She insisted on driving them home, though Gordon could see no reason why he should not. Going past the beach clubs and rambling private homes, Penny said, “Those bastards”, with sudden vehemence.
“Huh? What?”
She grimaced. “After you wandered off they said you were a bungler.”
Gordon frowned. “They said that to you?”
“No, silly. They started speaking French. They assumed that of course no American understands another language.
“Oh.”
“They called you a fake. A fraud.”
“Oh.”
“They said everybody was saying that about you.”
“Everybody?”
“Yeah,” she said sourly.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
IT CAME UP OUT OF THE NOISE, SUDDENLY. ONE MINute the scope showed hash and Gordon was tinkering with a new band-pass filter, a recent circuit he’d breadboarded to cut through the noise. Then, abruptly, the NMR curves began to warp and change. He stared at the scope, unmoving. It was 11 p.m.
He brought his hand up to his lips, as if to mask a cry. The jiggling lines went on. It occurred to Gordon that he might be hallucinating. He bit his finger. No, the ragged lines remained. Quickly, suppressing his excitement beneath the urge to be precise, he began to take data.
ACTION OF ULTRAVIOAMSLDUZ SUNEYDUFK OM CHAINS APPEARS TO RETARD DIFFUSION IN SURFACE LAYERS OF AMSUWLDOP BUT GROWTH RA 18 5 36 DEC 30 29.2
RA 18 5 FGDUEL 30 29.2
RA 18 5 36 DEC 30 29.2
EFFECTS DIATOM ENZYME INHIBITED B NETWORK CHAIN REPRO ATTEMPT TO CONTACT YOU WITH T CHYONIC BEAM WREDOPRL AL POINT SOURCE CAN VERIFY RA 18 5 3MCDU DEC 30 29.2RDUTFKIGLP ASLDURMFU CAMBRIDOLR CAMBRIDG DIATOM BLOOM GHTUPDM ASANATH DEC 30 29.2 THIS VIOLATES NO CAUSAL POSTULATE UNDER WHEELER-FEYNMAN FORMULATION AS LONG AS FEEDBACK IN CAUSAL LOOP PERMITS EXPERIMENT TO CONTINUE IMPERATIVE YOU PERFORM EXPTS TO CHECK MOLECULAR CHAIN XCDEURDL 18 5 36 DEC 30 29.2 TIME DIFFERENTIAL AUSMP
“Claudia? Is that you?” It was the first time he had ever called her by her first name. “Yes, yes, is this Gordon?”
“Right. I’ve been running parallel with you. Were you people on last night?”
“What?”
“Were you running last night?” “I… no, I don’t… my student was making some measurements. I believed he finished about 6 o’clock.”
“Shit.”
“What? I’m sorry, I don’t believe I can hear you correctly—”
“Sorry, never mind. I, ah, I was running last night around 11 p.m. and I got some anomalous resonance effects.”
“I see. Well, that would be 2 a.m. here.”
“Oh yes. Of course.”
“How long did the effect last?”
“Over two hours.”
“Well, let me see, the student should be in soon; it is a little after eight. Gordon, you are up at 5 a.m.?”
“Ah, yes. I was waiting for you to get in.”
“Have you slept?”
“No, I… I was seeing if there was any more of the—the effect.”
“Gordon, go to sleep. I will talk to the student. We will run some experiments today. But you get some sleep.”
“Sure, sure.”
“I promise you we will do the measurements. But get some sleep, eh?”
“Good. Good. That’s all I want.”
“Gordon, Mrs. Evelstein, she brought over the Life magazine. Why didn’t you tell me? There was my son’s name, big as life—as Life!—and he doesn’t tell me. Weeks ago, it was, and—”
“Mom, look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I—”
“And the National Enquirer thing, she had that, too. That one I didn’t like so good.”
He breathed sourly into the telephone receiver. What time was it? Christ, 5 p.m. What was the Zinnes group getting?
“Look, Mom, I was asleep, I—”
“Asleep? At this hour?”
“I was working in the lab overnight.”
“You shouldn’t, you’ll ruin your health.”
“I’m okay.”
“But I wanted to say, about the Life, it was such a surprise—”
“Mom, I’ve got to go back to sleep. I’m worn out.”
“Well, all right. I wanted to hear your voice again, though, Gordon. I don’t hear your voice so much any more.”
“I know, Mom. Look, I’ll call you in a few days.”
“All right, Gordon.”
He hung up and went back to sleep.
The Zinnes group found nothing. Gordon could not pick up the signal again. He kept checking as the week wore on. On Friday there was a department Colloquium on plasma physics, given by Norman Rostoker. Gordon went and sat well in the back. Rostoker’s first slide was:
I Exultation
II Confusion
III Disenchantment
IV Search for the Guilty
V Punishment of the Innocent
VI Distinction for the Uninvolved
VII Burying the Bodies/Scattering the Ashes
The audience laughed. Gordon did, too. He wondered at which stage he was. But no, the whole message thing wasn’t a directed research project, it was a discovery. The fact that he was the only person in the world who believed it made no difference. “Search for the Guilty,” though, seemed to fit. He thought about it for a moment and then, in the middle of Rostoker’s talk, fell asleep.
He answered the call from Ramsey’s office and found Ramsey in the lab. The chemist had broken down the interweaving chain into a plausible configuration. Phosphorous, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon. It made sense. What was more, it fit into a class that resembled the pesticides. More sophisticated, yes—but a clear lineal descendant. Gordon smiled, still sleepy from the Colloquium. “Good work,” he murmured. Ramsey beamed. On his way out Gordon passed through the glass forest of the laboratory. He had come to enjoy its rhythms. The biologists down the hall had pens of animals for their tests and Gordon wandered down that way, feeling obscurely happy. On a cart in the hallway there were trays. In them were heaps of gutted brown hamsters, like burst potatoes. Life in the service of life. He walked away quickly.
His telephone rang at 6 p.m., as he was putting papers and books in his briefcase for the weekend. The physics building was nearly deserted and the ringing echoed.