The Rock Rats

corner of the table.

“Please be seated,” said Hector Wilcox. “Let’s get this over with as efficiently as we can.”

It begins, Fuchs said to himself, his heart thudding under his ribs, his palms suddenly sweaty.

Wilcox peered in his direction. “Which of you is Lars Fuchs?”

“I am,” said Fuchs.

“You have charged Humphries Space Systems with piracy, have you not?”

“I have not.”

Wilcox’s brows shot toward his scalp. “You have not?”

Fuchs was amazed at his own cheek. He heard himself say, “I do not charge a corporation with criminal acts. I charge a person, the man who heads that corporation: Martin Humphries.”

Wilcox’s astonishment turned to obvious displeasure.

“Are you implying that the acts you call piracy—which have yet to be established as actually occurring—were deliberately ordered by Mr. Martin Humphries?”

“That is precisely what I am saying, sir.”

On the other side of the makeshift aisle, a tall, dark-haired woman rose unhurriedly to her feet.

“Your honor, I am Mr. Humphries’s personal assistant, and on his behalf I categorically deny this charge. It’s ludicrous.”

Big George hopped to his feet and waved the stump of his arm over his head. “Y’call this ludicrous? I di’n’t get this pickin’ daisies!”

“Order!” Wilcox slapped the table with the flat of his hand. “Sit down, both of you. I will not have outbursts in this hearing. We will proceed along calm, reasoned lines.”

Verwoerd and George resumed their seats.

Pointing a bony finger at Fuchs, Wilcox said, “Now, sir, if you have evidence to sustain a charge of piracy, let us hear it. We’ll look into the responsibility for such acts after we ascertain that they have actually happened.”

Fuchs slowly rose, feeling a trembling anger in his gut. “You have the transcription of the battle between my ship, Starpower, and the ship that attacked us. You have seen the damage inflicted on Starpower. Mr. Ambrose, here, lost his arm in that battle.”

Wilcox glanced over his shoulder at the ruddy-faced IAA flunky, who nodded once. “Noted,” he said to Fuchs.

“That same ship earlier attacked Mr. Ambrose’s ship, Waltzing Matilda, and left him and his crewman for dead.”

“Do you have any evidence for this, other than your unsupported word?” Wilcox asked.

“Waltzing Matilda is drifting in the Belt. We can provide approximate coordinates for a search, if you wish to undertake it.”

Wilcox shook his head. “I doubt that such a search will be necessary.”

“Earlier,” Fuchs resumed, “several others vessels were attacked: The Lady of the Lake, Aswan, The Star—”

Verwoerd called from her chair, “There is no evidence that any of those ships were attacked.”

“They disappeared without a trace,” Fuchs snapped. “Their signals cut off abruptly.”

With a smile, Verwoerd said, “That is not evidence that they were attacked.”

“Quite so,” said Wilcox.

“In most of those cases, the asteroids that those ships claimed were later claimed by Humphries Space Systems,” Fuchs pointed out.

“What of it?” Verwoerd retorted. “HSS ships have laid claim to many hundreds of asteroids. And if you examine the record carefully, you will see that four of the six asteroids in question have been claimed by entities other than HSS.”

Wilcox turned toward the lean assistant on his left. The man nodded hastily and said, “Three of them were claimed by a corporation called Bandung Associates and the fourth by the Church of the Written Word. None of these entities are associated with HSS; I checked thoroughly.”

“So what this hearing boils down to,” Wilcox said, turning back to Fuchs, “is your assertion that you were attacked.”

“For that I have evidence, and you have seen it,” Fuchs said, boiling inside.

“Yes, yes,” said Wilcox. “There’s no doubt that you were attacked. But attacked by whom? That’s the real question.”

“By a ship working for HSS,” Fuchs said, feeling he was pointing out the obvious. “Under the orders of Martin Humphries.”

“Can you prove that?”

“No employee of HSS would take such a step without the personal approval of Humphries himself,” Fuchs insisted. “He even had one of my people killed, murdered in cold blood!”

“You are referring to the murder of a Niles Ripley, are you not?” asked Wilcox.

“Yes. A deliberate murder to stop our construction of the habitat we’re building—”

Verwoerd interrupted. “We concede that Mr. Ripley was killed by an employee of Humphries Space Systems. But it was a private matter; the killing was neither ordered nor condoned by HSS. And Mr. Fuchs personally dispatched the killer, in a violent act of vigilantism.”

Wilcox fixed Fuchs with a stern gaze. “Frontier justice, eh? It’s too bad that you executed him. His testimony might have supported your case.”

Feeling exasperated, Fuchs said, “Who else would benefit from all these criminal acts?”

With a wry smile, Wilcox said, “I was hoping you could tell me, Mr. Fuchs. That’s why we’ve gone to the expense and trouble of holding this hearing. Who is responsible here?”

Fuchs closed his eyes briefly. I don’t want to bring Amanda into this. I don’t want to make this seem like a personal feud between Humphries and me.

“Do you have anything else to offer, Mr. Fuchs?”

Before he could reply, George got to his feet again and said, very calmly, “Everybody on Ceres knows that Humphries is tryin’ to squeeze Fuchs out of the Belt. Ask anybody.”

“Mr…” Wilcox glanced down at his computer screen. “Ambrose, is it? Mr. Ambrose, what ‘everybody knows’ is not evidence in a court of law. Nor in this hearing.”

George sat down, mumbling to himself.

“The fact is,” Fuchs said, struggling to keep from screaming, “that someone is killing people, someone is attacking prospectors’ ships, someone is committing terrible crimes in the Asteroid Belt. The IAA must take action, must protect us…” He stopped. He realized he was begging, almost whining.

Wilcox leaned back in his chair. “Mr. Fuchs, I quite agree that your frontier is a violent, lawless place. But the International Astronautical Authority has neither the power nor the legal authority to serve as a police force across the Asteroid Belt. It is up to the citizens of the Belt themselves to provide their own protection, to police themselves.”

“We are being systematically attacked by Humphries Space Systems personnel!” Fuchs insisted.

“You are being attacked, I grant you,” Wilcox responded, with a sad, condescending smile. “Most likely by renegades from among your own rough and ready population. I see no evidence linking Humphries Space Systems to your problems in any way, shape or manner.”

“You don’t want to see!” Fuchs raged.

Wilcox stared at him coldly. “This hearing is concluded,” he said.

“But you haven’t—”

“It’s finished,” Wilcox snapped. He stood up, grabbed his computer, clicked its lid shut and tucked it into his jacket pocket. Then he turned and strode out of the room, leaving Fuchs standing there, frustrated and furious.

CHAPTER 36