Bouncing Off the Moon

by David Gerrold

  "Lawyers got us into this mess," Douglas said. "It's everybody wanting to help that keeps making things worse. Where does it stop? I told you to get away from us and leave us alone."

  Mickey lowered his voice. "I didn't want to do it. I didn't plan to do it. I was going to keep my promise. But your brother looked like he was dying. And I figured keeping him alive was more important than anything else, so I did what I did to get him to the best hospital on Luna. We were lucky—he wasn't as badly burned as I was afraid. But I didn't know that at the time, and I wasn't going to take chances with his life or yours. And I can still keep my promise, if you'll let me. You're going to need a lawyer—maybe my mom can help."

  "She didn't do too good for us last time, Mickey. No thanks." Douglas glared at Mickey until Mickey lowered his gaze and turned away. I felt bad for both of them.

  After he was gone, I leaned over, and whispered to Douglas, "Where are we going to get a lawyer?"

  Douglas nodded toward the back of the room. "There are a couple hundred of them just outside that door, all fighting for the chance to represent us. I don't understand why."

  "It's the monkey," I whispered. "I told you!"

  "Yeah, I know what you said. But everyone else says it's just industrial memory."

  "The monkey told me itself!"

  "Maybe it was running a simulation in self-defense?"

  "A simulation of sentience? Come on, Douglas! You know better than that. A simulation of sentience is sentience!"

  "You didn't talk to it very long. Some chatterbots are very good, Chigger."

  I didn't answer immediately. I was still thinking about what had just fallen out of my mouth. When the judge gaveled the courtroom back to order, I levered myself uneasily to my feet and croaked, "Your Honor—?"

  Judge Cavanaugh looked at me sympathetically. "I sincerely hope that's a temporary condition, young man. Yes?"

  "If everybody is willing to stipulate that the monkey belongs to Bobby, I'd like to ask that it be returned to us. We're willing to agree not to tamper with any of the memory or anything else inside it, and if the court rules that the memory bars belong to someone else, we'll agree to turn them over. But we have some of our personal information and resources stored in the monkey too, and our lawyer, when we get one, is going to need access to that—if we're to represent ourselves adequately."

  Judge Cavanaugh nodded. "You argue well. But much too politely. I'm afraid you'll never be a good lawyer."

  "Yes. Thank you, Your Honor."

  "Is there anyone who can present a valid objection why Robert Dingillian should not have his toy returned to him, under the terms put forward by Charles Dingillian?" Before anyone could object, he hammered his gavel. "So ruled." He turned back to us. "Robert, you can take your monkey now."

  Bobby leapt out of his chair and ran to the table. He scooped the monkey up into his arms, but it remained lifeless. "It's broken!" he wailed.

  Judge Cavanaugh looked unhappy. "Yes, it does appear to be. It shut itself down when the court was examining it, and we've been unable to reboot it."

  "Did you open up its backside? Did you take its memory bars out?" I asked.

  The judge shook his head. "I know better than to tamper with evidence. May I assume that I don't have to advise you not to open it up either?"

  "Yes, sir." That was both Douglas and myself, in unison.

  "But it's broken!" wailed Bobby.

  Douglas looked to me. "Charles … ?"

  "Yes, Douglas?"

  "The unlock code?"

  "Unlock code?"

  "Don't play games, Charles."

  "Maybe it really is broken!" I said, almost noncommittally.

  Douglas gave me the Douglas look.

  Judge Cavanaugh hammered with his gavel. "All right, let's move on. I have a petition in front of me from Stellar-American Industries, asserting that two complementary quantum-determinant devices, manufactured on a standard memory chassis, were shipped from a Stellar-American chip foundry to a Toronto laboratory owned and operated by Canadian-Interplanetary. Isn't that interesting. Mr. Cheifetz, will you come forward again, please?"

  There was a shuffling at the back of the room. Cheifetz came hesitantly back to the front.

  "Will you tell the court how you came into possession of these devices?"

  "They were given to me by the company. After we concluded our tests, the lab had no further use for them. I purchased them for a small handling charge. The company disposes of a lot of used equipment to employees; some of us have projects of our own that we like to tinker with, and—"

  "Spare me," said Cavanaugh, holding up a hand. "I know tinkers. Some of my best friends are tinkers. You, sir, are not a tinker. So please don't try to stretch my credibility. Or my patience. This matter is so petty, I expect we will be here for several years. It doesn't worry me, I can live off my fat; but the rest of you will probably be bones bleaching in the sun before too long if we continue on at this rate. So spare me the storytelling. Is it your contention now that these devices were legally transferred to your labs and then to you?"

  "Yes." He held up his sheaf of papers. "I've got hardcopy receipts and signatures all the way back to the foundry. Stellar-American uses Canadian-Interplanetary for integrity testing of chips. In particular we test for resistance to vacuum, heat, cold, radiation, sunlight, and extremes of acceleration."

  "And you tested these chips?"

  "Yes. The labs ran over three thousand hours of integrity tests. We tested the chips under multiple combinations of conditions."

  "Did the chips survive?"

  "Yes, they did."

  "And when the tests were over, did you return the chips to Stellar-American?"

  "No."

  "Why not?" Judge Cavanaugh looked puzzled. "I thought it was standard procedure to return prototypes. To protect against industrial espionage."

  "Yes, that is the usual procedure."

  "But not here?"

  Cheifetz looked uncomfortable.

  "Go ahead."

  He took a breath. "Most foundries know what other foundries are doing, but they don't know the details. So one of the best places to find out is to infiltrate the testing labs. So sometimes a company will ship a decoy chip, with some unworkable technology in it. The chip is intended to be stolen, so that when the other guys try to copy it, they waste valuable time and energy chasing down the wrong direction. The decoys appear to work—or sometimes they're set to deliberately fail. Another ploy to fool the other side. These chips were decoys."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Stellar-American told us. We had an attempt to breach our security. We reported it to them. That's recorded here too. Off the record, they told us that the chip was a decoy. They were interested in the integrity testing of the manufacturing process, but the chips themselves were of no significant value."

  "And they didn't ask for them back?"

  "We asked for permission to test the chips to the breaking point, at our own convenience. We do that a lot. It was part of a whole batch of requests. They agreed. Then we got swamped with a bunch of new contracts and that testing program was put aside. Later, the chips were remaindered and my family corporation bought them. They looked like ordinary memory bars, they could be used as such, they had passed their integrity tests, and for that reason they were the perfect medium for the transfer of sensitive information. We encoded an enormous amount of personal and business information and resource materials of all kinds into these chips. It was a six week process. And, as I said, I have the paperwork to demonstrate that the information riding in these chips is proprietary to my family corporation."

  "I see," said Judge Cavanaugh. "So now you do have paperwork. Lots of it. Isn't that convenient. And so does the other fellow. Goodness! What a dilemma. Hmmm. How interesting. Let's recap. Stellar-American says that the chips were stolen. And you say they were lawfully transferred to you … and you were, for lack of a better word, conveniently smuggling them off-planet for
use … wherever you ended up. Why do I get the feeling that your paperwork is going to be flawless? Why do I get the same feeling about Mr. Phroomis's paperwork—that it will be equally convincing? Why do I get the feeling that Earthside manufacturers are very very good at manufacturing paperwork … ?" He sighed.

  "All right, Mr. Phroomis, your turn. Let's hear your side of it."

  Howard's voice was just as rumpled as the rest of him. "Your Honor, I agree with you that a lot of the paperwork here has been manufactured for convenience. In fact, I have here affidavits and depositions that the entire exchange of memos and communications that Mr. Cheifetz is basing his claim on are fraudulent. None of the officers of Stellar-American ever wrote any of those notes, ever made any of those communications, or authorized such a dangerous disposal of our property. We admit that the paper trail is excellent, but it's too good to be true. It could only be that good if it were deliberately manufactured."

  "So your argument is that the evidence on the other side is too good. I got it." Another voice came from the back of the room and Judge Cavanaugh looked up. "Yes, another crater heard from. And you are?"

  A woman came forward. "Valerie Patenaude, Your Honor, representing Vancouver Design Works. The chips in question were designed by us. We hired Stellar-American to manufacture and test the chips; they were to return all proprietary materials, including all flawed and failed chips, all test chips, all decoy chips, and any other material pertinent to the production of our designs, as specified in our agreement. They were to guarantee that no copies would pass out of their direct control. Not even for testing. It has only been in the past two weeks that we have discovered that they did indeed manufacture extra copies of our chips—"

  Phroomis interrupted. "Those copies were made for quality control, for the testing of the manufacturing process. The chips in question required some very tricky techniques, and the copies were to be deconstructed so that Stellar-American could affirm the integrity of the production lines. The company retains that right, it is specified in the production contract—"

  "The material was to be returned," Patenaude said. "And it was not returned. Mr. Cheifetz's own testimony here indicates a callous disregard of security—"

  Judge Cavanaugh held up a hand. "Save it, Counselor. They're lining up behind you. Next? I just want to find out who's here and why, everybody will get the chance to bite everybody else before we're through." To the next lawyer, he asked, "Who are you?"

  "Gracias, Judge Cavanaugh—" I recognized that voice too. Fat Se-nor Doctor Bolivar Hidalgo. Not as fat as Judge Cavanaugh, but impressive nonetheless. He was mostly a round blur, he barely glanced in our direction. "I am here as a temporary speaker for Lethe-Corp, until their own representatives can arrange transportation. The difficulties on Earth—and the unfortunate restrictions of the sudden Lunar quarantine—have made it impossible for them to be here today. However, Lethe-Corp wants to take a superordinate position here. The chips in question are the property of Lethe-Corp who initiated the entire process. Lethe-Corp hired Vancouver Design. Lethe-Corp created the specifications and was to retain sole ownership. Vancouver Design was doing work-for-hire."

  Patenaude stepped forward, "This is correct, insofar as it goes. However, the chips in question were outside of the specification parameters of Lethe-Corp. The chips in question were internal projects of our own that we were constructing as test beds for certain unique structural elements. Once we determined the most successful implementations, we would have created a custom design for Lethe-Corp. In point of fact, our test chips were supersets of the Lethe-Corp specification so that we could test multiple configurations on the same platform. We often work this way—"

  "Your Honor," argued Hidalgo, "the contract specifies that Lethe-Corp owns all of the material developed in testing—"

  "Only the testing that Lethe-Corp paid for."

  "Nevertheless, there was proprietary technology involved that belongs only to Lethe-Corp, and—"

  "Proprietary technology licensed to Vancouver Design specifically for additional research and development—"

  Judge Cavanaugh was looking back and forth between them, grinning. He rapped his wooden hammer. "I do so like cases like this. We can tie up the time and energy of a lot of lawyers and keep them out of real trouble while spending lots and lots of corporate money." He waved at the back of the room. "And your name is—?"

  "Shannonhouse, John Shannonhouse."

  "And you represent?"

  "Buffalo Technology, LTD."

  "And your claim is based on—?"

  "We are the patent holders."

  "Oh?"

  "We hold 137 patents on quantum-level processor determinants. We represent forty-five different companies who have pooled their patents for mutual benefit—and also because without such cooperation, nobody's devices would work at all, all of these separate structures are highly interdependent, they need each other—so do the companies that own the patents. Lethe-Corp is a licensee, as are Vancouver Design, Canadian-Interplanetary, and so on. The chips in question were an experimental project that we had authorized Lethe-Corp to build. The specification that they passed on to Vancouver Design was a subset of our ultimate intention. Vancouver Design correctly extrapolated where we were headed with this research—we will demonstrate this as soon as we can bring the rest of our design team to Luna, and—"

  "Okay, I got it," said Cavanaugh. He was scribbling a furious note. He looked absolutely delighted. "This is going to be as much fun as reading Bleak House." He looked up again. "All right, let's recap. We have a whole bunch of people who are arguing that whatever is inside the toy monkey belongs to them. Everybody has perfect paperwork. I can't tell you how thrilled I am. If we work this right, we can keep this thing going longer than the Baby Cooper dollar bill. We're all going to get old together. We're going to spend more time with each other than with our families and our friends and our loved ones. Isn't that wonderful? Just one question. Whose good idea was this? Everybody go sit down."

  Judge Cavanaugh sat in his chair for a moment, steepling his hands before him. He puffed out his cheeks and tapped his fingers against each other while he considered what he knew.

  "Whatever those chips are," he said thoughtfully, "they must be very wonderful indeed. I haven't seen this many high-priced lawyers in a single courtroom since the attempt to impeach Pope Joan Marie. I'm tempted to put this whole thing into a revolving arbitration to guarantee that by the time we're ready to start taking testimony, the technology in question will be sixteen generations obsolete and none of you will care anymore and we can let the whole thing die a natural death."

  There were some spluttering noises from various places behind us—some were angry noises, some were attempts to control laughter.

  "Your Honor?" A woman's voice. Judge Cavanaugh obviously recognized her, he looked like he was expecting her. He waved her forward impatiently and without comment. She knew the drill—she turned and identified herself to the recorder: "Laura Domitz, Charter Representative for Armstrong Sector of the Lunar Authority." She was tall and spare, with close-cropped hair. She looked all-business. She turned to face the bench. "Your Honor, with the situation on Earth as uncertain as it is, we may not be seeing any new generations of technology for a while."

  I didn't see what she was getting at, but Judge Cavanaugh seemed to understand where she was headed. "And your point is … ?"

  "Luna is a free port of access. We have to be." Ignoring several muffled snorts of derision, she continued, "Many people and many worlds benefit from the advantages of Luna's unique position as a favorable launchpad to the stars and to the rest of the solar system. We ask only that those who benefit pay an appropriate user fee to cover the cost of maintaining that service. Under ordinary circumstances, Lunar Authority would have little interest in these chips or devices or whatever they are—as long as the fees are paid.

  "However … we have no way of knowing how long the situation on Earth will continue. With Line
traffic disrupted, Luna's ability to maintain self-sufficiency may be severely tested. Despite the optimistic statements we're hearing on the local channels, anyone with a piece of paper and a pencil can do the math; we are looking at an endurance test, a very serious survival situation that could last a period of months or even years. The bubble in the pipeline will start arriving in three days. If we don't have it on Luna now, we won't have it at all. There's no reason to panic, of course; our current resource inventory is strong, and we have a strong production posture. But we need to prepare as if for the worst, as if this interruption will be long-term, or even permanent. If it is, then Lunar Authority may have to suspend outgoing traffic and confiscate all appropriate resources for the common good—at least for the duration of the emergency."

  Cavanaugh's expression had gone from stony to sour. He didn't like what he was hearing; apparently neither did anyone else in the chamber. Representative Domitz's deadpan delivery sounded almost like a done deal. There was audible muttering from behind us, and very hostile.

  She waited while Judge Cavanaugh hammered the room back to silence, then she continued. "Authority has information that suggests that these chips or devices represent a very high level of processing and storage technology. If this is in fact the case—and we hope to determine that during the course of this hearing—then acting under the emergency powers granted by the Self-Sufficiency Act, Lunar Authority will move to acquire custody of these devices. We will apply these resources for the common good of the people of Luna, for the duration of the emergency or until such time as it is determined that these resources are no longer needed to ensure the proper functioning of Lunar society." She took a breath. "Therefore, acting as a representative of Lunar Authority, I am officially requesting that this court not determine final custody of the chips or devices until such time as the full scale of the emergency on Terra is known and has been evaluated for its effects on Luna. Thank you, Your Honor."

  Judge Cavanaugh finished what he was writing. He looked up and said, "Thank you, Representative Domitz. The court will take your request under consideration. It doesn't look like a final determination of custody is going to be made anytime this century. If Lunar Authority does invoke the Self-Sufficiency Act before a final ruling of ownership can be made, then this court will make the chips immediately available for emergency use—with the proviso that whatever data may already be stored in these chips not be compromised, so that at the end of the emergency, their value remains undamaged."