knock on the door made her set down her pen. The fellow waiting in the hall was Professor Heikki’s secretary. “And how may I help you today, Kuopio?” Pekka asked with another of those sweetly bloodthirsty smiles.
“The chairman would see you in her office right away,” he answered.
“Please tell her I’m busy,” Pekka said. “Perhaps day after tomorrow would do?”
Kuopio stared at her as if she’d suddenly started speaking one of the clicking, coughing languages of tropical Siaulia. She looked back without another word. Shaking his head, the secretary departed. Pekka returned to her sheet of numbers and abstruse symbols.
If she’d miscalculated--not on the problem of the two laws, but on the knottier one of the Kajaani City College bureaucracy--she’d be in hot water. When a third knock came, she jumped, then hurried to the door. There stood Professor Heikki. “Hello again,” Pekka said. She’d know in a moment.
Heikki licked her lips. She looked even more dyspeptic than she had earlier in the afternoon. From that, Pekka knew she’d won even before the department chairman said, “Why did you not tell me your experiments had Prince Joroinen’s patronage?”
“I could not tell you anything about them,” Pekka answered. “I cannot tell anyone anything about them. I tried to tell you that, but you would not hear me. I wish you did not know I was experimenting at all.”
“So do I,” Heikki said bitterly. “Such ignorance would have spared me a great deal of the abuse I suffered just now. I have been instructed to tell you”--she spat out each word as if it tasted bad--”that the department is to offer you every possible assistance in your work and--and to accept unchallenged any budgetary requisitions you submit.” Plainly, that hurt worse than anything else.
No one this side of the princely mints had such untrammeled access to money. For a heady moment, Pekka wished she were a woman of extravagant tastes. But Joroinen would not have given what he gave had he reckoned her likely to abuse it. She said, “What I want most is to be left alone to do what I need to do.”
“Then that is what you shall have.” Heikki backed away, as if from a dangerous animal. And Pekka
Pekka stood in the doorway and watched Heikki retreat. That helped turn the retreat into a rout. By the time Heikki reached a corner, she was all but running--and was looking over her shoulder as she went, so she nearly slammed into the far wall.
After Heikki did successfully negotiate the corner, Pekka went back to her desk and got some of her calculations to an interesting point before yet another knock on the door, this one from her husband, ended the day’s work. When she opened the door, Leino looked at her with curiosity flashing in his dark eyes. “What did you do to our distinguished chairman?” he asked as he and Pekka walked across the campus to the caravan stop.
“Kept her out of my hair,” Pekka answered. “These are modern times. There are cures for head lice.”
Leino snorted. “I think your cure was to drop an egg on her. I saw Kuopio in the hall. He flinched as if he thought I’d hit him, too.”
“I didn’t hit him. I just told him no. He’s not used to that.” Pekka smiled again. “I did hit Heikki--with Prince Joroinen.”
“Ah, so you did drop an egg on her,” Leino said, and then he said no more. Pekka blessed him for having better sense than Heikki--not that that made much of a compliment. But Leino, himself a mage of a more practical bent than Pekka’s, could not help knowing she was working on an important project. Her trips to Yliharma proved it. Ilmarinen’s recent visit to Kajaani proved it. But he hadn’t asked questions. He knew her well enough to know she’d tell him what she could. If she didn’t tell him anything, she couldn’t tell him anything.
They bought a news sheet from a hawker at the caravan stop. Leino frowned at the lead story. “Curse the Gongs, they’ve sunk half a dozen of our ships off Obuda. We’ve thrown more into that fight than they have, but they keep hanging on.” With reluctant admiration, he added, “They are warriors.”
“They’re stubborn,” Pekka said, and then wondered if there was any difference between her words and her husband’s. She pointed to a smaller story about a bigger battle. “The Unkerlanters are counterattacking against Algarve.”
“They say they’re counterattacking, anyhow,” Leino answered. “They’ve said that before, too, but they keep getting driven back.” He turned the news sheet over to read the rest of the story. “The Algarvians say there’s heavy fighting, but they’re still going forward.” As the caravan came gliding up the ley line toward them, he asked, “Who do you hope wins that fight?”
