for a moment on how different he and Lakin were, despite their common scientific interests—and then suddenly sat upright. Heads nearby turned at this quick movement. Gordon ran the conversation with Lakin through his mind, remembering how his talk about the message had been neatly deflected, first into a dodge about Cooper, then the Lowell story, followed by Lakin’s seeming to back down on the “to be published in PRL” business. Lakin got the PRL he wanted, with Gordon and Cooper as coauthors, and Gordon had nothing more than the typescript of his message.
Gell-Mann was describing, in his precise way, a detailed pyramid of particles arranged by mass, spin, and various quantum numbers. It was all a meaningless jumble to Gordon. He reached into his vest pocket—he always put on a jacket for Colloquium, if not a tie as well—and brought out the message. He stared at it a moment and stood up. The audience for Gell-Mann was huge, the biggest draw of the year. They all seemed to be watching him as he worked his way through the forest of knees to the aisle. He walked out of the Colloquium a little unsteadily, the message paper twisted in his hand. Eyes followed him as he went out a side door.
“Does it make sense?” Gordon said intensely to the sandy-haired man across the desk from him.
“Well, yeah, sort of.”
“The chemistry is legitimate?”
Michael Ramsey spread his palms upward. “Sure, as much as I can follow. These industrial names —’Springfield AD45, Du Pont Analagan 58’—don’t mean anything to me. Maybe they’re still under development.”
“What it says about the ocean, and this stuff reacting together—”
Ramsey shrugged. “Who knows? We’re babes in the woods about a lot of this long-chain molecule stuff. Just because we can make plastic raincoats, don’t think we’re wizards.”
“Look, I came over to Chemistry to get help in understanding that message. Who would know more about it?”
Ramsey sat back in his reclining office chair, squinting unconsciously at Gordon, plainly trying to assess the situation. After a moment he said quietly, “Where’d you get this information?”
Gordon shifted uneasily in his chair. “I’m… look, keep this quiet.”
“Sure, Sure.”
“I’ve been getting some… strange… signals in an experiment of mine. Signals where there shouldn’t be any.”
Ramsey squinted again. “Uh huh.”
“Look, I know this stuff isn’t very clear. Just fragments of sentences.”
“That’s what you’d expect, isn’t it?”
“Expect? From what?”
“An intercepted message, picked up by one of our listening stations in Turkey.” Ramsey smiled with a touch of glee, his skin around the blue eyes crinkling so that his freckles folded together.
Gordon fingered the tip of his button-down collar, opened his mouth and then closed it.
“Oh, come on,” Ramsey said, cheerful now that he had penetrated on obvious cover story. “I know about all that tip-top secret stuff. Lots of guys try their hand at it. Government can’t get enough qualified people to pick over this stuff, so they bring in a consultant.”
“I’m not working for the government. I mean, outside of NSF—”
“Sure, I’m not saying you are. There’s that working panel Department of Defense has, what do they call it? Jason, yeah. A lot of bright guys in there. Hal Lewis up at Santa Barbara, Rosenbluth from here, sharp people. Did you do any of that ICBM reentry work for DOD?”
“Can’t say as I did,” Gordon said with deliberate mildness.
“Ha! Good phrase. Can’t
Gordon found himself fingering his collar again and discovered the button was nearly twisted off. In the New York days his mother had had to sew one back on every week or so. Lately his rate had gotten lower, but today—
“I’m surprised the Soviets are talking about this sort of thing, though,” Ramsey murmured, thinking to himself. The narrowing around his eyes had relaxed and he slipped back into the mold of experimental organic chemist pondering a problem. “They’re not very far along in these directions. In fact, at the last Moscow meeting I attended I could’ve sworn they were way behind us. They’ve pushed fertilizer for that five-year plan of theirs. Nothing of
“Why the American and English brand names?” Gordon said intently, leaning forward in his chair. “Dupont and Springfield. And this—’emitting from repeated agricultural use Amazon basin other sites’ and so on.”
“Yeah,” Ramsey allowed, “Seems funny. Don’t suppose it’s got anything to do with Cuba, do you? That’s the only place the Russians are monkeying around in South America.”
“Ummm.” Gordon frowned, nodding to himself.
Ramsey studied Gordon’s face. “Ah, maybe that makes sense. Some kind of Castro side action in the Amazon? A little under-the-counter aid to the backwoods people, to make the guerrillas more popular? Might make sense.”
“That seems a little complicated, doesn’t it? I mean, the other parts about the plankton neurojacket and so on.”
“Yeah, I don’t understand that. Maybe it’s not even part of the same transmission.” He looked up. “Can’t you get a better transcription than this? Those radio eavesdroppers—”
“I’m afraid that’s the best I can do. You understand,” he added significantly.
Ramsey pursed his lips and nodded. “If DOD is so interested they’d farm out info like this… Tantalizing, isn’t it? Must be something to it.”
Gordon shrugged. He didn’t dare say anything more. This was a delicate game, letting Ramsey talk himself into a cloak-and-dagger explanation, without actually telling him anything that was an outright lie. He had come over to the Chemistry Department prepared to lay things on the line, but he now realized that would have got him nowhere. Better to play it this way.
“I like it,” Ramsey said decisively. He slapped his palm with a
This took Gordon aback. “Well, I don’t… I hadn’t thought…”
Ramsey nodded again. “Right, I get it. DOD isn’t going to pony up for every blue-sky idea that floats by. They want some backup work.”
“A down payment.”
“Yeah. Some preliminary data. That’ll make a better case for pursuing the idea.” He paused, as though juggling schedules in his mind. “I have some idea how we could start. Can’t do it right’ away, you understand. Lots of other work under way here.” He relaxed, leaned back in his swivel chair, grinned. “Send me a Xerox of it and let me mull it over, huh? I like a puzzle like this. Puts a little zip in things. I appreciate your bringing it by, letting me in.”
“And I’m happy you’re interested,” Gordon murmured. His smile had a wry and distant quality.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HE PICKED HIS WAY ALONG PEARL STREET, HITTING the brakes every moment or two as ruby tail lights winked in warning ahead. Traffic was getting thicker almost daily. Gordon felt for the first time the irritation at others moving in, gobbling up the landscape, crowding this slice of paradise, elbowing him. It seemed pointless,
