She could understand neither Wohler-9 nor the alien at that speed. Then when she slowed it down so she could understand Wohler-9, she still couldn't understand Synapo's Webster Grove accent. She finally slowed it down to normal and could understand most of what Synapo said, but not all. She refused to slow it any further.
Just as she didn't hope for much from Keymo and Jacob, she really didn't expect to get anything much out of listening to Wohler-9 and Synapo. But it did keep her conscious mind actively on the problem and left her subconscious mind to freewheel on all the correlated branches of the main subject.
Neither her conscious mind nor her subconscious mind contributed anything of significance during an inquiry that became dull and dragging after the novelty of watching and listening to a giant bat wore off.
The courier from central core arrived with the printout of the dialogue late in the afternoon, and with that interruption, Ariel decided to take a break and eat an early dinner. She had heard nothing from Jacob and realized she had been expecting him to return for dinner, when there was really no reason why he should, since he didn't eat and merely kept her company when she did. Still, it was a habit she had become accustomed to, and she missed him now that she was deprived of that pleasure.
Was it Jacob she missed, or really Derec? She had only to ask herself that question, and the longing to see Derec and the flood of homesickness for the beautiful estates and green farmlands of Aurora overwhelmed her.
She tried to put it out of her mind as she ate a lonely dinner, but it was not possible. Her mind rebelled from the magnitude of the problem that faced her on this alien world, and while she ate, she wallowed in her loneliness and homesickness, and before she finished eating, tears of self pity were trickling down her face.
As she finished eating, Wohler-9 asked, “Are you in pain, Miss Welsh?”
Ariel wiped her tears away with a napkin. “No, Wohler. Just lonely. “
“Does my presence relieve your loneliness to any degree?”
“No.”
“To what degree did my assistance this afternoon serve in the preservation of the city, Miss Welsh?”
“Very little, I'm sorry to say,” Ariel said. “Why do you ask? Did you expect otherwise?”
“Certainly I had hoped otherwise, Miss Welsh. I proceed at all times in the direction that best serves the Prime Directive, if that does not violate the more compelling laws that govern my behavior.
“I have been neglecting my supervisory duties in the construction and operation of the city, Miss Welsh, for I concluded that your imperative best served the Prime Directive. If that seems no longer to be the case, I must return to my duties, which are currently spread among the other six supervisors.”
“Very well, Wohler. Return to duty.”
“I will clear the dinner table, request a maid to serve you in the future, and then take my leave.”
“I'll clear the table, Wohler. And a maid won't be necessary. Jacob will suffice. “
“But he is on another assignment, Miss Welsh.”
“We'll handle it, Wohler. Just raise Jacob on the comlink, tell him to get back here no later than ten PM, and then leave.”
She was anxious to be alone. Wohler had begun to get on her nerves, Wohler and that alien she had felt compelled to watch and listen to all afternoon.
“Will you be needing me at the meeting tomorrow morning?” Wohler asked.
“No. Did you get hold of Jacob while you were chattering there?”
“Yes, Miss Welsh. He will be here by ten PM.”
“Then leave, Wohler.”
Despite her warm feelings for Wohler-l, she was fed up with this Wohler-9. Yet in his dialogue with the alien, she felt there had to be some clue to the aliens, to their behavior, to their needs, to their culture, a clue to something that would make the aliens and humans compatible so that this desirable planet did not have to be abandoned and bypassed in the future.
She turned to the printout the courier had delivered before dinner.
Strange how that archaic form of transmitting information-the printed word-had stayed around so long. Yet was it so strange when that marvelous instrument, the human brain, was taken into account: the speed with which she could assimilate the words and conjure related images, the speed with which she could scan the pages?
She quickly thumbed to where Wohler had left off in his projection that afternoon and scanned through the rest of the dialogue-ten times the volume they had covered that afternoon-and she did it in less than two hours. And got more out of it, by being able to easily and quickly replay, fast forward, skip, and ponder over the significance of a phrase, a word.
It was true that central core had eliminated the alien's accent -and certainly that had speeded things up-but the true efficiency came with the printed word itself: the strange archaic telepathy that extracted alien ideas from an alien mind and moved them into hers.
Yet despite the ancient beauty of the printout, nothing of significance came from its perusal, no more than had come from the boring afternoon with Wohler and the memory projector.
Still, her intuition told her there had to be a solution. She just wasn't looking at it right, or with the proper frame of mind, or in the proper place. If not the dome, where on this weird world was she supposed to look? The city was the problem, a weather node the aliens had termed it, an aggravating, uncontrollable irritant, like a grain of sand in an oyster.
And the aliens were coating it, smoothing it, to relieve the abrasion, like an oyster coats the sharp edges of a grain of sand with iridescent nacre, mother-of-pearl. Now she was even beginning to think like an alien. This world is an oyster and the city and its dome are a pearl. Oyster World. Pearl City. She had christened a world and a city.
And she had gotten no further by the time Jacob returned at ten PM.
“Well, you're finally back,” she said when he came in. “What did Keymo have to offer on the hyperwave problem?”
“Very little, Miss Ariel,” Jacob said. “Neither of us could see how Key teleportation technology could be applied to modulation of hyperwave signals.”
“Did you examine the parallel dichotomy of hyperspace jump technology and discrete modulation of hyperwave? That parallel connection should provide clues to the connection between the Key and continuous modulation. Right?”
Ariel had first heard the word dichotomy on the way to Oyster World, when Jacob had used it; and she had been wanting to use it ever since. It had such a ring of erudition. Now she had played it back to him.
“You suggested only that we look for a connection between continuous modulation and Key teleportation. Neither of us could see any during a lengthy discussion which concluded only a half hour ago.”
You dummy,she thought, the creative process is primarily a matter of drawing correlations. If there is a connection between discrete modulation and jump technology, as the aliens claim, you must first ferret out and understand that connection. Then maybe you can deduce what continuous modulation is by examining Key teleportation for the parallel connection the aliens say exists there. She thought she had made that clear before he left. He, too, had heard everything the alien had said.
“Tonight, while I'm sleeping,” Ariel said, “examine everything in your memory concerning jump technology and discrete modulation of hyperwave. Go back and forth comparing the two at every point. Look for similarities. Correlate one with the other. And give me a report in the morning of all instances where you see a similarity between the two.”
“Very well, Miss Ariel.”
She retired to bed then and thought how she would like to see the full musculature of Jacob without his clothes on. And that made her feel guilty, and her longing for Derec came rushing in, the longing she had been pushing from her mind all evening that had probably brought on the unmaidenly notions concerning Jacob.