A little titter ran through the audience, at this latest of Pinchuk's none-too-subtle jabs at Helen's work.
"Excellent thinking, Doctor," Glendale said approvingly.
Glendale continued to analyze the phony dig, and Dr. Pinchuk eagerly supplied explanations for every objection. Finally, the entire structure was complete.
"If I may say so, Dr. Glendale," Pinchuk triumphantly concluded, "I believe between us we have built an ironclad case. Such things are possible today."
"Ironclad indeed, Doctor." Nicholas Glendale was smiling broadly. His gaze swept the audience. When it reached Helen, staring in paralyzed fury, she thought she saw one eyelid dip—ever so slightly—in a wink.
What . . .?
"I have, in fact, been verifying your facts as we went along." Glendale patted the glittering ornament which was his personal data center. "They check out very well, although you are considerably more optimistic with a few elements than I feel comfortable with. Still, you've made an excellent case. A large dig such as this could indeed be faked, even well enough to fool modern technological investigation. Of course, doing so would cost—at rock-bottom minimum—about . . ."
He looked down to check his figures. "Forty-six million dollars. Or, to put it another way, approximately six hundred times the annual salary of a fully established paleontologist."
Dr. Pinchuk's grin seemed to freeze on his face, and a hush fell over the audience.
"Forty-six million . . . Well, it's true that—"
"No matter," Glendale said breezily. "While it's clearly ludicrous to contend that any large and important dig could be faked in the real world"—his emphasis was sharply defined and unmistakable to everyone in the room—"your points still stand well on their own. Smaller fossils and digs are well within the capabilities of well-off notoriety seekers—millionaires, really, they'd have to be, to throw that much money around—and certainly should be watched for."
The good humor seemed to fade a bit from his expression. "I just wished to caution the observers to draw no conclusions about large excavations from our admittedly overly ambitious example. Such a falsification, though within the realm of the theoretically possible, would be so expensive as to make it, in the real world, something out of science fiction. Fantasy, I should say."
He gestured to the image of the falsified dragon fossil. "As fantastic as our draconic friend here. It would not only require money, but multiple coconspirators in laboratories and at the dig itself. The latter is what truly dooms any such attempt at fakery, of course. Money itself doesn't talk, but in conspiracies we must all remember what Benjamin Franklin said."
He paused, smiling at the audience, and finished. "'Three can keep a secret—if two of them are dead.' So be suspicious when someone hands you a fossil of Tinkerbell, but don't worry about something much larger. It may be weird, and the discoverer may be misinterpreting the data. But it's real. Don't think for a moment it isn't."
He shook Dr. Pinchuk's hand with great enthusiasm. Since Pinchuk's whole arm seemed to have gone completely limp, it looked as if Glendale was shaking hands with a very large rag doll.
"Thank you very much for an entertaining diversion, Dr. Pinchuk! Well, I'd best leave you to finish up." He bowed to the audience. "And thank you all for your patience."
There was thunderous applause as Dr. Nicholas Glendale left the stage. Helen would have added to the applause, but on forcing her hands to release their grip she'd found they hurt too much. A huge weight was lifting from her shoulders. She couldn't help but laugh as she saw Pinchuk, still shell-shocked, try to resume his speech.
But his audience was already up and leaving. They knew what had been happening, under the surface. And now that Glendale had utterly demolished him, there was nothing left to see. She waved cheerily to Pinchuk, then headed for the exit herself.
Chapter 10
"Reactor cooking?"
"Ruth's doing just marvelously, Joe." Reynolds Jones looked up from the readouts of the large atmosphere chamber. "Producing fuel and oxygen both at near-optimum efficiency in our little simulated Martian atmosphere."
Jones was a tall, slender, black-haired man with a faint speech impediment that, combined with his prissy schoolmaster's vocabulary and gesticulating conversation style, made virtually everyone sure that he was gay. Or, as Joe's father used to put it, "walked the other side of the tracks."
Joe had his doubts. First, because he was generally reluctant to typecast people. Secondly, because he didn't think anyone could be that much of a stereotype.