“You admit this man is your associate?” Praedar asked with deceptive mildness.
“He ... I. ..”
Dan demanded, “What was he doing sticking his hands in where they didn’t belong?”
“Investigating! Checking your credentials, McKelvey, and .luxury’s ownership rights to this ship!”
The ambulance howled off toward town, and its siren chilled Dan for a heartbeat; the ululation was very similar to a N’lac’s cry of terror.
As the area quieted again, Feo said, “Ed?” The Port manager braced to attention. “Was Greg’s student seriously injured?”
“Uh... no, sir. Just a little scorched, the meds say.”
“Good. Good. Then give us some privacy. Remove those spectators.” Port staffers hurried to obey, herding the crowd out of earshot.
“I’ve got this under control, Feo,” Tavares said, selling his case to the image on the vidder. “Once I get hold of their onboard files...”
“You will do no such thing. Thank God the Pan Terran people were on top of this and informed Hope and me of your harebrained plot. Where did you get the idea that we would condone criminal actions?” Feo threw a stem aside to the reporters. “All of this is off the record. Remember that.”
Shaken, Tavares argued, “McKelvey’s been blacklisted by the Terran dispatchers...”
“Because you bribe-buried our cargo, you bastard!” Dan clenched his fists and took a heavy step toward the redhead. Praedar interposed himself, preventing a fight. Dan shouted over the Whimed’s shoulder, “You hijacked our transport tickets, too! What else were you planning? A frame? A—”
“I’ll squash you and Juxury both,” Tavares said. “I’ll get this ship repossessed and make sure you never launch ...”
“No, you will not,” Feo contradicted.“You have done quite enough damage already to our organization and to this conference. Your unprofessional behavior ceases right here. Don’t bother returning to the Complex, Greg. Hope and I will make your excuses. I believe you’re overdue for a sabbatical.”
“The hell I am!” Tavares exclaimed. “You know damned well I was only doing what you would have if you’d been able to operate freely.”
“Be still, or resign yourself to becoming another Bill Getz.” The redhead gulped, choking on his rebellion. The money and power that had protected him was now a weapon turned against him. Feo’s message was plain: Cooperate, or be reduced to a nonperson within the scientific community. In an oily, persuasive tone, Feo went on. “Regan’s Foundation needs a junior faculty member. I’ll see if I can arrange an appointment for you. It would be a good training experience.”
Tavares radiated frustration; he was trapped, as Dan had been by the blacklist. “That would set me back years! How can you... after all I’ve done for you ...”
Feo’s glare smothered his former protege. Saunder turned to the woman sharing the broadcast booth with him. “This affair need not be spread any further, I trust?”
Rei Ito smiled enigmatically. “Of course. For the ‘Amity of Science.’” Dan smelled sibling rivalry. Rei’s sister was engaged to their mutual boss, Cameron Saunder. And Cam was Regan’s son. Tavares would be farmed out to Regan’s Foundation with Cam’s news hound helping Feo suppress a scandal that might be hurtful to the xenoarchaeologist’s standing. Rei, even more than her sister, was in the driver’s seat, jerking around Saunders and a McKelvey.
Dan snorted. “For the ‘Amity of Science.’ Sure. And for your reputation, Feo.”
His cousin nodded. “I’m glad you understand, Danny. I know Juxury does.”
Praedar cocked his head. “You expect to be forgiven much.” “I’m forgiving your lapses, as well, don’t forget,” Feo retorted. “Employing a blacklisted pilot. Passing off my unlettered kinsman as an accredited scientist. Oh, yes, Danny. Don’t imagine your little fraud fooled me for an instant. Only my goodwill stands between you and complete ridicule—ridicule, I might add, that could affect luxury’s status. So you’d be advised to keep your mouth shut. There is also the matter of generating an illegal document on an indebted spacecraft...”
Dan cut in, “How do you figure any of that cancels out a blatant sabotage of a rival’s expedition?”
Feo’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll tell you once more: Be still, or you’ll be sorry. I’m being far more charitable than you deserve. Call it interest on those loans your father refused to accept years ago. I’ll insure that your ship isn’t repossessed while it’s on T-S 311. And you’ll receive a fuel top-off before you leave. Not enough to allow you to tour the sector at my expense, but sufficient to guarantee your safe return.”
And no more. Dan was keenly aware that his kinsman was putting shackles on the starhopper—and on his rival. Once back on T-W 593, Praedar would have to whistle and wait for outbound transport, at Feo’s leisure; without extra fuel, Fiona/Prae-
Rei Ito spoke up. “Just for Cam’s private information, do I have the situation straight? Dr. Juxury agrees not to press charges on this incident, the delayed cargo, or the prepaid tickets. And you acknowledge that Tavares carried out his plots in your name, Saunder..
“I admit nothing of the sort,” Feo growled. “And if there’s a leak, you’ll find I have my ways of reaching out, right into Cam’s network staff. Is that clear?”
For the first time, fear shone in Ito’s dark eyes. “You . .. may rely on Pan Terran to be discreet, sir. No one but Cam will see our report.” The news hounds were covering their asses. They’d probably get raises and a nice boost in rank out of this, even if they couldn’t go public with the story.
Dan grimaced. “That’s it? You damned near wreck Praedar’s expedition. You bend and break Terran laws, and a few Whimed ones, too. Now you hush it all up with money. So much for xenoarch’s high principles.”
His cousin had the grace to look somewhat uncomfortable. But Feo didn’t contradict the assessment, and his guilt didn’t last long.
Praedar said, “Such practices are not uncommon, Dan. In the Whimed Federation, it is known as hasju-aytan—a necessary warp of ethics to achieve a desirable goal. One strives to avoid this. One does not always succeed. We maintain our progress toward the larger goal. History will judge us right.”
“I admire your confidence and dedication, Juxury,” Feo said with a sour smile, “if not your faulty selectivity.”
The two faced one another through the medium of Kimball’s remote vidder. Feo Saunder and Praedar Effan Juxury were peers, both established xenoarchaeologists. Both labored to fathom the past, and both stubbornly clung to opposing views of that past. They looked across a gulf light-years wide, divided by millions of years of different evolution, custom, and background.
“It’s not over yet,” Dan said wonderingly. “Just this phase of it.”
Feo favored him with a tolerant sneer. “You do have promise, my boy. Perhaps Juxury didn’t err in taking you onto his team, despite your pathetic lack of education.” Tavares nodded, appreciating company in his underdog’s misery.
“There will be no more obstructions,” Praedar said.
“Yes, yes.” His rival waved a hand impatiently. “You have my word on it. These reporters are our witnesses. Henceforth, we meet on even ground, Juxury—the intellectual battlefield of tomorrow’s presentations. May the best team win.” Then he spoke to Tavares. “Stay in town, at the office. Hope and I will meet you there, later, when the Assembly concludes. We’ll discuss plans.” TavareS-'was whipped and he knew it, crushed by a Saunder steamroller. He had nowhere to run and no one to back him in the Terran sector, if he defied his one-time mentors.
Feo wasn’t through chastening upstarts. His gray eyes became steely. “Dan, you won’t need that spacecraft, once you finish piloting luxury’s team back to their dig. I’ll make certain you never haul another cargo. You had your chance to work for me, and you slammed the door in my face. Hope and I have no forbearance for kindred who try to shame us.”
The tarmac had been shot from beneath Dan. He hid his panic with bravado. “You mean those who refuse to crawl and beg. I thought so! You lied about my dad turning down your loan. You didn’t make the offer, because he wouldn’t grovel to you.”
“This conversation is ended,” Feo snapped, and the screen winked off. Well, that was one way to win an argument!
Dan’s brief moment of revenge was swept away by despair. Feo’s blacklist would make the dispatchers’ look like a love pat. Praedar was no indie hauler, but he seemed to sense what had happened. He communicated with touch, grasping the Terran’s shoulder sympathetically.
Gradually Dan awoke to his surroundings. Kimball had switched off his equipment and was following Tavares toward town, probably seeking an interview—though what the news hounds would do with it, Dan couldn’t guess. By now spectators were scattering. Dan and Praedar stood alone by the ship.
With a sigh, Dan got busy testing the antitheft device and resetting it. He said, “I doubt this is necessary. Feo doesn’t need to bother siccing repossess artists on me now.”
“I am sorry,” Praedar said softly. Then he nodded. “Matters are now stalemated on both sides, for the moment. We must proceed.”
That dogged resolve kept him still plodding ahead. “Okay,” I )an agreed without enthusiasm. “And just hope the Assembly is amenable to reason, even if we don’t have all that Saunder money backing us.”
Rain clouds descended again as they drove back to the Complex. Tours were continuing in the covered dig. However, Praedar’s team had seen everything they wanted to see in the posh dome and had adjourned to their suite. They spent what remained of the afternoon and the entire evening mapping out strategies.
Dan sat on the sidelines, feeling like a push prop on an FTL craft. He could contribute moral support, but not much else at this juncture. He’d be sitting on the sidelines tomorrow, too. Dan harbored no illusions that the glamour of his name could affect the scientific debate favorably. That game had run its course, even if Feo didn’t keep his promises.
From dawn onward, diurnal species streamed across the rain-drenched skywalks to the main building. Noctumally oriented attendees were already staking out good seats in the auditorium. Saunder staffers, anticipating big crowds for this, the Assembly’s starring event, had raised walls and enlarged the central area to accommodate everyone who wanted to see the confrontation.
Those who couldn’t get admission to the hall watched the presentations on monitors throughout the exhibit sections and manufacturers’ rooms.
Feo’s students handed out transbuttons to every attendee who wanted one, and a few who didn’t. Dan noticed that the devices bore the familiar Saunder-McKelvey Enterprises logo. That struck him as ironic. Ward Saunder and his son Todd had perfected the original Terran universal translators. Now Todd’s great-grandson and Ward’s great-great-grandson stood on opposing sides of this multispecies war of xenoarchaeological theories. Their teams would present their arguments to Terrans and non-Terrans alike through those S-ME transbuttons.
Somehow things always circled back to the Saunders and McKelveys. No matter where Dan traveled, he remained within his family’s grasp. As the press was fond of saying, the Saunder-McKelveys were humanity’s representatives, her reigning dynasty, a distillation of her brightest and best. Bitterly Dan added, “And her sneakiest and most ruthless.”
The audience was quietly attentive during the T-W 593 expedition’s holo-mode segments. Everyone knew why so many of Praedar’s team weren’t attending the Assembly in person. Dan handled the tri-di projector, making certain absent teammates’ work was tuned to lifelike perfection. One after another, the specialists appeared on the dais, reading their papers, displaying artifacts and specimens: Sheila; Drastil; Rosie; Armilly; and Chen. That last, posthumous presentation affected the attending scientists deeply. Even the Saunder faction was subdued.
It was a hopeful lead-off for the rest of the program. Joe was up first. His exhibit materials had been samplers. Now he brought out his big guns, including remote-probe postmortems of N’lac graves. Hughes compared the bodies of recently escaped slaves with the corpses of later N’lac generations, showing a steady deterioration within their home planet’s environment. The recital left nonmeds queasy. Hearing about polycythemia rubra, paracental scotomas, hypoxic vasodilation, and mesenteric venules was one thing; seeing graphic tissue holo-modes was another. The xenobiologist worked his way through the facts methodically. At one point he contrasted a living image of Chuss and his stats with those of a N’lac youngster of the same age who hadn’t enjoyed the benefits of hyperbaric gestation and growth. Dan thought it was a rock-solid lecture. That ought to squash the critics!
He was wrong. The question-and-answer session following Joe’s presentation proved that it wasn’t easy to sell a bunch of big brains who were locked in a particular mind set. The Saunders’ supporters hammered Joe with challenges.
“Similar tampering at the Vahnaj dig on Outi produced genetic monsters and mass deaths, Hughes!”
“You’re interfering with those subhumanoids’ lives!” “Unethical!”
“Immoral!”
Joe parried adroitly. “If you recall, the Outi Gestation Project rendered its subjects sterile, among other ill effects. My experiment has produced four live births and thriving young. The eldest child is now ten years old, nearly mature for his species, and a leader of his tribe. The data confirm the Level Three humanoid capacity of this race. I suggest this offers a new and exciting field of xenobiology, as did the Whimed Federation’s work on Eaunda...”
Hope Saunder, backed by her sycophants, commented loudly, “That underlines our argument; the Eaundas are subhumanoid!” Joe struggled on until his time ran out. Shaking his head, frustrated by his opponents’ obstinacy, he yielded the floor to Ruieb-An.
Vahnajes chittered and tweaked the gain on their translators. Ruieb might be a maverick and an oddball to his scientific fraternity, but the lutrinoids respected him. His presentation was very involved, crammed with esoteric xenocryptography material. The question-and-answer session was a blur of in-group exchanges, leaving nonexperts far behind. The Saunders’ specialist in that discipline put in only token protests, apparently not eager to lock horns with an acknowledged master.
To compensate for their mild resistance against Ruieb-An’s theories, the enemy camp gave Kat a very rough time. To Dan, her paper on N’lac social patters and mythology sounded thoroughly convincing, as it had when he’d heard her explain it weeks ago. But when she finished, a storm erupted in the hall. Praedar’s friends and his rivals’ shouted like brawlers, standing in the aisles, close to trading blows.
“Ridiculous!”
.. agrees with massive bodies of proof from every humanoid culture!”
“Swallowing that primitive mumbo jumbo whole!”
“Can’t expect precise patterns from a people struggling simply to survive...”
“Getz warned us Olmsted was a typical Harte-taught naive...”
“There’s a wonderful character witness for your head-in-the-sand position—Getz!”
Dan didn’t envy Praedar. The boss had the team’s clean-up spot, following Kat. He waited until the crowd had calmed down and had resumed their seats before he began. His presentation was yet another demonstration of why it had been absolutely vital for him to attend the Assembly in person. It demonstrated more than his spellbinding presence, more than his ability to switch fluently from Terran English to Vahnaj to Lannon to his own language and back again. No holo-mode could have duplicated his power over an audience. The Whimed’s charisma was at full throttle. He reached into minds, probing, stimulating, demanding that his listeners think and consider ideas their emotions told • them to reject. He was a skilled manipulator, playing them, leading them down the paths he chose.
“Observe. Data checked and myltiple-checked for accuracy. Continuous N’lac habitation of this locale since five "hundred Terran years before the present. It has
been suggested this species is not directly related to the culture that built the cities. I point out that no two species may occupy an identical niche simultaneously. We must inquire if it is possible that after a supposed dominant humanoid race mysteriously vanished from this world, the N’lacs could have developed speech, an intricate social structure, and an elaborate mythology within one and a half Terran millennia. I submit this is quite unlikely. If it were true, the N’lacs would qualify as a unique phenomenon, and they wojild be cherished for that achievement alone ...
“.. . the hard-learned lessons of our discipline’s earlier errors must be remembered, with all the difficulty your predecessors had in grasping the importance of sexual dimorphism and the vagaries of xenoarchaeological allometry. We are now capable of realizing that the pressure of a hostile environment, notwithstanding a possible genetic alteration by captors, could significantly disturb anatomy and mental capacity. The evidence offered by my esteemed colleague Dr. Hughes demonstrates this fact admirably. ..
“A hypothesis need not refute every challenge in order to be valid. In the last analysis, a theory must satisfy the majority of unanswered questions regarding the material...”
Praedar’s attention locked on the team’s sponsors, seated in the front row. Eckard was visibly shaken. Even Anelen appeared edgy, as if he knew he wasn’t Praedar’s equal in the game of burning stares.
“Judgments by those removed from a site should not be the sole purview of decision.” Throughout the huge room, human and alien field workers nodded earnest agreement. They understood exactly what Praedar was talking about. Why should the “go no-go” power rest with stay-at-homes in institutions, foundations, or the Terran-Whimed Xenoethnic Council? To those secure types, a dig’s perils and its discoveries were abstracts. For Praedar and every other scientist on the scene, a site was the past, present, and future, with its own rich sensory elements and a feel no distant licenser could appreciate.
“Certain factions in the civilized sectors insist that any newly discovered, nonstellar race must be quarantined for its cultural protection—that starvation and a naturally induced extinction are preferable to contact with offworlders, no matter how benign that contact.” Among the Vahnajes, there was twittering dismay. Progressive antiquarians frowned at their fellow Vahnajes, the most prominent espousers of the “no exceptions” hands-off policy Praedar had mentioned. The Whimed went on. “Others hold that incorporation, which may destroy a primitive people’s right of individuality, is a necessary result of galactic exploration. Indeed, u privilege of the ruling races ...”
Juanita Coulson - [Children of the Stars 04] Page 25