Morrison rose, staring at her.
"No," he said in half a whisper. "Are you insane? Do you think I am insane? Good-bye! Good-bye!"
He turned and strode away rapidly.
She called after him. "Dr. Morrison. Listen to me."
He made a sweeping gesture of rejection with his right arm and broke into a run across the drive, narrowly dodging the cars.
Then he was back into the hotel, puffing, almost dancing with impatience as he waited for the elevator.
Madwoman! he thought. She wanted to miniaturize him, attempt this impossibility on him. - Or attempt the possibility of it on him, which would be infinitely worse.
Morrison was still shaking when he stood at the door of his hotel room, holding the plastic rectangle of his key, breathing hard, and wondering if she knew his room number. She could find out, of course, if she were sufficiently determined. He looked down the length of the corridor each way, half-afraid he might see her running toward him, face contorted, hair flying, hands outstretched.
He shook his head. This was madness. What could she do to him? She could not carry him off bodily. She could not force him to do anything he didn't want to do. What childish terror was overcoming him?
Morrison took a deep breath and thrust his key into the door slit. He felt the small click as the key seated itself, then he withdrew it and the door swung open.
The man sitting in the wicker armchair at the window smiled at him and said, "Come in."
Morrison stared at him in astonishment, then twisted his head to look at the room number.
"No no. It's your room, all right. Do come in and close the door behind you."
Morrison followed orders, staring at the man in silent astonishment.
He was a comfortably plump man, not quite fat, filling the chair from arm to arm. He wore a thin seersucker jacket and under it was a shirt so white that it seemed to glisten. He was not yet what one might call bald, but he was clearly on the way and what remained of his brown hair was crisply curly. He did not wear glasses, but his eyes were small and had a nearsighted look about them, which might be misleading - or which perhaps meant he wore contacts.
He said, "You came back running, didn't you? I watched you -" he pointed out the window - "sitting on the bench, then get up and come toward the hotel at the double. I was hoping you would come up to your hotel room. I didn't want to sit up here all day waiting for you."
"You were here in order to watch me from the window?"
"No, not at all. That was just an accident. You just happened to walk out with the lady to that bench. Convenient, but not really foreseen. It's all right, though. If I hadn't had the view from the window, there were others watching."
By that time Morrison had caught his breath and his mind had steadied itself to the point where he asked the question that should have had pride of place in the conversation. "Who are you, anyway?"
In response the man, smiling, took a small wallet from his inner jacket pocket and let it flip open. He said, "Signature, hologram, fingerprint, voiceprint."
Morrison looked from the hologram to the smiling face. The hologram was smiling, too. He said, "All right, so you're security. It still doesn't give you the right to break into my private quarters. I'm available. You could have called me from the lobby or knocked at my door."
"Strictly speaking, you're right, of course. But I thought it best to meet you as discreetly as possible. Besides, I presumed on old acquaintance."
"What old acquaintance?"
"Two years ago. Don't you remember? An international conference in Miami? You were presenting a paper and had a hard time of it -"
"I remember the occasion. I remember the paper. It's you I don't remember."
"That's not surprising, perhaps. I met you afterward. I asked you questions, and we actually had a few drinks together."
"I don't consider that old acquaintance. - Francis Rodano?"
"That's my name, yes. You even pronounced it correctly. Accent on the second syllable. Broad a. Subliminal memory, obviously."
"No, I don't remember you. The name was on your identification. - I'd rather you left."
"I would like to talk to you in my official capacity."
"Apparently everyone wants to talk to me. What about?"
"Your work."
"Are you a neurophysicist?"
"You must know I'm not. Slavic languages was my major. I minored in economics."
"Then what can we talk about? I'm good at Russian, but you're probably better. And I know nothing about economics."
"We can talk about your work. As we did two years ago. - Look, why don't you sit down? It's your room and I won't really take long. If you want the chair I'm sitting on, I'll be glad to give it to you."
Morrison sat down at the side of the bed. "Let's get this over with. What do you want to know about my work?"
"The same thing I wanted to know two years ago. Is there anything to your notion that there's a specific structure in your brain that's specifically responsible for creative thought?"
"Not quite a structure. It's not something you can cut out in the ordinary way. It's a neuronic network. Yes, I think there's something to that. Obviously. The catch is that no one else thinks so because they can't locate it and have no evidence for it."
"Have you located it?"
"No. I reason backward from results and from my analysis of brain waves and I don't seem to be convincing. My analyses are not - orthodox." He added bitterly, "Orthodoxy in this field has gotten them nowhere, but they won't let me be unorthodox."
"I am told that you use mathematical techniques in your electroencephalographic analyses that are not only unorthodox, but are flat wrong. To be unorthodox is one thing; to be wrong is quite another."
"The only reason they say I am wrong is that I cannot prove that I am right. The only reason I cannot prove that I am right is that I can't study an isolated brain neuron in sufficient detail."
"Have you tried to study them? If you work with a living human brain, don't you leave yourself open to severe lawsuits or to criminal trial?"
"Of course. I'm not mad. I've worked with animals. I have to."
"You told me all this two years ago. I take it, then, you have made no startling discoveries in the last two years."
"None. But I'm convinced I'm right just the same."
"Your being convinced doesn't matter if you can't convince anyone else. But now I have to ask you another question. Have you done something in the last two years that has managed to convince the Soviets?"
"The Soviets?"
"Yes. What is this attitude of surprise, Dr. Morrison? Haven't you spent an hour or two in conversation with Dr. Boranova? Isn't she the one whom you just left in a great hurry?"
"Dr. Boranova?" Morrison, in his confusion, could think of nothing better to do than play the parrot.
Rodano's face lost none of its pleasantness. "Exactly. We know her well. We keep half an eye on her whenever she is in the United States."
"You make it sound like the bad old days," mumbled Morrison.
Rodano shrugged. "No, not at all. There is no danger of nuclear war now. We are polite to each other, the Soviet Union and we. We cooperate in space. We have a cooperative mining station on the moon and freedom of entry into each other's space settlements. That makes these the good new days. But, Doctor, some things don't change entirely. We keep an eye on our polite companions, the Soviets, just to make sure they stay virtuous. Why not? They keep an eye on us."
Morrison said, "You keep an eye on me, too, it would seem."
"But you were with Dr. Boranova. We couldn't help seeing you."
"That won't happen again, I assure you. I have no intention of ever being in her vicinity again if I can help it. She's a madwoman."
"Do you mean that literally?"
"Take my word for it. - Look, nothing of what she and I talked about is secret as far as I'm concerned. What she said I feel free to repeat. She's involved in some miniaturization project."