The Quantum Connection

moment, he seemed more human—more like the father of the woman I was in love with. Maybe his laughing and speaking to me frankly is what led me to say what I said next.

'Pyotir, Mr. Svobodny, I am thinking of asking Tatiana to marry me and I would like your permission before I do,' I stammered.

'My boy, you are charming but foolish.' He laughed deeply and sincerely and at first I thought he was making fun of me.

'Why is that?' I asked, a bit hurt.

'My boy, as you have just agreed, Tatiana does what Tatiana wants to do. If I gave you my permission or not it has no bearing on what she plans to do. You are noble if not naive. I like that.'

'Well, I meant that I intended to ask her and I hoped that you approve of me is all. Of course, she might say no. And in that case I will simply walk away and not be a bother as I plan to crawl under a rock somewhere and die.'

'Steven, I like you. If you want my approval, there you have it. If anything you seem to have done something for her confidence and her appearance. Look at her; she has never looked so alive and vivacious in all her life. I think she would say yes. Yes, I'm sure of it.'

Tatiana touched my shoulder and bent down as though to whisper in my ear. She held her hand over her mouth and bit my earlobe. What are you two talking about?

Just guy stuff. 

'Ah, sit down, my dear. Steven was just explaining this crazy tuck rule in American professional football. That damned rule cost me ten thousand dollars last year.' I guess he assumed that all Americans follow football. Unfortunately, I don't.

Fortunately, I have an alien computer inside me that has a database of basically all human public knowledge. Mike, download to me all the rules of professional football (American) and outcomes of all of the games last year where the 'tuck rule' was pertinent.

'Really, Steven. Football, huh, do tell,' Tatiana teased me since she knew I didn't follow sports that much.

'Well, fortunately I had bet on the Forty Niners and not the Jets. You see, I'm originally from California. I used to be a Colts fan but since there is no longer an L.A., I just can't get fired up about the Las Vegas Colts. Yeah, I agree with you, though. I haven't liked that damned tuck rule since I started watching the game, but I'll take the three hundred bucks it got me.' I went on to explain the details of the rule. Once, Tatiana stuck her tongue out at me.

You cheated and used Mike didn't you? 

Who's Mike? Never heard of him. I winked back at her.

After dinner and a few drinks we finally made it to the U.N. building—oh, the life of a politician is hard isn't it? The President made his speech to the Security Council and it lasted a good thirty minutes. It was televised and a big hullabaloo. Tatiana and I were told to wait in a guest room near Ambassador Svobodny's office until someone came to get us.

Instead of waiting there we decided to sneak out of the guest quarters and wander around taking a survey of isolatees. Sneaking out wasn't hard. We just opened the door to the room and walked around. After all, we weren't prisoners; we were guests.

We mapped most of the people in the periphery since the main players were in the meeting hall. About ten percent of the people we encountered were isolatees. Most all of the people we met were annoyed that I was trying to shake everybody's hand that I encountered. It got to be a bit obvious after a while, so we went to a more subtle approach. If I wanted to test them, Tatiana would distract them and then I would move in faster than they could see me and touch them. Once, I even reached through a wall and touched a security guard on the other side. I couldn't resist tickling his ear before I pulled my hand back through the wall. Tatiana giggled. We had fun for a while taunting the locals, but it finally got boring and we returned to the visitors' room near her father's office.

Tatiana actually did go out and look for the restrooms and was gone for a few minutes. She wanted to freshen up. She didn't really need to with the nanomachines at her disposal, but I find that I even like to take a leak every now and then. I picked up a pencil off the small desk in the corner of the little guest office and held it in my hand for a second. Plenty of carbon exists in pencils but I needed some gold.

Mike, I need some gold. Where is the most likely place for me to find some in here? 

How much gold do you need, Steven? 

Enough to make an engagement ring for Tatiana. 

I see. There is probably enough gold in the computer on the office desk. 

Okay, take it. I put my hand on the computer and a few seconds later I had a small lump of gold metal in my hand. The computer would no longer work, but from the dust on it, it looked like nobody ever used it anyway.

I added a bit of other metals to it to make it stronger, Steven, but there was enough gold. 

Take the carbon in the pencil and make a diamond out of it. 

Okay, Steven. 

Mike and I went through several different designs and the pencil and lump of metal morphed from one type of engagement ring to the next. I finally settled on a design and had Mike make me a little ring box for it. When Tatiana returned I got down on one knee and popped the question.

'Tatiana, will you marry me?' I held up the ring box with the lid open.

Tatiana took the box and put the ring on her finger and then held her hand out and looked at the ring. I used a four-carat solitaire diamond setting in a gold ring with the inscription 'A match made in heaven' on the inside of it in tiny, tiny letters. I knew that Tatiana's advanced senses would be able to see and feel it.