Dante's Equation Part 19

"We'll have to rush the negative one pulse work a little is all. We'll take a few more days' worth of observations at fifty percent, then b.u.mp it up to seventy-five. We really ought to have more time, but . . ."

Nate rose slowly to his feet, his face grim. "Jill, we need to talk."

Jill knew what Nate was going to say, and her defenses went up at once, like a castle pulling up the gate at the first sign of attackers. She gave him a cool and levelwhatever gaze and walked away. She began taking the chart off the white board.

He was going to tell her he couldn't work with her anymore. Between the risks she knew she'd taken in their research-exposing both of them to the altered one-minus-one-and now the evidence, right in front of his eyes, that Chalmers and Grover were against her, what else could she expect? The kid wasn't stupid. He had his own future to worry about.

Nate went over to his backpack and pulled out a newspaper. She glanced at him and did not see what she expected to see in his eyes: guilt. Instead, his eyes had a lot of deep questions in them. She noticed that they were puffy and those bruised circles were back.

"You look sick," she said stiffly.

"I feel like s.h.i.t, especially after reading this."

He held out the newspaper. When she didn't cross to take it, he sighed and came to her, held it out.

"What is it?"

He took a deep breath. "I'm concerned about continuing with the negative one pulse experiment. You're moving it up to seventy-five percent-that scares me."

Because of what she'd expected to hear from him and because she really did care about whether he left her, she was uncharacteristically receptive to his body language. She saw that he didn't like what he just said, that he felt cowardly about it, about saying,"That scares me." But he had enough conviction to say it anyway, and that made her recall that he'd been expressing doubt for some time now and she'd completely filtered it out.

Her fingers tripped over her collarbone. "Nate, if you want to take a break, focus on your cla.s.s work . . ."

"It's been raining for three solid weeks."

"It'sOctober . InSeattle ."

"Usually some nice weather in October."

"What are you trying to say?" She looked down at the newspaper, more confused than agitated.

He sighed. "In the past three weeks I've broken up with my girlfriend, gotten two parking tickets, narrowly escaped a semi making a hubcap out of me and my bike, had an altercation in a video store, and a friend of mine at the restaurant nearly cut a finger off slicing vegetables. The guy's a professional chef. Now there's this stuff with Chalmers and Grover."

Despite wanting to understand, a deep stain of irritation blossomed inside Jill. She didn't have time for this nonsense, with the stupid report she had to write and everyone breathing down her back. On the other hand, he'd broken up with his girlfriend.

"Nate . . ." she began slowly. "I'm sorry you've been having problems, but if you think-"

He tapped an article on the front page. She scanned it briefly. Four Udub students were killed the night before when a pickup truck plowed over the rail on the nearby 520 bridge and plunged into Lake Washington.

Jill grabbed the paper, looking for names. The University of Washington was a huge campus, and she didn't recognize any of the victims. Drinking was thought to be involved. "That's terrible."

Nate was staring at her.

"What?You can't seriously think this has anything to do with the negative one pulse."

Nate looked down at his black leather boots, hands on his hips. His face was determined. "I think we should stop."

Jill tossed the paper down and strode across the room, surged into motion by a wave of anger. Everyone was against her! The gate on the castle went back up.

"That is totally unfair! You're creating phantoms, Nate. I expect more from you. I expectscience ." She stalked back to the grid on the white board and jabbed a finger at it. "We're only at, what, thirty percent differential between our lab group and our control group on the negative one pulse? Mice ,bananas , andvirus , allright next to the wave transmitter? Think about it! Even if the negative one pulsedoes have a detrimental effect, how could it have only a thirty percent impacthere , on small objects with few cells, while across campus at the 520 bridge . . . G.o.d, that doesn't even make sense!"

She was breathing hard, felt a stress headache pounding. She told herself to calm down. There was no reason that this couldn't be a rational, scientific discussion, if Nate would only get his head out of his a.s.s.

Nate raked a hand through his blond-tipped hair. "Look. I know I'm not thinking straight. That's part of theproblem . But just listen for a second, okay? Howis it that these pulses affect our fruit and mice and virus? Have you really thought about that?"

"Of course." Jill was too worked up to keep still. She marched back and forth in front of the grid like an ant on guard duty. "Our hypothesis is that the full one and full negative one pulses impact the one-minus-one wave, which is the underlying energy pattern of s.p.a.ce-time. In turn, matter is affected."

"How?"

"Well, the particles of the banana, for instance . . ."

"Go on."

Shehad thought about this, a lot, though it was all just theory for now. "Well, the one pulse merges with the one-minus-one the way any two waves merge and create an intelligence pattern. It doesn't have any effect on the 'crests' of the one-minus-one since they're already at peak 'one' value. But itdoes affect the 'troughs,' the negative one side of the wave. The net result is fewer or gentler troughs. The particles of the banana, which have their own energy waves, intersect with the altered one-minus-one and end up having fewer or gentler troughs also."

Nate nodded, his eyes shining. "Right. And we've seen that when there are fewer troughs things thrive, burgeon forth, feel good, hump like bunnies."

Jill smirked but nodded, granting her a.s.sent.

"And now it seems we've proven the flip side of the coin. The negative one pulse affects theone side of the one-minus-one wave. In other words, itlowers the crests , right? And it appears that when there are fewer crests things slow down, even die, like the virus."

"We're a long way from proving that."

Nate made a face. "I'm not worried about the d.a.m.ned fruit, Jill. I'm not even worried about myself. Though you're really the worse for wear. You do know that, don't you?"

She stopped pacing to glare at him. "I'm fine!"

"You're very irritable."

"Uh! How would you feel with Chalmers and Grover on your case! Besides which, there's no proof that the one-minus-one affects a person's moods or chemistry or whatever."

Nate challenged her with a raised eyebrow. "Why not? Our brains are matter. So are the chemicals in them. Of course the one-minus-one affects our moods-we've both felt it. Just look at the mice."

"I can't," she pointed out dryly.

Nate went into the hall and came back with the two cages. She locked the door again behind him. He put the cages on the table. One white male sniffed halfheartedly at the treadmill. The others lay and watched him lethargically.

Jill growled ahmmm . She needed so badly to justify what she was doing that she argued almost without thought. Only later, lying in bed, would she contemplate the possibility that Nate might have a glimmer of a point. Now she went up to him and put a tired hand on his sleeve as if touching him were a kind of consolation prize for what she was about to say.

"Nate, you know we've got a very modest radio transmitter. We've been seeing results here, yes, but nothing catastrophic or particularly dangerous-looking. Youknow this has nothing to do with that car accident or any other of those other things you mentioned. That's just dumb."

"I'm not saying our experiments pushed that truck off the bridge." Nate closed his eyes, concentrating. "But I also think we're dreaming if we expect to keep the results of our experiment localized to this room. The insulation keeps in the pulsewe're generating, but that's about it. We're manipulating the fabric ofs.p.a.ce-time, Jill. Besides, that's not how the energy pool theory works." There was a tremor in his lips that made her feel emotionally shaky herself. Her hand fell back to her side.

She was weary of the argument, weary in general. Shehadn't been feeling at all well. And she still had another cla.s.s today; then they had to go over to her place this afternoon to check the control group.

"What if . . ." Nate began, "what if there areprobabilities?"

Jill shook her head. "Totally lost."

"What if there is free will? But what if 'free will' or 'no predestiny' only means that there's some kind of probability curve that one thing will happen versus another? Say this kid who was driving the truck, for example." He waved his hand toward the newspaper. "Say his lifetime is fifty percent determined by pure genetics and maybe another thirty percent by environmental conditioning. Then there's this last twenty percent that's dumb luck. Maybe he could die at five from diving off a swing set because he's got a recklessness gene, or at nineteen from an overdose because he's predisposed to addiction. Or maybe there was always a chance he would have an accident while driving drunk."

Jill rubbed her forehead tiredly.

"I'm not saying the pulsepushed him off. But what if itupped the probability of that particular event coming to pa.s.s? What if some random lucky thing, like a favorite song coming on the radio to keep him alert,could have happened last night-if a full crest had been there in his wave pattern- anddidn't , because that crest wasn't there?"

She stared at him dumbly. "Nate, how do I respond to something like that?"

Nate shrugged sadly. "I don't expect you to. I'm not even sure I believe it. I just think-I think we have no idea what we're playing with."

She leaned back against a table and hugged herself, feeling cold. She studied him for a moment. "You should take some time off."

"No."

"Just a few weeks. You can work on the data over in my office. For the report."

From having been afraid of losing him a few minutes ago Jill realized that she was now pushing him out. She wanted him to go. Because there was something she was even more afraid of losing than Nate Andros: her own faith in the work or even the work itself.

But Nate slumped in surrender. He went back over to his computer and picked up his coffee cup. "Christ, I don't want time off. I just want to talk about it, for G.o.d's sake. I mean, sometimes this thing blows mymind ."

She heard a quiver in his voice and watched his face darken as he stared down into his cup. She felt a lump in her own throat in response but quelled it. A heartbeat later, she was mentally logging his increase of instability, of emotionalism, of paranoia for her journal entry later that night.

"That's all the more reason to finish quickly," she said crisply. "Let's try to get the data up to fifty percent differential between our lab group and our control group on the negative one pulse. That's good enough for publication. We can stop there."

Nate didn't answer or even glance at her.

"So . . . what happened with Linda?"

The words were out before she realized they were coming, and she immediately felt as though she'd just done something particularly humiliating. She compensated by looking supremely uninterested in the answer, checking her fingernails. She could feel him watching her.

"We didn't have much in common when it came right down to it."

"Huh." She turned away, perversely pleased. "Are you sure you don't want some time off? Iwould like to b.u.mp it up. But if you're not comfortable with that you don't have to be down here. Just say the word."

His mouth twisted wryly. "No." Then, harder, "And leave you to hog all the glory? Not unless you have a team of wild horses I don't know about."

Jill smiled.

8.3. Aharon Handalman

JERUSALEM.

It was Friday afternoon, and Hannah was rushing to get everything ready for the Sabbath. In the oven a brisket baked on a timer. The two younger children had had baths that morning and Yehuda was in there now, his clothes laid out on the bed. She set the table with silver candlesticks that had belonged to her grandmother, stirred the vegetable soup, and put the large skillet on the range for an unusual treat-latkes. She looked at the extra place at the table anxiously.

It was growing dark when Aharon arrived, their guest in tow. Hannah had already lit the candles and blessed them. The men had walked from the yeshiva, and the exercise made the recent paleness of Aharon's face, the looseness of his skin, more apparent. Hannah glanced at him worriedly and welcomed Binyamin, taking his coat, trying not to wince at the smell that wafted from the folds of wool.

"It's, um, nice of you to invite me," Binyamin said. "Rabbi Handalman said it was your idea."

"You're very welcome." Hannah glanced guiltily at Aharon. "I hope you both brought good appet.i.tes."

She had coached the children to be especially nice, yet Devorah wrinkled her nose as she sat at the table. "It smells!" she said, which Hannah hastily covered by talking about the brisket.

When the food was on the table, Aharon said the blessing:"Baruch atah Adonai . . ."

From under her lashes Hannah watched him, her heart weighted with concern. The change in him had been happening for some time, but a few weeks ago there was a sharp demarcation. Sometimes there was an expression on his face that made him a stranger.

It used to be if you were charitable you called Aharon a.s.sured, and if not so charitable pompous. When he'd prayed he'd had a solidness about him, as if to say,This is who I am and who my father was and my father's father, as if he had a shortcut to G.o.d's ear. That man was gone. Aharon went through the motions, mouthed the syllables. He might have been reading a grocery list. The worst thing was, she didn't even think he was aware of the change, didn't think he had any clue about the distracted blankness in his eyes or the fact that at times he had a look there that was pure panicky fear. He slept badly, had nightmares, rose so late she knew he would have little time for his morning prayers, and he didn't even seem to care.

The mealtime crawled under the weight of forced conversation. Binyamin, who would never be any girl's idea of a prince, was also no chatterbox. Fortunately, he was a quick eater. He finished two platefuls in record time, and no one else was hungry. Hannah cleared and served dessert: halvah and herbal tea.

The older two children were excused. Hannah put the baby to bed. When she came out, Aharon and Binyamin were not in the house. In the shadows outside she spotted them sitting in the children's playground. She checked on Devorah and Yehuda, both reading (Devorah pretending to) in the living room. Hannah put on her coat and slipped outside.

The playground was small, only swings and a slide that even Devorah had nearly outgrown. Hannah did not approach it on the path but went around the building instead, hoping the dark would shield her from prying eyes-not Aharon's so much as the neighbors'. What would they say about a woman spying on her own husband?

She came around the side of the building, paused against the wall. She could barely hear the men's voices. Aharon's usually carried well, G.o.d knew, but he was speaking without much energy.

"Last night I dreamed I was trying to hide Yehuda at the yeshiva because the n.a.z.is were plundering in the streets. They were knocking down the Wall, and if I didn't hide Yehuda they would find him. I had him by the hand, and I was racing through the school when suddenly there was a brilliant flash in the windows. It was the weapon. I knew it, in the dream; I thought:The n.a.z.is got the weapon, somehow, and they've destroyed Jerusalem! "

"It was just a dream, Rabbi." Binyamin's boyish voice was uneasy but also unexpectedly kind.

"Yes, yes, of course. Pray to G.o.d it stays that way. We must find Anatoli Nikiel. We must get our hands on the rest of the ma.n.u.script before they do." Then the men got up and began to stroll.

Hannah's heart was in her throat, but she didn't dare follow. She went back to the apartment, wrote her note, and waited. Devorah went to bed. The men returned. One more cup of tea, then Binyamin rose to leave. His coat was threadbare and old-like, perhaps, something that had belonged to his grandfather or someone else's grandfather, salvaged from a bargain bin in the marketplace. His parents, who were not poor, must tear their hair out, G.o.d help them.

Hannah followed the men to the door and when Binyamin mumbled good-bye he stuck his hand in his coat pocket. Hannah held her breath for a moment, fearing in his simplicity he would give her away, would pull out the note and say,What is this?

But he didn't. He frowned at her, clenching something tightly in his pocket, and said good night.

Ever since the moment Aharon had decided he didn't want to communicate with Shimon Norowitz anymore, Shimon Norowitz had become his best friend."What else have you found in the arrays? What have you learned in your research? Have you spoken to anyone? Who?" And always, like clockwork,"Of course, you'll keep in touch?"

Whenever Norowitz called, Aharon's lips felt pressed shut, too heavy to move, as though an angel were putting a finger there-shhhhh. He did not tell Norowitz about his interview with Biederer. He did not tell him about Anatoli Nikiel. And he certainly did not mention the disappearance of two men outside of Auschwitz in a flash of light.

On a Monday after Binyamin had taken Shabbes with them, the boy was already in Aharon's office when he arrived. Binyamin rose with an odd expression, his Kobinski binder in his hands. He looked like a dog that had dug something up and wasn't sure whether to look pleased or guilty about it.

"What? What did you find?" "I found something," Binyamin mumbled. His cheeks were spotted with red. "Yes, I know that. I know because I can read minds, Binyamin, and because you're standing there holding the binder with such a look. What is it?"Binyamin held it out. "Here." Aharon was disappointed when he saw what Binyamin had circled. "That? That's not a word!" Binyamin's tapered hands with their chipped fingernails reached for the binder hesitatingly. "Okay, but . . ." "Don't say 'okay.' 'Okay'-what does thatmean?" Binyamin put the binder down on the desk, poked his gla.s.ses higher on his nose, and turned pages.

Now Aharon could see that there were new Post-it notes adhered to the pages, fresh pink-colored ones showing brightly against all the dull, fading yellows. Binyamin turned to one of the flagged pages, holding the binder open for Aharon expectantly.

"These?" Aharon asked, pointing to the pink flags.

Binyamin nodded. Aharon bent over the binder and looked. The same five-letter sequence, , was on this page again, and on the next pink-flagged page, and the next. "How many?" Aharon asked, his voice small. "Forty-five occurrences." Forty-five!"But . . . 'TLCTT'-it doesn't mean anything." But this time Aharon wasn't so sure. "Maybe . . . um . . . could it be a name? With the vowels, I mean?" "How did you find this?" Binyamin shrugged. "Just saw it," he muttered, looking down at the page. "Hmmm." Aharon stroked his beard. "Itmight be a name. What else? Acronym? Something scientific? A chemical ingredient? A formula?" He rocked back and forth on his toes. "Could be," Binyamin said doubtfully. "Or it could be a name." Aharon had a Jewish encyclopedia CD-ROM-something Hannah had gotten him for a birthday. He tried several combinations of vowels added to the Hebrew consonants but found no matches. He did a search for the letters in the Torah and Talmud also, but that sequence of letters did not appear in plaintext of either one.