Dream thief

11

… SPENCE DONNED A CLEAN, informal, nonregulation jumpsuit and struck off for the director's quarters. He was pleased with himself for remembering the party at the last second-it was perfect. He wanted to get away from the lab and out of Tickler's presence to think about his discovery. What exactly, if anything, did it mean?

At the time it had seemed electrifyingly significant. Now, as he hurried along the crowded trafficways of Gotham flowing with the changing shifts, his startling revelation seemed a little on the trivial side. There were at least a dozen different ways of accounting for the match up of the two entries. Spence ticked them off one by one as he dodged and elbowed his way to the Zandersons'.

By the time he arrived at the buff-colored portal he had convinced himself that his discovery lacked any real bones. It would never stand up. There had to be more, something else that would tell him what this bare shred of fact meant. What that something was he had no idea.

"Spencer! I'm so glad to see you. Come in!" Ari beamed at him over the threshold as the panel slid open. Spence shook himself out of his reverie and returned her smile.

"I hope I'm not too late." She drew him into the room which was humming with the conversation of the guests. Several turned to regard the newcomer with frank, disapproving glances; most ignored his entrance.

"I think some of your guests are sorry I bothered to show up at all."

"Nonsense, silly. You just haven't been properly introduced. Come along. Daddy will want to do the honors."

Ari steered him into the gathering and around conversational cliques to where her father held forth at a buffet, urging tiny sandwiches on doubtful patrons. He was surrounded by women-the wives of faculty and fellows, decided Spence-who tittered politely at his jokes while they picked among the delicacies offered on the board.

"Daddy, look who's here." Ari took her father's arm and expertly wheeled him around to face Spence. "Dr. Reston! Good of you to come."

"Kind of you to invite me."

"Here, get yourself a plate and dig in. The rumaki is delicious." "Thank you, maybe a little later, I-"

"Daddy, I told Spencer that you would introduce him to some of the others. Won't you, please?"

"Oh, of course. I'd be delighted to. Look-there's Olmstead Packer, head of High Energy. Come along. Who's that with him? Another new face, I believe." Director Zanderson piloted them both forcefully ahead through the standing clusters of socializers. Spence bobbed along in his wake. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ari disappear into a knot of partygoers with a plate of hors d'oeuvres. He abandoned himself to his immediate fate.

"Tell me, Dr. Reston, have you thought any further about the research trip?"

"Why, yes. I've considered it-"

"I'm not pressing, not pressing. Oh, here we are. Gentlemen!" The director broke in on the two men, clapping a hand on a shoulder of each. "I'd like you to meet Dr. Reston, BioPsych."

Before any further introductions could take place, the man previously identified as Packer thrust out a hand and said, "Glad to meet you. I'm Olmstead Packer and this is my colleague Adjani Rajwandhi."

"I'll leave you gentlemen to become better acquainted. Don't forget to go by the buffet, now. Don't be bashful." The director left Spence in the care of his new acquaintances and plunged back into the swirl.

Olmstead Packer laughed heartily and said, "There goes a dynamo! A roly-poly dynamo. Why, if we could harness that energy-just think!"

"These HiEn bookworms!" remarked Rajwandhi. "They cannot stand to see anything without an outlet in it. They think all the world is a power grid."

"Not true, Adjani. Not true at all. The universe is one big reactor, and we're all subatomic particles bounding around in our random orbits." Packer smiled broadly.

Spence took to the big, red-bearded cherub immediately. With his kinky red hair that looked like rusty steel wool and his droopy-lidded brown eyes he appeared an almost comic figure always on the verge of laughing out loud.

Adjani, on the other hand, was a slight mongoose of a man who looked at the world through keen eyes, bright and hard as black diamonds. He had about him an air of mystery which Spence found intriguing and slightly exotic.

"Dr. Rajwandhi is a fellow of my department-" began Packer.

"But not of your discipline!" interrupted Adjani.

"No-sadly not of our discipline."

"What project are you attached to, Dr. Rajwandhi?" asked Spence politely.

"To my colleagues I am just Adjani, please. I am currently assigned to the plasma project. This is under Dr. Packer's supervision."

"You flatter me, Adjani," roared Packer, his teeth flashing white from out of the auburn tangle of his beard. He said to Spence, "Adjani here is under no one's supervision. The man has not yet been born who can keep up with him, and he does not know how to take direction."

"Can I help it if God granted me full measure of what other men possess only in part?"

"You'll get no argument from me, snake charmer. I'll sing your praises from here to Jupiter and back." Turning once more to Spence he explained, "Adjani is our Spark Plug-and the best in the business."

Spence looked at the slim Adjani with new respect. A Spark Plug, as they were called, was a member of an elite group of men and women so gifted as to be completely expert in numerous fields of study-as many as five or six. Whereas most scientists and theoricians were specialists, training their professional vision to ever narrower bands of the scientific spectrum, those like Adjani-and there were very few of them-worked in reverse, enlarging the scope of their knowledge wider and wider. In effect, they were specialists in everything: physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, metallurgy, psychology, and all the rest.

Most often they were employed as systematicians-men who could view the overall course of a project and draw valuable information from other areas of study and bring it to bear upon a particular problem. They acted as catalysts of creativity-spark plugs-providing those quick, dynamic bursts of creative insight for projects that had grown too complex to rely on the accidental cross-pollinization of ideas from other disciplines.

They were the "connection men," making much needed connections between the problem at hand and useful data from areas unrelated to the project which nevertheless offered possible insight or solutions to stubborn problems. And connection men were in great demand. Science had long ago realized that it could no longer afford to wait for chance to match up and germinate the ideas from which scientific breakthroughs were born. The system, if it was to remain healthy and viable, needed help; the scientific method needed the boost that geniuses like Adjani could give.

So, Spence was duly impressed. He had never met a spark plug; there were not many of them, and the discipline was still too new to have penetrated into all branches of study. Mostly, connection men were snapped up by the bigger and more lavishly funded programs like high energy or laser physics.

"I'm glad to know you, Adjani," said Spence, and he meant it.

Olmstead Packer fixed on Spence with keen interest. "Tell us about yourself."

"Me? I… ah… " Spence could not think of a thing to say. "I'm new here. This is my first jumpyear."

"I thought so. This is Adjani's first jump, too. I had one devil of a time trying to get him up here. Cal Tech had their claws in him and didn't want to let him go. You're not from Cal Tech, are you?"

"No-NYU. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, it just seems that I remember a Dr. Reston from Cal Tech-but it couldn't be… Why, that was years ago, now that I think of it."

"It's not an uncommon name." Spence could not bring himself to admit that Packer was talking about his father. Dr. Reston-the professor Spence had never known; he did not want to discuss his father's breakdown.

"Did you attend Cal Tech?" asked Spence.

"Stanford," replied Packer proudly. "Though most of my time was spent at JPL. You are engaged in the LTST sleep study, correct?"

"Why, yes-"

"Fascinating work," said Packer.

"And vital," said Adjani. "If we are ever to probe beyond our solar system we must understand the delicate psychological balance between sleep and mental well-being. Can the sleep state be prolonged indefinitely? Is it a function of certain chemical interactions within the brain? Can individual sleep patterns be molded to the changing demands of space flight? Very interesting. Very important questions you are working on, Dr. Reston."

"My friends call me Spence." Now it was Spence's turn to be flattered. Adjani, true to his calling, seemed to know intimately the nature of his work.

"Tell me, Spence, do you think we'll be able to put our crews to sleep for, say, a year or two on a trip between stars?"

"That's a tough one." Spence puffed out his cheeks and let the air whistle through his teeth. "It is not entirely out of the question. Though I admit right now it looks like a long shot. This is still virgin territory we're exploring, you understand. Our expectations are likely to run beyond our abilities for some time to come."

"You are a pioneer, Spence. And a cautious one. That is good." Adjani smiled at him. "Packer asked the question with ulterior motives, I surmise."

"Oh, how so?" Spence raised his eyebrows and regarded Packer with mock suspicion.

"See! What did I tell you? He's a quick one all right. Yes, I admit it. I had something in mind and I though I might get a little comfort from your answer."

"Olmstead is leading the research trip this year since he's taking sixteen of his third-year students with him. He dreads the flight."

"It isn't the flight I mind. It's my third trip to Mars and I get so bored. Five weeks is a long time to occupy oneself aboard a bucket-I wouldn't mind a long nap."

"It would not take five weeks if you and your HiEn theorists would stop theorizing and perfect the plasma drive," jibed Adjani.

The big physicist pulled a hurt face and shook his head wearily. "See, Spence? See what I have to put up with? Now it's my fault that we have no plasma drive. Just between you and me, Dr. Reston, I think Adjani is a saboteur sent from Cal Tech to disrupt our experiments. They would like to be first to patent the plasma-ion drive."

"I've been thinking about coming along on the research trip myself. Director Zanderson has asked me."

"Then you must come, by all means," said Adjani.

"Not so fast. Do you play pidg?" Packer fixed him with a hard look.

"After a fashion, yes. I've not had a great deal of zero-G experience. But I like the game."

"Fine. That settles it. You must come and you must be on our team. The faculty and students always have a pidg tournament during the Mars cruise. It has become something of a tradition, and an object of intense competition. The only trouble is, not many of the faculty indulge in the sport."

"They lose consistently," remarked Adjani.

"I really haven't made up my mind. I have so much to do here…"

"If Zanderson has suggested you go, I would think seriously about it. He does not extend the invitation to everyone. You are fortunate to have it come so soon."

They talked a long time, though to Spence it seemed only seconds, when Olmstead Packer's wife came to pry her husband loose to mix with some of her friends. Adjani excused himself as well and vanished into the press around the buffet. Spence felt naked and obvious, having no one to talk to. The camaraderie he had experienced with the two men evaporated all too quickly.

"I thought I'd never get you back," said a voice behind him.

He turned to see Ari standing there. She seemed always to be popping up unexpectedly. "I'm drifting-save me," he said.

"It didn't look to me like you needed saving. It looked like you were having a good time."

"No, I mean now."

She smiled shyly and said, "I'll save you. Would you like something to eat? Daddy will be most disappointed if you don't at least try the mousse."

"I'd love to try it."

Ari led the way to the buffet and Spence followed gladly. He had begun to feel that above all else he did not want to be lonely anymore.