Worlds in Chaos (26 page)

“I take it we’re referring to this wealth of evidence that would prove conclusive if the scientific community and the world at large were permitted to share it without prejudice. Is that it?” Voler fired up at him.

“Thank you. I couldn’t have put it better,” Keene acknowledged.

Voler seemed unfazed by Keene’s remarks but stood with his arms folded confidently. “ ‘Censorship.’ ‘Suppression,’ ” he repeated. “Our colleague, Dr. Keene, is quick in his use of strong words. We are accused of intervening in the activities of the media. But since when have the mass media constituted the proper channel for scientific discourse? It seems to me that what we’ve been seeing is more a case of the other side attempting to shortcut the regular process in order to create a jury of public opinion. When that happens, it’s inevitably because the case is incapable of withstanding rigorous scrutiny. Seen in that light, our actions would be more accurately described as moving to prevent the public from being stampeded into graphically and emotionally portrayed beliefs on the basis of suspect claims and half-baked evidence. Well, isn’t that what we have scientific institutions for? We’ve been reminded ceaselessly over recent months of the importance of the decisions that will be made as a result of these hearings. Very well, I’ll reiterate it. Let us be mindful of them.”

Approving murmurings came from the floor this time. Keene felt the foothold that had seemed so solid starting to slip. Gallian, still standing, was looking confused. Voler couldn’t be turning this around. “No!” Keene threw out over the hubbub. “This is not something out of the tabloids. We turned to a public forum precisely
because
the institutions that Professor Voler puts such trust in have refused to see the facts in front of them.” He extended an arm sideways. “The Kronians are scientists as competent as any in this room. The evidence they’re asking us to look at is as solid and verifiable as anything in your own laboratories.”

“Yes, we’ve just looked at an example of it,” Voler remarked derisively.

“
You didn’t! You’re refusing to look at it!
” Keene shouted.

“Based on data that no one this side of Saturn has seen; allegedly obtained from probes whose very existence we have to accept on faith. You call that verifiable?” Voler taunted.

“What you are insinuating is inexcusable!” Gallian protested again, recovering his voice and rallying with Keene.

“We brought you a lot more than just the data from the probes,” Sariena said from beside Gallian. Her face seemed flushed, even with her dark complexion. It was the first time that Keene had seen her registering anger. “Tangible evidence that you can hold in your hand. Was that supposed to be ‘alleged’? Did we imagine it? Is that not verifiable enough for you, Professor Voler? Tell us. What else would it take to convince you?”

Voler raised his head sharply and swung to face the hall in a way that said they had just heard something important, so that by the time he turned back toward the dais the room had fallen quiet. There was something triumphant in his manner, as if he had been leading up to this moment all along. Keene sensed that some unexpected turn was about to take place.

“Ah yes, the tangible evidence,” Voler repeated. He surveyed the room again, and then walked back to where he had been sitting, while the Kronians exchanged questioning frowns. Voler stooped to lift into view a large cardboard box about two feet along a side and set it down on the table. From it he produced an object wrapped in black cloth, which he uncovered and held aloft to reveal as what appeared to be a broken flake of brown rock, perhaps an inch thick and roughly the size of a dinner plate but with one straight side terminating at a distinct corner. “I assume we’re talking about these.” The Kronians looked horrified. Gallian started to protest, but Voler waved his other hand. “Oh, don’t worry. This is just a plastic replica. The originals are in safekeeping, naturally.” He moved back below the dais and turned to face the hall again. Sariena caught Keene’s eye but Keene could only shake his head.

“Some of you know about these already,” Voler said. “A public announcement was due to be made this week, so I don’t think I’ll be giving anything away if I bring the essence of it forward a little. Briefly, this is one of a number of objects that, we are told . . .” he paused and turned his head to look up at Keene pointedly for a moment “ . . . were discovered in the ice of Saturn’s moon, Rhea, around six months ago. They are clearly artifacts from an intelligent culture, and several of them carry samples of a distinct written script and other symbolic markings. . . .” Astonished gasps began breaking out immediately, but Voler raised his voice and concluded, “Holographic images were sent ahead for experts here on Earth to examine, and the actual articles were delivered a matter of days ago. They are offered as proof that the configuration of the Solar System was once very different from what we know today—once again apparently corroborating in a striking fashion the claims that the Kronians have come here to put to us.”

This time the flurry of voices took some time to die down. Voler moved back and rested casually against the edge of the dais while he waited. When he had the room’s attention again, he half-turned to look up at the podium. “Would you describe your relationship with our Kronian guests as cordial, Dr. Keene?” he inquired. Once again, he seemed to have projected himself into the role of a lawyer conducting a trial.

“Well, yes, I suppose you’d say so,” Keene agreed. He had no idea where this was going.

“Friendly, perhaps? You were in communication for many months. You and certain members of their scientific group got to know each other quite well, I understand.”

“I guess so. That’s natural enough for people who share professional interests. What of it?”

“Ah yes, sharing professional interests. Your interests are tied pretty tightly to whether or not the case that the Kronians are arguing is accepted, isn’t it? And the interests of Amspace Corporation, with whom your company does the bulk of its work. If Earth were to initiate a large program of long-range space development in the way we are being urged, then not only would the future of the Kronian colony be assured but the prospects for success and fortune of both yourself and Amspace would be permanently guaranteed. Isn’t that so?”

“Kronia’s future doesn’t need any assurance from Earth,” Gallian fumed from behind the table, where he had finally been induced to sit down. “That’s a pernicious myth that—”

“Please let Dr. Keene answer the question,” Voler requested.

Keene’s patience was getting close to its limit. “Yes, it’s true,” he replied curtly. “So what? Exactly what are you suggesting?”

Voler straightened up and moved forward so that while still addressing Keene, he was facing the auditorium. He raised the piece of imitation tablet aloft again. “Why was the specimen only delivered two days ago? The
Osiris
has been here for almost four weeks. Did somebody somewhere imagine that thorough physical tests wouldn’t be possible in that time? If so, they must be getting desperate. Or was it more a case of simple naiveté and inexperience in terrestrial geology?”

By now, Keene was totally flummoxed. “Look, I don’t . . . What is this? Will you just tell us what—”

Voler’s voice resounded suddenly, cutting him off. “By every test of composition, chemistry, isotope ratios, spectral, neutron activation, and thermoluminescent analysis to which it has been subjected, the original specimen corresponding to this replica that I am holding in my hand is indistinguishable from Lower Cretaceous sandstone laid down here, on our own planet, approximately one hundred and thirty million years ago. Yet we’re told it was found eight hundred million miles from Earth on a moon of Saturn. Now, how could that possibly be?”

“I . . . I . . . That’s not possible.” Keene shook his head.

The Kronians were in consternation. “But we brought them here ourselves,” Gallian insisted. “Your analyses can’t be as specific as you believe them to be.”

Voler nodded and looked pleased. “Yes, I was waiting for that. Of course, the Solar System is just awash with oceans that could have laid down sandstone. Or are our experts supposed to be so inept that they mistake igneous lavas for sandstone? But fortunately, we don’t have to rely solely on the word of our geologists. The script that I alluded to has been identified. It turns out to be a version of late Joktanian angular, clearly related to that found in the region of southwest Arabia and the African Horn in recent years, which is yet to be deciphered. In short, there can be no doubt that it came from the same planet that we are standing on, and the people who carved these symbols were of a culture that existed here and not out at Saturn.” Voler turned to face the dais again, finally. “And how, Dr. Keene, do you explain
that
?”

Keene couldn’t. Snippets of what Vicki had said flew disjointedly through his mind, but he was unable to assemble them into anything coherent. His thought processes had seized up. Farther along at the table, Gallian was looking dazed. “But how could it have?” he asked. “We brought them here ourselves, from Saturn.”

“From the same place as the probe data, maybe?” Voler suggested, stopping short of openly jeering but evidently enjoying himself.

“Are you trying to suggest that we faked that too now?” Gallian gasped. By now, the whole floor was listening in disbelief. The reporters at the back were having a field day, some already muttering into phones. At the central table, Schatz was shaking his head despairingly. This was unprecedented.

“I’m simply asking how objects from Earth could turn up on a moon of Saturn,” Voler replied. He walked back to the center table and set the tablet down on the wrapping that he had removed. Then he looked up again. “But then, of course, we don’t actually have
independent, verifiable
evidence that they ever were at Saturn, do we?” He turned to look back at the Kronians, as if half expecting an outburst. “The only indisputable fact is that they were brought down from the
Osiris
two days ago by the shuttle that returned a group of Kronians to the surface after spending a rest period up there. Everything else that we are told rests totally on assurances—just as with the data from the probes.” Gallian started to rise again, his face crimson beneath his white hair. Vashen and Sariena pulled him back down, but then Voler turned away abruptly, picked up some papers from the table, and moved back to the front of the floor to look once more up at Keene. “And for that one, simple, indisputable fact, I think maybe we do have a simple possible explanation. Do you not think so, Dr. Keene?”

Keene was still trying to collect his wits. He shook his head impatiently. “I wasn’t involved in any of this. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, really? Then allow me to refresh your memory of a few things.” Voler consulted one of the pieces of paper that he was holding. “The
Osiris
arrived in Earth orbit on Friday, May 6. On the evening of the following Monday, the Kronians held an informal reception at their suite in the Engleton Hotel, which I believe you attended. Is that so?”

“Yes, I did. What about it?”

“You weren’t on the officially prepared list of guests, I see,” Voler commented.

“I was invited by the Kronians directly,” Keene retorted.

“Oh yes, of course. You’d been good friends for a while, hadn’t you? . . . And tell me, Dr. Keene, is it true that on that occasion, you were introduced to a certain Catherine Zetl, a paleoanthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution, who has been involved in the Joktanian excavations that have been in progress for some time now?”

“We met, yes,” Keene confirmed. What did this have to do with anything?

“And how would you describe Ms. Zetl’s attitude toward the Kronians and the case they are arguing?”

“I don’t recall that we talked much about it.”

“Oh, you didn’t. Well, I have it on record that she is extremely supportive of them and critical of what she likes to call ‘official stodginess.’ ”

“Very well, if you say so. Am I being accused of something, or can we get back to what was supposed to be the business of this conference?”

Voler summarized: “So, you have been friends with the Kronians for a long time, in part because your professional interests coincide with their agenda. They arrange for you to attend a social gathering at which you meet another scientist sympathetic to their position, whose work happens to have included studying, cataloguing, and storing the very objects we have been talking about. And now let’s move forward almost three weeks to May 24. On that date, isn’t it true that you took part in another space mission conducted by Amspace—your long-term business associate who shares the same interests?”

It hit Keene then where Voler was going with this. Sudden dismay jolted him and must have showed. “
No,
” he protested.

“What? Are you saying that you didn’t go on the mission launched on May 24?”

“I’m saying that what you’re suggesting is ridiculous.”

“I haven’t suggested anything, Dr. Keene. What was the purpose of the mission?”

“
I tell you this is ridiculous!
” Keene said again, his voice rising.

“Please answer the question.”

“What is this circus supposed to be? I came up here to describe our work in repeating the Kronian orbital calculations. Am I supposed to be on trial for something?”

The room had become solemn. “I think you should answer Professor Voler’s questions,” Schatz said from behind Voler, voicing the general mood.

Keene drew a long breath to calm himself. “It was to test a design of a hybrid engine,” he replied.

“A chemical hybrid,” Voler supplied. “This was a test of a conventional propulsion system?”

“Yes.”

“But you are a specialist in nuclear propulsion, are you not, Dr. Keene? What was your role in the mission?”

“I wasn’t involved in that part of it.”

“Oh?” Voler feigned surprise. “There was another part? And what was that?”

“You obviously know damn well.”

“Yes I do. And allow me to inform the rest of the people present here what it was.” Voler turned to address the hall in general. “At the last moment, the mission was extended to include an additional phase: After completion of the hybrid trials, the Amspace craft made rendezvous and docked with the
Osiris
, where it remained for over twelve hours.” Voler peeled off the last of the sheets of paper he was holding and held it high. “I have here a copy of the loading manifest of personal baggage items carried by the Amspace craft on that mission. It lists as an item forwarded for Doctor Landen Keene, one carton of weight fifteen point five kilos, described as containing twelve bottles of assorted wines.” Keene looked across at the center table, where Voler had left the box that he had taken the replica from. “Well, let’s see,” Voler went on, “in my estimation that would be about the size of the box over there. So, a couple of weeks after meeting Zetl, you took a box similar to that one up to the
Osiris
, and lo and behold, two days later the specimens that we are told came from Rhea are shipped down, just in time for this conference. Another amazingly convenient coincidence.” Voler wheeled to face Keene fully. Finally, he dropped the playfulness that he had been affecting, and his expression darkened. “Seriously, Dr. Keene, are you really expecting us to . . .”