Metaphase. Part 27

Across the amphitheater, the senator waited longer than the usual couple of seconds, as if she expected someone to object to her speaking.

"I know you all feel betrayed," she said. "Frankly, I do, too. What's happened is what always happens when decisions get made in back rooms and secrecy. But the justice system of the United States is public and open.

If you do return to Earth, the chancellor will get a fair trial-"

"Will we?" Jenny said.

The senator continued as if she had not been interrupted.

11.-a fair trial, and the powers that controlled him will have to come out in the open and answer for what's happened."

Jenny started to speak again.

"Ms. Dupre," Gerald said.

Annoyed, Jenny rose. "Iphigenie Dupre," she said. "If I may-T'

Infinity did not blame her for being bitter and angry. But it hurt to see the change in her. During the first deployment of Starfarer's solar sail, her creation, she had glowed with joy. Stephen Thomas had broken out a 199.bottle of fancy champagne and let it loose, in the freefall of the sailhouse. Jenny had drunk one of the fizzing globules with a kiss.

"The U.S. const.i.tution says the accused has a right to face the witnesses against him, and the U.S. insisted that we operate under their const.i.tution. Fine. But we're here. We're willing to face him. I'm willing to face him. Nothing says he has to face us. But nothing says we can't make a decision about him even if he isn't here to listen to it.

Or to defend himself. If he could defend himself."

"He also has a right to legal counsel," Gerald said. "Is anyone willing to defend him?"

"I a.s.sumed you had that job reserved for yourself."

"Firstly," Gerald said, "I am not a barrister. Secondly, my defending the chancellor would be an inexcusable conflict of interest."

"J.D. Sauvage." J.D. paused, waiting her turn to speak. "I don't see how we can proceed if Mr. Blades won't come out. Maybe it's legal for us to proceed. But should we? I don't think so."

Infinity felt very grateful to J.D. for saying something that he, too, believed. He knew he was going to have to speak out later, and no one was going to want to listen to what he had to say.

"Do you think he should be allowed to get off free?" Jenny asked, disbelieving. "I thought Feral was your friend!"

"He was," J.D. said. "And I'd like to see justice done for him. Justice."

"Chancellor Blades is innocent," Gerald said.

Jenny laughed. So did Stephen Thomas, and a few other people, coldly and without joy.

"So much for not defending him," Jenny said to Gerald.

"I can't defend him in a court of law," Gerald said. "Which, by the way, this is not. I didn't say I wouldn't speak for him."

"William Derjaguin." The senior senator from New Mexico stood up.200 Infinity had powerful feelings about Derjaguin. Powerful, and mixed.

Disappointment because of Derjaguin's implacable opposition to the deep s.p.a.ce expedition. Admiration, because De~aguin had been one of the few people to oppose the weapons testing scheme that ended in disaster for the southwest, one of the few to stand up for land others called beautiful and valueless.

No one objected to letting him speak.

"I've talked to the chancellor, too," he said. "Not that it's easy, with a couple of lithoblasts threatening to dissolve me with acid if I go one step closer."

He had it wrong. The lithoblasts would block his way. They could physically restrain him. They might even put up a barrier of rock foam if he was persistent enough. But they would not dissolve him with acid. Only lithoclasts could produce acids and solvents. All the lithoclasts were outside working. People always thought of repair as building, but clearing away was at least as important.

Outside is where I ought to be, Infinity thought.

"The chancellor told me he was innocent," Senator Derjaguin said. "I have a great deal of experience at judging character. I believe him."

"What a load of bulls.h.i.+t," Stephen Thomas said.

"He doesn't believe he can get a fair hearing, on this s.h.i.+p with this crew."

Infinity hated to hear Starfarer referred to-especially by politicians-as if it were a military vessel and the people on board, its recruits.

Starfarer was not a wars.h.i.+p, and he was not a soldier.

"If he's innocent, he ought to be willing to stand up in front of us and say so," Jenny said.

Both Gerald and the senator reacted with indignation.

"You incited the mob that went after him!" Gerald said. "Who knows what might have occurred, had he not fled-!"

"I had to get him out of the web!" Jenny cried. "Do you blame me? Has anyone ever tried to kill you?" 201.Derjaguin moved, a quick, repressed reliving of the shock of an a.s.sa.s.sin's bullet.

"Yes," Derjaguin said.

Jenny had no reason to know the personal, even the public, history of a U.S. senator. He surprised her with his reply, but she continued.

"And how do you feel about the person who tried to kill you?"

"That person . . . is still at large," De~jaguin said. "I've reserved judgment."

"n.o.ble of you," Jenny said.

"Jag," Ruth Orazio said, "you must understand how she feels."

"I do." He turned his presence and his considerable charisma back toward Jenny. "And I can understand your desire for revenge. I hope I never have the person who shot me at my mercy. That's what the judicial system is for.

To dispense justice. To prevent revenge."

He must be used to seeing people blossom into eagerness, or wilt into compliance, under the light of his attention. But Jenny was immune. The solar sail designer was at least as renowned as he, and probably richer.

She did not fawn over celebrities. They fawned over her.

"I'm not convinced you've caught the right ent.i.ty," Derjaguin said. "The crash could have been programmed in from the start. A Trojan horse."

Jenny challenged him.

"Have you looked at the evidence J.D. and Stephen Thomas found? Even looked at it? If you had, you wouldn't think Arachne crashed because of a horse!"

J.D. rose again.

"Jenny . . . Infinity's isolated Blades from Arachne. Isn't that enough punishment, for now? If Blades doesn't want to object to his exile, maybe we shouldn't insist on something worse. The way things are, if he's guilty we're all safe. If he's not, we haven't done anything irrevocable."

"How do you know we're safe from him?"

"He's cut off from the web-"202 "How do you know we're safe from him?"

J.D. regarded Jenny with sympathy.

"I spend a lot of time in the web. I'm enhancing my link. If there's danger, I'm vulnerable. I think the risk is small enough to take."

Jenny stared at J.D. for several seconds; it felt like a very long time.

She turned completely around, raking all her colleagues with her gaze.

She faced J.D. again, having seen that even the people who had joined her mob -maybe those people in particular-would not side with her now. She could produce no consensus for the chancellor's guilt, or for his punishment.

"I think you're wrong," she said. "And I think you'll find it out the next time we go into transition. I'm not touching the web. If we miss the insertion point, that's too d.a.m.ned bad." She straightened her shoulders and flung her head back; the iridescent beads on the ends of her braids clinked together loudly, decisively.

She strode from the amphitheater.

As people rose to leave, relieved to think the meeting was over, Infinity stood up and spoke his name. No one, except Esther and Kolya, heard him.

He raised his voice. "Infinity Kenjiro Yanagihara y Mendoza."

Intense meetings drained everyone. His colleagues, realizing he wanted the gathering to continue, sank back in their seats with resignation.

"There's some other things we have to talk about," he said.

"Without doubt they can wait," Gerald asked. "A few days-? The other side of transition, at least, when we might know more about our situation?"

"I don't think so," Infinity said. "We have some problems. The first is the weather."

"But the weather has been exceptionally fair," Gerald said.

"It's too fair," Infinity said. "It's too hot for the season. First everything got blasted during the last meeting-" 203."But that was an anomaly," Gerald said. "A malfunction of the web while it was regrowing-"

"Or sabotage," Stephen Thomas said. "Let Infinity finish."

Gerald subsided.

"And now this heat wave. Arachne's trying to fix it. Maybe it'll even work out for the best. We don't have the supplies we expected to bring.

Maybe this will give us a longer growing season. But . . . Starfarer wasn't designed to spend time around a star like Sirius. It was designed to visit sun-type stars." Infinity glanced over at Victoria. "Next time through transition . . . where will we end up?"

Uncharacteristically, Victoria hesitated.

"I'm not entirely sure yet," she said.

"Good lord!" Gerald exclaimed.

The amphitheater reverberated with tension like a bell.

Collecting herself, Victoria rose. "Calm down, eh? It's not exactly a secret." Her tone was annoyed. "The algorithm's working in plain sight.

Anybody can look at the results."

Infinity waited, rather than vanis.h.i.+ng into a communications fugue like some of the folks around him.

"We a.s.sumed Europa headed for a system that's full of cosmic string,"

Victoria said. "Pretty safe a.s.sumption, eh? She wouldn't want to go somewhere she couldn't leave again. The algorithm's first solution proves it. The second solution indicates there'll be a star nearby."

"And that's all you know?" Senator Derjaguin leaned toward her, angrily.

"You don't know where we're going, how far, how long it will take?"

"The third solution will tell us where," Victoria said. "How long-that's always an indefinite number. A range. "

"As for getting back-" Avvaiyar rose at Victoria's side. "That's the point of being sure we come out in a full system-a place with more cosmic string."

"When will we have all the answers?" Gerald asked.204 "I don't know," Victoria said. "Along about the next millennium?"

Gerald took a moment to realize he was being twitted.

,,The answers to your b.l.o.o.d.y algorithm, " he snarled.

"I have no idea," Victoria said. "Before we hit transition . . . I think."

"So we're stuck," Esther said under her breath.

She was right. Infinity saw the situation before Victoria described it.

They could pull back and wait for solutions to the current algorithm, to be sure they were heading for a suitable star. They could test other transition points till they found one that would lead them to a sun-type star. But no one could say how long that would take. Arachne was solving the current problem as fast as it could. Giving the computer another could only slow everything down.

"And if we change course," Victoria said, "not only will we be here longer, inflicting Sirius on our ecosystem, but we'll lose any chance we might have of catching up to Europa." She glanced over at Infinity. "I didn't realize the environment was so delicate," she said. "I wish you'd-"

"I didn't know, either!" Infinity said. "It's Alzena who knows all this stuff."

"Why in heaven's name did you let Europa take her?" Gerald said to J.D.

"I was afraid Alzena would kill herself otherwise," J.D. said.

As much as Infinity wished the stars.h.i.+p still had an environmental designer, an ecologist, on board, he had to agree with J.D. Europa had taken Alzena with her to save her life.

"Alzena is gone," Victoria said, "and I think J.D. was right to let her go. Maybe we can persuade her to come back--"