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products to sell to their customers and to draw in new customers .
    This ongoing competition between nation-spanning giants might well have degenerated into open warfare among the megacorporations without having to resort to the needless destruction of company assets . The Corporate Court is the invisible force operating behind the scenes of the megacorporations to maintain the delicate balance between them; keeping the most powerful forces on Earth from each other’s throats and so keeping the unsuspecting citizens of the world safe from what could escalate into the most devastating war humanity has ever known .
    —Professor Henry Gallow, The Invisible Hand: The Corporate Court and World Economics, MIT&T Press, Boston, 2052
    The
Corporate Court
was called into session shortly after Lynn Osborne’s visit to her Fuchi colleague, once all of their fellow justices had arrived on the orbital. Osborne showed up early and watched the other justices slowly file into the central area of the station to take up their positions in the courtroom. The Rotunda, as the central core of the orbital was called, was made up of a single hexagonal shaft to which the other station tubes and modules connected like branches spreading out from the trunk of a great tree. It was large by the cramped standards of a space station, capable of holding the gathered justices and their trusted aides and assistants comfortably, although it was rare for all thirteen members of the
Corporate Court
to gather together in the same room. Like David Hague, most of the justices preferred to conduct their business via the Matrix, only visiting the court chambers of the Zurich-Orbital on the gravest occasions requiring utmost security. Like now.
    It was difficult to create a dignified courtroom atmosphere in the zero-gravity of the orbital, but the Court had done its best to see that tradition and the decorum were upheld. A narrow ledge ringed the cylindrical chamber. Between the ledge and the wall was a gap wide enough for the court justices to position themselves, held in padded harnesses to the wall. The ledge formed the "bench" from which they dispensed justice. It held sophisticated computer displays and information-retrieval systems linked directly into the Zurich-Orbital mainframe, one of the most sophisticated computer systems ever designed. Designed by Renraku, in fact, Osborne recalled with a bit of a chill as she ran a finger over the flat black macroplast surface of her console. Renraku’s specialty was computer architecture and, although Fuchi, Mitsuhama, Ares, and others had provided much of the hardware to build the system, Renraku had pioneered the algorithms and the software to run it.
    The floor of the court chamber was reserved for the few assistants needed on hand for any particular occasion as well. Only rarely were others allowed into the chamber with the justices. Most testimony and evidence presented to the court was carried over the Matrix using the sophisticated holographic systems built into the bench-ring, which could project nearly any image in three dimensions into the center of the chamber for all to see. But the Zurich-Orbital would not be communicating with the Matrix for now, not while the court was in session. If what Fuchi and the other megacorps believed about Renraku’s surge of new technology was true and Fuchi’s security was compromised, the Matrix could not be entirely trusted, and so the court would be isolated, cut off from the rest of the world while they heard evidence.
    Osborne carefully reviewed each justice and his or her position in her mind as they entered the central chamber and made their way to their appointed area. David Hague was one of the first to enter, and Osborne had no serious concerns about him. Hague was loyal to their mutual employer, and Osborne knew from their talk earlier that, while Hague had his doubts and concerns about Fuchi’s plans, he would do nothing to endanger his employer or his own