by Nancy Kress
“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
Kaufman 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?”
“That’s enough! Dr. Capelo, you—”
“Hypocrisy the size of a warship, commander. That’s what we have here.”
“—are in contempt of court. One more outburst and I—”
“You’ll what? That’s your problem, isn’t it? You don’t know what to do with me, now that I’ve produced for you. Oh, and for myself, I admit that. But now I’m an interesting problem, aren’t I?”
Kaufman said, because he couldn’t resist, “Not as big a problem as you might think, Tom. Haven’t you ever heard of J. Robert Oppenheimer?”
Capelo turned toward him, grinning. “So they didn’t cut out your tongue after all, Lyle. Or your balls.”
“MPs!” Rulanov called. “Remove Dr. Capelo from the court!”
“Lay one hand on me again,” Capelo said evenly, not moving from his chair, “and you’ll have to kill me to keep from having the worst PR problem the Navy ever saw. And if you do kill me, my daughter and her nanny are prepared to tell the story to what will, I’m sure, be fascinated reporters. Amanda would make an extremely appealing holo witness.”
Rulanov was too much of a soldier to be intimidated. He gestured to the MPs, who seized Capelo. Kaufman found himself rising.
Capelo said, still not raising his voice, “The party’s over so soon? But I have more questions. What, for instance, are you—” The MPs started dragging him toward the door. Capelo went limp, a dead weight, and kept on talking, “—going to do with this artifact, now that I’ve explained what it’s capable of doing?”
“We’re going to use it,” another voice said from the doorway.
Kaufman, halfway out of his chair, stumbled up the rest of the way. The court, after a stunned moment, jumped to its collective feet and snapped into salutes. Belatedly, Kaufman did the same. Only the MPs went on with their work, dragging a dead-weight Capelo toward the door. The newcomer said, “Release that man, soldier.” The MPs paid no attention.
“Release him!” echoed Rulanov, the most strangled echo Kaufman had ever heard. But Rulanov recovered fast. “Welcome aboard, sir.”
Capelo, again free and upright, turned to stare at the doorway, making it unanimous.
Kaufman had never met General Sullivan Stefanak, Supreme Commander of the Solar Alliance Defense Council, but of course he recognized him instantly. The general’s face was on every newscast in every media: holo, access, flimsy, newsgram. It wasn’t a face anyone could forget, or ignore. Almost all of the SADC top brass were genemod; Stefanak was not. The huge size and strength, easily the equal of Dieter Gruber’s, were natural. So, clearly, was the hard face under the bald head, neither one modified by cosmetic treatment. Stefanak’s skin was light brown, his eyes deep brown flecked with gold. He had full fleshy lips and a large jaw. He radiated energy, and ruthlessness, and charisma. His appetites, for everything, were rumored to be enormous.
Including for power. Persistent scuttlebutt said that Stefanak was not content with leading the Solar Alliance Defense Council that controlled Army and Navy for the entire Solar System. That he wouldn’t even be content to be elected president of the Solar Alliance. That he wanted to be dictator, and that with the war on and martial law always a possibility, it could happen. Looking at Stefanak—even more magnetic, ugly, and dangerous-looking in person than on holo—Kaufman suddenly believed it. A benevolent dictator, perhaps, but dictator nonetheless. This man made his own rules.
Beside Stefanak stood General Tollivar Gordon, who had sent Kaufman on this cursed mission, and Commander Grafton. Grafton looked curiously gray.
Capelo said, “The great man himself,” but there was no real bite in it. Even Tom Capelo seemed subdued by Stefanak.
“And you’re the great Dr. Capelo. I read your preliminary paper on probons. I didn’t understand a single word of it.”
Capelo was not that easy to charm. “I hardly expect you would. You’re more interested in outcomes than causes
.”
“Exactly right, Dr. Capelo. And you’re interested in what outcomes we plan on creating from your work.”
“I am indeed. Are you actually going to tell me?”
“Yes. You have a right to know. Plus, as you so eloquently just pointed out, you represent a problem to us. If you ended up dead, would your not-quite-eleven-year-old daughter really try to tell your version of the story to the holos? Have you really briefed her on what to say?”
“I have, and she would. Would you try to stop her?”
“Difficult to do, I would imagine, if she’s like her father. Sit down, or don’t, Dr. Capelo, as you choose. I am certainly going to.”
Lieutenant Framingham sprang forward with her own chair, and Stefanak squeezed his bulk into it. After an uncertain moment—his first yet, Kaufman thought—Capelo also sat. Everyone else remained standing.
“You have questions,” Stefanak said to Capelo. “But before you begin, I have duties.” He looked up at Rulanov. “Commander, you have done an excellent job conducting this court of inquiry. Before I relieve you of the responsibility, I want you to know that your thoroughness and professionalism have been noted. Lieutenant Ramsay, Lieutenant Framingham, the same goes for you.”
All three officers tried not to look too gratified. Rulanov said, “Thank you, sir.”
Stefanak turned to Grafton, still gray. “And you, Commander, have acted completely in accord with the highest standards of the Solar Alliance Defense Navy, correctly following procedure for every action you’ve taken from the moment the prisoner of war was brought aboard ship. You will receive a letter of commendation, in due time, for your promotion jacket.”
Grafton looked less gray, although still uncomfortable. It couldn’t be easy, Kaufman thought, having control of your own ship taken away from you as easily as jumping on the moon. Not easy for the court of inquiry, either. Stefanak was now in charge of everything.
“Colonel Kaufman, the charges against you have just been dropped. They were appropriate when filed, but new information, which General Gordon will discuss with you later, has invalidated them.”
