Twistor (18 page)

'He doesn't have to work with Allan,' Vickie said. 'We'd just gotten him calmed down when the subject of secrecy came up. He'd have blown up all over again. And that reminds me, David, what was his reaction to the bugging business?'

David sighed. He didn't want to spoil their evening together with the subject of Allan Saxon and his temper tantrums, but this was something she needed to know. He described to Vickie his encounter with Saxon that afternoon. 'He said he's going to move our experiment to his company lab in Bellevue so that it'll be "better protected." ' David stopped abruptly, trying to control his anger.

Vickie looked upset. That's awful, David. Can he do that?'

'I told him that I wasn't going to help in doing anything of the kind. I said I was employed by the university, not by his company. I said I'd quit before I'd allow our experiment to be moved. It was about then that he ordered me out of his office. But I think maybe he'll come around when he's cooled down and has a chance to think about it.' David considered that. He wished he were more certain that Allan could be convinced.

'David! Would you actually quit?' Vickie's voice sounded higher in pitch.

'Damn right I would,' said David. 'I hadn't told you
or
Allan yet, Vickie, but a few weeks ago I got a good job offer from Cal-Berkeley for a tenure-track assistant professor position, starting in September of next year. We're still negotiating over details like salary, start-up money, and teaching load. I haven't accepted yet, but it's one of the best departments in the country. I think I could easily arrange to go there earlier than September.' David noticed that Vickie was growing visibly more upset. He paused, searching for what to say next.

'I'd feel like a louse, though, leaving when your thesis project is only half done,' he hurried on, 'and with you getting little or no help from Allan.'

'I couldn't stand in the way of an opportunity like that, David,' she said, frowning.

'But what Allan wants to do is simply unacceptable,' he continued. 'I'm seriously thinking of leaving this place. Look, Vickie, if it comes to that, why don't you come with me to Berkeley?'

'David?' said Vickie, wide-eyed. 'What are you suggesting?'

David stopped short, considering how that had sounded. He himself was more than a little confused by what he had just said, by what he really wanted. 'My intentions are honorable, ma'am,' he mugged, trying to regain his balance. 'Or mostly honorable,' he added with a crooked grin. 'I'll bet I can get you graduate status there so you can finish your thesis doing a proper investigation of the twistor effect. It's our discovery, and Allan's trying to run away with it. But Allan doesn't understand half of our tricks with the field coils. He couldn't reproduce the work without us, not if he had to start from scratch.' The thought of going to Berkeley and leaving Vickie here suddenly wasn't acceptable.

She shook her head. 'David, look, I've invested over three years in graduate school here. I've made good grades in the courses, I passed the qualifying exam on the first try, and in another year, or maybe two, I should
have
my Ph.D. I can't just pick up and leave. I'd have to start all over again.' Her lower lip trembled.

'OK, I know it's complicated,' said David. 'But it's not impossible. On Monday I'll find out what is possible. Maybe it's not as hard to switch schools as you think. There are waivers and special permissions and things. But here's the worst part. I'm not sure that you can finish your thesis here if Allan hauls our equipment away. Just before he threw me out of his office, I asked him what would happen to your thesis project if he did decide to move the equipment. He said something about maybe finding you a new project. I'm afraid that he's not going to let valuable hardware be used for a mere thesis. Not if there's big money to be made with it. Look, there has to be a way—'

'Shit!' said Vickie, taking a gulp of her wine.

The formally clad waiter, arriving with their poached salmon with hollandaise sauce and wild rice, looked rather offended.

David felt better after the excellent meal. He sipped the last of his Gewürztraminer and looked speculatively at Vickie as he considered the shape of the evening. He'd turned on the old Harrison charm and she was more relaxed now, in the glow of the fading sunset silhouetting the Olympics. Perhaps a stroll on the beach, a nightcap at his apartment, and who knows . . . Their eyes met. 'It's still warm enough for a walk on the beach down at Golden Gardens,' he said. 'Would you like that?'

She considered him for a moment over her wineglass. 'David,' she said at last, 'I'd love that, but I have a problem. I mean, another problem besides Allan. My brother is up to something, and I have to watch him very closely. The judge in California told him to stay strictly away from computers. But last night I caught him using my account on the Physics HyperVAX, and doing . . . dangerous things. When we were leaving tonight, I had
the
distinct feeling that he wanted me out of the house because he's up to something again. I have to go home to check on him soon . . . I'm afraid I'm not very good company when I'm worrying about William.'

David covered his disappointment. 'Sure, Vickie,' he said, cocking his head to one side.
'
It would be good for me to turn in early for a change anyhow. We've been working pretty hard lately. Another time when we're not so tired, OK?'

'Deal!' said Vickie with a faint smile. She turned to study the dying sunset.

David looked across at his passenger as they headed east from Shilshole on Northwest Market Street through the Ballard business district, wondering just what had gone wrong. He felt depressed. She'd been nice about it, but he'd definitely been rejected, he decided. Judged and found wanting. He supposed he'd been 'self-centered,' as Sarah would have put it, in trying the romantic route with Vickie when she was concerned about her brother, her thesis, and her whole future. His mind churned in agitation as he drove under the Aurora bridge and into the Wallingford district. This would not do.

When they reached the old house on Densmore, he asked if he might come in for a while to talk. She looked at him for a long moment and then said, 'Sure.'

Vickie showed him into the long narrow living room. Two of her male housemates were seated on the orange sofa near the front window gazing at the fading flatscreen TV that hung on the wall. Vickie led David the length of the room to an over-the-hill overstuffed chair, one of a pair facing away from the window, well away from the TV.

'I'll be right back,' she said. 'I need to see what William is up to.'

The housemates, an overweight fellow with a blond crewcut and a smaller man with wiry black hair and a
ringing
voice, were watching a cablecast of a pro football game. There were cheers as their favored team took possession of the ball. A beer commercial followed.

In about five minutes Vickie returned. She sat down in the empty chair, poking some of the herniated cotton back in place. 'He actually was writing a paper for his English class. I'm relieved.' She glanced at David. He was feeling uncomfortable.

'I feel the need to clear the air a bit,' he said, looking across at her. 'I have a sense of things heading in the wrong direction. What I wanted to say is that I like you. A lot. I want to see more of you. A lot more.' He looked at her, almost as if waiting for a blow. From across the room there were moans from the TV watchers as a pass went incomplete. 'Shit!' said the wiry-haired man.

She considered him. 'OK,' she said, 'refreshing honesty. I like that. You're a wonderful person, David. I like you too. I feel a sort of "gradient," you know, a sense of rising intensity.

'But we have a good working relationship right now. A very good one. Unique and rare. We're getting things done, and it's very exciting. Sometimes I can't quite believe it, it's so exciting. It's why I went into physics in the first place. I can't do anything that would endanger that.'

'Go, man!' the big blond shouted from across the room, as a back broke through the line for good yardage. Victoria looked momentarily annoyed.

'What would happen to all of that,' she continued, 'if we were to get involved and then it didn't work out? We would have destroyed something very valuable.'

David looked at her directly. 'Yes, I know that argument,' he said. 'I've thought about that a lot over the past week. What you just said is what I've told myself perhaps a hundred times. I guess I've decided that you're worth the risk.' He grinned at her. 'I think that we can build on the rapport we've already established. I want
to
try. And if things should not happen to work out, though I can't visualize that, well, I'm not a vindictive person. I've never had problems being friends with former lovers . . . ' Before he completed the sentence he realized that he had said the wrong thing.

Vickie winced. 'I have,' she said in a small voice, and was far away for a moment. Then she looked at him and smiled, but her eyes looked damp at the corners.
'
OK,' she said. 'I've never planned anything this rationally before, but why not? We do have a huge amount of data to collect, starting early tomorrow morning. So let's wait to go out again, until maybe the middle of next week when things ease off a bit. Perhaps our problems with Allan will be resolved by then, too . . . '

'And we can try to get to know each other,' David finished.

'
Yes, I'd like that,' she said. Her smile must have had several kilowatts of power behind it.

'OK!' said David, feeling that somehow he had risen through a dense cloud into the sunlight. From across the room there was a roar of appreciation as the favored team scored. 'Yeah! Touchdown!' yelled the blond, and the smaller man stood and clapped.

Vickie walked David to the door.

Alone at his apartment later, he felt her lingering kiss on his lips for a very long time.

12

Sunday Morning, October 10

Vickie awoke feeling wonderful. She lay for a while in the bed, savoring the vague feeling of heightened well-being. David, she thought. Am I falling in love with David? Her skin tingled, as if the blood were rushing through her body at a greater speed than usual, vibrating as it went.

She rose, put on her robe, and padded down the hall to the bathroom. The long shower didn't wash the feeling away. If anything, it made it more intense. As she dried off with the rough towel, her skin seemed to sing. Thoughtful, she collected her toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush and a few other items in a small plastic zip-bag.

Back in her room, she slipped the zip-bag and a few articles of clothing into her backpack. Might as well be prepared, she thought.

David hadn't slept at all well. He had gone to bed early and awakened after about an hour, thinking of Vickie. The rest of the night he had alternated between restless dozing and thinking of the previous evening and how he might have managed it better. Finally toward morning he had drifted off, only to be awakened by the cruel rasp of the alarm.

Now he stared at his face in the mirror as he shaved. He looked awful, he thought. He was hung up. Hooked. And she didn't want to see him outside the lab until the middle of next week. That was infinitely far away. This was only Sunday.

But everybody has to eat, even Vickie. He checked the
freezer.
There was a stack of prepounded and -floured scallops of veal, each wrapped separately. They had cost him some considerable trouble to locate at the Pike Place market and to prepare properly. Scaloppine Marsala. And perhaps a light burgundy, the Beaujolais nouveau maybe. No, rather one of those excellent Spanish Rioja reds. The Marqués de Riscal's product was still well represented in his closet 'cellar.' There was frozen broccoli in the freezer and a jar of Romanian artichoke hearts in the pantry. Not bad.

'
Be prepared,' he'd learned in the Boy Scouts. Well, he was.

When Victoria arrived at the laboratory at 7:58 A.M., the first thing she did was to start checking the room. With the high-frequency scope at maximum sensitivity she'd been able to pick up a few FM stations and some SCR spikes from the electrical power lines, but no bugs. David, arriving with a thermos of coffee and a huge Danish pastry, had helped with the bug search. He'd suggested that it was his singing that had driven them away.

Over the coffee and Danish they had both been rather quiet. Vickie had been thinking of the previous evening and was feeling awkward with David. She had sensed that he was also off balance, and she had been careful to keep things on a professional level. David had followed her lead, and soon they had slipped into the familiar work routine.

David had decided that the radioactivity checks were next. He'd driven to the nuclear physics laboratory on the other side of the campus. There he had borrowed a disreputable-looking scintillation counter rig for gamma ray detection and used their radon source-maker to 'cook' an aluminum foil test source, transferring a few microcuries of radioactive thorium 226 to a hot spot in its center. Vickie had gone to the undergraduate modern physics laboratory on the fourth floor of Physics Hall and borrowed a thin-window ion chamber.

Now
they were set up to detect both gamma rays and charged particles. They could test for the persistence of radiation after a twistor transition. The shiny source was hanging from a thread in the center of the twistor apparatus and the counters were clamped in place just outside the field sphere.

David moved the mouse to the
region of the control computer screen and clicked. He had activated the synthesized voice from the control program, and now it began to count down.
'Five!
. . .
Four!
. . .
Three!
. . .
Two!
. . .
One!.
. .
Activating!'
it said. There was a
pop
sound. At a leisurely pace, the needle of the scintillation counter's rate-meter coasted downward to zero. On the computer screen a histogram display of counts recorded per unit of time showed a more abrupt transition to a flat-line trace.