A Pocketful of Stars (Applied Topology Book 1)

by Margaret Ball

  Well, when he put it that way…

  Fueled by another cup and a half of watery Center coffee, Mr. M. raced around the break room while we finished off the pizza. And when I say “around,” I don’t mean east to north to west to south. I mean east to up to west to down and variations on that. After that last half-cup he was whizzing around us at such a rate that it was almost like being inside a ring of shining metal scales.

  Ingrid quietly poured the rest of his coffee down the sink while cleaning up the other trash on the table.

  “The problem is so simple that it is a waste of my unique abilities to solve it,” Mr. M announced.

  He was on the ceiling at the time. We twisted our necks to look up at him. Was he serious? His little turtle head didn’t give a lot of clues. Box turtle faces have basically two expressions, Open Beak and Closed Beak. Mr. M., as you’ll have gathered, favored Open Beak.

  “The man Crowson is not at his residence,” Mr. M. announced. “He appears to be in an open space with many trees and rushing water. Ah, there are also benches. Two scantily dressed people who are not running fast enough to escape any competent pursuit. A child…”

  “Park!” Ben said. “Has to be a park. Open space, benches, joggers.”

  “You are familiar with the place?”

  Ben slumped. “There are a lot of parks in Austin. You couldn’t take us there?”

  “Why? I thought it was the silver box you desired.”

  “The MacBook, yes.”

  “It does not look like a book. Is it perhaps the casing for one? And how does the scroll unwind?”

  Explaining computers to a snakebot with a Babylonian mindset… oh well, Jimmy could take that on. Later. “It’s not important now,” I said before we could get mired between computer-nerdery and antique-book-nerdery. “We need to exchange the silver box we have for the silver box he has, without his knowing. Is that possible?”

  “Not from here,” Mr. M. said. “You must first bring the two boxes into compatible spaces.”

  There were a number of theorems that could be applied to the problem, but we didn’t have time to experiment. “Can you take us to the park where he is so we can swap boxes?”

  There was an irritable tap-tap-tap on the ceiling. Mr. M. was getting pretty good with that tail. “Of course not.”

  Ben took a hand. “Really? The greatest mage in ancient Babylon can’t work a simple teleportation?”

  Tap. Tap. Tap. “Of course I can take you to that park, but you will not be able to exchange the boxes. As I already told you, the man left his box at his residence.”

  He hadn’t, actually, but just this once we all three managed to refrain from pointless bickering.

  After all that angst, the transfer was relatively simple. We remembered Crowson’s living room from -

  “Oh, wow,” Ben said. “It was just this morning, wasn’t it? Feels like a week ago.”

  Stealing computers, evading men with guns, getting bawled out by Lensky had made for a rather full morning. And that’s not even counting the part where we accidentally made the top half of a building disappear. Briefly.

  Ben and Ingrid teleported together while I collected whatever change we could scrape together and went down to the vending machines for more liquid sugar. When we got back, Ingrid buried herself in her beloved machine to verify that nothing was lost or damaged, while Ben and I retreated to my offices.

  “Any trouble?”

  “None,” Ben said. “It’s a good thing we had an indoors location to jump to, though. There were about a million grackles raising hell outside.”

  “Grackles.” Something was nagging at the back of my mind.

  “What about them?”

  “The man calls himself Raven Crowson. You think he’s got some kind of deal with black birds?”

  “Grackles aren’t related to ravens. They’re not even Corvidae.” Biology majors know these kind of things.

  “Yes, but do they know that? I didn’t know it. And grackles have been giving us a lot of grief this week.”

  “Mmm. Crowson, Master of Ravens… and Grackles?”

  It was all academic now, and rather anticlimactic. There was no desperate hurry to analyze Crowson’s data now; he would have no reason to suspect we’d copied it and pulled a double-switch on him. We were all tired, and when Ingrid reminded us that we were committed to go to the Foundation party that night I decided to go home and enjoy some hours of solitude. Ben announced that he and Jimmy would take a preliminary look at the computer image until he went to pick up Annelise. “Just stay out of her dorm,” Ingrid warned him.

  Ben patted his jar full of light. “Conventional transport all the way. I’m going to drive home first and leave my little friends on the kitchen counter.”

  It was hot and I was too tired to enjoy the long walk to the apartment. Ingrid wasn’t good for a ride; she wanted to go shopping for a new dress for the party. I collected Mr. M., put one hand in my pocket, visualized our ratty apartment and said to myself, “Brouwer!”

  Apart from the bit where I lay on the living room floor counting dust bunnies under the sofa for fifteen minutes before staggering into the kitchen for something to restore my blood sugar levels, it worked like a charm.

  As you might say.

  Chapter 18

  Linda wasn’t at home.

  Neither were Pam or that guy Jerry. Had they all gone out somewhere while he was at Allandale House?

  The house was unlocked, naturally, and there was a note on the kitchen table. “Going out for lunch. Can you stay with Linda until we get back?”

  Linda wasn’t with Pam and Jerry, and she wasn’t at home. How long could it take a kid to walk three blocks? Lensky was out of the house and headed to the park before the small fraction of his brain that remained calm could compute the answer.

  On the second block he saw Linda coming towards him. He almost didn’t recognize her; she was walking briskly, head up, shoulders back. Practically bouncing!

  “Looks like being alone in the park was more fun for you than showing me around,” he greeted her.

  “Oh – well, I wasn’t exactly alone.”

  “Did a friend show up? Or what?” He was tensing in anticipation of the or what. Had Pam never taught Linda not to talk to strangers?

  “Um, I was practicing. Talking. To the grackles.” Her eyes shifted away from his face.

  “You must have been pretty successful, if that entertained you all this time.”

  Linda rolled her eyes. “Uncle Brad, how about we start this conversation over? You say Linda, I’m so, so sorry I had to leave like that. Then I say That’s okay, I’m pretty good at entertaining myself. And you say Can I take you out to lunch to make up for it? Where would you like to go?”

  “How about we start over after the part where you tell me you remembered not to talk to strangers in the park?”

  Linda shrugged. “What strangers? There wasn’t anybody there except some joggers and the old guy who feeds the birds.”

  “Sounds like you know him pretty well.”

  His niece shrugged again. “He’s okay. For, you know, an old guy. Now can we have my conversation?”

  “How old exactly?”

  “It’s not polite to ask people their age,” Linda said primly.

  Vaguely dissatisfied, Lensky gave up for the moment. “All right. Where would you like to go for lunch?”

  “Chuck. E. Cheese,” Linda said promptly, and sputtered at the appalled look on his face. “I was just teasing you, Lens. That’s for little kids.”

  “Softening me up, you mean, Lins? Where would you really like to go?”

  “Can we go to Sonic? And they bring food out to your car window and we eat in the car?”

  Lensky was so happy to be back to “Lens/Lins” and not going to Chuck E. Cheese that he would have agreed to far worse than Sonic.

  I had way too much time to think before seven.

  I had managed to avoid discussing exactly how I’d jumped
to find Lensky. I had some hope that I’d never have to talk to him about it, but Ben and Ingrid would track me down eventually and I needed to decide what to tell them. Stress? The desperation of the moment?

  Yeah, right. I might be able to slide that past Ingrid and Ben. It wasn’t working on me, though.

  After Ben’s involuntary visits to Annelise, I’d realized that I too might be able to jump to a person rather than a place. If I knew the person. And there was some sense in which I knew this person far better than I should have, especially after just one week’s acquaintance. Just as Ben knew Annelise, in some very important ways I knew Bradislav Lensky better than I knew even Ben Sutherland, my friend and colleague. Better than I knew Ingrid Thorn, my roommate and colleague. I couldn’t explain how. I had made that jump on feelings, not reason. On the way his lips had felt. On the way I felt when he kissed me. On broad hands exploring my body with surprising gentleness. On a rock-hard body pressed to mine and generating extreme heat.

  Yep. Even with talking turtles and snakebots and pornography and disappearing buildings and a pocketful of stars, I hadn’t managed to lose that feeling.

  But there were other things in the mix too. Talking in the shade of Scholz’s, or while eating chips at El Patio; learning the obstacles he’d faced growing up. His surprising protectiveness towards me. The calm with which he’d handled his introduction to Mr. M. All that was the real problem: I liked the man.

  And, yes, I still wanted to get back to that session on a broken couch and find out where we went from there. No, still lying to myself. I knew perfectly well what would happen if we got anywhere near a couch again, and I was so not going to go there. Not with somebody who belonged in a totally different world from mine, who was going to go back to Washington or thereabouts any day now, and who would almost certainly – once back in the normal world – look back on this week in Texas as a period of insanity and hallucinations. Who would, once he regained his sanity among normal people, never want to be anywhere near the Center again.

  Not with somebody I liked but who had no desire to be in my life – not that I could blame him for that – sometimes I didn’t much like being in my life.

  I could predict the future of that path, and it hurt too much.

  Far safer to keep him at a distance until he actually did leave.

  Having made that decision, I dressed for the Foundation party.

  His eyes widened when I came downstairs. "Wow. I... Just wow."

  I think it was the sandals he liked: black, high heels, with skinny patent leather straps. The rest of me was pretty much business-as-usual: spiky black hair, spaghetti-strap black dress with a fitted top and a short, flared skirt. Oh, not that short. I'm not stupid enough to waste money on a dress that I can't wear to the Foundation's formal parties, especially since those are the only times I wear it. Contrary to Dr. Verrick’s insinuations, the skirt is not so short that you can see all of Texas on my thigh.

  You can't even see the Gulf Coast.

  And despite Mr. M.’s complaints, I was not wearing him to the party. I did not want to have to explain him to the head of the Foundation or her VIP guests.

  "You clean up pretty well yourself," I said. The close-fitting black T shirt and pants showed off his physique a lot better than the loose blazer he usually wore to cover his gun. "Where do you hide the gun in that outfit?"

  “Ankle holster, if I were carrying, but I’m not. This isn’t business, and Whitney Harris doesn’t like guns in her house; I am actually civilized enough to cater to our hostess’s preferences. Are those the sandals?”

  “That I was wearing last time? Yep.”

  His eyes went up and down my legs, lingering on the patent leather straps.

  “I can’t imagine why Dr. Verrick – why any man with a pulse would object to your wearing those.”

  I wasn’t going to touch that compliment with a ten-foot pole. I’d started feeling short of breath when he appraised my legs, and I’d already made my decision on that matter. “I think it was my not wearing one of them that upset him.”

  “Ah. Keep your shoes on and all will be well?”

  “I only took them off because the heels were killing me. The champagne thing was definitely not my idea.”

  “Right. How drunk does a man have to be before he tries to pour champagne into a sandal?”

  “Stick around tonight, and you’ll probably find out.”

  I had been anticipating Tex-Mex or barbecue, but he surprised me again by having reservations for a place near Sixth Street. I’d never felt rich enough to go there, but it lived up to my image of a romantic restaurant with low lighting, flowers and candles on the tables, and a menu in French.

  The prices were anything but romantic.

  “You look a bit dubious. Don’t you like this place?”

  “I… It’s awfully expensive. I’d be just as happy to go out for Tex-Mex again, you know.”

  Lensky laughed. “What – claim our reservations here, get seated, take one horrified look at the prices and rush out? Would we ever live that down?”

  “Well, it’s not like I’m likely to eat here again.”

  “That would be a pity,” he said. He was looking at me, not at the menu. Well, I could understand wanting to avert his eyes from the prices. “I was thinking we could make it a tradition. You know, every time I come to Austin?”

  He’d never been to Austin before and I doubted we could come up with enough terrorism and national security related problems to bring him or anybody else from his agency back here. Certainly not on a regular basis. Good of him to remind me why I’d decided to keep him at a distance.

  I studied the menu – and thanked God for Aunt Alesia. They had descriptions of everything under the French names – they weren’t delusional about Texans’ foreign language abilities – but thanks to my aunt, I would be able to pronounce whatever I ordered.

  "It's not exactly the usual student hangout."

  "You're not exactly the usual student, Thalia."

  "I'm not a student at all, not any more." Sometimes I felt sad about that. For nearly four years I had known exactly who I was and where I belonged: math major, UT Austin, Dr. Verrick's Honors Topology course. Being attached to a "research institute," that would never, ever be allowed to produce any publications occasionally seemed like a step backwards.

  Lensky laughed. "With those stacks of textbooks on your desk, and weird line drawings pinned up on the walls, and notes on everything you've tried since you joined the Center? It doesn't matter whether or not you're registered in a degree program. You'll always be a student."

  "I suppose you think that's impractical. Unrealistic. Immature..." My parents had given me a wide range of adjectives to use in this context.

  "No," he said softly, "I think it's admirable." He put a hand over mine. I noticed again how warm and dry his hand was. It felt very good there. "We're not the same kind of people. I like finding out what the bad guys are trying to do so we can stop them. Straightforward, concrete results. I couldn't live in the world of abstractions you inhabit; I'd be like a fish out of water. But that doesn't mean I can't respect the work you do."

  Our food arrived; in the process of arranging plates and finding cutlery his hand and mine got separated, and it seemed silly to reach across the table again, to try to repeat a casual contact. No matter how pleasant it had been.

  "I'm afraid we haven't given you the best impression of our research this week." All we did, it seemed, was stumble from one crisis to the next, with no real understanding of what we were doing. And Lensky had been quite sufficiently acerbic about the process.

  "On the contrary. I've been putting a great deal of pressure on you to find results. If you... all three of you... rushed into situations you couldn't control because of that pressure, the blame is mine. I just wish you would work with me instead of taking off behind my back and getting into trouble."

  I took a few bites of salad. "Well. I don't think that will be a problem for muc
h longer, do you?"

  "Depends. Are you going to tell me you've suffered an attack of common sense?"

  "No, but I think you'll be going back East soon. If Ben and Jimmy spent the afternoon picking apart Crowson's computer, they probably have enough information for you to wrap up this investigation." The trout meunière tasted like cardboard for some reason.

  "And if they haven't got enough information?"

  "Then I doubt there's very much more we can help with." I thought back over the week and hoped what I was about to say wouldn't be the death of our funding. "I don't think we did any more for you than one good computer hacker could have done. And they would have done it without any of the drama."

  Lensky's lips twitched. "Ah, but it wouldn't have been nearly so much fun. My life would be immeasurably poorer had it not been enriched by experiencing involuntary teleportation and a talking turtle-headed snakebot. Not to mention The Case of the (Briefly) Invisible Building, and your account of Annelise's unforgettable 'explanations.' Very creative girl, that.”

  For some reason I felt cranky when he stopped there. "I'm glad to know we've provided you with some amusement. Is it time to go yet?" My big clunky plastic sports watch was fine for timing experiments - I mean proper, controlled experiments, not the wild-ass near-catastrophes we'd had this last week - but it detracted from the Little Black Dress look. So I wasn't wearing it.

  "No, not nearly. We've got plenty of time for coffee and dessert." He pointed out an item on the dessert card.

  "Death by Chocolate?" I was about to say that I was too young to die, but the description promised three kinds of chocolate. I hadn't more than picked at my healthy fish and salad, and it would be only prudent to have something in my stomach before visiting the Foundation's infamous open bar. "Bring it on," I said. Being prudent.

  Some people might have considered the multiple layers of chocolate cake with chocolate custard filling and chocolate glazed icing to be more than slightly overdone. I looked on it as one of the seven wonders of the world and told Lensky so.