by Shain Carter
Meredith ran her hand through her hair. “Four months of cold showers,” she groaned.
“Not cold,” George assured her, “lukewarm. Believe me, it will be entirely acceptable - you might even wish it were cooler. The complex gets very hot in the summer.
“As for the work facilities, Dr. Jones’ laboratory has been renovated to meet his requirements, and the rest of you will share offices. Each of you will have a state of the art personal computer linked through a high speed server. We also have additional server ports, so those of you who brought laptops can link in as well.”
“And internet connections?” Ted asked.
“None,” George apologized. “Remember, this is a very remote area. There is no wireless there, of course. In fact, there are only four phones in all of Anjawan village, including the one in our dormitory. The phone lines are down more often than they are up, and even when they are working there is too much static to get a modem connection. What we have done is to arrange an email account for each of you at the small college in Siirt, about two hundred kilometers to the west. We will exchange email with their server every few days, when the line conditions permit. As for access to the Internet itself, I’m afraid that is not possible.”
Ted’s face registered disappointment, but Derek nodded approvingly. “All the better.” he exclaimed. “It’s just another distraction that we’ll do better without.”
George spent another twenty minutes describing the Anjawan region. A river ran near the town, but from what Dawson gathered the area was quite arid. The university was located on a high, open plain, surrounded by mountains. The government had initially chosen the site because of its openness - the university could be expanded in any direction nearly indefinitely. The original plans included joining the site to the rest of Turkey through a system of highways. The earthquake struck before that construction could begin, however.
George finished by answering a few more questions. Alec was told that he would not be able to fish, as the river was dry much of the year, and Meredith got assurances from George that he would take her into the town one market day to look at the local fabrics.
The conversation then turned to lighter, more trivial topics. The chances of the Cubs winning the pennant, the difficulties in finding a good auto mechanic, whether tea or coffee had more caffeine - just about anything but the interceptor program itself. They had all spent the previous week preparing for it and knew they would spend the next several months working on nothing else. This was their last chance to relax and think about other things.
As the conversation wound down, Derek began telling a story involving a plumber who had been horseback riding near his ranch. The man apparently was in need of help, but Derek told the story so poorly that it was never really clear why.
After Derek had rambled on for several minutes, Meredith leaned over to Dawson. ”Did I miss something?” she asked. “How did Derek even know the guy was a plumber?
“He must have bent over,” Dawson shrugged. “No underwear.”
Meredith laughed out loud, stopping Derek in mid-sentence. Everyone turned to her.
“Sorry,” she mumbled to Derek, struggling to regain her composure. “Something you said reminded me of a joke I once heard.” Her cheeks reddened and her face took on the guilty look of a child caught talking in class.
Frowning, Derek returned to his story. Meredith shot Dawson a sideways glance and kicked him lightly. Dawson grinned. Looking around the cabin, he stood and stretched. His gaze rested on the bar at the back of the plane; its shelves had been restocked since the previous week with a new batch of miniature liquor bottles. Slowly, Dawson headed to the back of the plane.
Almost immediately, Cindy and Andy ran back from the front section and joined him there.
“Sure is a long trip,” Cindy remarked.
Dawson cracked open a miniature bottle of whiskey. “Yeah,” he agreed, emptying it into a glass, “and we’ve only just started.”
Dawson emptied the glass in one gulp and refilled it another whiskey. Andy, clearly excited about something, could barely contain himself. “We went camping once,” he blurted out. “Near a waterfall. It rained the whole time. Kasshhhh...” He imitated the sound of water going over the falls.
Dawson looked at Andy quizzically but said nothing. Cindy tugged at Dawson’s shirt. “What he means is, you’ve sure had a lot to drink. Don’t you ever go to the bathroom?”
Dawson looked uncertainly from one kid to the other. They just stared back at him, their faces contorted with stifled giggles. Puzzled, Dawson shrugged and turned to go back to his seat. As he walked away both kids burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. He arrived at his seat but, instead of sitting down, balanced his glass the table and stretched again. He realized he was exhausted from the whirlwind of activities the week before, particularly the last two days, during which he had only slept fitfully.
Meredith looked up as he stretched. “You telling jokes back there, too?” she teased, motioning back towards the kids.
“Apparently,” he replied. He looked at the others. Derek was still going on about the plumber, and the story didn’t seem to be getting any better. Alec had slumped against the side of the plane, eyes closed and mouth open. Looking at him made Dawson feel even more tired, and he yawned. He was ready for a nap, but needed to use the restroom first.
The bathroom was in front, across from the forward cabin door. It was tiny, even more cramped than those on commercial airliners. Dawson entered and pulled the door closed. The overhead light did not switch on when he latched the door - apparently, the bulb was burned out. A small nightlight was plugged into the outlet over the sink, though. It was dim, but lit the room well enough get around.
When he was finished he washed his hands in the sink. The air in the cabin was stifling, and Dawson splashed some water up on his face. It felt cool and refreshing. Dawson closed his eyes and immersed his face in the running stream of water, rubbing it briskly with soap and then rinsing. He toweled off and opened the door, feeling relaxed and ready for a long nap.
Andy and Cindy had come forward and were standing just outside the bathroom. As Dawson left it they shrieked with uncontrollably laughter. Andy jumped up and down, shouting in delight, while Cindy pumped her right arm in the air, chanting “Yes! Yes! Yes!” They paused long enough for a high-five, colliding in mid-air and nearly knocking each other over.
Dawson ignored them and walked back towards his seat. The others looked up at the commotion, and, on seeing Dawson, broke into gentle laughter. Dawson self-consciously checked his zipper, but it was fine. Puzzled, he continued walking towards his seat. As he neared, Meredith leaned forward. “It seems you’ve been the victim of a practical joke,” she told him. She pulled a small mirror from her bag and handed it to him. As he took it from her he noticed that his hands were dark red. Looking in the mirror, he saw that his whole face had been dyed red.
Dawson handed the mirror back to Meredith. “Trick soap,” he said with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. He turned to the kids, who had followed him back. “I’ll have the real soap, now, and the light bulb.”
Cindy reached into her pocket and, still giggling, produced a light bulb and a bar of soap. Dawson returned to the bathroom, replaced the light bulb, and scrubbed at his hands and face with the real soap. To his relief the red dye washed off easily. After double checking his face in the bright light, he returned to the cabin.
Cindy and Andy were sitting in the front row, their father standing next to them. Looking unhappy, the children stared forward and apologized in somber, almost mechanical voices.
“No hard feelings, kids,” Dawson told them. “Next time you play a joke, though, play it on Ted.”
Andy flashed an impish smile, which quickly disappeared when Derek shot him a disapproving look. “You’ll have no more trouble from them,” he growled to Dawson.
Dawson shrugged and continued down the aisle, Derek right behind him. Ted had moved up to the
first table, with George and Burt, and was shuffling a deck of cards for a game of bridge. He began to deal out four hands as Derek took a seat with them. Dawson walked past to his own seat towards the back.
As Dawson sat and picked up his glass, Meredith carefully examined his face. After a moment she gave him a reassuring nod. “Looks like you got it all off,” she told him. “I hope you’re not too mad at the kids. Derek really chewed them out when you were washing up.”
Dawson shook his head. “I hope he wasn’t too hard on them. It was just harmless fun, the kind of thing you’d expect kids to do when they’re bored. I can't say I blame them, really. I'm sure I’ve done similar."
“You mean, like making fun of your host's plumber stories?” Meredith teased.
Dawson took a swallow of his whiskey. The commotion had roused him somewhat, and though he was still tired, he was no longer sleepy. He put his glass down and glanced at Meredith. She had a book in her lap, but was staring blankly ahead, lost in thought. She turned her towards him and their eyes met for an instant. Dawson suddenly felt embarrassed and self-conscious. But instead of turning away, he pointed to the book she was holding.
"Any good?" he asked.
She turned it over in her hands and shrugged. "I suppose. To be honest, though, in the last week fiction has lost its appeal. This program is a lot stranger than anything I’ve ever read."
Dawson nodded in agreement. “Besides,” Meredith continued, “I’ve been too busy to really concentrate on the book. I just barely had time to get ready for the trip.” She briefly described her activities since leaving Derek’s home, which were not much different from Dawson’s. She taught more students than Jones, though, and so spent more of her time finalizing grades. As she spoke, it became clear that she, too, had distaste for teaching undergraduates - a sentiment Dawson understood only too well. “Most kids are fine,” she told him. “It’s the kids who are just after a good grade that get me.”
Dawson agreed wholeheartedly. “It’s the same questions at the end of every class. ‘Is that going to be on the test? How much will the questions be worth?’ They don’t care about actually learning the material, just getting the right answers on the test. Or at least close to the right answers, so they can argue for partial credit. Sometimes half the class is premeds, and that’s all they care about.”
Meredith shook her head sadly. “I guess that’s just how kids are raised these days.”
Dawson thought for a moment before answering. “I don’t think it is. I think it’s a trait learned at college, or maybe late in high school. I had the chance to teach junior high kids once, and believe it or not, it was a pleasure. Science was all new to them, and they were excited about it. They were having too much fun with it to worry about their grades or transcripts. I guess something happens when kids get older that changes all that, makes them more self-centered.”
Meredith nodded in agreement, and from there the conversation turned to their lives in general. Meredith told Dawson she was raised on a small farm in rural Kansas, the oldest of four children. Although she had shown strong potential in high school, her parents had always assumed that she would stay with the farm. They were surprised - and a little disappointed - when she announced her intention to go to an out-of-state engineering college, but ultimately they supported her in that decision. They followed her academic career with pride as she graduated at the top of her college class, went on to graduate work at Berkeley, and finally was offered an assistant professorship at the California Institute of Engineering. She was modest about her accomplishments, but Dawson felt in her a strong sense of accomplishment when she told him that she had been hired directly out of graduate school, then promoted to associate professor after four years and to full professor only three years later.
“Being offered a faculty position straight out of graduate school - with no post-doc work - that’s quite an accomplishment,” Dawson told her.
“No, not really,” she replied. “Not for a woman, anyway. The real accomplishment was getting offered a permanent position at all. And I did that in less time than most men.”
The comment caught Dawson off guard, and Meredith read the surprise in his face.
“Assistant professorships are fairly easy for women to get,” she explained, “especially in engineering. There just aren’t that many woman engineers around, and all the colleges want a few on their faculty to show that they’re progressive and female-friendly. But deep down, they’re really a lot more comfortable with men. By hiring a woman into an assistant professor position, they’re able to have their cake and eat it too. After a few years they tell the woman that things aren’t working out, she won’t get tenure, and good luck with her future endeavors. Then they go out and hire another woman to replace her. Their hiring numbers look great - ‘we’re making real progress, we’ve hired two more women faculty this year!’ - but when they want to actually fill a tenured position, they’ll hire a man from the outside.”
Dawson sipped his whisky thoughtfully. He had noticed a similar pattern at South Central and suspected the department was playing exactly this sort of game. Of course, Tilden excluded him entirely from all hiring and tenure decisions, so Dawson had no way of confirming his suspicions. And he certainly wasn’t going to go looking for problems by butting into affairs that were none of his business.
He turned to Meredith. “But you were given tenure. They liked you enough to keep you on.”
She smiled modestly. “What about you?” she asked. “How did you end up at SCU?”
Normally Dawson would have cringed at such questions. He was always uncomfortable talking about himself - it made him feel self-conscious and stupid - and he would work hard to change the conversation. But he surprised himself now by recounting to her his life story. He was hesitant at first, but once he started the words flowed fast and effortlessly. He left nothing out, beginning with the issues involved in growing up under the label of “child genius”, through his early successes in Woolf’s labs and narrowly missing the Nobel Prize, and finally ending with his initial green flame program and his troubles with NASA. He told her everything - everything, that is, except about Ivy, his wife, and his being a widower.
Meredith listened with keen interest, reacting with just the right combination of admiration, empathy and indignation at the different points in his story. As he spoke he realized it had been a very long time since he had been comfortable enough with someone to discuss such personal things. He found the experience cathartic and surprisingly satisfying. When he was finished they sat quietly, each lost in their own thoughts. After a few minutes Dawson drifted into a deep sleep.
Chapter Ten
Six hours later the plane made its final approach into the Barcelona airport. The plan was for them to spend the night there while the plane was refueled and Metz rested, as required by international aviation law. Dawson had been sleeping soundly, but was roused by the change in engine pitch as Metz throttled back for landing.
It was dark outside, around one in the morning local time, but the city lights, burning brightly through a haze, made clear that Barcelona was still very active. Cars crawled along a grid of bright streets, with the most brilliantly lit road running diagonal to the others, and Dawson could easily imagine throngs of people milling about the bars and restaurants.
The others onboard had been sleeping, too, and woke when the plane touched down. They all stretched as Metz guided the plane down the taxiway and past the main terminal to a small group of buildings on the far side of the airport. Metz cut the engines and two young men - hardly more than boys - emerged from the buildings’ shadows, lugging large black chocks in their arms. The men glanced wearily up at the plane as they approached, then ducked under the fuselage. A second later Dawson felt a gentle bump as the chocks were forced against the wheels.
Metz emerged from the cockpit, smiling but tired, and, with a nod to Derek, swung open the cabin door and dropped the stairs. The passengers rose slowly, and with
no great hurry followed Derek out the door and down the stairs.
Dawson was the last off the plane. The Barcelona heat struck him like an open blast furnace as he emerged through the door. He gripped the handrail and descended the stairs to the sweltering tarmac. Derek, meanwhile, had disappeared into one of the buildings, while Metz stood by the wing with the young Spaniards, looking up at an engine. The others stood in a group a few yards away, unsure of where to go next. As Dawson joined them, Derek emerged from the building smiling.
“Will they have it ready for us in the morning?” Derek called out to Metz.
After a brief exchange with the two men, Metz nodded. “They’re going to clean the cabin tonight, and they’ll refuel as soon as they get in tomorrow morning. We should be good to go by ten-thirty.”
Derek nodded his approval, then addressed the group. “I’ve got everything taken care of. I hope you like paella, because we’re going to the best paella restaurant in all of Spain. I just talked to the owner; he’s set aside a private room and he guarantees that you won’t be disappointed.”
A stretch limousine pulled up to the group. Following Derek, they all piled into the back, and the limo sped off to the main highway.
Dawson was still exhausted, despite having slept for several hours on the flight, and would have liked nothing better than to go straight to the hotel. Even under the best of circumstances he would have dreaded dining at the “best paella restaurant in all of Spain”. The Spanish dinner custom, as Dawson understood it, called for spending hours at the dinner table, especially when dining out. Eating at a restaurant was a social affair, having less to do with eating than with protracted conversations and philosophical musings. Dawson thought back to dinner at Derek’s the week before, when Ted and Derek talked nearly nonstop for what seemed like several hours. Dawson doubted very much that they would simply eat and leave.