time we return to Earth, you will have worked out how to mis-fold it to recreate the protein, and you will have pinned down the antidote you mentioned. You will patent both for Greenhorn. You say that you found no antibodies in our blood, so there can be no buildup of resistance. If you need to try it out to see if it works again, I’ll volunteer for a second dose. Any discoveries you make regarding a human protein cannot be claimed by ISLA; they belong to Mighty Mite under the contract, and so to Greenhorn, and now we own a big chunk of Greenhorn.”
Faces all around the table were bright with hope, yet shadowed by doubt.
Jordan put the conflict into words: “You’re suggesting we profit by selling a biological weapon?”
“Oh no, ma’am. But think of all the police forces and security forces in the world. How much do you think they’ll be willing to pay for a safe, reliable, and reversible truth drug?”
Reese answered. “Plenty.” She eyed the captain. “But lovers might offer more.”