An xt called stanley, p.3
An XT Called Stanley, page 3
“Welcome to New Hope,” he said. “I’m John Taylor.”
For a moment I thought he was going to walk over to me and shake my hand. “I’m Robert Trebor,” I said.
“I wish to welcome you to New Hope on behalf of General Gilmore and the New Hope Council,” he went on, ignoring my statement. “I wish I had the time to call you personally but with over a hundred new arrivals I have had to resort to making this a prerecorded call.”
I listened to the canned speech, amazed at the quality of the audio-visual equipment in my apartment. It looked like Mr. Taylor was actually there in my living room. After the call terminated, I went back into the bedroom and brought out the file of adult movies I had brought up. I had just bought a dozen new ones and with this equipment I figured I was in for a spectacular show, but when I went to display them on my wall-sized view screen, there appeared the word CENSORED followed by a paragraph explaining the proper procedure for clearing material which might be considered obscene.
I was both angry and embarrassed. If they kept a record of what you ate and drank, surely they’d keep a record of the fact that I had tried to bring in pornographic movies. The irony of the situation was that I thought New Hope was Puritanical when in fact they were protecting a native industry. Sex was New Hope’s third largest industry. Getting people back and forth to Earth was prohibitively expensive so there was a need for a center for rest and sex. New Hope was it. Had I known the number to punch, I could have seen for a fee any number of live sex shows or had a viewing of the orgy rooms or had an interview with a naked woman with future options available. Bringing adult films to New Hope was like bringing coal to New Castle. But it was months before I was aware of these options.
Looking back on it, I see those censors were doing me a favor. At the age of twenty-two, I had come to accept a sex life which consisted of viewing movies. It was time I found something better.
From the Steward Interviews
Dr. Steward: Max insisted on getting one young scientist for the project, in a state of ignorance, as he called it, and Bob certainly filled the bill. He was a fresh Ph.D. from Harvard who knew nothing of computer technology. He was one of those guys who on the surface appears shy and self-effacing but underneath has the arrogance of one who’s been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. From the very beginning everybody bent over backwards to make Bob happy. He was given an apartment from the first day.
Skrip: I gather you lived in a dorm for a while.
Dr. Steward: Yes. When I first came up I didn’t have my doctorate so I had to live in a dorm and eat with the prols for almost a year.
Skrip: Getting back to the project. You said the Federal Security Agency mishandled this project.
Dr. Steward: Yes. The Sagittarius project was mishandled from the beginning. The Federal Security Agency completely failed to grasp the dangers of extraterrestrial contact. Any such contacts are inherently dangerous. History teaches that contact between two cultures is always disastrous for the less technically advanced culture. That first Thanksgiving was a big mistake for the Indians.
By the next morning I had forgotten Jean’s instructions, so I got hopelessly confused in my attempt to find the Institute for Space Studies. When I finally arrived the message tree by the main entrance directed me to the Computer Science section. As I approached the office, I recognized Jean’s voice. It was warm and friendly, like a warm shower on a cold day. Jean was talking to another woman who spoke in nasal tones. They started laughing about something and I self-consciously assumed they were laughing about me. I waited in the hall for a moment to eavesdrop.
“I bet I know one of the guys,” the other secretary said.
“Really,” Jean said.
“I’ll bet it was Dave. He’d do something like that.”
“Well, he better not brag about it. The Council issued a statement saying it was a reckless act that endangered the safety of New Hope.”
“Dave’s not afraid of the Council.”
“Then he’s a fool,” Jean said.
“I’ll grant you that. Dave’s a crazy guy. A month ago he spiked the water cooler in the Office of Conduct.”
“I don’t believe it,” Jean said.
“He said he did. He says they were reeling around. Old Dr. Dunford was staggering around mumbling about the Wallbanger Case.”
Apparently there was something very funny about the Wallbanger Case because both of them burst out laughing. I chose that moment to make my entrance. Jean and the other secretary had desks facing each other. Jean had her back to me. The other secretary was standing facing me. She was a real stunner. She was tall, over eighteen decimeters, and she had golden blonde hair braided up in an elaborate fashion. Her face was evenly tanned. Her blue eyes were made up with green eye shade and her lips with an almost purple shade. She wore skin tight green slacks and a matching sweater woven with an intricate pattern. Her sweater had ridden up slightly at the waist exposing a band of tanned skin. It was clear she wasn’t wearing a bra.
“What do you want?” she asked, pulling her sweater down so that it just met the top of her slacks.
Jean turned in her chair to see who it was. She was wearing the same loose fitting navy blue sweater she’d worn last night. Her hair was neatly tied back with a blue ribbon. She had the freshly scrubbed, no-makeup look of a girl sitting down to breakfast at a strict boarding school. Clearly Jean and this other secretary played in different leagues.
“Oh, hi,” Jean said like she was glad to see me. “Sally, this is Dr. Trebor. He just came up yesterday. Dr. Trebor this is Sally Haskins. Sally and I are the secretaries for this section.”
I nodded and Sally returned something between a shrug and a nod.
“We were just talking about what happened last night,” Jean said. “Did you hear that two men climbed up to the central axis and flew the length of New Hope?”
“No,” I admitted. I was glad to know what they had been talking about.
Jean installed me in an office near the end of the hall. She keyed the lock so it would open at the touch of my bracelet. Then she took me over to the control room for New Hope’s radio telescope, in the astronomy section of the Institute. She introduced me to a Dr. Richard Hyland and left us. Dr. Hyland was a young man just a few years older than I. Not that I’m a bug about neatness or anything, but I couldn’t help wondering if he’d slept in his blue shirt the night before. He had a curly brown beard which he was in the habit of pulling on whenever he needed time to think. He was big, almost as tall as me, and he certainly weighed more although he wasn’t at all fat. He looked like a big brown bear wearing rumpled clothes.
“So you’re going to work for Max,” he said.
I nodded.
“I told Jean I’d show you around. There’s where it all started,” he said, pointing to the image behind him. There it was, the largest radio telescope built by man. Each of its dishes was as large as an Earth-based antenna and there were hundreds of them all tied together in a huge web. The whole vast construction was as fragile as cellophane. On Earth gravity would crush it. Even the pressure of sunlight could twist it out of alignment. It had to be shielded from sunlight by a huge silvered plate. Once on a sight-seeing tour I saw it, a huge silver kite flying in the solar wind.
“I recorded the signal in January,” Dr. Hyland said. “Max wanted me to use the antenna. Hell, we didn’t really need it. The signal was so strong we could have picked it up with a wire coat hanger.”
“What was in the signal?”
“That’s what everyone wants to know. But so far Max isn’t saying.”
“You recorded it,” I said.
Dr. Hyland looked over his shoulder to make sure no one had come in. He was just about to speak but then he started pulling on his beard.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m already in trouble with Max as it is. You’ll have to get him to tell you.”
That was all Dr. Hyland would tell me about the signal he’d recorded in January. He showed me around and then we went to the Institute dining room for lunch. On the wall were pictures of all the prominent scientists who had visited New Hope. I spotted two Nobel prize winners.
“They were here all of two days,” Rick Hyland remarked. “Let’s sit here,” he said, indicating a table for four. “I find this place sort of depressing. Usually I eat at the regular cafeteria across the alley.” He paused to pull on his beard. “Much cuter girls there,” he said. “The food comes from there anyway. When the waitress comes and takes our order, she’ll send an errandboy over to pick it up.
“Oh, Roger,” he called.
A black-haired man of medium height wearing a gray vest and striped tie turned toward us. He looked annoyed at having been so loudly accosted. Reluctantly he came over to our table.
“Roger, this is Bob Trebor. He’s going to be on your team.”
“I know,” Roger said.
“This is Roger Steward,” Rick Hyland explained to me. “You two will be working together. Roger, won’t you join us?”
Roger looked around in hopes of finding a better offer and, finding none, he consented to eat with us. To me he didn’t look like a scientist. He looked like someone you might see in a Brooks’ ad sporting the latest fall line. He had straight black hair plastered back and very neatly parted down the middle. I found myself staring at him trying to think where I’d seen him before. He looked like someone I’d seen in the pages of a history book. Later Jean placed it for me. He looked like Prince Matchabelli.
“Has Max briefed you?” Dr. Steward asked me, nervously straightening his tie.
“No,” I admitted. “No one’s told me anything.”
We talked of other things. At the end of lunch we were on a first name basis. “We’re informal here,” Rick said.
Informality at the Institute is the same as it is at most other institutions. If you have an advanced degree you can, after introductions, call people by their first names, but if you don’t, you should use their correct title. I was especially aware of this because I had recently made the transition to doctor. It was still so new to me that when I heard myself called Dr. Trebor I suspected the word Doctor was said in jest.
After lunch Jean stopped by my office. “Dr. Trebor,” she said, “Marge Stapleton wants to see you.”
“Who’s she?” I asked.
“My boss. The administrative assistant for the Computer Science Section.”
Something in Jean’s tone prompted me to ask, “How low should I bow?”
Jean smiled but said nothing. When we reached Marge Stapleton’s office she introduced us and left.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t attend to you this morning, but I had important business at the director’s office. I had to straighten something out for Carl. Would you verify this?” she asked, pointing to the print screen on her desk. I walked around so I could read the information. I nodded. “Now you’ll need an office,” she said.
“I was given one,” I said.
“Who gave you one?”
“Ah…” I stammered.
“Jean?”
I nodded. She got up and went into the other office. Through the open door I could hear her scolding Jean. A few moments later she came back and announced that Jean had given me the wrong office. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience but she should have cleared it with me.”
Jean came in and apologized. She moved me to an office on the other side of the hall. To me the two offices looked identical.
“What’s the difference?” I asked when Jean had finished with the locks. Jean just looked at the ceiling and shook her head. I laughed out loud.
I ate dinner by myself in the cafeteria across the alley from the Institute. As Jean had predicted I had been accepted as a “Fellow of New Hope” but not knowing many people or where the fellers’ dining halls were, I chose to get a quick dinner across the alley. I felt self-conscious eating alone. I thought that by now my brother would have surrounded himself with a boisterous group of friends. It was ridiculous to feel apologetic but I did anyway.
After dinner I went back to the Institute to set up my files. The front door of the Institute opened at the touch of my bracelet. Apparently the front door considered me a member. I went to my office and punched in a request for a list of publications of Dr. Maxwell Stanton. The list was surprisingly short considering the respect people seemed to have for him. I couldn’t help noticing the way Rick had referred to Max with almost a tone of awe. Perhaps his important work was classified. I also requested the list of publications and vita of Dr. Thomas Harvey. He was arriving that evening. Marge Stapleton was meeting him. He seemed to be a big-shot in computer science from M.I.T. He was also coming up to work with Max.
I went out into the hall to see if I could locate a vending machine when I noticed a light in the main office. Going to investigate, I found Jean cursing at the view screen on her desk.
“What do you think that is?” she asked me when I came in.
On her view screen was displayed a number of hand written formulas. In New Hope one rarely uses paper. Those who don’t type their own papers write them on opaque glass sheets or their blackboards and then record them with a TV camera. Jean was typing a technical paper. She pointed to one of the symbols.
“It’s either a Greek gamma or sigma,” I said.
“Which?”
“I don’t know. Does he use that symbol anywhere else?”
“It’s a she,” Jean said.
“Okay, does she use that symbol anywhere else?”
Jean displayed the next couple of pages. Neither of us could see the symbol repeated.
“Call it a gamma,” I said. “If it’s not repeated it shouldn’t matter.”
“With Dr. Hoffman it matters,” Jean said.
“Are you interested in science?” I asked.
“Not at all. To me it’s sort of a game to figure out which symbol corresponds to each of these squiggles.” She looked up at me and smiled. “It’s all Greek to me.”
“You get paid for this?”
“You’re darn right I do. I make almost as much at this as my regular salary.”
I stayed and talked with Jean for almost an hour. I found she was just twenty. Her parents lived in Salem, Massachusetts and made sails, mostly for boats which raced out of Salem and Marblehead. She had an older brother who was married and also worked at the business. Jean had wanted something different so she had applied for a job at New Hope.
“Where did you go to college?” I asked.
“I went to Gibbs,” Jean said. “In my family the men go to college and women go to Gibbs. It’s a two-year business school. After I went there I was supposed to help keep the books for the family. But I fooled them, I came up here.”
Jean looked over at the pot of African violets on her desk. “I just had to get away,” she added. “Maybe I overdid it.”
“You couldn’t get much farther away,” I agreed.
“I don’t know,” Jean said with a sigh. “I’ll be here another year. It’s clear I’m not going to be renewed.” She nodded toward Marge Stapleton’s office. “I guess I’ll go back and keep the family books, after all.”
“No,” I said with a sudden firmness that surprised even me. Jean looked at me with a curious expression. “Something’ll turn up,” I said.
Around noon the next day I heard Dr. Thomas Harvey’s voice booming in the hall. Marge Stapleton was explaining how she’d arranged for him to have the office next to Max’s.
“Anything’s fine,” he said.
I had emerged from my office and was debating whether to go forward and introduce myself when he spotted me. “Dr. Robert Trebor,” he called out as if he were announcing me to a crowded lecture hall. “I’m Tom Harvey,” he added as I came over to him.
He was eighteen decimeters tall. He had a shiny bald head circled with graying hair. His waist was slightly broader than his chest. He looked like the sort of guy who’d end up playing the part of Santa Claus at the Christmas party.
“You’re wondering how I know your name.” He held out his hand and we shook hands. “I make it my business to know everything.” He said the word “everything” with such emphasis that I couldn’t help smiling. “I read your paper in the Journal of Computer Intelligence. That’s your thesis work?”
I nodded.
“I wish you’d been my student.”
I never knew how to react to a compliment.
“Well,” he continued, “as soon as our fearless leader arrives we can get started. Do you know what’s up?”
“Not exactly,” I admitted.
Dr. Harvey paused for a moment and then smiled. “Well, I won’t steal Max’s thunder.”
“Dr. Stanton wanted me to tell you he may be a little late,” Marge Stapleton announced. “He said you could all wait for him in his office.”
Tom Harvey put both hands on his stomach as if consulting it. “If I know Max, it’ll be hours. What do you say we go to lunch?” he asked me. “Max can catch up to us there.”
I nodded agreement. For a moment Marge looked as if she were going to object, but then she seemed to realize it was hardly reasonable to try to keep Tom Harvey penned up in Max’s office without lunch. “I’ll tell him,” she consented. “Enjoy your lunch.”
We had just sat down in the Institute dining room when Roger Steward came in obviously looking for us. He was dressed as if he were applying for a loan. Over his vest and tie he had on a charcoal gray jacket with gold appointments. “We were supposed to meet in Max’s office,” he chastised me.
“You must be Dr. Roger Steward,” Tom Harvey announced in a voice that everyone at the neighboring tables could hear. Roger was completely disarmed. I think he realized in an instant that here was a man whose authority rivaled Max’s. The two men shook hands and Roger joined us.
A few minutes later Rick Hyland wandered in. If Roger was dressed for the occasion, in his own way so was Rick. He was wearing a white lab coat over what looked like an old sweatshirt. I waved him over to our table. “I thought you didn’t eat here,” I said.
