Drunkard's Walk

Carl was oblivious of the President, of Cornut, of everything except the fact that the chemist by his side knew something that Carl himself wanted to know. The information was there; he went after it. 'I don't seem to make myself clear. What I want to know, Greenlease, is how I can visualize the exact structure of a molecule. Do you follow me? For example, what colour is it?'

The chemist looked uncomfortably at St Cyr, but St Cyr was apparently absorbed. 'Well,' he said. 'Uh. The concept of colour doesn't apply. Light waves are too long.'

'Ah! I see.' Carl was fascinated. 'Well, what about the shape? I've seen those tinker-toy constructions. The atoms are little balls and they're held together with plastic rods - I suppose they represent connecting force. Are they anything like the real thing?'

'Not much. The connecting force is real enough, but you can't see it - or maybe you could, at that' (Greenlease, like most of the faculty members present, had had a bit more than enough; he was not of a temper to try to interpret molecular forces in tinker-toy terms for professors who, whatever their status in Number Theory, were physical-chemical idiots) 'if, that is, you could see the atoms in the first place. One is no more impossible than the other. But the connecting force would not look like a rod, any more than the gravitation that holds the moon to the earth would look like a rod ... Let's see ... Do you know what I mean by the word "valence"? No. Well, do you know enough atomic theory to know what part is played by the number of electrons in - Or, look at it a different way.' He paused. By his expression, he was getting seriously annoyed, in a way he considered unjust - like an ivory hunter who, carrying a .400 Express in his crooked arm, cannot quite see how to cope with the attack of a hungry mosquito. He seemed on the point of reviewing atomic structure back through Bohr and well on the way to Democritus. 'I'll tell you what,' he said at last, 'stop around tomorrow if you can. I have some plates made under the electron microscope.'

'Oh, thank you!' cried Carl with enthusiasm. 'Tomorrow - but tomorrow I'll be off on this con—' he smiled at St Cyr - 'tomorrow I'll be with the Field Expedition. Well, as soon as I get back, Greenlease. Don't forget.' He warmly shook hands as the chemist took his leave.

Cornut hissed angrily, 'That's what I want to talk to you about.'

Carl looked startled but pleased. 'I didn't know you were interested in my little experiments, Cornut. That was quite fascinating. I've always thought of a molecule of silver nitrate, for example, as being black or silvery. Perhaps that's where my work has gone wrong. Greenlease says—'

'No. I'm not talking about that. I mean the Field Expedition. I can't go.'

An observer a yard away would have thought that all of St. Cyr's attention was on Wahl; he had lost interest in the dialogue between Carl and Greenlease minutes before. But the old head turned like a parabolic mirror. The faded blue eyes radared in on Cornut. The slow metronome ticked, 'You must go, Cor-nut.'

'Must go? Of course you must go. Good heavens, Cornut - Don't mind him, President. Certainly he'll go.' 'But I have all the Wolgren to get through—'

'And then a su-i-cide to com-mit.' The muscles at the corner of the mouth tried to twitch the blue lips upwards, to show that it was a pleasantry.

But Cornut was nettled. 'Sir, I don't intend to—'

'You did not in-tend to this morn-ing.'

Carl interrupted. 'Cornut, be quiet. President, that was distressing, of course. I've had a full report on it, and I believe we can pass it off as an accident. Perhaps it was an accident. I don't know. It would have been quite easy to pick up the paper-knife in error.'

Cornut said, 'But—'

'In an-y case, he must go.'

'Naturally, President. You understand that, don't you, Cornut?' 'But—'

'You will take the ad-vance plane, please. I want you to be there when I ar-rive.' 'Very well. It's settled, then.'

'But—' said Cornut, but he was destined never to get a word deeper into that thought; through the mill of faculty came a man and a woman with the tense, nervous bearing of Townies. The woman carried a photo-taper; the man was a reporter from one of the nets.

'President St Cyr? Yes, of course. Thanks for inviting us. Naturally, we'll have a whole crew here when your expedition gets back, but I wonder if we can't get a few photographs now. As I understand it, you've located seven aboriginals. Seven? I see. It's a whole tribe, then, but seven are being brought back here. And who is the head of the expedition? Oh, naturally. Millie, will you be sure to get President St Cyr?'

The reporter's thumb was on the trigger of his voice-taper, getting down the fact that nine faculty members were going to bring back the seven aborigines, that the expedition would leave, in two planes, at nine o'clock that night, so as to arrive at their destination in early morning, local time; and that the benefits to anthropological research would surely be beyond calculation.

Cornut drew Master Carl aside. 'I don't want to go! What the hell does this have to do with mathematics, anyhow?'

'Now, please, Cornut. You heard the President. It has nothing to do with mathematics, no, but it is purely a ceremonial function and a good deal of an honour. At the present time, you should not refuse it. You can see that some rumours of your, uh, accidents have reached him. Don't cause friction.'

'What about the Wolgren? What about my, uh, accidents? Even here I nearly kill myself, and I'm all set up. What will I do without Egerd?'

'I'll be with you.'

'No, Carl!'

Carl said, speaking very clearly, 'You are going.' The eyes were star-sapphires.

Cornut studied the eyes for a moment, and then gave up. When Carl got that expression and that tone of voice, it meant that argument served no further useful purpose. Since Cornut loved the old man, he always stopped arguing at that point.

'I'm going,' he said. But the expression on his face would have soured wine.

Cornut packed - it took five minutes - and went back to the clinic to see if diagnostic space was free. It was not. He was cutting his time very close - take-off for the first plane was in less than an hour - but mulishly he took a seat in the reception room. Stolidly he did not look at the clock.

When the examination room was available things went briskly. His vital statistics were machine-measured and machine-studied, his blood spectrum was machine-chromatographed, automatically the examining table was tipped so that he could step off, and as he dressed a photoelectric eye behind his hanging garments glanced at him, opened the door to the outside corridor and said, 'Thank you. Wait in the outer office, please,' from a machine-operated tape.

Master Carl, in a fluster, found him waiting.

'Good God, boy! Do you know the plane's about to take off? And the President specially said we were to go in the first plane. Come on! I've a scooter waiting...'

'Sorry.'

'Sorry? What the devil do you mean, sorry? Come!'

Cornut said flatly, 'I agreed to go. I will go. But, as there is some feeling, shared by yourself, that the medics can help keep me from killing myself, I do not intend to leave this building until they tell me what I must do. I am waiting for the results of my examination now.'

Master Carl said, 'Oh.' He glanced at the clock on the wall. 'I see,' he said. He sat down beside Cornut thoughtfully.

Suddenly he grinned. 'All right, boy. The President can't argue with that.'

Cornut relaxed. He said, 'Well, you go ahead, Carl. No reason for both of us to get in trouble—'