as well as to the Board of Trustees.

"What is going on?" One of the first callers demanded, having
insisted, and gotten The Pope on the line. "You fired a good teacher
after a judge ruled that she had not received a fair hearing?"

"Our hearing panel gave her a fair hearing, sir. The newspapers have
just blown this up to sell papers," The Pope replied, holding back his
anger with difficulty and making his voice sound terribly knowledgeable.

"The judge said you didn't. I saw his order. Was the hearing open?
Did you give her all the documents she requested, or not?" The caller
was insistent.

"Well, sir, it's not that simple. Our policy is to protect the
employee so we always have closed hearings. There was no need to
produce the documents in question. The hearing panel was confident
that they were not needed."

"I don't care about how your hearing panel or how your policy goes.
I'm asking about an excellent teacher who has served our university for
nearly a quarter of a century. If she did what you have accused her of
.... good God, man! Five out of thousands--what difference could that
make? You've made yourself look silly."

The Pope took no more calls after that except from the trustees. He
could not escape their critical views but with the help of his
handpicked chairman of the board, he managed to placate most of them.

One secretary was placed full-time answering letters and the Vees were
called on to answer the phone calls and talk to any one who came to the
offices. Consumption of antacid increased astronomically in "Vice
Alley"--lair of the Vees.

PR man, Alastar and all the Vees were carefully coached to suggest to
the callers that Diana Trenchant had really done something unspeakable
and that the charge that was aired was "only the tip of the iceberg."
They also were told to hint concerning her motives. She was "thought
to have so desired the chairmanship of the department...." or "she was
delusional in her assertion that she had written any course material,
etc...." or "she was not really the type of woman that normal women,
those with husbands or boyfriends, wanted to associate with...." or....

Meanwhile, back at the court, legal papers piled up anew. Diana felt
helpless, drawn along in a maelstrom of chaos. A veritable barrage of
verbiage flew to the court, like guided missiles, from both attorneys.
They were couched in legal parlance and cushioned on expensive,
patterned vel