by Jerry
AN AFFAIR WITH GENIUS
Joseph Green
The make-up of a “strong man” is somewhat different in a modem world where crises are more cerebral and emotional than physical. Thus, when a man is married to a scientist with a touch of genius, it can lend to a bitterness that no physical defeat can match in intensity.
VALENCE UPPSALA HAD JUST finished a temporary hookup of his ship’s portable powerpak to the station’s air condenser when he heard the muted, crackling thunder of phased ion rockets braking in an atmosphere. He looked up and saw the one-man scout dropping rapidly toward the small rock outcropping a kilometer away, where his own ship rested. It was the only solid ground in the sea of sand around the station, and he had landed conservatively in the center. There was barely room for another vessel.
He pressed the start button and listened to the long-silent condenser wheeze into action. After a moment it quieted and settled into a steady working drone. His eyes were on the incoming scout, and suddenly he realized who had to be at the controls. Valerie! The knowledge jolted him’ with the single hard blow of a static shock. His breathing deepened, and the rush of oxygen through his light jumpsuit’s discriminators quickened to a steady sighing. He glanced down at his long, capable hands, bare from the wrists out, and saw them slowly tightening, as though around a slim neck Valerie. He had not seen her in twelve years, since the day they parted at the spaceport after returning to Earth.
They had landed with Valerie suffering from the usual space cafard; he had sand in his eyes, memory and blood. It had been imperative that he return to the cool northern woods of his native Scandinavia immediately, to fulfill a deep need for green growth, life, the splendor of trees. It was over a week before he returned to civilization, to find in his communicay tray the official notice that Valerie declined to renew their marriage.
The shock of rejection was still strong when Valence returned from a fruitless trip to the university—Valerie was en route to visit her own kin—and turned on the communicays visual. He dialed a replay that Geoffrey Able, their graduate professor and field-trip sponsor, had advised him to see. The official death notice of the neutral name of “Victory”, chosen by Valence Uppsala and Valerie Es’ahdrin for their one-year contract, was slowly crushed into a paper ball as he watched his recent mate being interviewed life-size on the wall screen, heard for the first time the guiding rules that enforced cooperation between independent cells in all multicell beings. Sometime recently, after a year of laughing opposition, she had suddenly discarded her unworkable external contact theory and switched to his own more orthodox approach. But then she had performed one of those incredible mental jumps he could never understand, springing ahead of his methodical progress without logic or reason, and achieved a breakthrough. He knew, hearing it, that he had been working toward this basic of life, the Principle of Summative Control, from the beginning, and in his own plodding way might have reached it when the last analysis was in. But Valerie had the genius touch, the firefly glow . . . and she had leaped far ahead of him to the final answer.
At the end of the program he was not surprised to see that he was listed as co-finder, under his born name. Their marriage had never been. His long fingers were trembling slightly as he methodically tore the paper ball to shreds. Next day he assigned his share of all proceeds to the university and accepted a teaching position at the new school on Tau Ceti Two. He had not seen Valerie, or Earth, since, but he heard later that she had married Geoffrey Able.
Valence Uppsala looked down at the strong hands, equally capable with tool or pen, and realized for the first time that they could also commit murder.
The new ship settled toward the rock at an angle, exposing the standing scout to a minimum of plasma but kicking up more blinding sand and increasing the difficulty of an already rough landing. The approach had to be fast. He felt his breath catch when it looked as though the fiery tail was going to swing into the rock rather than over it, but that was a deception of distance. The ship touched down gently, swayed forward, and settled back safely.
The miniature sandstorm was slow in dying. After a moment he realized the turbulence had started a small whirlwind. That meant a low-pressure front was passing, and on this planet such fronts were often followed by severe storms.
He turned and walked around the dome toward the airlock, passing the one indulgence they had designed into the station, a thick, reinforced-glass picture window that fronted on the rusty red water of the lake. Now it stared out over the dense liquid like an eye scratched by the granules of a severe trachoma infection. The pervasive, abrading effects of the sand were visible everywhere. The storms that had made their year here sometimes hazardous must be getting more severe, a sign that the dying planet, biologically speaking, was at the death-rattle stage. The building was still airtight, though, and as soon as the condenser increased the oxygen content from the ambient five percent to an acceptable fifteen, he could shed the jumpsuit.
He pulled the cover off the still inoperable power supply rack and in two minutes had located a clouded crystal block. He replaced the defective unit with a spare and had the satisfaction of seeing the green “ready” light flash on.
He started activating station systems one by one at the main console and saw all status lights except the radio indicate “operating”. That settled the question of whether he should contact the newcomer, since the jumpsuits did not contain a communication system.
He was checking the robomixer and its biobrain computer, the one item in the station almost worth the expense of shipping back to Earth, when the inner airlock door opened. As she closed the low hatch and straightened, he saw that it was indeed Valerie, and the old wicked grin was twisting the generous mouth into a familiar crookedness.
“Hello, Lance,” she said, almost too casually. “Came by to renew my culture stock and find you here. Most unpleasant surprise.”
Her voice was muffled by passage through the air escape valve, and the loose jumpsuit hid the tall, rawboned, wide-shouldered figure. Despite these obstacles the magic reached out and caught him again, the compelling and sometimes overpowering sense of her presence. He resisted the lure, and suddenly raw hatred boiled deep within and. surged to the surface, so strong that he had to place his hands behind him and lock them together in quivering tension. She watched him, amused, obviously enjoying the internal conflict raging in his body, glad she could still affect him and confident of the outcome.
It was the confidence that hurt most. If she had been even a little afraid . . . the urge to smash that infuriating grin was irresistible, and he started toward her, arms self-consciously tight at his sides. Her grin faded and was replaced by an alert watchfulness. The right hand dropped to one of the suit’s large pockets; he saw the familiar bulge of a stunner inside. Then he was standing in front of her and it was too late to draw the weapon. But there was still no fear in her eyes.
He stopped, not knowing what he was going to do, and she waited. For a dragging, silent moment the tension endured, and then slowly the wide mouth that had given him such joy for a year started to open, and seconds later a loud but feminine peal of hearty laughter turned him crimson with shame. He was defeated, and knew it, and he could only stand in helpless impotence while the mocking sound went on and on. Still laughing, she strode past him and lowered her angular body into the console chair. He waited, and she stopped abruptly and said, “Do you know there’s a big sandstorm on the way? I saw it as I was coming down. It’s close.”
He was no killer after all; it had been a self-delusion, thinking he could strangle any woman, even Valerie. He looked down at the competent hands that had finally failed him, and dully told her it wouldn’t matter; his powerpak would keep the station operable and the walls were still strong.
“Are you sure of that? Remember that this foamfab grows brittle with age.” As she spoke a sudden gust of wind shot a spray of sand against the window.
Valence started digging into memory for the emergency pro
cedures. The high pressure cover should be placed over the wastes outlet, and condenser sand-baffles checked . . . he asked Valerie to locate the station’s portable lights, and she moved to comply without question; she had never argued with him on practical matters. Outside again he saw that the storm was coming fast, great brown clouds of sand rearing massive prominences just beyond the ships. It would be on them in minutes. The scouts were already fading in an ocher haze.
Valence completed the exterior work and started back to the airlock. Before entering he scanned the lake and saw the rounded dome of one of the nineteen huge aggregates they had dubbed cellbergs floating above the gelatinous liquid like the top of a spherical iceberg, five-sixths of its dark mass submerged. It was only a few hundred meters from shore, their closest approach point to the station. He recalled the hours he had spent crawling around in the great composite bodies with a slight shudder of disgust. And he would never forget the first day Valerie had approached one of the dark entrance holes with him and her undisguised and total horror at the idea of plunging within. In the end he had performed all the field work while she remained in the lab. And he was back on the dying planet today because of that field work. In her long jump from a rough understanding of free cell cooperation to the principle that had made them Nobel winners, Valerie had overlooked several sidelights that could yield valuable information. There was a plant adaptation problem on Tau Ceti Two where one of them should apply.
He had just stepped inside the room and closed the airlock door when a rock smashed into the glass window.
It was a freak that could have happened during any of the dozen storms they had weathered in their year. An occasional stone came rolling down from the outcropping on the prevailing wind, but it invariably hit the rounded foamwall dome and bounced harmlessly away. This time a cross wind caught a large one already past the building and tossed it directly at the scarred eye; it cracked badly, gave, and blew outward in thick jagged splinters of glass.
The slightly denser air in the station rushed out and was instantly replaced by a howling, swirling inferno of wind-blown sand. Valence kept his feet by holding tightly to the handle of the airlock door, and when pressures equalized he hurried over the littered floor to Valerie. She had been slammed against a metal cabinet, and stunned. One leg of her suit had been torn above the knee. He saw as he knelt beside her that the skin on her kneecap had been ground raw by that one brief contact with the abrasive sand. Three minutes in the open would strip the flesh off the bone.
As he knelt beside her another cross wind followed the first, and when it abruptly flowed back out, a section of brittle foamfab above the broken window went with it. As the new influx of sand settled Valence saw cracks lacing the wall around the window area. They had to get out of the station immediately, before it collapsed around their ears. He glanced back at Valerie and saw that the exposed leg had taken more punishment and started to bleed. He had to get her into shelter at once. And there was no shelter. It would be impossible to reach the ships in this hell of grating sand and vicious wind.
A stray memory clawed its way to the surface of his racing mind, and he saw where they could hide in safety. But it would be difficult to reach alone, much less dragging the unconscious woman . . . he glanced down at the still figure. Only the blood slowly oozing from the scoured knee told him she was still alive. If he left her, she would be dead within minutes.
If he left her. . . I And abruptly the internal battle started again, more violent than before. No one could blame him; the odds were heavy enough against his reaching sanctuary alone, much less carrying her. And this wasn’t murder, not even by default. He owed her nothing, nothing. She had stolen his work, refused his love, misused his trust. She deserved to die.
He became aware of his hands, raw from the sand-blasting, the practical, helpful hands that had just betrayed him; they were reaching for her shoulders. The decision, if such it was, had been made for him. And he realized he had no choice other than trying to save her, if not for her sake, then his own. He did not have the type of courage she respected, the overbearing force that would have let him dominate her. His strength was an internal steadfastness that kept him going when other men faltered; if he abandoned her now something in himself would die as well.
Valence pulled the unconscious woman to a sitting position. After a moment, when she showed no signs of recovery, he gathered her in his arms and struggled to his feet. Valerie was a heavy burden, even on an 0.8G world. He turned to the low airlock, then changed his mind and carried her toward the window. His knees touched the wide foamfab slab they had poured before the glass, and he lowered her to its yielding surface. The act brought back unwanted memories, of similar times when he had eased her warm body to the waiting bed. Valerie had finished the slab and aerated the top twenty centimeters to maximum resiliency. He could still remember her mocking, crooked grin when she remarked that they needed to be comfortable while sharin’ for a thirty-one hour night. And they had shared, with an intensity he had not dreamed of during their few hectic married days on Earth. Neither his appetite nor capacity could match hers, but they had been deliriously happy during most of the hours spent on that couch. Sharin’ with Valerie had been a unique experience; no other woman he had ever known could even approach her. But after the first few weeks, when she had several times interrupted their work by luring him to bed on a sudden erotic whim, he had established a firm rule of no sex during the thirty-two daylight hours, and only one seven-Erhour break for sleeping. During the long, long night they relaxed and enjoyed themselves with sharin’, talk, study, and an abundant supply of microtapes.
He scrambled through the gaping hole in the center of the window and pulled Valerie after him, careful to avoid dragging her over the protruding shards of glass. She stirred and made a slight moaning sound as he bent to lift her again, and he held her erect and waited instead. A temporary calm had followed the storm’s advance winds, as was normal, and he used the time to finish bringing her to consciousness. When she seemed fairly well recovered, he told her what they had to do.
He heard her gasp, and so he took one arm in a firm grip and led her to the waters edge. There he paused long enough to close her suit’s escape valve; air would flow out the tom place and keep out most of the water. The wind was starting to pick up again, and a wall of sand battered at them as they began wading. She hung back, not fighting him but not helping either, and he knew she was confronting a dread he could neither share nor appease. They floundered on for twenty meters before the water slowly deepened and they found themselves floating high in the thick fluid, so heavy that it both supported them and resisted the force of the wind. His faceplate was already so cut by sand that his vision was hampered, but in another and shorter calm spell he saw the cellberg and struck out strongly toward it. Valerie followed, somewhat more slowly.
It was like swimming through jelly, laborious and slow, but they made steady progress. Then the hard winds returned, driving streams of sand against their heads and shoulders, and he grew afraid the light fabric would give way under the steady grinding and their vigorous exertions. There was another brief letup, probably the last one before the full fury of die central funnel hit them, and he looked back and saw Valerie falling behind. He waited, and tried to help her when she reached him, but the suits made his efforts clumsy and useless. The berg was close now, less than a hundred meters away; and when the returning fury blotted out vision, he kept them moving toward it.
The water was beginning to heave violently under the stronger winds, and he knew it had to be soon or never. Swimming was rapidly becoming impossible, and his strength was failing. It seemed that they must have passed the berg in the blinding sand, were swimming into the open lake. He was almost ready to admit defeat when one hand struck a spongy softness. He stood up immediately and moved back along the sphere’s curve into deeper water, reaching for Valerie. She grasped an outstretched hand and he pulled her to his side. There was no time to let her recover. Ke
eping as much in the water as possible, he started dragging her around the upper edge, looking for the nearest vein. He saw one after a few meters, a round black hole with a diameter twice the width of his shoulders, just below the waterline. He shoved Valerie toward it.
She stopped at the edge, and he knew from the helpless, appealing way her head swung toward him that she could not voluntarily enter that dark passage. Even the strong have their weaknesses. He lifted her bodily, tilted the lean form as she stiffened under his hands, and thrust her headfirst into the opening. Both arms were rigid at her sides, and he knew the dark brown eyes would be tightly closed. He crawled in quickly, and as their buoyancy locked them against the curved top, he turned on his back and gained enough traction to push her hard ahead.
The jumpsuit’s discriminators were more efficient in a liquid than in air, but at this distance from the core the water was low in dissolved oxygen. He felt the first lightheadedness, ignored it and kept shoving her forward. After a moment blackness was hovering at the edge of his mind. He paused, breathing in great gasps, straining to pull more free oxygen out of the water, and then resumed his forward movement.
Suddenly he could tell that Valerie had worked her arms ahead and was helping; their pace quickened. A minute later his weak grasp on consciousness began fading once more as he used up all available oxygen; doggedly he fought his way onward through the darkening shadows, aware that if he paused for more deep breathing he would not have the physical strength to move again. Suddenly Valerie emerged into the bergs hollow interior, an inner sphere over three meters in diameter. She was abruptly pulled from his grasp as she rose to the top. He followed, and groped until he found her in the absolute darkness. The water in this central cavity was so rich in oxygen produced by the berg’s cells that he almost went into hyperventilation before he could control his need for air.
They were safe now, but there was a long, miserable wait ahead and perhaps insurmountable problems when they emerged. If both ships were blown over . . . he felt a bump against his helmet and heard Valerie’s voice saying; “Talk to me before I go insane! Why did you come back here?”