Brain Ships - Anne McCaffrey [230]
It was a statement of Blaize's Net account balance for the previous month. The pattern of deposits and withdrawals of large sums made no immediate sense to Nancia, but one thing was clear: any single figure was considerably larger than Blaize's PTA salary, and the total at the bottom was damning—more than thirty times as much credit as he could have accumulated if he'd saved every penny of his legitimate pay.
"Uncle Forister," said Blaize from the floor, tenderly massaging his aching jaw, "you have got it all wrong. Trust me."
"After the evidence before my eyes," Forister spat out, "what could you possibly say that would incline me to trust you?"
Blaize grinned up at him. His lip was bleeding and one front tooth wobbled alarmingly. "You'd be surprised."
"If you were thinking of a small bribe out of your ill-gotten gains," Micaya told him, "you can think again." She lowered her head to speak directly into the contact button and Nancia hastily reduced the amplification. Softshells never could quite understand that they didn't need to shout at a conduct button; the speaker might be tinny, but the input lines were as powerful as any of a brainship's on-board sensors. "Nancia, please enter the Net with my personal ID code. That's Q-B76, JPJ, 450, MIC. Under that code you will be authorized to freeze all credit accounts under the personal code of, let me see. . . ." She squinted at the top of the flimsy, peering to make out a code sequence that Nancia could read perfectly well with the vision correctors damping down movement and enhancing blurred letters. "Oh, never mind, I guess you can read it," Micaya recalled a moment later.
"Correct," Nancia sent a vocal signal over the contact link.
"Don't do that!" Blaize scrambled to his feet, swaying slightly. "You don't understand—"
Forister moved to one side more rapidly than Nancia had ever seen him step, a blur of motion that placed him between Blaize and Micaya with her copy of the account balance. "I understand that you've been exploiting nonintelligent sentients to enrich yourself," he said. "You can make your explanation to the authorities. Nancia, I want you to file a formal record of the charges now, just in case anything goes wrong here,"
"Done," Nancia replied.
Blaize shook his head and winced at the motion. "Ow. No. Uncle Forister, you really have got the wrong end of the story. And there's no way you can have me up on charges of—what did you say?—exploiting nonintelligent sentients. On the contrary. The Loosies are entitled to Intelligent Sentient Status and I can prove it—and nobody can stop me now; I've just sent the final documentation to CenDip. Even if you silence me, there'll be an independent CenDip investigation now."
"Silence you, silence you?" Forister looked at Micaya. His gray eyebrows shot up. "No question of that. We don't deal in cover-ups. You'll have the opportunity to say anything you like at your trial. And so will I, God help me," he murmured, so low that only Nancia's contact button picked up the words. "So will I."
"If you people would just listen," said Blaize, exasperated, "there wouldn't be any need for a trial. Didn't you hear what I said about the Loosies being intelligent?"
Micaya shook her head. "You've been here too long if you've started to cherish that illusion. Face the facts. On the way here I downloaded the survey reports off the Net. The native species don't exhibit any of the key signs of intelligence—no language, no clothing, no agriculture, no political organization."
"They've always had language," Blaize insisted. "They've got clothing and agriculture now. As for a political organization, just think about PTA for a minute and then ask yourself if that's any proof of intelligence."
Micaya laughed in spite of herself. "You have a point. But we didn't come here to argue ISS certification standards—"
"Maybe not," said Blaize, "but since you are here, and—" He looked suspicious for a moment "You're not working