Probability Sun (38 page)

Kaufman suddenly wondered what Marbet would have seen on their faces, in their body language.

“I have two additional directives for this court of inquiry,” Grafton continued. “First, that because this is a classified matter, Special Compartmented Information, and of great military urgency, all members of the court of inquiry are bound to say nothing of these proceedings, record nothing of these proceedings, and in no way even indicate any knowledge that these proceedings occurred, on penalty of being charged with treason. Is this directive understood and agreed to?”

Three assents.

“Second,” Grafton said, and stopped. Three faces waited, expressionless. “Second, I would like the court to remember that the honor and career of an officer with an unblemished military record, including combat duty, is at stake here. That is all.”

Grafton turned and left, closing the door behind him. Kaufman felt a dark, angry sadness descend on him. Grafton might think he had a
prima facie
case, but he was still doing everything he could to create as fair an inquiry as possible. It made it that much harder on Kaufman.

“Colonel Kaufman,” Rulanov said, “tell us what happened.” Direct and simple.

“I arrived at the prisoner-of-war secure area and was given admittance by the MPs and the security equipment. I then waited inside the area but outside the prisoner’s cell for Dr. Capelo to break Ms. Marbet out of the brig and bring her there.”

“How did you know he would do that? Did he tell you his plans?”

“No.”

“When did you last see Dr. Capelo prior to his arrival at the secure area?”

“The day before, when he burst in on Commander Grafton and me to confront us about a Faller being aboard ship.” The court would already know this; everyone’s movements, plus Tom’s tantrum, would have been recorded and those recordings already furnished to the court.

“If he didn’t tell you of his plans at any time, how did you know he would bring Ms. Grant to the secure area?”

“I conjectured that he would do so based on my knowledge of his character, including his extreme hatred of Fallers due to his wife’s death in an enemy attack on a civilian colony.”

“At any time did Ms. Grant aid you in this ‘conjecture’?”

“No. I didn’t see her between Dr. Capelo’s outburst the day before and their arrival at the prisoner’s area.”

“Did you track their movements on security recordings?”

“I do not have authorized access to security recordings,” Kaufman said.

Rulanov repeated the question, more sharply. “Did you track the movements of Dr. Capelo and Ms. Grant on security recordings?”

“I did not.”

The court conferred briefly, then Rulanov resumed. “Were you aware that Carpenter’s Mate First Class Michael Doolin had cut a hole between Dr. Capelo’s cabin and that of his children, a hole hidden under his bunk?”

“Yes. I ordered crewman Doolin to cut the hole.”

“No work order or Adjustment to Ship form was logged onto the computer for this work. Did you file these forms?”

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

“I knew Commander Grafton would disapprove them.”

“If that’s so, Colonel, then why did you have the work done?”

Finally they were asking questions to which they didn’t already know the answer. Kaufman said, “I had the hole cut to keep Dr. Capelo and his children happy. His youngest daughter has been in a state of disturbed behavior since the death of her mother. I am—was—Special Project Head of a nonmilitary and highly talented team, and such people are often quirky. Dr. Capelo’s irreplaceable expertise was essential to this team, and any quirks I could satisfy made him that much more able to concentrate on his task. A task, may I respectfully remind the court, that is not the equivalent of data entry. Creativity is not like a faucet that one can turn on and off. The morel could do to aid the flow of Dr. Capelo’s thinking by removing anxieties from his mind, the more I was advancing his irreplaceable work for the Solar Alliance Defense Council,”

Again the court conferred among themselves in low tones. Rulanov said, “Please return to your description of the events of April sixteenth, Colonel. You guessed that Dr. Capelo would break Ms. Grant from the brig and bring her to the prisoner-of-war secure area. You gained authorized admittance to that area. Then what happened?”

Back to known information. “The secure area monitors the surrounding corridors. When I saw Dr. Capelo and Ms. Grant arrive, I opened the door. Dr. Capelo was spraying the MPs with tanglefoam. As per regulations, the senior MP was coated with antidote spray. I don’t know why the junior MP was not also coated. The junior MP had gone down in tanglefoam, and the senior was attacking Dr. Capelo. I tasered him and dragged both men inside, with Ms. Grant’s help. Dr. Capelo recovered enough to follow us, and I closed the door.”

“Were Dr. Capelo and Ms. Grant surprised to see you waiting for them?”

“Yes.”

“Colonel, do you habitually carry tanglefoam and taser?”

“No. I brought them with me specifically for this operation.”

Kaufman could see that none of the court liked his appropriation of a recognized military term for his escapade. Kaufman had used the term deliberately.

Rulanov said, “Why did you then spray Dr. Capelo with tanglefoam?”

“I knew that Dr. Capelo, given any chance at all, would try to kill the prisoner. That was not what I wanted. I wanted to give Ms. Grant another chance to work with the Faller.”

“Why?”

This was the crucial question. Kaufman leaned forward, threw everything he had into his answer. “Ms. Grant is a gifted Sensitive, perhaps the Solar System’s most gifted Sensitive. In her last session with the prisoner before her arrest, she had seen a definite, strong, and troubling reaction on the part of the Faller to her indication that we might test setting prime thirteen of the artifact. It seemed to me Vital to the welfare of the Solar Alliance—perhaps of the entire human race—that we find out the information that caused such a reaction. And it turned out I was correct: From my intervention came Dr. Capelo’s revolutionary understanding of the physics of the artifact, information that may win us the war.”

Rulanov said sharply, “You are admonished, Colonel Kaufman, that this is not the place for you to present a defense. This court is merely trying to uncover the facts of this case.”

“I understand, sir.” But now it was at least on record.

“Did you have any way, Colonel, of knowing or guessing that this illegal meeting would result in Dr. Capelo’s scientific breakthrough?”

“No, of course not,” Kaufman said. “But I did think it would yield to Ms. Grant whatever information the prisoner had been trying to hide. As it did.”

The court now took him, step by step, through Marbet’s interactions with the Faller, Kaufman’s observation of those interactions, and Capelo’s restricted actions while trapped in tanglefoam. All shown in the surveillance data, but they needed him to say it for the official inquiry record, so Kaufman could not claim later that the surveillance data had been tampered with. He answered fully and accurately, his tone cooperative. The entire recitation took over a half hour.

The MPs were called. They testified separately, neither looking once at Kaufman, both exuding contained fury. The senior MP had been made a fool of, and knew it. The junior MP had probably received disciplinary action for not taking the time to coat himself with tanglefoam antidote, which he probably hadn’t imagined ever needing aboard ship. Well, he’d been wrong.

The MPs were dismissed. “The court calls Marbet Caroline Grant.”

Kaufman’s first thought was,
She looks so different clothed
. He had to suppress a grin. Never had he seen so much of a woman’s body, over so long a time, with whom he wasn’t having sex. War was a strange thing.

Marbet wore green prisoner coveralls. Her red curls were neatly combed above her calm face. The smallest person in the room, she nonetheless looked dignified and competent. Kaufman wondered what she could see about the investigative board members that he could not.

The court took her through her movements on April 16, although these too were all recorded. She answered quietly and firmly.

“Ms. Grant, did you consider not going with Dr. Capelo when he broke illegally into your cell?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s the wrong question, Commander. The question should be: Why did I go with Dr. Capelo? And the answer is that I thought the information I could uncover from the Faller would justify any breaking of rules in terms of its value to the human race. Which in fact proved to be true.”

Rulanov frowned; this was the second time that subjective assertion had made it into the recordings of what was supposed to be a search for facts.

More questions established that Marbet had not known of Capelo’s intentions until he showed up at her cell (indeed, there was no way she could have, being locked up herself). The charge against her of treason still stood but was, Kaufman knew, beyond the jurisdiction of this court. Marbet was a civilian. She would face civilian law.

Lieutenant Ramsay, who had been listening silently, now asked Marbet detailed questions about her work with the prisoner. Kaufman thought Ramsay sounded sympathetic, but he couldn’t be sure. All three soldiers kept their faces blank.

Which was not to say that Marbet wasn’t reading volumes there.

By the time the court had finished with her, it was well past noon. Rulanov drummed his fingers on the table, the first sign of strain that Kaufman had seen. “We’ll break for lunch now. Resume at fourteen hundred hours.”

Marbet was led away separately from Kaufman. She smiled at him, a wistful complex smile that nonetheless held a gleam of incongruous mischief. She had undoubtedly been told not to speak to Kaufman, but she did anyway. She said in a loud stage whisper, “After lunch they get Tom.”

THIRTY

ABOARD THE
ALAN B. SHEPARD

K
aufman noted that Tom Capelo, unlike Marbet, was not dressed in the green coveralls of a prisoner. The physicist wore a dress suit, the tunic a bit shorter than current fashion but the material clearly expensive. Capelo entered the room quietly, his thin dark face no more sardonic than usual. He carried a sheaf of flimsies folded in his right hand. No MPs accompanied him; evidently Capelo, unlike Marbet or Kaufman, had free run of the ship. They were criminals; he was a scientific hero.

“Dr. Capelo, please be seated,” Rulanov said. “Will you please start by detailing for this court of inquiry your movements on April sixteenth.”

“No,” Capelo said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“No, I won’t detail for you my movements on April sixteenth. You have them all recorded. I see no point in reiterating what is already known by everybody here.”

Rulanov’s jaw tightened. “Dr. Capelo, this is an authorized court of inquiry. You are required to answer.”

“No, I’m not,” Capelo said evenly. “You’re an investigative body, not a court of law—even military law. If you want to force me to answer, convene a formal court-martial and subpoena me. I’m willing to cooperate with you now by answering any real questions you have, but not any bullshit ones.”

The three members of the court turned to each other and conferred, Ramsay scowling fiercely. Kaufman tried to catch Capelo’s eye, but Capelo stared straight ahead.

“Dr. Capelo,” Rulanov finally said, his eyes icier than Kaufman thought humanly possible, “what was your motive for breaking Marbet Grant out of the brig and bringing her to the secure area where the prisoner of war was housed?”

“I wanted to kill the bastard.”

“Did Ms. Grant know that was your motive?”

“You’d have to ask her.”

“Let me rephrase my question,” Rulanov said, and Kaufman saw the effort it cost him to hold his temper. “Did you say anything to Ms. Grant to indicate your intention?”

“No.”

“Did she say anything to you that indicated to you that she knew you planned an assassination?”

“No.”

“What, in your opinion, was Ms. Grant’s motive in going with you?”

“She wanted to talk to the Faller. Or communicate in whatever way she could. Which she did.”

Rulanov shifted his weight in his chair. “Were you aware that Colonel Kaufman would be waiting for you in the secure area?”

“No.”

“When were you first aware he was there?”

“After I staggered into the anteroom and he sprayed me with tanglefoam.”

“And it was the tanglefoam that effectively prevented you from carrying out your plan to kill the prisoner?”

“Yes. Of course, Commander Grafton ended up doing that for me,” Capelo said, and Kaufman suddenly saw the conflict Capelo was trying, in his jittery and unintrospective way, to come to grips with.
“I would slay my enemy, and weep that he is dead.”

Poor Tom.

“Dr. Capelo,” Rulanov said tightly, “please confine yourself to answering the question asked.”

“Only if you answer some in return. Why did Grafton release a nerve gas into the ‘secure area’ instead of sending in MPs in body armor to subdue us? We weren’t heavily armed, even peaceable old Lyle here had just a taser and some slightly used tanglefoam, and we wouldn’t have presented any obstacle at all to soldiers who weren’t taken by surprise.”

“Commander Grafton’s actions are not your—”

“Maybe not. But here’s one that is: Why is Marbet still locked up and I’m free, when I was the one who engineered getting into your so-called ‘secure area’?”

“Ms. Grant is under arrest for the same offense she was arrested for previously. Dr. Capelo, no matter what your scientific stature, you cannot—”

“Let’s discuss my scientific stature, shall we? Is that the reason I’m free to roam around without any charges being filed against me? Because I produced the physics theory that’s going to win the war for you? Am I free and she’s not because I’m going to be a valuable media commodity the second I publish, maybe even a future Nobel winner, and no one wants their scientific savior to be in jail? But a mere Sensitive in a world where Sensitives aren’t popular anyway will hardly be missed?”