Ben Bova: The Trikon Deception

Yet to the great masses of people all around the Earth, genetic research is new, and what is new to them is terrifying.

So I decided that the genetic research would have to be done in orbit, entirely off the Earth. Too many important people are frightened of having something go wrong, causing a man-made plague or some other disaster. It is a foolish fear, but it is very real.

In the U.S. and many other nations, it is impossible to do the research that we need. The U.S. Supreme Court, no less, decided against field testing of genetically altered plants and bacteria, stating that “damage to the environment from testing cannot be ruled out to a scientific certainty,” even though there have been no recorded incidents of accidental release of genetically altered organisms into the environment.

This proved to me that the pressures against genetic experiments are getting worse. We want to save the world, but the world does not trust us!

There is literally nowhere on Earth that scientists can do the research that needs to be done. That is why we needed a research laboratory in space. No national government would do it. No single corporation could afford to risk the necessary investment capital. That is why Trikon Station had to be a multinational effort by the multinational corporations.

To save the world. To keep the human rate from going the way of the dinosaurs.

Hugh O’Donnell trembled, soaked with sweat.

“Don’t worry, O’Donnell, my main man. No jury in this state will convict you.”

Pancho Weinstein, Esq., directed O’Donnell’s attention to the jury box. One juror drooled, another played solitaire, a third had his hand stuffed into his shirt a la Napoleon. All were cross-eyed.

O’Donnell turned back to the gallery where Stacey, his live-in girlfriend, sat in the first row. She wore black stockings and a miniskirt short enough to reveal the garters crossing her thighs.

“I’m cold,” she said with a pout.

Weinstein plucked O’Donnell’s motorcycle jacket from the back of his chair and tossed it to Stacey. She smiled and drew her tongue across her lips.

“Order!” The judge banged a ball peen hammer, then affixed a surgeon’s lamp to his forehead. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

A bailiff wearing polka-dot suspenders danced into the center of the courtroom.

“Foundation for Thus ’n Such versus Agri Bio Futuro Tech Something or Other,” he announced through a megaphone. “Aw hell, read the program.”

“Oh, that one,” said the judge. “The defendant is directed to rise so we all can take a look at his mug.”

Weinstein elbowed O’Donnell in the ribs, then blew Stacey a kiss. O’Donnell struggled to his feet. The people in the gallery hissed. At the opposite table, the foundation’s attorney floated on a perfect cumulus cloud. He was dressed in a long white robe; a halo circled his head.

“What’ll it be?” said the judge. “Testimony evaluated by an impartial jury, or would you two rather just duke it out?”

“Duke it out,” said O’Donnell.

“That’s what I say,” said the judge. “Let’s hear the evidence.”

A young boy materialized on the witness stand. He looked like a normal teenager except for the tomato plant growing out of his shoulder. The tomatoes were ripe enough to pick.

“I grew up next to a field sprayed with SuperGro Microbial Frost Retardant produced by that man.” The boy leveled a leafy finger at O’Donnell. “The tomatoes were very juicy.”

He pulled one from the plant and offered it to the judge.

“Not on your life, baby,” said the judge. “Next.”

The boy dissolved and re-formed as a pretty woman with vines for hair. A watermelon hung from each ear.

“I worked on a farm that used GroFast Microbial Fertilizer,” she said. “We grew watermelons in five weeks. But as you can see, progress had its price.” She tossed her head and one of the watermelons slapped the judge in the face.

“I think we’ve heard enough,” the judge said as he readjusted his surgeon’s lamp. “Has the jury reached a verdict?”

“Shouldn’t they deliberate?” O’Donnell asked. But Weinstein did not answer. Stacey sat on his lap with her tongue in his mouth.

The foreman stood and tapped the jury rail with a conducting wand. The rest of the jurors began to chant: “O’Donnell, O’Donnell, O’Donnell…”

“We the members of the jury,” said the foreman, “being duly constituted in the State of Grace, and otherwise perfectly fit to determine the issues presented here, find the defendant guilty of playing with nature and otherwise trying to make the world a better place.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” The judge looked at his watch. “Might as well sentence now. Has the jury a recommendation?”

“Sentence?” cried O’Donnell. “This isn’t a criminal trial. You can’t send me to jail. I’m a scientist. I’ve committed no crimes.”

But everyone ignored him. The jury, whose chanting had reached a crescendo, suddenly lowered its collective voice to a whisper. Slowly a new chant rose in volume: “OD, OD, OD…”

“What a clever idea,” said the judge. “Saves the state a ton of cash.”

A black suitcase appeared at O’Donnell’s feet. It began to shake, as if something insider were trying to escape, then burst open. A storm of white powder filled the courtroom, swirling, drifting, chasing people out the door. All except for O’Donnell and the disembodied chanting of the jury. He couldn’t move. The powder rose to his waist, his chest, his neck. And then it plugged his nose.

Hugh O’Donnell bolted upright. His heart thumped wildly and his hands shook. He unwound himself from the bed sheets. Gray light leaked around the edges of the thick dusty drapes. The wind was still howling outside; it felt as if the motel walls were shaking. He reached up to flick on the bed lamp. Nothing happened. He looked over at the radio/alarm clock on the nightstand. That was out, too.

Stumbling into the bathroom, he splashed cold water on his face. Another wanger of a dream. No two were alike, yet all were strangely the same: sanity and reason turned on their heads, enemies cloaked in righteousness, friends selling out to friends, and the misinformed sitting in judgment. Just like real life. He pinched water into his nostrils and shot several staccato breaths out his nose. His sinuses were clear.

O’Donnell passed a wet comb through his hair. It was quickly turning from the sandy color of his misspent youth to a scattered and premature gray. Life begins at forty, he told himself. I sure hope so. He fit his wire-rimmed glasses on his face and looped two wings of slicked hair behind his ears. He stepped into a pair of gym shorts and went out to the balcony.

The wind was gusting so hard he had to lean against it, but it was warm, like the hand driers in cheap restrooms. Clouds boiled across a gunmetal sky. The palm trees were white, their fronds turned inside out by the buffeting gale. On the parking lot below he saw a newspaper plastered against the side of a car. The full-color picture of the space shuttle Constellation bled into the pavement.

“Yo, O’Donnell.”

Freddy Aviles, dressed in an abbreviated jumpsuit, hand-walked down the balcony rail. For an absurd instant O’Donnell thought he was still dreaming. Then Aviles stopped in front of him and deftly sat on the rail; one of his pinned-up jumpsuit legs showed only a stump inside it, the other not even that. He had mocha-colored skin and a tuft of wispy black hair on his jawline that he was trying to cultivate into a beard. His muscular arms and chest bulged the metallic suit fabric as he smiled lazily at O’Donnell. A gold canine flashed briefly.