“We’re trying to get you out of a mess. This isn’t helping.” Yeaks groaned.
Total silence hit the room. Gallian stared at the Terrans first in noncomprehension, then with slowly growing incredulity. The rest of the Kronians were exchanging shocked looks or just sitting with dazed expressions. Involuntarily, Keene turned in Sariena’s direction with a what-did-I-say? look.
“Oh my God,” Sariena whispered. “Even you don’t believe it, Lan.” She faltered, looking at him in disbelief. “These fairy stories that you’re talking about; they’re not just for Terran melodramatics. You really imagine that some kind of alternative explanation has to be manufactured somehow.”
Keene almost started to laugh. “You’re not trying to tell us they’re genuine, that they really were found on—”
“Of course they’re genuine!” Sariena shouted. Keene blinked, feeling as if she had slapped his face. She raised a hand to her brow, started to say something, then rose, shaking her head. “I can’t believe . . . Lan, how long have you known us? How long have we communicated, worked together? You know something about our values, our commitment to truth. Could you really imagine we’d be capable of such a thing?” Gallian moved to a chair and sank down onto it.
Keene didn’t know how to respond. The two older lawyers saw that they were out of their depth and shut up. Yeaks looked at Sariena and showed his hands. “But how could that be possible? We’ve heard the evidence from yesterday. Nobody has even hinted of any doubts about it. We can hardly argue that those things didn’t come from Earth.”
“Oh yes, I’m sure you’re right. They came from Earth,” Sariena agreed tiredly.
Yeaks glanced at his colleagues as if checking that he hadn’t missed something, then looked back at Sariena. “Then how can anyone believe they were found on Rhea? You can’t go back out there and keep saying that. Nobody on Earth is going to believe it.”
“It’s as we said,” Gallian declared, speaking to the Kronians. “Getting involved in the complications here will just be a waste of time and achieve nothing. I say we pack up and go back. We’ll sort it out ourselves with our own scientists back in Kronia.”
“Leave now, just like that?” Vashen said. “What about the emigrants we were due to take back?”
“Get the word out for them to bring their plans forward. Speed things up at Tapapeque. We’ll wait for them in orbit,” Gallian replied curtly.
Now Keene was confused. “What is there to sort out?” he demanded. “Cliff’s point seemed pretty clear to me. You’re admitting that the artifacts came from Earth, but at the same time you want to stick to the story that they were found on Rhea. You can’t have it both ways, for heaven’s sake. It doesn’t make any sense. We’re here. Saturn is eight hundred million miles away. Are you telling us that the Joktanians are supposed to have had space travel now?”
Sariena came over to sit down across from Keene and looked at him. There was no aggravation in her eyes now but something deeper, sadder—for a moment, it seemed, almost pitying. “Oh, Lan,” she sighed. “You’ve tried so much to think like us, but you’re still a Terran underneath, locked into your preconceptions. You really can’t turn it around the other way, can you?”
“What do you mean?” Keene said. “Turn what around what other way?”
“We’ve been discussing it most of the night. Just believe the facts and accept their implication. Don’t try to force anything to fit with what you think you already know. And you end up with only one answer.” Keene looked to the lawyers for help. They shook their heads helplessly. He looked back at the Kronians.
Vashen raised a hand to enumerate on his fingers. “Fact one: those objects originated on Earth. Fact two: they were found on a moon of Saturn. Fact three: no interplanetary transportation existed at the time of creation.”
“In other words, they couldn’t have gone from here to there,” Sariena said.
Silence fell again. “Now turn it around the other way, as Sariena said,” Gallian told him from across the room.
Keene still couldn’t figure what they were driving at. He looked at Sariena and shook his head.