“Oh.” His poisoned cortex reels, makes a desperate effort to . please her. “So—even if a subject gets them all right you have to subtract something for chance.”
“That’s right.” She smiles, really pleased. He is ridiculously elated.
“I can see it’s complicated.”
“Some of the math gets quite interesting. Take repeated letters—”
“Thank you for explaining.” He is enchanted by her mysterious competence, but he cannot cope with repeated letters. “Look!”
Three deer are browsing in the verge ahead. They bound across the blacktop, showing their white, flame-shaped scuts.
“One of them was all spotted,” she says wonderingly. A city girl.
“Yes. A fawn, a young one. The spots help camouflage it while it lies still.”
“Oh, I wish my Donnie could have seen that,” she says very low.
He recalls the bare apartment. “Your son? He doesn’t live with you?”
At the words, the bottom of his world shivers, threatens to drop him into his private hell. For one second, he had been back in another life of simple joy. Stop it. Vaguely he hears her saying, “No. He’s with my mother in Chicago .”
Her tone has changed too. The Keep Out signs are up.
The magic is gone. But before he can feel it, a car roars up behind them and they have to jump aside. It’s a grey panel truck.
She laughs. “I knew that terminal wasn’t there.”
They walk on, the bad thing is over. He wants to hear her voice, even if it means computers.
“Tell me, is it true that computers are now so complicated that no human mind can really know what one is up to?”
“Oh, yes.” The smile comes back. “And of course TOTAL, well, it can access any government computer, and whenever it wants data it can interface with almost any computer network in the country, if you have the code. Some foreign ones too. It got into CBS once.” Her face takes on a dreamy, tender look, eyes more beautiful than Sheba’s queen. “I love to think of it. The wonderful complexity, yet all so cool and logical. Like a different kind of life trying to expand and grow.”
“Sounds a little scary.” But Dann isn’t scared, he’s delighted. The tall alluring creature strolling the wildwood, talking mysteries. “I won’t ask you if they think. I gather that’s silly. But since our life is a function of the complexity of our internal connections, maybe it could be alive in a way. Maybe it likes you too.”
She chuckles. “Oh, I’m not that crazy, I know it’s a machine. But sometimes I wonder if certain programs aren’t just a little alive. Do you know TOTAL has ghosts?”
“What?”
“Ghost programs. It’s hard to flush a really big computer, and a network is impossible. Nobody is going to shut down TOTAL. People make mistakes, see. Their programs generate self-maintaining loops.” She actually unbends enough to give him a teasing look. “Tapes spin when nobody is using them. Ghosts.”
He grins back like a kid. “What kind of ghosts?”
“Well, there’s a couple of war-games, nobody knows their address, and some continuing computations. And there’s supposed to be a NASA space-flight simulation still running. It doesn’t do anything most of the time because it’s still traveling through space. When it lands or whatever it’ll show up. It could be part of the ghost in my program. I found out we’re using an old NASA link.”
“Our ghost?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. Every so often it acts up on anything to do with time. Like printing out the date.”
“NASA… Now you’re getting close to my friends.”
“The stars?” She remembers, she remembers!
“Yes. The air’s so clear here. If you like, I could show you some this evening.”
“Maybe.” The reserve is back, but no hostility. Beautiful Deerfield ! They round the last corner and see the barracks with two trucks outside. Men are carrying in a door. Margaret quickens pace.
When they come into the day-room, equipment and cables are everywhere. Two Cuban-looking men are hanging the door across the corridor. Margaret heads for crates in the corner. Above the hammering Noah and Costakis can be heard yelling to each other.
“Okay! Plug in.”
There is a flash and all lights go out. The air conditioners have stopped and the corridor is now too dark to see. Lieutenant Kirk comes in and Noah trots up to him.
“ Kendall , we simply have to have more power here.”
“You need a bigger pot up there,” Costakis points at the electric pole outside.
Ted Yost puts his head in and says unexpectedly, “If there’s a laundry here maybe they have one. Laundries use a lot of juice.”
Margaret Omali says nothing, she is probing into crates.
Dann takes himself outside, follows the sound of desultory activity around to the back. Rick Waxman is shooting baskets at the edge of the woods. Ted Yost comes out the back door and joins him.
Dann sits down on a white-washed bench. After a few minutes the ensign has to quit; he walks away toward the pool, trying not to show distress. Presently Rick comes over to Dann, idly spinning the ball on one finger.
Dann is surprised to see that Rick’s expression and posture are quite different. His face is clear and friendly, he is a normal, attractively muscular young man with his hair tied back like an early American patriot. Dann, who has no extra senses, receives a strong impression of one from whom a burden has been lifted. “Is your brother better?” He surprises himself, acting as if he believed all this.
“Popped a bunch of tranks and passed out.” Rick grins. “I hope it doesn’t mess up the test.”
“You mean, he might not be able to, ah, transmit?”
“Oh, he’ll be able to transmit, all right.” Rick’s grin fades. “The question is, what. He hates those numbers.”
Rick bounces the ball a few times, then sits down beside Dann and stretches in the sunshine. Like a man enjoying respite, like a prisoner let out, Dann thinks. He recalls Ron Waxman, of whom he has seen little. A shade larger, a more taciturn Rick. Probably because of the size difference Dann has assumed that Ron was the dominant brother.
“Tell me, have you two always been together? I mean—”
“I know what you mean. Yeah, our folks tried to split us up. Ronnie couldn’t take it.”
Rick’s eyes have changed, the statement has some meaning. Dann puzzles, unhappily divining pain. “Your brother is more, more sensitive?”
Rick looks down at the grass. “Sensitive,” he says in a low, pentup voice. “My brother is so fucking sen-si-tive. All my life, he can’t take it. He can’t take anything. He can’t listen to the news, he can’t go on the street. There’s an accident on the road, we have to turn around and go back.” He sighs, looks up sideways at Dann. “We tried to take a trip to Denver last year, he picks up vibes somebody died in the motel room. We had to go right home. I wanted to see the Rockies , you know?”
He laughs shortly. “All the things I want, he can’t take. I was pre-med, we both had scholarships. Oh, he’s smart. But he couldn’t take that at all. So we tried law school. Two semesters, that lasted.”
Oh, God. Weakly, Dann asks, “Can’t you go on by yourself, Rick? You could leave Ron with your folks.”
“No way. They crashed in a plane five years ago.”
“Oh…”
“No way,” Rick repeats somberly. “He needs me. And he’s sending all the time. Whatever I’m doing. I read him.” He laughs meaninglessly, bounces the ball.
Dann is appalled, resentful. Why do they do this to him? His hand goes to his pocket, he touches the magic that will turn Rick back into a phantasm.
“Women, it’s a disaster,” Rick goes on. “Half the time he can’t and when he can it’s worse.” He gives Dann a clear, open look as if he were explaining a sore back. The change in him is amazing. “Funny, I can talk to you… Of course, he’ll wake up pretty soon.” He sighs bleakly.