I couldn’t get McAndrew’s words out of my head.
He had spoken them months ago, on a day that I would never forget. It was Jan’s seventeenth birthday, the first time of choice. I was down on Earth, choking on the dense air, meeting with the new head of External Affairs.
McAndrew was at his office at the Penrose Institute. We were both trying to work, but I for one wasn’t succeeding too well. I wondered what was going through Jan’s head, waiting for graduation from the Luna System.
“Naturally, there will have to be some changes,” Tallboy was saying. “That’s to be expected, I’m sure you’ll agree. We are reviewing all programs, and though I am sure that my predecessor and I” — for the third time he had avoided using Woolford’s name — “agree on overall objectives, we may have slightly different priorities.”
Dr. Tallboy was a tall man, with a lofty brow and a keen, intellectual eye. Although we had shaken hands and muttered the conventional greetings a couple of times before, this was our first working meeting.
I pulled my wandering attention back to him. “When will the program review be finished?”
He shook his head and smiled broadly (but there were no laugh lines around his eyes). “As I’m sure you know very well, Captain Roker, these things take time. There has been a change of Administration. We have many new staff to train. There have been new Budget cuts, too, and the Office of External Affairs has suffered more than most. We will continue all the essential programs, be assured of that. But it is also my mandate to expend public funds wisely, and that cannot be done in haste.”
“What about the Penrose Institute’s experimental programs?” I said — a bit abruptly, but so far Tallboy had offered nothing more than general answers. I knew I couldn’t afford to seem impatient, but my meeting wouldn’t last much longer.
He hesitated, then sneaked a quick look at the crib sheets of notes in front of him on the desk. It didn’t seem to help, because when he looked up the fine and noble brow was wrinkled in perplexity.
“I’m thinking particularly of the Alpha Centauri expedition,” I prompted him. “Dr. Tallboy, a quick go-ahead on that means a great deal to us.”
“Of course.” He was nodding at me seriously. “A great deal. Er, I’m not completely familiar with that particular activity, you understand. But I assure you, as soon as my staff review is completed…”
Our meeting lasted fifteen more minutes, but long before that I felt I had failed. I had come here to push for a decision, to persuade Tallboy that the program should go ahead as planned and approved by Woolford; but bureaucratic changes had changed everything. Forget the fact that McAndrew and I had been planning the Alpha Centauri expedition for a year; forget the fact that the Hoatzin had been provisioned, fuelled, and inspected, and the flight plans filed long since with the USF. Forget the masses of new observational equipment that we had loaded onto the ship with such loving care. That had been under the old Administration. When the new one came in everything had to start again from scratch. And not one damned thing I could do about it.
I did manage to extract one promise from Tallboy before he ushered me out with polite assurances of his interest and commitment to the Institute’s work. He would visit the Institute personally, as soon as his schedule permitted. It wasn’t anything to celebrate, but it was all I could squeeze out of him.
“He’ll visit here in person?” said McAndrew — I had run for the phone as soon as I cleared the Office of External Affairs. “Do you think he’ll do it?”
I nodded. “I didn’t leave it up to him. I saw his secretary on the way out, and made sure that we’re in the book. He’ll do it.”
“When?” McAndrew had been in Limperis’ office when I called, and it was the older man who leaned forward to ask the question.
“Eight days from now. That was the first gap in his schedule. He’ll spend most of the day at the Institute.”
“Then we’re home free,” said McAndrew. He was cracking his finger joints — a sure sign of high excitement. “Jeanie, we can put on an all-day show here that’ll just blow him away. Wenig has a new E-M field stabilizer, Macedo says she can build a cheap detector for small Halo collapsars, and I’ve got an idea for a better kernel shield. And if we can ever get him to talk about it, Wicklund’s cooking up something new and big out on Triton Station. Man, I’m telling you, the Institute hasn’t been this productive in years. Get Tallboy here, and he’ll go out of his mind.”
Limperis shot a quick sideways glance at McAndrew, then looked back at the screen. He raised his eyebrows. I could read the expression on that smooth, innocent-looking face, and I agreed with him completely. If you wanted a man to quantize a nonlinear field, diagonalize a messy Hamiltonian, or dream up a delicate new observational test for theories of kernel creation, you couldn’t possibly do better than McAndrew. But that would be his downfall now. He could never accept that the rest of the world might be less interested in physics than he was.
Limperis started that way, but years of budget battles as head of the Institute had taught him to play in a different league, “So what do you think, Jeanie?” he said to me, when Mac had finished babbling.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I couldn’t read Tallboy. He’s an unknown quantity. We’d better look up his background, see if that gives us some clue to what makes him tick. As it is, you’ll have to try it. Show him everything you’ve got at the Institute, and hope for the best.”
“What about the expedition?”
“Same for that. Tallboy acted as though he’d never heard of Alpha Centauri. The Hoatzin’s just about ready to go, but we need Tallboy’s blessing. External Affairs controls all the—”
“Call from Luna,” cut in a disembodied voice. “Central Records for Professor McAndrew. Level Two priority. Will you accept interrupt, or prefer reschedule?”
“Accept,” said McAndrew and I together — even though it wasn’t my call. It had to be from Jan.
“Voice, tonal, display or hard copy output?”
“Voice,” replied McAndrew firmly. I was less sure of that. He had done it so that I could receive the message, too, but we would have to witness each other’s disappointment if it was bad news.
“Message for Arthur Morton McAndrew,” went on the neutral voice. “Message begins. January Pelham, ID 128-129-001176, being of legal age of choice, will file for parental assignment as follows: Father: Arthur Morton McAndrew, ID 226-788-44577. Mother: Jean Pelham Roker, ID 547-314-78281. Name change filed for January Pelham Roker McAndrew. Parental response and acceptance is required. Reply via Luna free circuit 33, link 442. Message ends.”
I had never seen McAndrew look so pleased. It was doubly satisfying to him to have me on the line when the word came through — I was sure that the Communications Group were trying to track me now through Tallboy’s office, not knowing I was tapped into Mac’s line.
“What’s the formal date for parental assignment?” I asked.
There was a two second pause while the computer made confirmation of identity from my voiceprint, sent that information over the link from L-4 to Luna, decided how to handle the situation, and connected us all into one circuit.
“Message for Jean Pelham Roker. Message begins: January Pelham, ID 128—”
“No need to repeat,” I said. “Message received. Repeat, what is the formal date for parental assignment?”
“Two hundred hours U.T., subject to satisfactory parental responses.”
“That’s too soon,” said McAndrew. “We won’t have enough time for chromosomal confirmation.”
“Chromosomal confirmation waived.”
On the screen in front of me McAndrew blushed bright with surprise and pleasure. Not only had Jan filed for us as official parents as soon as legally permitted, she had done so without knowing or caring what the genetic records showed. The waiver was a definite statement: whether or not McAndrew was her biological father would make no difference to her; she had made her decision.