"I hope so," he said, surprising himself with the warmth he felt. Embarrassed, he added quickly, "Do I go back to the village now?"
She said indulgently, "You can if you want to, but maybe you'd like another day or two in the city. They will have kept your room at the transient hotel, and it's all paid for by the court."
"I'd like that!"
"Of course. Don't stretch it too long, Castor. There's a limit—ah." She frowned in annoyance as her screen beeped for attention. She clapped twice sharply; the satellite screen over the breakfast table blinked alive, and a face looked out at them.
It was the famous scientist and high party member Fung Bohsien, and the reason he was called Manyface was instantly apparent. His face was twitching convulsively, as though he could not make up his mind what expression he wanted to wear. Even less did he seem able to decide what he wanted to say, because his words were jumbled, interrupted, terribly confusing:
"I am looking for—no, I'm not—PLEASE!—for Bama Repub—shut up—the citizen, Pettyman Castor—aw, he's not there—PLEASE! LET HIM FIN—of Production Team—I want to watch the opera..."
"He's right here," Tsoong Delilah cut in, for the first time in Castor's experience showing consternation. She waved furiously to Castor to take her place before the screen. The old man looked at him, face working, his voices muttering to each other.
"Ah," he said. "Come to—no!—my office at—not today!—noon today because—" The voice faded to inaudible mutterings, while the expressions chased each other across the old face before, triumphantly, he finished in a rush: "My fourth part wants to see you!"
And he clicked off.
V
The university grounds sprawled over a dozen or more hectares. If Tsoong Delilah, silent and withdrawn, had not dropped him at the right building, Castor would have been lost beyond prayer. Even so, he had to ask directions twice before he found the correct wing of the Center for Neuroanatomy and Brain Studies. Then it was easy. Fairly easy.
All of the offices had nameplates on the door, CHEN Litsun or HONG Wuzhen or, rarely, BRADLEY Jonathan, but Castor recognized the one he was looking for instantly. It could have been no other, for the nameplate was three times regulation size and it said,
FUNG - HS ANG - DIEN - POTTER - SU - ANGORAK -SHUM - TSAI - CORELLI - HONG - GWAI Bohsien -Futsui - Kaichung - Alicia - Wonmu - Aglat - Hengdzhou -Mingwo - Anastasio - Ludzhen - Hunmong. Evidently Manyface had, at least, a sense of humor!
When Castor let himself in, he discovered that Many-face's secretary did too. She was an elderly Han, far past the age when most Chinese went Home to die, but not past a jocular glint in the eyes when Castor explained he had an appointment with Professor Fung. "Do you now?" she asked. "They didn't tell me, though that's no surprise. Hold on a minute while I see where he is." She punched keys for her desk screen, gazed a moment, and shook her head. "He isn't on campus. I'll try the professor's home to see if he's left yet."
"I don't want to disturb him at home," Castor ventured. The secretary laughed. It was a friendly laugh, and Castor decided that what was amusing was the concept of Professor Fung Bohsien's being any more "disturbed" than he usually was. Encouraged, Castor edged forward to peek at the keyboard as she switched to comm mode, and his mouth watered. What a keyboard! This put the inspector's puny Little rig in the shade, not to mention the rudimentary teaching screens at the Heavenly Grain Collective. There were hard-wired single-key functions for tasks that would have taken long and complicated programming instructions back at home. If they could have been done at all. He had seen setups as complicated as this on the village screens, and his heart had yearned for them. Here one was!
He could hear the wheep... wheep that indicated ringing on the other end of the line. It seemed to go on a long time. The secretary read his expression and said kindly, "He's probably there. It takes them a long time to get themselves together to answer when there's no servant, and they always have a hard time keeping them." She let it ring at least fifty times. Long past the point when Castor would have given up, she leaned forward abruptly and spoke into the phone. "Professor Fung, Pettyman Castor is here for his appointment with you."
Castor was only in the fringe of the directed sound from the screen, but he could catch what sounded like several voices babbling at once. It did not disconcert the secretary. She looked up at Castor. "He wants to speak to you himself. I'll put it on the wall screen." Castor turned toward the screen wall, and Manyface peered out at him. The old face creased and twitched and managed to spit out words:
"Welcome, Pettyman—hell if he is—Castor—WHO'S HE?—I'm sorry I am late—am not sorry!—but—ooh, it's him!—I'll be in at three—NO!—but I wanted to— PLEASE!—please wait, Castor—" There was more, but it got worse. Castor could understand almost nothing of it. What made it worse was the look—the looks—on the old man's face. It was not a handsome face to begin with. The huge football helmet was gone, but replaced by an equally huge turban of white toweling. When the screen clicked off Castor turned bemused to the secretary.
"What did he say?"
"He said to come back at three," she reported sympathetically. "Maybe he'll be here. Maybe not. I advise you to get something to eat while you're waiting. It might be a long time."
In spite of the secretary's directions it took Castor half an hour to find the student lunchroom in the Liu Piao Center. He made several false starts, got lost twice, wandered through the Astronomy & Astrophysics building with his heart hungry, took a shortcut through the Foreign History Institute lobby, with American Revolutionary War army uniforms in glass cases. He did not ask directions until the hunger gnawing at the pit of his stomach forced him to. But it was not only hunger that knotted his belly. It was envy, sick envy, and regret. If things had gone just a little differently, he might have been a student at this very university! He might long since have earned an honorable degree—might even have been allowed to go on to graduate school—to a doctorate—even to a professorship, right here, to teach new generations of the students he saw thronging the halls and walks. He pushed his tray along the steam-table line, caught between a giggling group of Han girls and a covey of Yankee ones, exchanging the same confidences in the high tongue and in English. He was pop-eyed at the wonder of being there. When he found a place at a table to eat his dumplings (two turbaned Indian exchange students sat across from him!), every mouthful tasted of what might have been. If his grades had been a little better in the village school— If his teacher had fought for him a little harder or been a trifle better connected— If he had been born Han Chinese instead of Bama Yank— If the Russians and the Americans hadn't blown each other away a century before and left the world to the surviving hundreds of millions of China and India—
If the world had been a different world, then he might have been here, not by an old freak's caprice and the chance of blundering onto a severed head, but by right. And then even Maria would have been impressed by her scholar husband!
It occurred to him that that was only the second time in forty-eight hours he had thought of Maria.
Anyway, he told himself truly, it was a wonder to be here at all. When he had finished his dumplings he watched the others to see what they did with their trays and where they went afterward. Moving after random knots of students, he prowled the student center, the snack bar, the screen rooms, the beer hall, the study lounges, the supply stores, the auditoriums. Pure heaven! What it must be like to have the right to use these facilities any time you liked...