“That would be nice. JieJun is old enough now not to be a handful, and, even when ChaoPing leaves the house, LeiTao will be old enough to babysit.”
JieMin nodded absently. His distraction level had been growing again.
They ordered, two soups and two dishes they remembered from years prior, before the children. They got the small versions, and would taste and share.
Once the food was ordered, ChaoLi pressed him.
“You have not talked about the project much, JieMin. I can understand not wanting home time to be work talk, but we are not at home now. It is obvious you are running another track in the background. What is going on?”
JieMin sighed.
“The probe will not work, ChaoLi. Karl Huenemann will not listen to me.”
“But you developed the whole theory. It took you twelve years, beginning to end, to formalize all the hyperspace mathematics. And now he comes along in the last five years and does not listen? That is crazy, JieMin.”
“No, not to him. He thinks of me as purely a mathematician. Someone whose physics and engineering insight is suspect, at the very least.”
“That is unfair, JieMin. As you have described it to me, the physical side is what you see in your mind, like the dam project in Chagu. The mathematics is a way to describe what you see. A means to an end. But the insight is first.”
“That is correct. I see it in my head first, then try to capture it in the mathematics. But all Karl sees is the mathematics I produce, and so he trusts his own insight. But he is on the wrong path.”
“So what will happen, JieMin? Is there any danger?”
“No, there’s no danger. The probe will disappear into hyperspace and never be seen again. It will be destroyed and its energy will remain in hyperspace. Return to hyperspace, actually, as space-time was created out of hyperspace.”
ChaoLi shook her head.
“Such a waste. All that money. All that effort. For nothing.”
“Not for nothing, ChaoLi. If the probe goes into hyperspace, as I anticipate, that will prove that part of things. That part of the mathematics. The other thing that will happen is that it will discredit Karl. Move him out of the way.”
“You need to make sure he does not discredit you, JieMin. Karl Huenemann is a bureaucrat, and nothing is ever his fault. It must therefore be your fault. He will try to double-down and move further from your vision and toward his.”
“Hmm.”
JieMin’s eyes were unfocused as he worked through the possibilities. Then his attention came back to her.
“You are probably correct, Chao Li. I should speak to Chen Zufu and Chen Zumu about this.”
“I would think so, JieMin. But, once the probe fails, what becomes of the project?”
“That will be up to Chen Zufu and Chen Zumu.”
“But it’s a government project.”
“It is now, Chao Li,” JieMin said, nodding. “It is now.”
Their conversation moved off the project at that point, to family matters and plans for the coming week. In 2362, March twenty-fifth was again a Sunday.
They tarried over dinner and then walked through the Uptown Market as they used to. The market in the evening always had something of a festival atmosphere, with all the paper lanterns making up for the loss of sunlight through the skylighted ceiling far above. They had ice cream and cookies for a late dessert at the cafe.
When JieMin and ChaoLi finally arrived home, ChaoPing had all the other children in bed. She had stayed up in case of trouble, and now excused herself to go to bed as well. ChaoPing withdrew into the girls’ room she shared with LeiTao.
With all the children in bed, they made long, slow love that night, and fell asleep in each others’ arms.
When ChaoLi woke up hours later though, JieMin was not in bed with her. He was sitting in the big armchair in their bedroom – the chair in which she had nursed all their children – sightlessly looking off to the south-southeast.
The next morning, Monday, JieMin sent a meeting request to Chen Zufu and Chen Zumu. They asked him to join them for morning tea at ten o’clock.
The time had been when JieMin would have been anxious about a meeting with Chen Zufu and Chen Zumu. Over the last seventeen years, however, he had performed many assignments for the family, and always these had come from the couple who were the elders of the clan.
For example, JieMin had visited every one of the family’s remote farming operations, been briefed on their operations and any problems they were having. He often came up with some idea or suggestion no one else had seen, and which made their operation more productive or efficient.
For that matter, JieMin’s participation in the government program to develop a hyperspace drive was at the request of Chen Zufu. It was an additional responsibility to his duties as a professor of mathematics at the University of Arcadia.
Chen MinChao was now Chen Zufu, and his wife Jessica Chen-Jasic was Chen Zumu. Paul Chen-Jasic and Chen JuPing were still alive, but they were now almost ninety years old, and had retired to the countryside.
JieMin was shown to the tearoom of Chen Zufu by a young man who manned the reception desk this morning. When he was shown in, MinChao and Jessica were sitting on pillows facing the door, the teak-beamed doorway into the garden open behind them.
“Please sit, JieMin.”
“Thank you, Chen Zumu.”
A young woman – ChaoPing! – came in and served tea, first to her father, then to Jessica, then to MinChao. She bowed to a spot between them and left without a word.
Soon ChaoPing would be promoted to the reception desk, JieMin thought. Of course, after college she
