by Ben Bova
They walked up to the door. Raven turned toward Dacco, her back to the closed door, got up on tiptoes and gave him a peck on the lips.
“Goodnight, Noel.”
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“You expect me to go all the way back to Haven II, alone and forlorn?”
“I really can’t ask you in.”
His smile fixed on his face, Dacco said, “You could if you wanted to.”
“Noel … I’m practically engaged to Tómas.”
“Practically.”
A youngish couple ambled past them, smiled hello, and continued on their way.
“Young love,” sighed Dacco, following them with his eyes.
“Goodnight, Noel.”
His smile disappeared. Looking down at her, Dacco said, “No, Raven. That’s not the way this evening is going to end.”
“Noel…”
He reached past her and tapped out her entry code on the door’s control panel. Almost silently, the door slid open.
* * *
Tómas Gomez stepped through the shuttle’s hatch and back into the empty reception area of the Haven habitat. Alone, he trudged past the silent ID computers and made his way through the hatch and into the passageway that led to his quarters.
Glancing at his wristwatch, he saw that it was past eleven o’clock. I wonder if Raven’s still awake? he asked himself. Without any real deliberation, he started for her quarters.
* * *
Dacco pushed Raven into the living room of her apartment. The front door slid shut behind them.
Raven glared up at him. “Noel, this isn’t going to work. I’m not going to bed with you.”
“Oh, yes you are,” Dacco said, grinning at her. “Just pretend you’re back in Naples, on the job.”
“No!”
He smacked her in the face. Not too hard, just enough to make her understand who was in charge. Hardly left a mark on her cheek.
“Be reasonable, Raven,” he said, calmly, placatingly. “If you don’t come through Waxman will close up your little shop.”
Growing angrier with each breath she took, Raven hissed, “Waxman can go to hell. And you with him!”
Dacco let out a mournful sigh. “Do you want me to get rough with you?”
“I want you to leave!”
“Come on, Raven. I’m not so terrible. And you’re not in a position to turn me down. What will your friend Alicia do when Waxman closes up your boutique?”
“Get out!” Raven screamed.
Dacco’s smile turned sinister. “Some like it cold,” he misquoted, “some like it hot…”
Raven glanced around the living room, looking for a weapon, a tool, an ornament, anything that she might use to defend herself. She backed away from Dacco, her eyes searching.
“Would you like some Rust?” Dacco asked, drawing a slim plastic bag from his pocket. “It’ll make it easier for you.”
“Go away! Leave me alone!”
Instead, Dacco grabbed her and ripped her dress down off her shoulders. Then he swept her struggling form up in his arms and headed for the bedroom. She kicked the empty air so hard that one of her shoes flew off; she struggled to free her arms, pinned to Dacco’s chest, to no avail.
* * *
Gomez arrived at Raven’s door and hesitated. She’s probably asleep, he told himself. You don’t want to make a nuisance of yourself.
But his left hand was already tapping out the entry code on Raven’s door pad.
The door slid open with barely a sound. Gomez looked in. The living room was empty, but its lights were on.
She’s not asleep yet, Gomez told himself. He stepped into the living room. The door to the bedroom was open and he heard Raven shout, “Stop it! Get off!”
Tómas dashed to the bedroom door. Raven was on the bed, struggling fruitlessly, Dacco atop her, pinning her down.
Without an instant’s hesitation Tómas raced to the bed and slammed his right fist into Dacco’s kidney. His spine arched and he yowled with pain. Tómas grabbed at him with both hands and pulled him off Raven.
Dacco fell off the bed. The expression on his face was murderous.
“You’re gonna pay for that,” he growled, climbing slowly, painfully to his feet.
Tómas backed away a couple of steps, both fists raised. He saw Raven sit up on the bed, the bodice of her dress torn from her shoulders, her chest heaving, eyes wide as she stared at Tómas.
He quickly returned his eyes to Dacco, who was stepping toward him, his hands raised in a karate posture, bloody fury blazing in his eyes. Dacco was several centimeters taller than Gomez, and bulkier in the shoulders and arms.
Dacco lunged at Tómas, who ducked under his arm and rammed his head into Dacco’s midsection. The breath gushed out of Dacco’s lungs. Tómas kicked at Dacco’s knee and the black man crumpled to the floor.
Raven swung off the bed, the phone console from the night table in both hands, and smashed it onto the back of Dacco’s head. He slumped over, facedown, onto the carpet.
Raven looked up at him. “Tómas,” she breathed.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.… I think so.”
He saw that the side of her face bore the red imprint of Dacco’s fingers. Looking down at the unconscious form, he muttered, “I should kill the bastard.”
Raven tossed the phone console onto the bed and rushed into Tómas’s arms. “He was going to rape me!”
“I should kill him,” Gomez repeated.
“No!” Raven snapped. “No. Just call the security team. Let them deal with him.”
Without taking his right arm away from Raven, Tómas spoke into his wrist phone. At their feet, Dacco groaned and began to stir.
Raven slipped out of Tómas’s protective grasp and sank wearily onto the bed. He stood beside her, looking down at Dacco’s writhing form.
“You broke my knee,” Dacco moaned.
“I should have broken your damned neck,” said Tómas.
Dacco touched his knee lightly. It looked swollen, beneath his trousers.
“Where did you learn to fight like that?” Raven asked.
Tómas came close to smiling. “You grow up in the slums of Santiago, where I did, you learn to fight. Or you die.”
“I’ll get you for this,” Dacco muttered, rubbing his knee.
“When you can walk again, come and see me,” said Tómas.
A uniformed security team—one lanky, leggy young man and one elfin, dark-haired young woman—appeared at the bedroom doorway. They stared at Dacco, still sitting on the floor.
“What the hell happened here?” the young man asked.
“They attacked me!” Dacco snarled.
Raven, holding her tattered dress up to her shoulders, pointed to Dacco and said, “He tried to rape me.” Gesturing toward Tómas, she went on, “My fiancé saved me.”
The woman called for a medical team. Once they arrived and carted Dacco off to the hospital, together with the security team, Tómas stared in wonder at Raven.
“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.”
Waxman smiled slightly and cocked a brow at Dacco.
“But we do have this,” Umber continued. Raising his head slightly, he spoke to the sound system built into the ceiling, “Show passageway security camera record.”
The wall screen behind Waxman glowed to life. He and Dacco both turned in their chairs to look at it. On the other side of the table, Raven and Gomez also stared at the screen.
From a camera built into the ceiling of the passageway that went past Raven’s quarters they saw and heard Dacco and Raven.
The two of them walked up to Raven’s door. She turned toward him, her back to the closed door, got up on tiptoes and pecked at his lips.
“Goodnight, Noel.”
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“You expect me to go all the way back to Haven II, alone and forlorn?”
“I really can’t ask you in.”
His smile fixed on his face, Dacco said, “You could if you wanted to.”
“Noel … I’m practically engaged to Tómas.”
“Practically.”
A youngish couple ambled past them, smiled hello, and continued on their way.
“Young love,” sighed Dacco, following them with his eyes.
“Goodnight, Noel,” Raven repeated, more firmly.
His smile disappeared. Looking down at her, Dacco said, “No, Raven. That’s not the way this evening is going to end.”
“Noel…”
He reached past her and tapped out her entry code on the door’s control panel. Almost silently, the door slid open. He pushed Raven into the apartment and stepped in after her. The door slid shut.
Umber’s face seemed set in stone. “She didn’t invite you into her quarters, Mr. Dacco.”
Dacco shrugged. “Not in so many words.…”
“Where did you get the door’s entry code?”
His eyes shifting momentarily to Waxman, Dacco admitted, “Evan told me.”
Waxman sat in silence, his eyes staring straight ahead.
Umber’s gaze was locked on Dacco’s face. He repeated, “Ms. Marchesi did not invite you into her quarters.”
Again Dacco muttered, “Not in so many words.”
Kyle Umber seemed to relax, although his facial expression remained grave. For long moments the conference room was absolutely silent, except for the faint whisper of the air circulating system.
At last Umber made up his mind. “Mr. Dacco, I personally find your conduct reprehensible. If I allowed this case to go before a jury I’m sure you would swiftly be found guilty of sexual assault and sentenced to our habitat’s prison. Therefore, I strongly recommend that you leave Haven on the next departing vessel. Return to Earth as quickly as you can, and try to mend your ways.”
Dacco stared back at the minister. “I’m supposed to interview Dr. Gomez.…”
“I don’t think that will be possible now,” Umber said, his voice cold and hard.
“Totally impossible,” Tómas confirmed, through gritted teeth.
“Go back to Earth,” Umber repeated. “Try to find God’s mercy and forgiveness.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You will be placed under arrest, put on trial, found guilty, and put in jail.”