"Yeah, I bet. You know that Vee, Jimbo, was so threatening.

I took his picture and he came right up to me and demanded to know my name and what I was doing there and. . ."

"Oh, he's a pain in the a.s.s all the time," Roz interrupted.

"He was bad enough when he was chair of NERD but now that they kicked him up to a Vee, he's insufferable. Drinks like a fish.

Did you tell him?"

Helen laughed. "No, I just yelled, 'Press', at him and got the h.e.l.l out of there.

"Just a moment ago, outside, I got a good shot of three guys that were just coming in. I think one of them was Dean Broadhurst.

One of the guys with him saw me and covered his face-- just like you see the crooks do on TV when they're taken to court."

James, the one male witness, came in with Jean and Andrea.

They were laden with Dunkin' Donut bags, coffee cups, milk and soda.

It was well past the time set for the commencement of the hearing and the six women and one man good naturedly sat down to await the pleasure of the Vee. n.o.blesse oblige never had functioned at Belmont and they didn't expect it to start now.

Upstairs, things were gradually getting sorted out. Harried custodians had removed or stacked most of the student chairs and brought in plush seats. A phone had been located trailing a long, snake-like extension cord that stretched out the door and back along the hall to the office it had been liberated from.

The university caterers had brought in a coffee, tea and Danish service which was in the process of being depleted by the administration's witnesses. Henry Tarbuck worked the room, spreading ersatz charm like a bee pollinating from flower to flower.

Chapter 5

The door to the hallway opened suddenly and Henry strode in.

He looked at Diana Trenchant and gestured toward the hearing room.

"We're ready for you now," he announced with all the smarmy triumph of an interrogator leading the way to the torture chamber.

The accused stood up. In silence, the seven witnesses grouped around hugging her and each other. The Vee watched, disgust thick as mildew around a neglected sauna, covering his face.

Disengaging, Trenchant started for the door.

"Here, take this with you just in case you lose your perspective and need to find it," urged James. He shoved an 8 x 10 inch piece of white cardboard into her hand.

On it, printed in large letters, was the legend: BEAM ME UP SCOTTY. THERE'S NO INTELLIGENT LIFE DOWN HERE!

The hearing room was about 30 feet square with no outside windows.

The front, facing the hallway contained the door. The rest of the front wall was gla.s.s, similar to the neighboring witness room, but here the curtains were tightly closed as if the room was ashamed to reveal what was to take place inside.

A large table nearly filled the room, and seated along the far side of it, nearest the front of the room, sat four members of the hearing panel. At the head of the table, with his back to the blinded gla.s.s wall, Henry had enthroned himself.

Diana was curtly directed to a seat also on the far side of the table at the back of the room. There were several chairs between her and the panel.

Across the table from the panel sat Janet Parks, the court reporter, with her back to the door. She was accessorized with a recording machine beside her and a backup tape recorder on the table.

Janet, as her profession demanded, tended to fade into the woodwork.

Dress and manner were subdued to the point where she became nearly invisible--but not to Diana. She saw kindly eyes surrounded by a round face that wanted to be jolly and laughing. She saw a possible relief from the dominant accusing eyes. Not an advocate perhaps, but at least neutrality.

An empty chair sat drawn up to the table beside Janet and there was another empty chair further down the table opposite Trenchant.

The entire setup of the room was intentionally ch.o.r.eographed to promote psychological terrorism.

Diana Trenchant and her witnesses would be interrogated by the panel while sitting in the chair beside the court stenographer directly across from the panel.

The administration's accusers would sit in the chair which was directly across the table from Diana Trenchant.

Except for when she would be testifying, Diana was seated at the place most distant from the door.

Alone.

Diana Trenchant sat down in the a.s.signed seat and arranged her note pad and doc.u.ments for easy access. For the moment, the panel was huddled together whispering so she took the time to organize her thoughts and chill out the mounting apprehension.

Here she was, sixty years old, twenty five of those working at Belmont, with never even as much as a traffic ticket citation, facing a university hearing panel. Here she was--accused of forging seven student feedback forms. The lump in her stomach and the one in her throat were trying to join together and drag the rest of her down into a black, empty tunnel of fear. Resisting the pull, she looked around the hearing room and met the eyes of the stenographer who smiled at her encouragingly.

Janet Parks had attended many hearings. Her job was to faithfully record every spoken word on her transcription machine.

Most of the time, she plied her trade in the courts but occasionally she was called out into the private sector.

She had seen a lot of people on trial and her observant eyes took in every detail.

The configuration of the hearing room had not been lost on her so when she met the eyes of the accused, Diana Trenchant, she felt a tug of sympathy. She noted Diana's pale, drawn features and erect bearing. Here was a woman, thought Janet, who would never use makeup or any other cover up. She has such a direct, honest look it's hard to believe that she is the one in trouble here. As Diana's eyes returned to her notes, Janet looked at her more closely. Not terribly well groomed, she thought, noting the slacks with casual blouse and jacket. Janet recalled that Diana was wearing jogging shoes when she walked in. Obviously, she wore her cloths for comfort, not for adornment. Janet continued her inventory: mousy brown hair--no style, blue eyes.

Tired blue eyes. Lots of wrinkles, those badges that life awarded to survivors. Must be pushing along into the sixties.

Wonder what she sounds like. Hope she's not one of those squeaky kind.

Oh, oh, the head cheese is about to start--get ready.

Henry Tarbuck consulting his notes then stated that the dean had accused Diana Trenchant of creating and submitting fict.i.tious student feedback forms.

"Responding to the dean's charge, this committee was formed and I will now introduce them. On the end is Mr. Frank a.n.u.se, director of the Informational Studies Unit."

The Vee looked fondly at Frank who nodded his bald head in acknowledgement.

A tall gangling bean-pole of a man. His head, devoid of any sort of demarcation between face and pate, appeared to float above his body like some sort of alien s.p.a.cecraft.

They had gotten together over drinks the day before and decided that they would play good cop, bad cop at the hearing. He, as chair, would affect neutrality while Frank could go after Diana and her witnesses hammer and tongs.

If anyone on this hearing panel was more anxious than himself to smash this woman, it was Frank, mused Henry. He had good reason.

It was about three years ago that. . .

Affirmative Action Officer, Kevin Goodman, sat in his office reading a letter that had just come in the campus mail.

Kevin, a black, realized that he had been awarded this position because of his permanent tan. He had thought when he agreed to take the office that he truly would be allowed to enforce federal mandates.

Now, two years into it, the bubble had long since burst.

His office was there, it appeared, only to satisfy the law that such an office be maintained. However, deans and directors of departments seldom did as he directed and if he went to the Pope, well, he found out pretty quickly that did no good.

He was actively seeking another appointment at a more enlightened and humane university. Enough was enough, but while he was still here, he would do the best he could or was allowed to do.

He smoothed the pages of the letter flat and reached for the phone.

"Professor a.n.u.se? Kevin Goodman here. Affirmative Action Office."

"Yes. What can I do for you?"