Part 25 (1/2)
”My lad, you should simply have gotten to know someone on the next s.h.i.+ft, so then you could move on to her bunk.”
Pomayla, who was shy about personal relations, promptly got up to serve drinks.
”Were you in the FSP?” Shof asked Tee.
”Only as a contractor. I helped to develop a new star navigation's system. My specialty was computer-driven laser technology.”
”Stellar, citizen,” Shof said, enthusiastically. ”Me, too. I built my first laser beam calculator out of spare parts when I was four.” He held up his right hand. ”Cauterised this index finger clean off. I've generally had bad luck with this finger. It's been regenerated twice now. But I've learned to use a laser director better since then.”
”Laser director?” Tee asked. ”You don't use a laser director to create the synapse links.”
”I do.”
”No wonder you burned off your finger, little man. Why didn't you simply recalculate the angles before trying to connect power?”
They began to argue research and technique, going immediately from lay explanation, which the other three could understand, into the most involved technical lingo. It sounded like gibberish to Lunzie and Pomayla, and probably did to Laren, who sat politely nodding and smiling whenever anyone met his eyes. Lunzie remembered that he was an economics major.
”So,” asked Shof, stopping for breath, ”what's the new system based on? Ion propulsion with laser memory's faulty; they've figured that out now. Gravity well drives are still science fiction. Laser technology's too delicate by itself to stand up against the new matter-antimatter drives.”
”But why not?” Tee began, looking lost. ”That was new when I was working for the FSP. The laser system was supposed to revolutionise s.p.a.ce travel. It should have lasted for two hundred years.”
”Yeah. Went in and out of fas.h.i.+on like plaid knickers,” Shot said, deprecatingly. ”Doppler s.h.i.+ft, you know. Well, you've got to start somewhere.”
”Somewhere?” Tee echoed, indignantly. ”Our technology was the very newest, the most promising. ...”
Shof spread out his hands and said reasonably, ”I'm not saying that the current system wasn't based on LT. Where have you been for the last decade, Earth?”
Tee's face, once open and animated, had closed up into tight lines. His mouth twisted, fighting back some sour retort. His involuntary pa.s.sage with cold sleep was still a sore point with him. Lunzie suddenly understood why he was reluctant to talk about his past experiences with anyone. The experiential gap between the people who experienced time at its normal pace and the cold sleepers was real and troubling to the sleepers. Tee felt caught out of time, and Shof didn't understand. ”Peace!” Lunzie cried over Shof's exposition of modern intergalactic propulsion. ”That's enough. I declare Hatha's peace of the watering hole. I will permit no more disputes in this place.”
Shof opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. He stared at Tee, then looked to Lunzie for help. ”Have I said something wrong?”
”Shof, you can behave yourself or make yourself scarce,” Pomayla declared.
”What'd I do?” With a wounded expression, Shof withdrew to arrange dinner from the synthesiser. Pomayla and Laren went to the worktable, and peeled and cut up a selection of fresh vegetables to supplement the meal. Tee watched them work, looking lost.
Lunzie rose to her feet. ”Now that we have a natural break in the conversation, I'll give Tee the tenth-credit tour.” She twined her arm with Tee's and led him away. Once the door to Lunzie's cubicle had shut behind them, Tee let his shoulders sag. ”I am sorry. But you see? It might have been a hundred years. I have been left far behind. Everything I knew, all the complicated technology I developed, is now toys for children.”
”I must apologise. I tossed you into the middle of it. You seemed to be holding your own very well,” Lunzie said, contritely.
Tee shook his head, precipitating a fall of black hair into his eyes. ”When a child can blithely reel off what a hundred of us worked on for eight years - for which some of us lost our lives! - and refute it, with logic, I feel old and stupid.” Lunzie started a hand to smooth the unsettled forelock, but stopped to let him do it himself.
”I feel the same way, you know,” she said. ”Young people, much younger than I am, at any rate, who understand the new medical technology to a fare-thee-well, when I have to be shown where the on-off switch is! I should have realised that I'm not alone in what I'm going through. It was most inconsiderate of me.” Lunzie kneaded the muscles at the back of Tee's neck with her strong fingers. Tee seized her hand and kissed it.
”Ah, but you have the healing touch.” He glanced at the console set and smiled at the hologram prism with the image of a lovely young girl beaming out at him. ”Fiona?”
”Yes.” Lunzie stroked the edge of the hologram with pride.
”She is not very like you in colouring, but in character, ah!”
”What? You can see the stubborn streak from there?” Lunzie said mockingly.
”It runs right here, along your back.” His fingers traced her spine, and she s.h.i.+vered delightedly. ”Fiona is beautiful, just as you are. May I take this?” Tee asked, turning it in his hands and admiring the clarity of the portrait. ”If I can feed an image to the computers, it may stir some memory bank that has not yet responded to my queries.”
Lunzie felt a wrench at giving up her only physical tie to her daughter, but had to concede the logic. ”All right,” she agreed reluctantly.
”I promise you, nothing will happen to it, and much good may result.”
She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. ”I trust you. Are you ready to rejoin the others?”
Shof had clearly been chastised in Lunzie's absence. During dinner around the worktable, he questioned Tee respectfully about the details of his research. The others joined in, and the conversation turned to several subjects. Laren proved also to be a Tri-D viewer. Lunzie and he compared their impressions of fas.h.i.+on trends, amidst hilarious laughter from the other two males. Blus.h.i.+ng red for making her opinions known, Pomayla tried to defend the fas.h.i.+on industry.
”Well, you practically support them,” Shof said, wickedly, baiting her as he would a sister.
”What's wrong with garb that makes you look good?” she replied, taking up the challenge.
”If it isn't comfortable, why wear it?” Lunzie asked, reasonably, joining the fray on Shof's side.
”For the style - ” Pomayla explained, desperately.
Lunzie raised an eyebrow humorously. ” 'We must suffer to be beautiful'? And you call me old fas.h.i.+oned!”
”I don't know where they get the ideas for these new frocks,” Laren said. After a quick glance at Pomayla, ”No offense, sweetheart, but some of the fads are so weird.”
”Do you really want to know?” Lunzie asked. ”To stay in style for the rest of your life, never throw out any of your clothes. The latest style for next season - I saw it in the Tri-D - is the very same tunic I wore to my primary-school graduation. It probably came around once while I was in cold sleep, and here it is again. Completely new to you youngsters, and too youthful a fas.h.i.+on to be worn by anyone who can remember the last time it was in vogue.”
”Can I look through your family holos?” Pomayla asked, conceding the battle with an impish gleam in her eye. ”I want to see what's coming next year. I'll be seasons ahead of the whole Gang.”
The remains of the meal went into the disposer, and Tee rose, stretching his arms over his head and producing a series of cracks down his spine. ”Ah. That was just as I remember school food.”
”Terrible, right?” Pomayla inquired, with a twinkle.
”Terrible. I hate to end the evening now, but I must go. As Lunzie said so truly, you are at the outer end of nowhere, and it will take me time to get home.”
Lunzie ran for her textcubes. ”I think I'll come in with you. My s.h.i.+ft at the hospital begins in just four hours. Sanitary collection units won't wait. I might as well travel while I can still see. Perhaps I'll nap at your place.”
Tee swept her a bow. ”I should be glad for your company.” He expanded the salute to include the others. ”Thank you for a pleasant evening. Good night.”
Pomayla and Laren called their goodnights to him from the worn freeform couch in the far corner of the room. Shof ran to catch up with them at the door. ”Hey,” he called softly, as they stepped into the turbovator foyer. ”Good luck finding Lunzie's daughter, huh?”
Lunzie goggled at him. ”Why, you imp. You know?”
Shot gave them his elfin smile. ”Sure I know. I don't tell everything I find out.” He winked at Lunzie as the door slid between them. Lunzie's studies progressed well throughout the rest of the term. To their mutual satisfaction, she and the cardiology professor declared a truce. She toned down her open criticism of his bedside manner, and he overlooked what he termed her ”bleeding heart,” openly approving her grasp of his instruction. His personal evaluation of her at the end of term was flattering, for him, according to students who had had him before. Lunzie thought she had never seen a harsher dressing down ever committed to plas-sheet, but the grade noted below the diatribe showed that he was pleased with her.
The new term began. The Discipline course continued straight through vacation, since it was not a traditional format cla.s.s. No grade was issued to the University computer for Discipline. Either a student kept up with the art, or he dropped out. It was still eating up a large part of Lunzie's day, which was now busier than ever.
Her new courses included supervised practical experience at the University Hospital. The practic.u.m was worth twice the credits of other cla.s.ses, but the hours involved were flexible according to need, and invariably ran long. Lunzie and her fellows followed a senior resident on his rounds for the first few weeks, observing his techniques of diagnosis and treatment, and then worked under him in the hospital clinic. Lunzie liked Dr. Root, a Human man of sixty honest Standard years, whose plump pink cheeks and broad hands always looked freshly scrubbed.