“It doesn’t seem like a very large amount of time,” Meyer observed. “Especially to make a determination that these creatures are sapient.”

“Isabel’s a scientist and believes she knows what to look for,” Holloway said. “I suspect she believes she observed enough to know, otherwise she wouldn’t make the claim.”

“Do you support her claim?” Meyer asked.

“Isabel is aware that she and I have had differing opinions on the matter,” Holloway said, “and the last time we spoke about it, I repeated that I did not believe the fuzzys were sentient.”

“Why do you think you two have such a difference of opinion?” Meyer asked.

“You mean, aside from the fact that I discovered a sunstone seam that will be worth billions of credits to me so long as the fuzzys are determined not to be sentient,” Holloway said.

Meyer blinked at this. “I think we’re all aware you’re a ZaraCorp contractor,” she said.

“Well, besides that, I had observed the fuzzys longer than Isabel had,” Holloway said. “And while I am not a scientist and can speak only as a self-interested layman, the fuzzys initially struck me as nothing more than clever animals, like monkeys or perhaps the universe’s smartest cats.”

“Are they smart enough to be trained?” Meyer asked.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” Holloway said. “I’ve trained my dog to do all sorts of tricks, and each of the fuzzys is smarter than my dog.”

“Smart enough to learn enough tricks that could fool a biologist?” Meyer asked.

“If the biologist in this case was not an expert on xenosapience, and if her own excitement about the discovery kept her from observing certain obvious things, sure,” Holloway said.

“You’re suggesting Dr. Wangai was not observant,” Meyer prompted.

“She was observant, but I know there were some lapses,” Holloway said.

“That’s not an accusation to be made lightly against Zara Twenty-three’s chief biologist,” Meyer said.

“I’ll give you an example,” Holloway said. “After I met the fuzzys, I assigned them gender roles, based on certain assumptions I made: Males would be aggressive and boisterous, females nurturing and sweet. So I called them Papa Fuzzy and Mama Fuzzy and so on. For several days, Isabel assumed that the fuzzys were actually male and female, even though as the planet’s biologist, she knew that most animals on the planet didn’t have genders like they do back on Earth. She admitted to me that she initially assumed the fuzzys were male and female because I had told her so, and she assumed I had checked.”

“That’s a pretty substantial lapse in observation,” Meyer said. “I don’t suppose you have any evidence of this aside from your word on it.”

Holloway pointed past Isabel. “Mr. Sullivan over there heard her say it,” he said. “To be clear, Isabel did figure it out eventually. It just took a few days.”

“Because you told her otherwise,” Meyer said.

“Yes,” Holloway said. “I didn’t intend to mislead Isabel; it was just my own assumption. It was innocent. But I did end up misleading her.”

“No one’s blaming you for intentionally causing damage to Dr. Wangai’s professional standing,” Meyer assured him. “But, Mr. Holloway, is there possibly another way you misled Dr. Wangai? Not by what you told her, but by what you didn’t tell her?”

Holloway looked uncomfortable. “Yes,” he said, finally. “I suppose I did. And up here now, I’m quite embarrassed about it. I wish I didn’t have to admit to it.”

“You do have to admit to it, Mr. Holloway,” said Judge Soltan.

“I know,” Holloway said. “Of course. I think it would be easier to explain, however, if I could use the monitor Isabel set up to give you her briefing. Would that be all right?”

“How long will this take?” Soltan asked.

“I will be as brief as I possibly can,” Holloway said. “Trust me, I want to get this over as quickly as you do.”

“All right,” Soltan said.

Holloway pointed to the defense table. “There’s data that I need on the infopanel.”

“You may leave the witness stand, but you are still providing testimony and must tell the truth,” Soltan said.

“I understand,” Holloway said. He stood up, exited the stand, and walked over to the defense table, where his infopanel lay. He ignored it and went to Isabel, who couldn’t stand to look at him.

“Isabel,” he said.

“Please don’t talk to the other expert at this time, Mr. Holloway,” Soltan said.

“I’m sorry, Your Honor,” Holloway said. “But I don’t need the data on my infopanel. I need the data on hers.”

“I don’t understand,” Soltan said.

“Nor do I,” Meyer said.

“The data in Isabel’s infopanel is secure video, taken with cameras and recorders designed for scientific and legal verifiability,” Holloway said. “I am well aware that my own truth on the stand has been challenged, not the least by Isabel here. I want to be sure everyone can believe what I’m going to say, and that I haven’t tampered with the evidence I’m going to show you.”

Soltan nodded. “Dr. Wangai, please give Mr. Holloway your infopanel,” she said.

Isabel handed over the machine.

“Thank you,” Holloway said. “Are all your video records accessible?”

“I’m signed in,” Isabel said, tightly. She was avoiding saying any more to Holloway than she absolutely needed to.

“Did you change the file names of the videos?” Holloway asked.

“No,” Isabel said.

“Okay,” Holloway said. “Thanks.” Isabel didn’t respond. Holloway glanced over to Sullivan, whose own expression didn’t appear to be particularly friendly. He too had figured out the show trial nature of the inquiry.

Holloway tapped the infopanel and opened a pipe between it and the monitor. The monitor flicked on and awaited input.

“We’ve already established that Dr. Wangai, despite her considerable competence and talent as a scientist, does sometimes allow her assumptions to overrule her skills as an observer and her knowledge of this planet’s faunasphere,” Holloway said. His voice had become animated and precise; it was the voice Holloway used as a trial lawyer. Both Soltan and Meyer jumped a little at the change in tone. Holloway noted that but didn’t let the notation show on his face. “Taking my word for the fuzzys being gendered is the obvious example. But there’s another one that she missed.”

Holloway tapped the panel again, and a video played out on it: an image of Papa, Mama, and Grandpa Fuzzy sitting together in a semicircle, eating bindi fruit.

“As we all know, one of the major signifiers for sapience is the capacity for speech. Per the Cheng ruling, this means ‘meaningful communication that conveys more than the immediate and presently imminent.’ To date, three species are known to communicate at a level that satisfies Cheng: humans, Urai, and Negad. It is what each of these species have in common.

“But there is another thing that humans, Urai, and Negad also share in common: Their speech is vocalized, and the vocalization for each falls within a range that is perceivable by the human ear. In fact, it’s the humans who have the greatest range of frequencies in their speech, while the Negad have the least. The point is, we can hear when humans, Urai, and Negad are speaking.”

Holloway paused the video. “A couple of weeks ago I was visiting the new camp ZaraCorp is building to exploit the sunstone seam I discovered. While I was there, I was shown these large speakers posted around the fence line. They were blasting sound at an incredibly high decibel level in order to scare away the zararaptors and other large predators of the jungle—but while I could feel the speakers pounding away, I couldn’t hear them, because they were emitting their sound at twenty-five kilohertz. That’s higher than human hearing can register.”

“I’m waiting to hear relevance, Mr. Holloway,” Soltan said.

“Exactly,” Holloway said. “You’re waiting to hear relevance, but you can’t, because you’re listening too low. We all have been. The loudspeakers on the fence line work because the predators of Zara Twenty-three hear higher frequencies than we do. And they hear higher frequencies not for some random reason, but because it makes evolutionary sense for them to do so. Say, because their prey and other small animals make sounds in that range.”