Factoring Humanity (7 page)

Maybe, some thought, the Centaurs had simply skipped one day for a holiday on their homeworld, or to indicate some sort of punctuation in the overall message. If that were the case, the next message would come in at 6:36 P.M. the following day, Friday, July 28.

Heather had spent much of the thirty-one intervening hours dealing with reporters; overnight, the alien messages had gone from being of no general interest to front-page news worldwide. And now the CBC was doing a live remote feed from Heather’s office.

The news crew had provided a large digital clock, which was attached to the top of Heather’s monitor with masking tape. They’d brought three cameras: one was kept trained on Heather, another on the clock, and the third on her monitor screen.

The clock was counting down. It was now two minutes to the scheduled time for the next message.

“Professor Davis,” said the black female reporter, who had a pleasant Jamaican accent, “what are you thinking? What are you feeling as we wait for another message from the stars?”

Heather had done five other TV appearances over the last thirty-one hours, but she’d yet to come up with an answer she was happy with. “I don’t really know,” she said, trying to follow the reporter’s instruction not to look directly into the camera. “I feel like I’ve lost a friend. I never did know what he was saying, but he was there, every day. I could count on him. I could trust him. And now that’s shattered.”

As she said that, she wondered if Kyle was watching.

“Twenty seconds,” said the reporter.

Heather turned to look at the computer monitor.

“Fifteen.”

She raised her left hand, fingers crossed.

“Ten.”

It couldn’t be finished.

“Nine.”

It couldn’t have come to an end.

“Eight.”

Not after all this time.

“Seven.”

Not after a decade.

“Six.”

Not without an answer.

“Five.”

Not without the key.

“Four.”

Not with it still remaining a mystery.

“Three.”

Her heart was pounding.

“Two.”

She closed her eyes and astonished herself to find that she was thinking a silent prayer.

“One.”

Heather opened her eyes, focused on the screen.

“Zero.”

Nothing. It was over.

11

Heather pushed the door buzzer outside Kyle’s lab. There was no response. She touched her thumb to the scanning plate, wondering for a moment whether he’d delisted her from the index. But the door slid aside, and she entered the lab.

“Is that you, Professor Davis?”

“Oh, hello, Cheetah.”

“It’s been some time since you’ve dropped by. It’s good to see you.”

“Thanks. Is Kyle around?”

“He had to go down to Professor Montgomery’s office; he said he would be back shortly.”

“Thanks. I’ll wait, if that’s— Good grief, what’s that?”

“What’s what?” asked Cheetah.

“That poster. It’s Dali, isn’t it?” The style was unmistakable, but it was a Dali she’d never seen before: a painting of Jesus nailed to a most unusual cross.

“That’s right,” said Cheetah. “Dr. Graves says it’s been exhibited under several names, but it’s best known as ‘Christus hypercubus.’ Christ on the hypercube.”

“What’s a hypercube?”

“That is,” said Cheetah. “Well, actually it’s not a real hypercube. Rather, it’s an unfolded one.” One of the monitors on Cheetah’s angled console lit up. “Here’s another picture of one.” The screen displayed this:

[Picture A]

“But what the heck is it?” asked Heather.

“A hypercube is a four-dimensional cube. It’s sometimes also called a tesseract.”

“What did you mean a moment ago when you said it was ‘unfolded’?”

Cheetah’s lenses whirred. “That’s an intriguing question, actually. Dr. Graves has told me about hypercubes. He uses them in his first-year computing class; he says it helps students learn to visualize problems in a new way.” Cheetah’s cameras swiveled as he looked around the room. “See that box on the shelf there?”

Heather followed Cheetah’s line of sight. She nodded.

“Pick it up.”

Heather shrugged a little, then did so.

“Now that’s a cube,” said Cheetah. “Use your fingernail to pull the tab out of the slot. See it?”

Heather nodded again. She did as Cheetah asked, and the box started to come apart. She continued to unfold it, then laid it out on the tabletop: six squares forming a cross—four in a row, plus two sticking off the sides of the third one.

“A cross,” said Heather.

Cheetah’s LEDs nodded. “Of course, it doesn’t have to be—there are eleven fundamentally different ways you can unfold a cube, including into a T shape and an S shape. Well, not
that
cube—it’s cut and scored for unfolding in that particular way. Anyway, that’s an unfolded cube—a flat, two-dimensional plan that can be folded through the third dimension to make a cube.” Cheetah’s eyes swiveled back toward the Dali painting. “The cross in the painting consists of eight cubes—four making the vertical shaft, and four more making the two mutually perpendicular sets of arms. That’s an unfolded tesseract: a three-dimensional plan that could be folded through the fourth dimension to make a hypercube.”

“Folded how? In what direction?”

“As I said, through the fourth dimension, which is perpendicular to the other three, just as height, length, and width are perpendicular to each other. In fact, there are
two
ways to fold up a hypercube, just as you could fold that two-dimensional piece of cardboard either up or down—up resulting in the shiny, white side of the cardboard making up the outside, and down resulting in the dull, plain side making up the outside. All dimensions have two directions: length has left and right; depth has forward and backward; height has up and down. And the fourth dimension, it has
ana
and
kata.”

“Why those terms?”

“Ana
is Greek for up;
kata
is Greek for down.”

“So if you fold a group of eight cubes like those in the Dali painting in the
kata
direction, it makes a hypercube?”

“Yes. Or in the
ana
direction.”

“Fascinating,” said Heather. “And Kyle finds this kind of thinking helps his students?”

“He thinks so. He had a professor named Papineau when he was a student here twenty years ago—”

“I remember him.”

“Well, Dr. Graves says he doesn’t recall much of what Papineau taught him, except that he was always finding ways to expand his students’ minds, giving them new ways of looking at things. He is trying to do something similar for his students today, and—”

The door slid open. Kyle walked in. “Heather!” he said, clearly surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.”

Without a word, Kyle reached over and flicked Cheetah’s SUSPEND switch. “What brings you by?”

“The alien messages have stopped.”

“So I’d heard. Was there a Rosetta stone at the end?”

Heather shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” said Kyle.

“Me, too. But it means the race for the answer is on; we now have everything the Centaurs were trying to say to us. Now it’s only a question of time before somebody figures out what it all means. I’m going to be very busy.” She spread her arms slightly. “I know this couldn’t have come at a worse time, what with the problem with Becky, but I’m going to have to immerse myself in this. I wanted you to understand that—I didn’t want you to think I was shutting you out, or just sticking my head in the sand, hoping the problem would go away.”

“I’m going to be busy, too,” said Kyle.

“Oh?”

“My quantum-computing experiment failed; I’ve got a lot of work to do figuring out what went wrong.”

Under other circumstances, she might have consoled him. But now, now with this between them, with the uncertainty . . .

“That’s too bad,” she said. “Really.” She looked at him a little longer, then shrugged a bit. “So it looks like we’re both going to be tied up.” She paused. Dammit, their separation was never supposed to be permanent—and, for Christ’s sake, surely Kyle couldn’t have done what he’d been accused of. “Look,” she said, tentatively, “it’s almost five; do you want to grab an early dinner?”

Kyle looked pleased at the suggestion, but then he frowned. “I’ve already made other plans.”

“Oh,” said Heather. She wondered for a moment whether his plans were with a man or a woman. “Well, then.”

They looked at each other a moment longer, then Heather left.

Kyle entered Persaud Hall and headed down the narrow corridor, but stopped short before he got to Room 222.

There was Stone Bentley, standing outside his office, talking with a female student. Stone was white, maybe fifty-five, balding, and not particularly fit; he saw Kyle approaching and signaled him to wait for a short time. Stone finished up whatever he was saying to the young lady, then she smiled and went on her way.

Kyle closed the distance. “Hi, Stone. Sorry to interrupt.”

“No, not at all. I like being interrupted during meetings.”

Kyle tilted his head; Stone’s voice hadn’t sounded sarcastic, but the words certainly seemed to be.

“I’m serious,” said Stone. “I have all my meetings with female students in the corridor—and the more people that see what’s going on, the better. I don’t ever want a repeat of what happened five years ago.”

“Ah,” said Kyle. Stone ducked into his office, grabbed his briefcase, and they headed out to The Water Hole. It was a small pub, with perhaps two dozen round tables scattered across a hardwood floor. Lighting was from Tiffany lamps; the windows were covered over by thick drapes. An electronic board displayed specials in white against a black background in a font that resembled chalk writing; a neon sign advertised Moose-head beer.

A server drifted into view. “Blue Light,” said Stone.

“Rye and ginger ale,” said Kyle.

Once the server was gone, Stone turned his attention to Kyle; they’d made small talk on the way over, but now, it was clear. Stone felt it was time to get to the reason for the meeting. “So,” he said, “what’s on your mind?”

Kyle had been mentally rehearsing this all afternoon, but now that the moment was here, he found himself rejecting his planned words. “I—I’ve got a problem, Stone. I—I needed somebody to talk to. I know we’ve never been close, but I’ve always thought of you as a friend.”

Stone looked at him, but said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” said Kyle. “I know you’re busy. I shouldn’t be bothering you.”

Stone was quiet for a moment, then: “What’s wrong?”

Kyle dropped his gaze. “My daughter has . . .” He fell silent, but Stone simply waited for him to go on. At last, Kyle felt ready to do so. “My daughter has accused me of molesting her.”

He waited for the question he’d expected: “Did you do it?” But the question never came.

“Oh,” said Stone.

Kyle couldn’t stand the question not being addressed. “I didn’t do it.”

Stone nodded.

The server appeared again, depositing their drinks.

Kyle looked down at his glass, the rye swirling in the ginger ale. He waited again for Stone to volunteer that he understood the connection, understood why Kyle had called him, of all people. But Stone didn’t.

“You’ve been through something like this yourself,” said Kyle. “False accusation.”

Stone’s turn to look away. “That was years ago.

“How do you deal with it?” asked Kyle. “How do you make it go away?”

“You’re here,” said Stone. “You thought of me. Doesn’t that prove it? This shit never goes away.”

Kyle took a sip of his drink. The bar was smoke-free, of course, but still the atmosphere seemed oppressive, choking. He looked at Stone. “I
am
innocent,” he said, feeling the need to assert it again.

“Do you have any other children?” asked Stone.

“We did. My older daughter Mary killed herself a little over a year ago.

Stone frowned. “Oh.”

“I know what you’re thinking. We don’t know for sure why yet, but, well, we suspect a therapist might have given both girls false memories.”

Stone took a sip of his beer. “So what are you going to do now?” he said.

“I don’t know. I’ve lost one daughter; I don’t want to lose the other.”

The evening wore on. Stone and Kyle continued to drink, the conversation got less serious, and Kyle, at last, found himself relaxing.

“I hate what’s happened to television,” said Stone.

Kyle lifted his eyebrows.

“I’m teaching one summer course,” said Stone. “I mentioned Archie Bunker in class yesterday. All I got were blank stares.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Kids today, they don’t know the classics.
I Love Lucy, All in the Family, Barney Miller, Seinfeld, The Pellatt Show.
They don’t know any of them.”

“Even
Pellatt
is going back ten years,” said Kyle gently. “We’re just getting old.”

“No,”
said Stone. “No, that’s not it at all.”

Kyle’s gaze lifted slightly to Stone’s bald pate, then shifted left and right, observing the snowy fringe around it.

Stone didn’t seem to notice. He raised a hand, palm out. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s just that kids today, they watch different shows, and I’m just some old fart who’s out of it.” He shook his head. “But that’s not it. Well, no, actually I guess that
is
it, in a way—the first part, I mean. They do watch different shows. They
all
watch different shows. A thousand channels to choose from, from all over the damned world, plus all the desktop-TV shit being produced out of people’s homes coming in over the net.”

He took a swig of beer. “You know how much Jerry Seinfeld got for the last season of
Seinfeld,
back in 1997-98? A million bucks an episode—U.S. bucks, too! That’s ’cause half the bloody world was watching him. But these days, everybody’s watching something different.” He looked down into his mug. “They don’t make shows like
Seinfeld
anymore.”

Kyle nodded. “It
was
a good program.”

“They were
all
good programs. And not just the sitcoms. Dramas, too.
Hill Street Blues. Perry Mason. Colorado Springs.
But nobody knows them anymore.”

“You do. I do.”