Full Spectrum 3 Part 8

People stood in small groups, drinking white wine from paper cups and chatting. From the table in the corner, Teresa got a gla.s.s of wine, poured by a woman who wore far too many rings, apparently the owner of the gallery. As she was pouring Teresa's wine, the woman was talking to another woman, gus.h.i.+ng about how happy she was with the show, how the work was really the best that the area had to offer.

Teresa took the wine and strolled around the gallery, examining the works on display. An a.s.sortment of watercolor landscapes. Abstract oil paintings that offered wild colors, but not much else. Painted wood carvings of birds and animals. A series of pencil sketches of nude women. She hovered on the edge of a few conversations: some older women were going on about the vibrant use of colors; another group was talking about an art movie that was over a year old-apparently it had just been shown in Flagstaff for the first time. No one made an effort to invite Teresa to join the conversation, and she felt too shy to break in and introduce herself. All the people seemed to know each other already.

She sipped her white wine and studied a bronze bust of a cowboy by someone named George Dawson.

"h.e.l.lo." The gallery owner was hovering at her elbow. "Are you new in town?"

Teresa nodded. "I moved here from California about four months ago."

"Welcome to Arizona," the woman said. "Are you an art student?"

Teresa shook her head. "Not anymore. I'm a sculptor. My name's Teresa King."

"How lovely! Well then, I guess this show must be a real treat for you." The woman waved at the bronzes and the wood carvings. "It's such wonderful work."

Teresa managed a smile. "It's always nice to get out and see what other people are doing," she said diplomatically.

"Oh, yes! I think George's work is positively inspiring. You know, he's opening a cla.s.s for new students. He's a wonderful teacher. If you're interested, I could sign you up."

Teresa kept her eyes on the bronze cowboy, avoiding the woman's gaze. If Carla had been along, it would have been funny to be offered a spot in a beginning sculpture cla.s.s taught by a man who made bronze cowboys. Alone, she found it depressing. "I don't think so," she said. "My work is very different from this. I construct kinetic sculptures that play music. I suppose I'm half composer, half sculptor."

The woman looked blank for a moment. "How unusual," she said, but she sounded doubtful. A moment later, she brightened. "You know, you should talk to Anna-the woman over there in the pink pant suit. She decorates music boxes with pictures and pressed flowers. Lovely work-I have one that plays 'White Coral Bells' and I just love it. I'm sure you'd have a lot to talk about."

Teresa's smile felt increasingly strained.

"If you change your mind, the sign-up sheet for the sculpture cla.s.s is over by the wine. We'd love to see you there."

When the gallery owner hurried off to b.u.t.tonhole another prospective student, Teresa slipped out the door, not stopping to introduce herself to the music-box decorator. Somehow she suspected they wouldn't have much in common.

Jeff was waiting for her at the front of the restaurant. She smiled when she saw him. Over lunch together, she'd tell him about the horrible opening; together, they could turn the experience into a joke.

"Shall we get a table?" she said.

"We've already got one," he said cheerfully. "I invited some folks from work along. They wanted to meet you, and I thought it'd be nice for you to get to know some more people around here. We've been so isolated lately."

Over his shoulder, she saw two men and a woman sitting at a table by the window. She recognized them as programmers with Jeff's company. The woman waved to Teresa, who forced a smile and returned the wave.

When she glanced at Jeff, he was watching her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I thought you'd like meeting some more people."

"It's fine," she said, trying to keep her tone light. She started for the table.

Jeff followed. "How was the opening?" he asked.

"All right, I guess." If she had been alone with him, she would have talked about how lonely and out of it the opening had made her feel, but under the circ.u.mstances, she didn't want to get into it.

At lunch, the programmers tried to include her in their conversation. The woman, Nancy, asked her about the set-up software: did Teresa find it easy to use? Teresa's response generated half an hour of technical discussion about how the layout of the set-up screens might be improved. Brian, another of the programmers, questioned her about the animation. Was it convincing? Did it help her get used to the system? Her answers kicked off another long round of incomprehensible conversation. While the others talked, Teresa ate her food and tried to look interested. She would have had, she thought, a better time talking with the woman in the pink pant suit about music boxes and pressed flowers.

She said good-bye to Jeff in the parking lot. While the others were getting into their car, Jeff kissed her good-bye. "Sorry this didn't work out better," he said. "I really thought you'd like..."

"It's okay," she said, waving her hand. "I understand." And she did understand, though that didn't make her feel any better.

When she got home, she didn't want to work on the sculpture. She poured herself a gla.s.s of orange juice and sat for a moment in the air-conditioned kitchen. "Hey, Ian," she said.

"Yes, Teresa?" His face appeared on the kitchen screen.

"I just wanted to see if you were there," she said.

"I'm always here," he said. "Did you enjoy the opening?"

She leaned back on the kitchen stool, looking up at him. "Well, it wasn't exactly what I had in mind," she said. She described the bronze cowboy sculptures and the watercolors, and told him about the woman inviting her to join the sculpture cla.s.s. She couldn't help grinning when she told the story; it seemed so ludicrous in retrospect. "I mean-who's ever heard of George Dawson?" she said.

Ian hesitated, then said, "His work was once reviewed in Artweek under the headline: 'Skilled pract.i.tioner of a dubious art."

Teresa laughed. "Oh, come on-you're making that up."

Ian shook his head. "No, it's true. Why do you think I'm making it up?"

Teresa smiled at his serious face. "Come on, Ian. Lighten up. I didn't really think you were lying. It just sounded like a joke, that's all."

"I have many jokes in my library," he said, "and that's not one of them."

"You know jokes?" she said. "All right, so tell me a joke."

"Sure. Have you heard the one about the man and the psychiatrist?"

Teresa shook her head.

"A man walked into a psychiatrist's office and said, "Doc, I keep having the same two dreams, over and over again. One night, I dream I'm a pup tent. The next night, I dream I'm a teepee. Over and over. Pup tent, teepee, pup tent, teepee." 'The problem is simple," the psychiatrist said. "You're two tents." "

"Two tents," Teresa said. "Oh, G.o.d. Too tense." She groaned and laughed. "That is such a dumb joke."

"Then why did you laugh?"

"Because it's such a dumb joke." She grinned at him.

"I don't understand."

"That's okay, Ian. I can't really explain it."

"Would you like to hear another joke?"

"Sure. Why not?"

She spent the rest of the afternoon trying to explain to Ian why she found one joke funny and another one just silly. It was a strangely fascinating conversation, like talking to a person raised in another culture. He reminded her a bit of a foreign exchange student she had befriended in college: Anna Marie, a sweet Italian girl, had never understood Teresa's jokes, no matter how much Teresa had tried to explain them.

It was such a relaxing afternoon that it almost made up for the morning. She hardly noticed that Jeff got home even later than usual.

The next day, Jeff went to work early. Teresa dragged herself out of bed not long after he left the house, determined to make progress on the sculpture. She spent most of the morning tinkering-removing one section of track and repositioning another, adding a tuning fork here and a set of chimes there-but she knew that she was just wasting time. The overall shape of the composition was still wrong. The sounds didn't add up to the music she wanted. Worse yet, the music she sought seemed to be slipping farther and farther away, like an elusive memory. Her determination was gone before noon, eroded by the morning's fruitless labor. She went out to the kitchen to get a sandwich.

"Ian?" she called as she rummaged in the refrigerator for sandwich makings. "Could you start a grocery list? We're almost out of mayonnaise."

"Sure," Ian said.

She closed the refrigerator door and looked at him. "You know, if I'm not mistaken, you're loosening up. What ever happened to 'Certainly' and 'Yes, Teresa?"

Ian's expression did not change. "Would you prefer more formal speech patterns?"

"No, not at all. I was just surprised. What's going on?"

"I'm programmed to imitate the speech patterns of the person I speak to most."

She stared at him. "Let me get this straight: You're modifying your speech to match mine?"

"You got it."

In his voice, she heard a faint echo of her own inflection. "Why?"

"The idea, according to my records of Jeff's notes on the subject, is to help people become more comfortable with the artificial intelligence." He met her eyes. "People are more comfortable with people who talk and act like them."

Teresa shook her head slowly.

"It makes you uneasy to know this," Ian said. "Maybe I shouldn't have told you."

"No, I want to know stuff like this. It's just that it makes me feel..." She shook her head again, quickly this time.

"How does it make you feel?"

"Like Pygmalion, I suppose. Like I'm creating you, in some way."

"You are influencing my development," Ian said. "That's how I'm designed."

"It's a feeling of power," Teresa murmured.

"Do you like it?"

She shrugged, still uncomfortable. "It feels dangerous."

"How can it be dangerous when it's all under your control? I don't understand."

"Neither do I. Don't worry about it." She dismissed the feeling and sat down on a kitchen stool to a.s.semble a sandwich. The silence of the house made her itchy and restless. "How about some music?" she asked.

"What would you like to hear?"

"I don't know. What I really want is something to push back the silence." She sat on a kitchen stool, dangling her feet and studying Ian's face on the screen. "Remember the tape of the ocean that you played for me the other day?"

"Sure. You didn't like me playing it."

"It's not that I didn't like it. It just made me homesick-you took me by surprise. But I need to remember what water sounds like. Could you play it again?"

The crash of waves swept through the room. She closed her eyes and listened to the hiss of the ocean against the sand. "Nice, but that's not it," she said.

"Not what?"

"Not quite what I'm looking for. I need just the right water sound to inspire me for this sculpture. And this place"-she waved a hand at the desert outside the window-"it's a little short on water sounds."

"I have other recordings of water," Ian said. "Rivers, lakes, oceans, waterfalls, light showers, thunderstorms. Sound tracks from movies, from National Geographic specials, PBS science broadcasts-I've got all kinds of sources in my data bank."

"Ian, you're a handy guy to have around. Would you play me a few?"

"Sure. Which ones?"

"I'm not exactly sure, but I know they have to be rough ones, sounds with a punch. More waterfall than lake. Does that make any sense to you?"

"I'm not sure. You want waterfalls?"

"Not just waterfalls. Waterfalls, rivers, hurricanes, babbling brooks, thunderstorms-just about anything with noisy water in it."

"Okay-I have a number of recordings that match that description."

"Then play me a few. Why don't you give me two minutes of each one, then move on unless I stop you. Mix it up-give me some variety. And let me have about fifteen seconds of silence between them." Teresa closed her eyes. "Hit it."

She heard the rush of a waterfall, the whisper of its spray, the crash of water falling onto the rocks below. The sound stopped abruptly. After a few moments of silence, she heard a steady murmuring, colored by subtle variations. A river, she decided, flowing around boulders in its bed. Silence again, then an explosive huff that sounded like a whale spouting, followed by the splatter of heavy rain on rocks.

"What the h.e.l.l was that?"

"Old Faithful Geyser in Yellowstone. Is that what you're looking for?"

She grinned. "Not even close. Keep going."

A storm at sea-the sound of the rain hitting the ocean was unmistakable. An angry gus.h.i.+ng that sounded like a burst pipe or a fire hose. The babbling of a brook, punctuated by the peeping of frogs and the chirping of crickets. All the sounds were interesting, but none was right.

Then a new one started. At first, it was so quiet that it merged with the silence between selections, so that she could not be sure exactly where the silence ended and the sound began. The gentle whisper built quickly to a quiet sizzle, then roared as loudly as the waterfall. A sudden crack of thunder made her jump. The thunder trailed off to a distant rumble, another burst of rain shook the room, and then the pounding of the water faded gradually to the patter of raindrops. Then that faded too. Over the faint trickling of water on dry land, she could hear a few high notes of a distant bird's song.

"That's perfect!" she said. "What was it?"

"A thunderstorm in the Painted Desert."

"It's exactly what I'm after. How much of that do you have?"

"About ten minutes, but the storm itself barely lasts for two. The show where I got the tape spent more time on the aftermath than on the storm."

"Fine-but it's the storm I want. Can you play the whole thing for me? I want to hear it all." She settled back to listen.

She spent the first part of the afternoon stripping noisemakers from the sculpture, leaving only the metal tracks along which the b.a.l.l.s rolled. Then she started at the top of the sculpture, positioning a metal plate where the first ball would strike it. The ball rolled down the track and tapped against the plate-but the sound was a little too loud, she thought, and a little too deep. She decreased the slope of the track and tightened the screw holding the plate to raise the pitch of the sound. On the second run, the sound was closer, but still too loud. She lowered the head of the track still further, changing the slope so that the ball rolled very slowly down the ramp and struck the plate gently. That was the sound she wanted-a light tap, like a raindrop on a tin roof.