“So: Mr. Holloway discovers these very clever little animals and decides to share the discovery with his former girlfriend. When she gets excited about them, Mr. Holloway decides to have a little fun and teaches them a few tricks which to the untrained observer look like evidence of sapience. It takes Dr. Wangai several days to get to Mr. Holloway’s home; he has time to train these creatures. She arrives and she gets gulled. Simple as that.” Soltan frowned at this. “You’re suggesting this entire thing is nothing more than Mr. Holloway’s malicious attempt to damage an ex-girlfriend’s professional reputation, Ms. Meyer.” “I don’t think you have to ascribe actual maliciousness to Mr. Holloway,” Meyer said. “Dr. Wangai calls him a friend now. It’s possible that Mr. Holloway was simply trying to have a little bit of fun with someone he knew would already be excited by the discovery of a major new species.” Soltan gazed over at Holloway; this made him uncomfortable. “It doesn’t strike me as a particularly amusing joke,” the judge said.
“Perhaps not,” Meyer said. “But it’s a better theory than professional sabotage. Or at least a nicer one.” Soltan turned to Isabel. “Dr. Wangai,” she said. “Is it possible that Mr. Holloway tricked you?” “No,” Isabel said.
“Why is that?” Soltan asked. “Because you’re too competent to be fooled or because Mr. Holloway wouldn’t do such a thing?” “Both,” Isabel said.
“It’s been established that your training isn’t in xenosapience,” Soltan said. “It’s also been established that you believe that not only has Mr. Holloway lied to you, he’s lied about you during an official inquiry.” Isabel said nothing to this, and stared again at Holloway.
“If I may,” Meyer said, after it became clear Isabel wasn’t going to answer. “The note added to Dr. Wangai’s file is of some relevance.” “Go on,” Soltan said, to Meyer.
“Dr. Wangai,” Meyer said, gently. “Do you remember what the note that was added to your employment record states?” “Yes,” Isabel said. Her voice had a note of resignation Holloway hadn’t ever heard in it before.
“What does it say, Dr. Wangai?” Meyer asked.
“It says that my judgment might be impaired due to close or romantic relationships,” Isabel said.
Meyer nodded and looked over to Soltan. “I have no other questions for this expert,” she said. Soltan nodded and told Isabel that she could step down.
Holloway found it hard to look at Isabel as she walked back to the table. Meyer’s line of questioning was nothing at all about the fuzzys and everything about her: her competence, her professional ability, her personal judgment, and her relationships with others. She had been made to look like a fool in all of them.
Isabel sat in her chair and looked straight ahead, pointedly not looking at Holloway. Sullivan reached over and put his hand on her shoulder, to comfort her. Isabel took it and held it, but didn’t look back at him. She kept staring forward, with a look on her face. Holloway knew what the look meant. It meant that Isabel, finally, understood what all the other players knew: that this inquiry didn’t really matter. The decision about the fuzzys had already been made, and these were just the motions they had to go through to get there.
Isabel knew that she had been demolished up there on the stand. Holloway knew that his role in the play was to deliver the coup de grâce.
Chapter Seventeen
When Judge Soltan called his name, Holloway got up from the defense table and installed himself at the witness stand. The judge reminded him that he would have to speak the truth. Holloway looked into the courtroom at Brad Landon, and said he would. Landon gave him an almost imperceptible nod.
Isabel followed Holloway’s gaze and saw Landon. She turned back to Holloway, her expression unreadable.
“Mr. Holloway, please state your full name and occupation,” Janice Meyer said to Holloway.
“I’m Jack Holloway, and I’ve been a contract surveyor and prospector here on Zara Twenty-three for over eight years,” he said.
“How long have you known Dr. Wangai?” Meyer asked.
“I met her briefly when she arrived on Zara Twenty-three,” Holloway said. “I made better acquaintance of her a year later, when she and I were guests at Chad Bourne’s annual holiday party for the surveyors he represents. We started a relationship several months after that, which lasted for about two years, at which point we broke up for reasons already noted today.”
“What is your current relationship with Dr. Wangai?” Meyer asked.
Holloway looked at Isabel, whose expression now was blank. “We’re friends, but I have things to apologize for,” he said.
Meyer nodded. “Now, you discovered these creatures that you and Dr. Wangai call ‘fuzzys’ recently, is that correct?”
“About a month ago now, yes,” Holloway said. “One of them got into my cabin.”
“And Dr. Wangai has spent how much time with them during this period?” Meyer asked.
“She spent about a week studying them at my compound,” Holloway said.
“It doesn’t seem like a very large amount of time,” Meyer observed. “Especially to make a determination that these creatures are sapient.”
“Isabel’s a scientist and believes she knows what to look for,” Holloway said. “I suspect she believes she observed enough to know, otherwise she wouldn’t make the claim.”
“Do you support her claim?” Meyer asked.
“Isabel is aware that she and I have had differing opinions on the matter,” Holloway said, “and the last time we spoke about it, I repeated that I did not believe the fuzzys were sentient.”
“Why do you think you two have such a difference of opinion?” Meyer asked.
“You mean, aside from the fact that I discovered a sunstone seam that will be worth billions of credits to me so long as the fuzzys are determined not to be sentient,” Holloway said.
Meyer blinked at this. “I think we’re all aware you’re a ZaraCorp contractor,” she said.
“Well, besides that, I had observed the fuzzys longer than Isabel had,” Holloway said. “And while I am not a scientist and can speak only as a self-interested layman, the fuzzys initially struck me as nothing more than clever animals, like monkeys or perhaps the universe’s smartest cats.”
“Are they smart enough to be trained?” Meyer asked.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” Holloway said. “I’ve trained my dog to do all sorts of tricks, and each of the fuzzys is smarter than my dog.”
“Smart enough to learn enough tricks that could fool a biologist?” Meyer asked.
“If the biologist in this case was not an expert on xenosapience, and if her own excitement about the discovery kept her from observing certain obvious things, sure,” Holloway said.
“You’re suggesting Dr. Wangai was not observant,” Meyer prompted.
“She was observant, but I know there were some lapses,” Holloway said.
“That’s not an accusation to be made lightly against Zara Twenty-three’s chief biologist,” Meyer said.
“I’ll give you an example,” Holloway said. “After I met the fuzzys, I assigned them gender roles, based on certain assumptions I made: Males would be aggressive and boisterous, females nurturing and sweet. So I called them Papa Fuzzy and Mama Fuzzy and so on. For several days, Isabel assumed that the fuzzys were actually male and female, even though as the planet’s biologist, she knew that most animals on the planet didn’t have genders like they do back on Earth. She admitted to me that she initially assumed the fuzzys were male and female because I had told her so, and she assumed I had checked.”