These other creatures of course were not turtles, though they did have turtlish hard shells and turtlishly low IQs. What the Grand Galactics were trying to teach them was the use of tools.
This was one of the many, many matters that were the self-imposed concerns of the Grand Galactics. A human might think of it as an attempt to raise the standards of the galaxy’s living things.
Their idea was that if the hard shells learned to use a lever, a hook, and a striking stone, they might be taking the first steps toward dawning intelligence. And if that happened, then under the micromanaging tutelage of the Grand Galactics they might go further. Indeed, they might go all the way to primo technology, without ever having discovered such unwanted distractions as subjugation, exploitation, or war.
Well, this program would take a long, long time. But the Grand Galactics had plenty of time to spend, and they thought it was worth a try. They considered that it would be worth their while if, in the long future history of the universe, just one species could manage to evolve all the way to matter transmission and space colonies without having learned the art of murder along the way. The Grand Galactics were assuredly intelligent and powerful. But sometimes they were also naïve.
9
LAZY DAYS
Everything considered, Ranjit was reasonably pleased with his summer. The job was easy, and no one seemed to mind if he brought his four goslings along to work. He was only to bother with babysitting them, Dot insisted, on the days when she absolutely had to be away from the house. There were a fair number of those days, though. Sometimes that was because she needed to look for work, although there she didn’t have much luck. More often she had to sell off a few more of their possessions to keep the children fed and clothed.
Ranjit noted that the absences did get more frequent. He thought that perhaps Dot was gaining confidence in him. He didn’t mind. Whether it was interest or mere politeness, the kids seemed enthralled by both his stories and his mathematical tricks. Ranjit’s years of puzzling over number theory had not been entirely for nothing. With his fellow students he had learned ways of playing with numbers that the average layman had never heard of.
There was, for instance, the one called Russian peasant multiplication. To begin with Ranjit determined that only Tiffany had got far enough in school to learn to multiply. To the others he said, “Don’t feel bad if you don’t know how to multiply numbers. In the old days there were plenty of grown-ups, particularly in places like Russia, who didn’t know how to do it, either. So they invented a trick. They called it ‘Russian multiplication,’ and it goes like this. First write down the two numbers side by side, like this. Say you want to multiply twenty-one by thirty-seven.”
He pulled from his pocket the little notebook he had had the fore-thought to take with him, wrote quickly, and displayed the page:
“Thendo you know how to double a number? Fine. Then double the number on the left, thats the twenty-one, and halve the number on the right, and write them under the first numbers. So then you get”
“There’s a one left after you halve that number on the right, but don’t worry about it. Just throw that leftover one away. Then you do the same halving and doubling thing with the next numbers, and the ones after that, until the number on the right side gets down to a one.”
“And whenever the number in the right-hand column is even, you just strike out that whole line.”
“And you add up the numbers in the left-hand column.”
Under it Ranjit wrote triumphantly “21 × 37 = 777” and said, “And that’s the answer!”
Ranjit waited for a response. Actually, he got four different ones. Little Betsy took her cue to clap her hands, applauding Ranjit’s success. Rosie looked pleased but puzzled, Harold was frowning, and Tiffany politely asked if she could borrow Ranjit’s pen and paper. He peered over her shoulder as she wrote:
“Yes,” she announced, “that’s right. Give me two other numbers, please, Ranjit.”
He gave her an easy one, eight times nine, and then another even easier one when Harold demanded a chance. He got it, and seemed as though he would gladly have gone on doing elementary Russian multiplication for some time longer, but the youngest girls were beginning to look rebellious. Ranjit deferred the thought of showing them why Russian multiplication was an example of binary arithmetic for another time. Well pleased at the success of his first infliction of number theory on the kids, he said, “That was fun. Now let’s catch some more turtles.”
Gamini Bandara got to Sri Lanka right on schedule, but when he called Ranjit, he was apologetic. His time was even more overprogrammed than he had realized. He wouldn’t be able to visit Tricomalee at this particular time, so would Ranjit very much mind coming up to Colombo for their visit instead?
Actually, Ranjit was a little put out, and didn’t very well conceal it. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know if I can get away from my job.” But Gamini was persuasive and, in the event, the foreman at the construction job was glad enough to let Ranjit take as many days as he liked (having a brother-in-law who would gladly take Ranjit’s place, and paycheck, while he was away). And Ganesh Subramanian positively went all out to help him. Ranjit had been afraid his father would be upset at the prospect of Gamini coming back into the picture. He wasn’t. Apparently a short visit, especially one that took place a considerable distance away, was not a problem. Ganesh made it as easy as possible for his son. “Bus?” he said with a dismissive gesture. “Certainly you won’t take the bus. I’ve got a van that’s assigned to me and I don’t use it. Take it, Ranjit. Keep it as long as you like. Who knows, the temple insignia on its doors may discourage some ill-intentioned people from letting the air out of your tires.”
So Ranjit arrived in Colombo with a bag in the back of the van packed with several days’ worth of clothes. Puzzlingly, Gamini had let him know that he would be staying at a hotel instead of his father’s house. Ranjit understood the choice of that particular hotel—it had a bar the two boys had visited frequently enough in their explorations of the city—but it surprised him that Gamini’s father had let him get away for even one night.
When Ranjit asked to be announced, the desk clerk shook his head, pointing to the bar. And indeed there in the bar was Gamini, and not alone. He had a girl on either side of him, and a nearly empty wine bottle on his table.
All three got up to greet Ranjit. The blond girl was named Pru; the other, whose name was Maggie, had hair of a lipstick color that had never been produced by human genes. “Met them on the plane,” Gamini said when he had finished the introductions. “They’re Americans. They’re students in London, they say, but the school they go to is the University of the Arts—that’s the one where the only thing you learn is how to look good. Ouch!”
That last part was because Maggie, the improbably redheaded one, had pinched his ear. “Pay no attention to this slanderer,” she instructed Ranjit. “Pru and I are at Camberwell. That’s the college at Arts where the instructors make you work. Gamini wouldn’t last a week there.”
Making an assumption, Ranjit stuck out his hand. The two girls pumped it earnestly, one after the other. “I’m Ranjit Subramanian,” he said.
The one named Maggie spoke up. “Oh, we know who you are,” she informed him. “Gamini told us everything there is to know about you. You’re a short person with a long name, and you spend all your time solving one single math problem. Gamini says if anybody ever does, you’ll be the one who does it.”