During the years that followed, he continued to experiment with these emotions. He developed new and more effective techniques for attraction. He would woo his test subjects diligently, sparing no expense, no compliment, and when they had finally fallen in love with him, he would reject them. It was gradual at first—he stopped calling, stopped sleeping over in their beds, stopped whispering flattery into their lovely ears. The subjects would begin to suspect they were losing him, just after they’d decided they wanted him, and they would double their efforts to keep him. The sex would become more adventurous, and he would enjoy these gestures as they came, then shame them later for offering themselves so freely. The invitations to dinner or the cinema or the museum would become one-sided. Eventually he would stop seeing them altogether, would scorn them without ever saying so, without ever saying goodbye or even offering the conventional “It’s not you, it’s me” line. He would simply disappear from their lives. If they had the gall to go looking for him, he would make them feel insane—as if he had been halfhearted all along, or as if he’d never wanted them at all. He never felt guilty about any of it, just curious.
These women Augustine experimented on called him the usual names: asshole, jerk, son of a bitch, dirtbag. Then there were the more clinical terms: pathological liar, sociopath, psycho, sadist. He was intrigued by these names, and there were moments when he wondered if they were correct. Asshole, certainly, but sociopath? In his twenties and early thirties, before his post in New Mexico, it seemed possible. He was observing emotions in these women that he’d never felt before, witnessing pain he’d inflicted with barely a flash of sympathy. He tried to remember: Had he loved his mother, or had he only manipulated her for his own comfort? Had he, even then, been experimenting on her to see what worked and what didn’t? Had he always been this way? The fact that he wasn’t particularly troubled by that possibility seemed to make it even more probable.
It wasn’t personal—it was never personal. He wanted to understand love’s boundaries, to see what sort of flora grew on the other side, what sort of fauna lived there. And infatuation, lust—were they different? Did they manifest with different symptoms? He wanted to understand these things clinically, to experiment with love’s limits, its flaws. He didn’t want to feel it, just to study it. It was recreational. Another field of study to explore. His real work was far loftier, but his questions regarding love were not easily answered. He never felt satisfied. And Augustine was accustomed to satisfactory answers, so he persevered.
His behavior wasn’t without consequence. Eventually he would overstep the mark. The women—the test subjects—would become too hazardous, too plentiful. He would run into them in cafés, see them at work or walking in his neighborhood. And they all knew each other, because what better way to leapfrog from one woman to the next than by exploiting the fringes of a lover’s social circle? Augustine didn’t care enough to apologize—it was easier simply to leave, to find a new observatory, a new fellowship or adjunct teaching position, and begin again. It was only a side project to him, an off-the-books experiment that was dwarfed by his real work, among the stars. He enjoyed the variety of bodies, different breasts and bellies and legs to explore when he needed a break from his research, but that was all. Occasionally he felt pity, but never compassion—he couldn’t understand the reactions he was confronted with. They seemed overblown, ridiculous.
His father was dead by the time he got his PhD, his mother in the locked wing of a mental hospital. He had no other family, no other examples of love to draw from, only blurry memories of dysfunction and an unhappy childhood. He had never been interested in television or novels. He wanted to learn from life, from observation. And he did: he learned that love was concealed by a swirling vortex of unpleasant emotions, the invisible, unreachable center of a black hole. It was irrational and unpredictable. He wanted no part of it, and his experiments only confirmed, again and again, how distasteful it all was. As time wore on he grew more fond of liquor and less fond of women. It was easier. A better, simpler escape.
In his thirties, he accepted a position at the Jansky Very Large Array in Socorro, New Mexico, home to some of the best radio astronomy opportunities in the world. Augustine was well known by then, among his colleagues, but also farther afield. He was young and photogenic, which made him popular with the media, and his work was revolutionizing his field. But he knew his contributions wouldn’t be remembered until he truly made his mark. He was at the edge, almost there, but he still needed the theory that would put his name alongside those of the pioneers of science. His reputation as a womanizing asshole preceded him wherever he went, but so did his reputation for groundbreaking, meticulous research. All the facilities wanted to host him, and he had his pick of the tenure-track posts. But Augustine hated teaching. He wanted—no, needed—to discover.
The Jansky Array was a rare departure from Augie’s optical research, but the funding practically landed in his lap, with no tedious paperwork or bureaucratic schmoozing required. Perhaps a few years of radio astronomy would be just the thing to take his research to a new level. He booked the ticket and packed his suitcase, just one, the enormous piece of distressed leather baggage that he’d been toting across oceans and continents since his undergraduate days. In Socorro they gave him a warm welcome and he settled in quickly, glad of the change of scenery and impressed with the scope of the VLA. He stayed for almost four years—longer than he’d anticipated, longer than he’d stayed anywhere since college—and it was there that he met Jean.
TWELVE
“NICE MORNING FOR a walk,” Devi said, grinning at Sully through her helmet. Aether’s reflection moved across her mirrored visor. Although she could barely see Devi’s face beneath the reflected image, Sully could make out her teeth as she smiled, wide and white beneath the glare. The stillness of the space around them was complete, like the quiet of morning before the birds begin to chirp, before the sun wakes the earth—only out here there was no daybreak, no high noon, no gloaming hour. Just this eternal moment of hush. No before, no after, just an endless sliver of time between night and day.
She felt peaceful. She felt capable. Propelling herself and the comm. dish through empty space, feeling the soft vibration of her propulsion unit, hearing the occasional transmission from Devi or Harper. The aft of the ship was looming closer—almost there. The minutiae of the installation would take hours, but she had time. She had tools. She had a plan, a partner, a team; she had a damn jetpack. It would be fine. She saw Devi touch down on the installation site in front of her and brought the payload in for a gentle landing. Devi was ready with the tethers, clipping them into place as soon as Sully got close enough, so that the new dish could float a few yards away from the ship while they reconfigured the wiring and then connected its mast to the hull. The dish swayed against its restraints, a long arm with a big round paw, waving at them. Devi and Sully tethered themselves to the site too. Loose wires floated out from the connection point like Medusa’s snaky curls. Devi arranged them meticulously and intuitively, splitting and splicing them to match the mechanics of the new comm. dish. Sully supplied the tools as Devi asked for them, clipping the spares to her utility belt.