Timescape. Part 3

Cooper's voice followed him around the large laboratory bay. To Cooper, describing an experiment was like field-stripp'mg a rifle, each part in its place and as necessary as any other. He was good and he was careful, but he hadn't the experience to go for the throat of a problem, Gordon saw, to give only the essentials.

Well, that was why Cooper was a student and Lakin a full professor.Lakin flipped a switch, studied the dancing face of an oscilloscope, and said, "Something's out of alignment."Cooper scurried into action. He tracked down the snag, setting it right in a few moments. Lakin nodded in approval. Gordon felt a curious tightness in his chest ease, as though it had been himself being tested, not Cooper."Very well, then," Lakin said finally. "Your results?"Now it was Gordon's turn to perform. He chalk-talked his way through their ideas, followed them up with the data displays. 'He gave Cooper credit for guessing there was a coded message in the noise. He picked up a recorder sheet and showed it to Lakin, pointing out the s.p.a.cings and how they were always '$?.

close to either one centimeter or 0.5 centimeters, never anything else.Lakin studied the jittery lines with their occasional sharp points, like towers jutting up through a fog-shrouded cityscape. Impa.s.sively he said, "Nonsense."Gordon paused. "I thought so, too, at first. Then we decoded the thing, a.s.signing the 0.5 centimeter intervals as 'short' and one centimeter as 'long' in Morse code." '"This is pointless. There is no physical effect which could produce data like these." Lakin glanced around at Cooper, clearly exasperated.'But look at a ranslation from the Morse," Gordon said, scribbling on the blackboard. ENZYME INHIBITED B.Lakin squinted at the letters. "This is from one sheet of recorder paper?""Well, no. Three together.""Where were the breaks?""ENZYM on the first, E INHIB on the second, ITED B on the third.""So you haven't got a complete word at all.""Well, they are serial. I took them one after theother, with just a quick pause to change paper."

"How long?""Oh ... twenty seconds.""Time enough for several of your 'letters' to go by undetected.""Well, maybe. But the structure ""There is no structure here, merely guesswork."Gordon frowned. "The chances of getting a set of words out of random noise, arranged this way--""How do you s.p.a.ce the words?" Lakin said.

"Even in Morse code there's an interval, to tell you where one word stops and another begins.""Doctor Lakin, that's just what we've found. There are two-centimeter intervals on the recordings rvveen each word. That fits--"

5 Gregory Ben ford"I see." Lakin took all this stoically. "Quite convenient.

Are there other ... messages?""Some," Gordon said evenly. "They don't make a great deal of sense.""I suspected as much.""Oh, there are words. 'This' and 'saturate'--what are the odds against getting an eight-letter word like that, offset on each side with two-centimeter s.p.a.cings?""Ummm," Lakin said, shrugging. Gordon always had the feeling that at such moments Lakin had some expression in his native language, Hungarian, but couldn't translate it into English. "I still believe it to be ... nonsense. There is no physical effect such as this. Interference from outside, yes. I can believe that.

But this, this James Bond Morse code no."With that Lakin shook his head quickly, as though erasing the matter, and ran a hand through his thin-ning hair. "I think you have wasted your time here."

"I don't really--""My advice to you is to focus on your true problem.

That is to find the source of noise in your electronics.

I fail to understand why you cannot seek it out." Lakin turned, nodded to Cooper curtly, and was gone.

An hour after Lakin had left, after the equipment was turned off or cycled down, the data collected, the lab books compiled and details filled in, Gordon waved goodbye to Cooper and walked out into the long corridor leading to the outside. He was surprised; the gla.s.s doors showed gathering gloom, and Venus rising. Gordon had a.s.sumed it was still late afternoon.

The frosted gla.s.s in each office door was black; everyone had gone home, even Sh.e.l.ly, whom he'd counted on talking to.Well then, tomorrow. There was always. time tomorrow, Gordon thought. He walked down the corridor woodenly, lurching to the side as his briefcase 5 9.banged against a knee. The labs were in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the new physics building. Because of the slope of the sh.o.r.eline hills, this end of the building gave out onto flat land. Beyond the gla.s.s doors at the end of the corridor night crouched, a black square.

Gordon felt that the telescoping hallway was swimming past him, and realized that he was more tired than he thought. He really ought to get more exercise, stay in shape.As he watched, Penny stepped into the framed darkness and pushed through."Oh," he said, staring at her blankly. He remembered that he had mumbled a promise this morning'to come home early and make supper. "Oh d.a.m.n."

"Yes. I finally got tired of waiting.""G.o.d, I'm sorry, I, I just ..." He made a gawky gesture. The plain fact was that he had completely forgotten, but it didn't seem wise to say that."Honey, you get too wrapped up." Her voice softened as she studied his face.'fiNel1, I know, I ... I'm really sorry, G.o.d I am ..."

He thought, self-accusingly, I can't even get started on an apology. He stared at her and marveled at this compact, well-designed creation, womanly and slight, making him feel bulky and awkward. He really ought to explain how it was with him, how the problems took up all the s.p.a.ce inside him while he was working on them, leaving room for nothing else--not even for her, in a sense. It sounded harsh but it was the truth and he tried to think of a way to tell her that without ..."Sometimes I wonder how I can love such a dope," she said, shaking her head, a small smile beginning."Well, I am sorry, but ... let me tell you about the set-to we had with Lakin.""Yeah, do tell." She bent over to pick up his briefcase.

She was wiry and she lifted the bulging case without difficulty, s.h.i.+fting her hips. Despite his fatigue, Gordon found himself studying the motion.

6 o Gregory Ben fordThe tightening of her skirt made her thighs leap into outline beneath the fabric. "C'mon, what you need is food." He began his story. She nodded at his words and led the way out the back and around the liquid nitrogen filling station and down into the small parking lot, where safety lamps cast shadows of the guard railings, making a stretched and warped fretwork on the fresh blacktop.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

PENNY TURNED THE IGNITION KEY AND THE RADIO.came alive, blaring a,shrill, ",P, epsi Cola hits the spot!

Twelve full ounces, that s a lot-- Gordon reached over and clicked it off.Penny pulled out of the parking lot and onto the boulevard. Cool night air fanned her hair. The strands were mousy brown at the scalp but then lightened into blond, bleached by sun and the riofine of swimming pools. A sea tang thickened the soft breeze."Your mother called," Penny said carefully."Oh. You told her I'd call back?" Gordon hoped this would chop off the subject."She's flying out soon to visit you."'vVhat? G.o.dd.a.m.n, why?""She says you're not writing her at all any more and she wants to see what the west coast is like, anyhow.

She's thinking of moving out here." Penny kept 6 2 Gregory Ben ford"Oh, Christ." He had a sudden mental picture of his mother in a black dress, walking down Girard Avenue in the yellow sunlight, peering in the windows of the shops, a full head shorter than everyone else going by. She would be as out of place as a nun in a nudist colony."She didn't know who I was.""Huh?" The image of his mother frowning at thethinly clad girls on Girard distracted him.

"She asked if I was the cleaning lady."

"Oh.""You haven't told her we're living together, have you?"A pause. "I will."Penny made a humorless smile. "Why haven't you already?"He looked out the side window, which was smeared with oil where he had been leaning his head against it, and studied the scattering of jewellike lights. La Jolla, the jewel. They were running down the b.u.mpy canyon route and the fresh, minty scent of the eucalyptus stands filled the car. He tried to lace himself back in Manhattan and look on thingsom that angle, to antic.i.p.ate what his mother wouldthink of all this, and found it impossible.

"Is it because I'm not Jewish?"

"Good G.o.d, no."' "But if you had told her that, she'd be out here in a flash, right?"He nodded ruefully. "Uh huh."''You going to tell her before she arrives?"

"Look," he said with sudden energy, turning in the bucket seat to face her, "I don't want to tell her anything. I don't want her b.u.t.ting into my life. Our life.""She's going' to ask questions, Gordon.""Let her ask."''You won't answer?""Look, she's not going to stay in our apartment, she doesn't have to know you live there, too."

TIMESCAPE.Penny rolled her eyes. "Oh, I get it. Just before she gets here, yOu'll start hinting that maybe I should pick up a few of my things that are lying around the apartment? Maybe take my face cream and birth control pills out of the medicine chest? Just a few subtle touches?"He wilted under her withering tone. He hadn't thought that clearly, but yes, some idea like that had been floating around in his mind. The old game: defend what you have to, but hide the rest. How long ago had he gotten into that pattern with his mother?

Since Dad died? Christ, when was he going to stop being a kid?' "I'm sorry, I ...""Oh, don't be a r.e.t.a.r.d. It was just a joke.". They both knew it wasn't a joke, but instead hung somewhere in that s.p.a.ce between fantasy and a reality about to materialize, and that if she had said nothing he would have stumbled his way into the suggestion eventually. It was this uncanny way she had of seeing his mind working on a problem with its blunt tools, and then leaping ahead to the spot he would reach, that endeared her to him at the most unlikely of moments. By tipping over the rock and exposing the worms underneath she had made it easy for him; there was no alternative but to be honest. "G.o.d d.a.m.n, I love you," he said, suddenly grinning.Her smile took on a wry cast. Beneath the flickering street lights she kept her eyes intently on the road. "That's the trouble with going domestic. You move in with a man and pretty soon, when he says he loves you, you hear underneath it that he's thanking you. So, you're welcome.""What's that, WASP wisdom?""Just making an observation.""How do you girls on the west coast get so smart so fast?" He leaned forward, as if questioning the California landscape outside:"Getting laid early helps a lot," she said, grinning.

64 This was another sore point with him. She had been the first girl he had slept with and when he told her that, at first she wouldn't believe it. When she'made a joke about giving lessons to a professor he had felt his veneer of eastern sophistication shucked away. He had begun to suspect, then, that he used that intellectual carapace to protect himself from rub-b'mg against the uncertainties of life, and particularly from the spikes of sensuality. As he watched the stucco beach cottages go by, Gordon thought, a bit grimly, that merely acknowledging a flaw didn't mean you had overcome it. He still felt a certain uneasiness at Penny's direct, straightforward approach.

Maybe that was why he couldn't think of her and his mother in the same world together, much less their meeting in his apartment, with Penny's clothes in the closet as silent testimonial.He impulsively reached out and switched on the radio. Its tinny voice sang, "Big gurrls don't cry--"

and he snapped it off."Let it play," Penny said."It's junk.""Fills up the air," she said meaningfully.He turned it back on with a grimace. 'Over the refrain of "Bi-ig gurrls?" he said, "Hey, it's the 25th, isn't it?" She nodded. "The Liston-Patterson fight's on. Wait a sec." He thumbed the 'dial and found a staccato announcer filling in pre-fight statistics.

"Here. They're not televising it. Look, drive on into Pacific Beach. We'll eat out. I want to hear this."

Penny nodded silently and Gordon felt an Odd sensation of relief. Yeah, it was good to get away from your own problems and listen to two guys pound each other to a pulp. He had picked up the habit of following the fights from his dad around the age of ten. They would sit in the overstuffed chairs of the living room and listen to the excited voices coming from the big brown old-fas.h.i.+oned Motorola in the corner. His father's eyes jerked back and forth, blank, see'mg the punches and feints described from a thou- e $sand miles away. Dad had been overweight even then and wheia he unconsciously threw an imaginary punch, jerking his right elbow forward, the fat flapped on his upper arm. Gordon could see the flesh move even through his father's white s.h.i.+rt, and watched to see if the ash on his cigar would jerk off and crumble into a gray stain on the carpet. It always did, at least once, and his mother would come in on the middle of the fight and cluckcluck about it and go out to get the dust pan. Dad would wink at him when there was a good punch or somebody went down, and Gordon would grin. He remembered it now as always happening in the summer, so that a traffic hum drifted up from 12th Street and 2nd Avenue, and his father always had damp crescents under his armpits when the fight was over. They.

drank c.o.kes afterward. It had been a good time.

As they entered the Limehouse, Gordon pointed to a far table and said, "Say, there are the Carroways.

What does that make our average?""Seven out of twelve," Penny p.r.o.nounced.The Carroways were prominent astronomers, an English couple recently recruited into the Physics Department faculty. They were working at the forefront of the field, struggling with the recent discovery of the quasi-stellar sources. Elizabeth was the observer of the pair, and spent a good deal of time nearby at Palomar, taking deep plates of the sky and searching for more reddened points of light. The red s.h.i.+fts indicated that the sources were very far away and thus incredibly luminous. Bernard, the theoretician, thought it pretty likely that they were not distant galaxies at all. He was working on a model which regarded the sources as expelled lumps from our own galaxy, all rus.h.i.+ng away from us at very nearly the speed of light and thus red-s.h.i.+fted. Either way, neither had the time to cook, and they seemed to prefer the same restaurants Gordon and Penny frequented.

6 Gregory Ben fordGordon had noticed the correlation and Penny was keeping track of the statistics."The resonant effect seems to be holding up," Gordon said to Bernard as they walked by. Elizabeth laughed, and introduced them to the third member of their party, a compact man with a piercing way of looking straight at people as he talked. Bernard asked them to sit at their table and soon the conversation turned to astrophysics and the red s.h.i.+ft controversy.

Partway through it they ordered the most exotic items they could find on the menu. The Lime-house was a raGher second-rate Chinese restaurant, but it was the only one in town and thescientists were all confirmed in the belief that even second-level Chinese was preferable to first-level American.

Gordon was wondering idly if this was an outcome of the internationalism of science when he suddenly realized that he hadn't caught the other man's name correctly. It was John Boyle, the famous astrophysi-cist who had a long string of successes to his credit.

It was surprises like this, meeting the very best of the scientific community, that made La Jolla what it was.

He was very pleased when Penny made a few funny remarks and Boyle laughed, his eyes studying her.

This was the kind of thing, meeting the great, that would impress his mother; for this reason he instantly decided not to tell her. Gordon listened to the ebb and flow of the conversation carefully, trying to detect what quality made these colleagues stand out from the rest. There was a quickness of mind, certainly, and a lighthearted skepticism about politics and the way the world was run. Beyond that they seemed pretty much like everybody else. He decided to try a feeler of a different sort.-"What did you think of Liston knocking out Patterson?"Blank stares."He decked him in only two minutes of the first round.""Sorry, don't follow that sort of thing," Boyle said.

6 ?.

"I should imagine the spectators would be rather miffed if they paid very much for seats.""A hundred dollars for a ringside seat," Gordon said."Almost a dollar a second," Bernard chuckled, and that got them off on a comparison of time per dollar of all human events, considered as a cla.s.s. Boyle tried to find the most expensive of all and Penny topped him with s.e.x itself; five minutes of pleasure and an entire costly child to bring up if you weren:t careful.

Boyle's eyes twinkled and he said to her, "Five minutes?

Not a great advertis.e.m.e.nt for you, Gordon."In the quick bubble of laughter no one noticed Gordon's jaw muscles clench. He was mildly shocked that Boyle would a.s.sume they were sleeping together, and then make a joke about it. d.a.m.ned irritating.

But talk moved on to other subjects and the knotting tension eased away.Food arrived and Penny continued to inject witty asides, plainly charming Boyle. Gordon admired her in silence, marveling that she could move so easily through such deep waters. He, on the other hand, found himself thinking of something original to say a minute or two after the conversation had pa.s.sed on to something else. Penny noticed this and drew him in, feeding him a line to which she knew he already had a funny reply. The Limehouse swelled with the hum of talk, the tang of sauces. When Boyle produced from his coat pocket a notebook and made an entry in it, Gordon described how a physicist at a Princeton party was writing in his notebook, and Einstein, sitting next to him, asked why. "Whenever I have a good idea, I make sure I don't forget it," the man said. "Perhaps you'd like to try it--it's handy."

Einstein shook his head sadly and said, "I doubt it. I have only had two or three good ideas in my life."This got a good laugh. Gordon beamed at Penny.

She had drawn him out and now he was fitting in well.After dinner the five of them debated going to a 6 a movie together. Penny wanted Last Year at Marienbad and Boyle favored Lawrence of Arabia, contending that since he only saw one film a year he might as well take in the best. They voted in favor of Lawrence, four to one. As they left the restaurant Gordon hugged Penny in the parking lot outside, thinking, as he leaned to kiss her, of the smell of her in bed. "I love you," he said."You're welcome," she replied, smiling.

It seemed afterward, as he lay beside her, that he had turned her on the lathe of the light slanting in from the window, reforming her in an image that was fresh each time. He shaped her with his hands and tongue. She, in turn, guided and molded him. He thought he could sense in her sure moves and choices, first this way and then that, past imprints of the lovers she had known before. Strangely, the thought did not bother him, though. he felt that in some way it should. Echoes of other men came from her. But they were gone now and he was here; it seemed enough.He panted slightly, reminding himself that he ought to get down to the beach and run more often, and studied her face in the dim gray street light that leaked into their bedroom. The lines of her face were straight, without strategies, the only curves a few matted damp strands of hair across her cheek. Graduate student in literature, dutiful daughter to an Oakland investor, by turns lyrical and practical with a political compa.s.s that saw virtues in both Kennedy and Goldwater. At times brazen, then timid, then wanton, appalled at his sensual ignorance, rea.s.suringly startled by his sudden bursts of sweaty energy, and then soothing with a fluid grace as he collapsed, blood thickening, beside her.Somewhere, someone was playing a thin song, Peter, Paul and Mary's "Lemon Tree."

6 o"G.o.ddam, you're good," Penny said. "On a scale of one to ten, you get eleven."He frowned, thinking, weighing this new hypothesis.

"No, it's we who are good. You can't separatethe performance from the players.""Oh, you're so a.n.a.lytical."He frowned. He knew that with the conflicted girls back east it would have been different. Oral s.e.x would have been an elaborate matter, requiring much prior negotiation and false starts and words that didn't fit but would have to do: "What about if we, well ..." and "If, you know, that's what you want ..."--all leading to a blunt incident, all elbows * and uncomfortable positions that, once a.s.sumed, you feared to change out of sheer unspoken embarra.s.sment.

With the intense girls he had known, all that Would have had to happen. With Penny, no.He looked at her and then at the wooden walls beyond.

A puzzled concern fhckered across his face. He knew this was where he should be urbane and casual, but it seemed more important now to get it right. "No, it's not me or you," he repeated. "It's us."She laughed and poked him.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

OCTOBER I 4, 1962.

GORDON THUMBED THROUGH THE STACK OF MAIL IN.his slot. An ad for a new musical, Stop the World--I Want to Get Off, forwarded by his mother Not likely he'd be making it to the fall openings on Broadway this year; he dropped the ad in the trash. Something called the Citizens for Decent Literature had sent him a gaudy booklet, detailing the excesses of The Carpetbaggers and Miller's Tropic of Capricorn. Gordon read the excerpts with interest. In this forest of parting thighs, wracking o.r.g.a.s.ms, and straightforward gymnastics he could see noth'mg that would corrupt the body politic. But General Edwin Walker thought so, and Barry Goldwater made a cameo appearance as savant with a carefully worded warning about the erosion of public will through private vice. There was the usual guff about the a.n.a.logy between the US and the decline of the Roman Empire. Gordon chuckled and threw it away. It was another civilization entirely, out here in the west. No censors.h.i.+p group would ever solicit university staff for contributions ? I.on the east coast; they'd know it was futile, a waste of postage. Maybe out here these simpletons thought the Roman Empire line would appeal even to scholars.

Gordon glanced through the latest Physical Review, ticking off papers he would read later. Claudia Zinnes had some interesting stuff about nuclear resonances, with clean-looking data; the old group at Columbia was keeping up their reputation.Gordon sighed. Maybe he should have stayed on at Columbia on a postdoc, instead of taking the leap into an a.s.sistant Professors.h.i.+p so early. La Jolla was a high-powered, compet.i.tive place, hungry for fame and "eminence." A local magazine ran a monthly feature t.i.tled A University on Its Way to Greatness, full of hoopla and photos of professors peering at complicated instruments, or ruminating over an equation.

california goes to the stars, California leaps ahead, California trades bucks for brains. They'd gotten Herb York, who used to be the Deputy Director of the Defense Department, to come in as the first Chancellor of the campus. Harold Urey came, and the Mayers, then Keith Brueckner in nuclear tbeor% a trickle of talent that was now turning into a steady stream. In such waters a fresh a.s.sistant Professor had all the job security of live bait.Gordon walked down the third floor hallways, looking at the names on the doors. Rosenbluth, the plasma theorist some thought was the best in the world. Matthias, the artist of low temperatures, the man who held the record for the superconductor with the highest operating temperature. Kroll and Suhl and Piccioni and Feher, each name summoning up at least one incisive insight, or brilliant calculation, or remarkable experiment. And here, at the end of the fluorescent and tiled sameness of the corridor: Lakin."Ah, you received my note," Lakin said when he answered Gordon's knock. "Good. We have decisions to make."Gordon said, "Oh? Why?" and sat down across 7 the desk from Lakin, next to the window. Outside, bulldozers were knocking over some of the eucalyptus trees in preparation for the chemistry building, grunting mechanically."My NSF grant is coming up for renewal," Lakinsaid significantly.

-.Gordon noticed that Lakin did not say "our" NSFgrant, even though he and Sh.e.l.ly and Gordon wereall investigators on the grant. Lakin was the manwho okayed the checks, the P.I. as the secretaries al-ways put it--Princ.i.p.al Investigator. It made a differ-ence. "The renewal proposal isn't due in until aroundChristmas," Gordon said. "Should we start writing itthis early?""It's not writing I'm talking about. What are we towrite about?""Your localized spin experiments---"Lakin shook his head, a scowl flickering across hisface. "They are still at an exploratory stage. I cannotuse them as the staple item.""Sh.e.l.ly's results--"''Yes, they are promising. Good work. But they arestill conventional, just linear projections of earlierwork.""That leaves me.""Yes. You." Lakin steepled his hands before himon the desk. His desk top was conspicuously neat,every sheet of paper aligned with the edge, pencilslaid out in parallel."I haven't got anything clear yet.""I gave you the nuclear resonance problem, plusan excellent student--Cooper--to speed things up. Iexpected a full set of data by o .-"You know the trouble we're having with noise.""Gordon, I didn't give you that problem by acci-dent," Lakin said, smiling slightly. His high foreheadwrinkled in an expression of concerned friendliness."I thought it would be a valuable boost to your ca-reer. I admit, it is not precisely the sort of apparatusyou are accustomed to. Your thesis problem was ? a more straightforward. But a clean result would clearly be publishable in Phys Rev Letters, and that could not fail to help us with our renewal. And you, with your position in the department."

Gordon looked out the window at the machines chewing up the landscape, and then back at Lakin. Physical Review Letters was the prestige iournal of physics now, the place where the hottest results were published in a matter of weeks, rather than having to wait at Physical Review or, worse, some other physics iournal, for month after month. The flood of information was forcing the working scientist to narrow his reading to few journals, since each one was geteing thicker and thicker. It was like trying to drink from a fire hose. To save time you began to rely on quick summaries in Physical Review Letters and promised yourself you would get around to reading the longer journals when there was more time.

"That's all rue," Gordon said mildly. "But I don't have a result to publish."

"Ah, but you do," Lakin murmured warmly. "This noise effect. It is most interesting."

Gordon frowned. "A few days ago you were saying it was just bad technique."

"I was a bit temperamental that day. I did not fully appreciate your difficulties." He combed long fingers through his thinning hair, sweeping it back to reveal white scalp that contrasted strongly with his deep tan. "The noise you have found, Gordon, is not a simple aggravation. I believe, after some thought, that it must be a new physical effect."

Gordon gazed at him in disbelief. "What kind of effect?" he said slowly.

"I do not know. Certainly something is disturbing the usual nuclear resonance process. I suggest we call it 'spontaneous resonance' just to have a working name." He smiled. "Later, if it proves as important as I suspect, the effect may be named for you, Gordon--who knows?"

"But Isaac, we don't understand it! How can we ? a call it a name like that? 'Spontaneous resonance'

means something inside the crystal is causing themagnetic spins to flip back and forth.""Yes, it does.""But we don't know that's what's happening?'"It is the only possible mechanism," Lakin said coolly."Maybe."'You do not still treasure that signal business of yours, do you?" Lakin said sarcastically."We're studying it. Cooper is taking more data right now.""That is nonsense. You are wasting that student's time.""Not in my judgment.""I fear your 'judgment' is not the only factor atwork here," Lakin said, giving him a stony look.

"What does that mean?""You are inexperienced at these matters. We are working under a deadline. The NSF renewal is more important than your objections. I dislike putt'mg it so bluntly, but--""Yes, yes, you have the best interests of the entire group in mind.""I do not believe I need my sentences finished forme."Gordon blinked and looked out the window.

"Sorry."There was a silence into which the grating of the bulldozers intruded, breaking Gordon's concentration.

He glanced into the stand of jacaranda trees further away and saw a mechanical claw rip apart a rotten wooden fence. It looked like a corral, an aged artifact of a western past now fading. On the other hand it was more probably a remnant of the Marine land the University had acquired. Camp Matthews, where foot soldiers were pounded into shape for Korea.

So one training center was knocked down and another reared up in its place. Gordon wondered ? s what he was being trained to fight for here. Science?

Or funding?"Gordon," Lakin began, his voice reduced to a calming murmur, "I don't think you fully appreciate the significance of this 'noise problem' you're having.

Remember, you do not have to understand everything about a new effect to discover it. Goodyear found how to make tough rubber accidentally by dropping India rubber mixed with sulfur on a hot stove. Roentgen found x-rays while he was fumbling around with a gas-filled electrical discharge experiment."Gordon grimaced. "That doesn't mean everything we don't understand is important, though.""Of course not. But trust my judgment in this case.

This is exactly the sort of mystery that Phys Rev Let-.ters will publish. And it will bolster our NSF profile."

Gordon shook his head. "I think it's a signal."

"Gordon, you will come up for review of your position this year. We can advance yot to a higher grade of a.s.sistant Professor. We could even conceivably promote you to tenure."

"So?"

Lakin hadn't mentioned that they could also, as the bureaucratese went, give him a "terminal appointment.""A solid paper in Phys Rev Letters carries much weight.""Uh huh.""And if your experiment continues to yield nothing, I am afraid I will, regretfully, not have very much evidence to present in support of you."Gordon studied Lakin, know'mg there wasn't anything more to say. The lines were drawn. Lakin sat back in his executive chair, bobbing with controlled energy, watching the impact of his own words. His Ban-Lon s.h.i.+rt encased an athletic chest, his knit slacks clung to muscled legs. He had adapted well to California, getting out into the welcoming sun and improving his backhand. It was a long way from the cramped, shadowy labs at MIT. Lakin liked it here 7 and he wanted to enjoy the luxury of living in a rich man's town. He would hustle to maintain his position; he wanted to stay.

"I'll think it over," Gordon said in a flat voice. Beside Lakin's st.u.r.dy frame he felt overweight, pale, awkward. "And I'll keep taking data," he finished.On the drive back from Lindbergh Field Gordon kept the conversation on safely neutral ground. His mother rattled on about neighbors on 12th Street whose names he didn't remember, much less their intricate family squabbles, their marriages, births, and deaths. His mother a.s.sumed he would instantly catch the significance of the Goldberg's buying a place in Miami at last, and understand why their son Jeremy went to NYU rather than Yes.h.i.+va. It was all part of the vast soap opera of life. Each segment had meaning. Some would get their comeuppance. Others would receive, after much suffering, their final reward.

In his mother's case he was plainly reward enough, at least in this life. She oohed at each marvel that loomed up in the fading twilight, as they zoomed along Route I toward La Jolla. Palm trees just growing by the roadside, without help. The white sand of Mission Bay, unpeopled and unlittered.

No Coney Island, here. No cluttered sidewalks, no press of people. An ocean view from Mount Soledad that went on into blue infinity, instead of a gray vista that terminated in the jumble of New Jersey. She was impressed with everything; it reminded her of what people said about Israel. His father had been a fervent Zionist, plunking down coin regularly to insure the homeland. Gordon was sure she still gave, though she never implored him to; maybe she felt he needed all his gelt to keep up with the professoring image. Well, it was true. La Jolla was expensive. But Gordon doubted if he would give anything for the traditional Jewish causes now. The move from New York had severed his connection to all that mumbo 7 7.

jumbo of dietary laws and Talmudic truths. Penny told him he didn't seem very Jewish to her, bht he knew she was simply ignorant. The WASPland she'd grown up in had taught her none of the small giveaway clues. Still, most people in California were probably equally oblivious, and that suited Gordon.

He didn't like having strangers make a.s.sumptions about him before they'd shaken his hand. Getting free of New York's claustrophobic Jewish ambience was one of the reasons for coming to La Jblla in the first place.They were nearly home, swinging onto Nautilus Street, when .his mother said too casually, "This Penny, you should tell me something about her before I meet her, Gordon.".

"What's to tell? She's a California girl."''Which means?""She plays tennis, hikes in the mountains, has been to Mexico five times but no farther east than Las Vegas. She even goes surfing. She's tried to get me to do it, but I want to get in better shape first. I'm doing my Canadian Air Force exercises.""That sounds very nice," she said doubtfully.

Gordon checked her into the Surfside Motel two blocks from his apartment and then drove her over to his apartmenL They walked into a room full of the smell of a Cuban ca.s.serole dish Penny had learned to make when she was rooming with a Latin American girl. She came out of the kitchen, untying an ap.r.o.n and looking more domestic than Gordon could remember her ever being. So Penny was putting on a bit of a show, despite her objections. His mother was effusive and enthusiastic. She bustled into the kitchen to help with the salad, inspecting Penny's recipe and banging pots around. Gordon busied himself with the wine ritual, which he was just learning.

Until California he had seldom had anything that didn't taste of Concord grape. Now he kept a stock of Krug and Martaxi in a closet and could understand ? s Gregory Ben fordthe jargon about big noses and full body, though in truth he wasn't sure what all the terms meant.His mother came out of the kitchen, set the table with quick, clattering efficiency, and asked where the bathroom was. Gordon told her. As he turned back to the uncorking Penny caught his eye and grinned. He grinned back. Let her Enovid be a flag of independence.Mrs. Bernstein was subdued when she returned.

She walked with more of a waddle than Gordon remembered, her invariable black dress bunching as her slight wobble carried her across the room. She had a distracted look. Dinner began and progressed with only minor newsy conversation. Cousin Irv was going into drygoods somewhere in Ma.s.sachusetts, Uncle Herb was making money hand over fist as usual, and his sister--here his mother paused, as though suddenly remembering this was a subject she should not bring up-was still running around with some crazies in the Village. Gordon smiled; his sister, two years older and a whole lot bolder, was looking after herself. He made a remark about her art, and how it took time to come to terms with that, and his mother turned to Penny and said, "I suppose you are interested in the arts, too?""Oh yes," Penny said. "European literature.""And what did you think of Mr. Roth's new book?""Oh," Penny said, plainly stalling for time. "I don't believe I've finished reading it."'You should. It would help you understand Gordon so much more.""Huh?" Gordon said. "What do you mean?"

''Well, dear," Mrs. Bernstein said with a slow, sympathetic tone, "it could give her some idea about ...

well ... I think Mr. Roth is--you agree, Penny?--is a very deep writer."Gordon smiled, wondering if he could allow himself an outright laugh. But before he could say anything Penny murmured, "Considering that Faulkner - 7o died in July, and Hemingway last year, I guess that puts Roth somewhere in the best hundred American novelists, but--""Oh, but they were wrHting about the past, Penn)"

Mrs. Bernstein said adamantly. "His new one, Letting Go, is full of--"At this point Gordon sat back and let his mind drift. His mother was onto her theory about the rise and preeminence of Jewish literature, and Penny was responding precisely as he could have predicted. His mother's theories rapidly became confused in her mind with revealed facts. In Penny she had a stubborn opponent, however, who wouldn't knuckle under to keep the peace. He could feel the tension rising between them. There was nothing h could do to stop it. The issue wasn't literary theory at all, it was s.h.i.+ksa versus mother's love. He watched his mother's face as it tightened up. Her laugh lines, which actually came from squinting, grew deeper. He could break in but he knew how it would go then: his voice would slide up in pitch without his notidng it, until suddenly he was talking with the whine of the teenager barely past Bar Mitzvah. His mother always brought that out in him, a triggered response.

Well, this time he would avoid that trap.Their voices got louder. Penny cited books, authors; his mother pooh-poohed them, confidently a.s.sured that a few courses at night school ent.i.tled her to strong opinions. Gordon finished his food, savored the wine slowly, looked at the ceiling, and finally broke in with, "Mom, it must be getting late for you, with the time difference and all."Mrs. Bernstein paused in mid-sentence and looked at him blankly, as if coming out of a trance. "We were simply having a discussion, dear, you don't need to get all fl.u.s.tered." She smiled. Penny managed a matching wan stretching of the face. Mrs. Bernstein poked at her beehive hairdo, a castle of hair that resisted change. Penny got up and removed plates with 8 o Gregory Ben forda clatter The pressing silence between them grew.

"C'mon, Mom. Best to go.""Dishes." She began gathering cutlery.

'Henny'll."

"Oh, then."She rose, brushed her s.h.i.+ny black dress free of invisible crumbs, fetched her bag. She went down the outside steps with a hastening step, clump clump, more rapid at the bottom, as though fleeing an undecided battle. They took an alleyway shortcut he knew, their footsteps echoing. Waves muttered at the sh.o.r.eline a block away. Fog fingers drifted and curled under street lamps."Well, she is different, isn't she?" Mrs. Bernstein said."How?"

"No, really." Though he knew."You're "she made a sign, not trusting the words: crooking her longest finger over the index tomake an entwined pair--"like that, yes?"

"Is that different?"

''Where we live it is."