Estordu was thinking frantically as he listened. “Corrections,” he blurted suddenly. “Those were corrections, not falsifications. Our sources led us to believe that Earth’s governments had discovered the surveillance, and they had conspired to conceal their warlike intentions. We instructed JEVEX to apply a correction factor by extrapolating the developments that would have taken place if the surveillance had not been discovered, and we presented these as facts in order to insure that our protective measures would not be relaxed.” The stares coming from the Thuriens were openly contemptuous, and he finished lamely, “Of course, it is possible that the corrections were. . . somewhat exaggerated unintentionally.”
“So I ask you again, how long?” Showm said. “How long has this been practiced?”
“Ten, maybe twenty years. . . I can’t remember.”
“You don’t know?” She looked at Wylott. “It’s your department. Have you no records?”
“JEVEX keeps the records,” Wylott replied woodenly.
“VISAR,” Calazar said. “Obtain the records from JEVEX for us.”
“This is outrageous!” Broghuilio shouted, his face turning black with anger. “The surveillance program is entrusted to us by longstanding agreement. You have no right to make such a demand. It has been negotiated.”
Calazar ignored him. A few seconds later VISAR informed them, “I can’t make any sense of the response. Either the records are corrupted, or .JEVEX is under a directive not to release them.”
Showm did not seem surprised. “Never mind,” she said, and looked back at Estordu. “Let’s give you the benefit of the doubt and say twenty years. Therefore anything reported by JEVEX before that time will not have been altered. Is that correct?”
“It might have been more,” Estordu said hastily. “Twenty-five thirty, perhaps.”
“Then let’s go back further than that. The Second World War on Earth ended eighty-six years ago. I have examined some of the accounts of events during that period as reported by JEVEX at the time. Let me give you some examples. According to JEVEX, the cities of Hamburg, Dresden, and Berlin were devastated not by conventional saturation bombing but by nuclear weapons. According to .JEVEX, the Korean conflict in the 1950s escalated into a major clash of Soviet and American forces; in fact, nothing of the kind took place. Neither were tactical nuclear devices used in the Middle East wars of the ’60s and ’70s, nor was there an outbreak of Sino-Soviet hostilities in the 1990s.” Showm’s voice became icy as she concluded, “And neither was the Shapieron taken into captivity by a United States military garrison on Ganymede. The United States has never had a military garrison on Ganymede.”
Estordu had no answer. Wylott remained immobile, staring straight in front of himself. Broghuilio seemed to swell with indignation. “We asked for evidence!” he thundered. “That is not evidence. Those are allegations. Where is your proof? Where are your witnesses? Where is your justification for this intolerable behavior?”
“I’ll take it,” Heller said, rising to her feet beside Caidwell. There was no way she was going to let him beat her to it this time. From where Hunt was sitting nothing appeared to change, but the way the three Jevienese heads snapped around to gape at her left no doubt that VISAR had suddenly put her on stage.
Before any of them could say anything, Calazar spoke. “Allow me to introduce somebody who might satisfy your requirement- Karen Heller, Special Envoy to Thurien from the State Department of the United States.”
Estordu’s face had turned white, and Wylott’s mouth was opening and closing ineffectively without producing any sound. Braghuilio was standing with his fists clenched and paroxysms of rage sweeping in visible tremors through the length of his body. “We have many witnesses,” Calazar said. “Nine billion of them, in fact. But for now, a few representatives will suffice.” The Jevienese’s eyes opened wider as the remainder of the Terran delegation became visible. None of them glanced in the opposite direction, indicating that Calazar had not yet instructed VISAR to reveal Garuth and the others from the Shapieron.
Karen Heller had compiled a long list of suspicions concerning Jevlenese manipulations of events on Earth, none of which she could prove. The opportunity for bluffing the confirmation from the Jevlenese would never again be quite what it was at that mament, and she plunged ahead without giving them a second’s respite. “Ever since the Lambians were taken from Luna to Thurien after the Minervan war, they have never forgotten their rivalry with the Cerians. They have always seen Earth as a potential threat that would one day have to be eliminated. In anticipation of that day, they took advantage of their access to Ganymean sciences and devised an elaborate scheme to insure that their rival would be held in a state of backwardness and prevented from reemerging to challenge them until they had absorbed the last ounce of the knowledge and technologies that they thought would make them invincible.” She was unconsciously addressing her words to Calazar and the Thuriens as if they were judge and jury, and the proceedings were a trial. They remained silent and waiting as she paused for a moment to shift to a different key.