by Vernor Vinge
Finally Underhill said, “You’re right, money alone won’t make progress. It takes time to make the machines that make the machines, and so on. But we still have another twenty-five years or so, and the General tells me you are a genius at managing something this large.”
Hrunkner felt an old pride in hearing that, more pride than for all the medals he had collected in the Great War; but if it hadn’t been for Smith and Underhill, he never would have discovered he had such talents. He replied grumpily, careful not to give away how much such praise meant to him: “Thank you so much. But what I’m telling you is that none of that is enough. If you want this done in less than twenty years, I need something more.”
“Yes, what?”
“You, damn it! Your insight! Since the first year of the project, you’ve been hidden away up here in Princeton, doing God knows what.”
“Oh… Look Hrunkner, I’m sorry. The atomic power stuff just isn’t very interesting to me anymore.”
Knowing Underhill for all these years, Unnerby should not have been surprised by the comment. Nevertheless, it made him want to chew on his hands. Here was a fellow who abandoned fields of endeavor before others even knew they existed. If he were simply a crank, there’d be no problem. As it was, sometimes Unnerby would have cheerfully killed the cobber.
“Yes,” continued Underhill, “you need more bright people. I’m working on that, you know; I have some things I want to show you. But even so,” he said, obliviously pouring fuel on the fire, “my intuition is that atomic power will turn out to be relatively easy, compared to the other challenges.”
“Such. As. What?”
Sherkaner laughed. “Such as raising children, for example.” He pointed at the antique pendulum clock on the side wall. “I thought the other cobblies would be here by now; maybe I should show you the institute first.” He got off his perch, began waving in that silly way parents do to small children. “Come down, come down. Rhapsa, stay off the clock!” Too late: the baby had scuttled off the gym, made a flying leap onto the pendulum, and slid all the way to the floor. “I’ve got so much junk here, I’m afraid something will fall on the babies and squash them.” The two ran across the floor, hopped into their appointed places in their father’s fur. They were scarcely bigger than woodsfairies.
Underhill had gotten his institute declared a division of Kingschool. The hillhouse contained a number of classrooms, each occupying an arc of the outside perimeter. And it wasn’t Crown funds that paid for most of it, at least according to Underhill. Much of the research was simply proprietary, paid for by companies that had been very impressed by Underhill. “I could have hired away some of Kingschool’s best, but we made a deal. Their people continue to teach and do research downtown, but they get time up here, with a percentage of our overhead getting fed back to Kingschool. And up here, what counts is results.”
“No classes?”
When Sherkaner shrugged, the two little ones bobbed up and down on his back and made excited little meeping, sounds that probably meant, “Do it again, Daddy!”
“Yes, we have classes…sort of. The main thing is, people get to talk to other people, across many specialties. Students take a risk because things are so unstructured. I’ve got a few who are having a good time, but who aren’t bright enough for this to work for them.”
Most of the classrooms had two or three persons at the blackboards, and a crowd watching from low perches. It was hard to tell who was the prof and who the student. In some cases, Hrunkner couldn’t even guess the field being discussed. They stopped for a moment by one door. A current-generation cobblie was lecturing a bunch of old cobbers. The blackboard scratching looked like a combination of celestial mechanics and electromagnetics. Sherkaner stopped, waved a smile at the people in the room. “You remember the aurora we saw in Dark? I have a fellow here who thinks that maybe it was caused by objects in space, things that are exceptionally dark.”
“They weren’t dark when we saw them.”
“Yes! Maybe they actually have something to do with the start of the New Sun. I have my doubts. Jaybert doesn’t know much celestial mechanics yet. He does know E&M. He’s working on a wireless device that can radiate at wavelengths of just a few inches.”
“Huh? That sounds more like super far-red than radio.”
“It’s not something we could ever see, but it’s going to be neat. He wants to use it as an echo finder for his space rocks.”
They walked farther down the hall. He noticed that Underhill was suddenly silent, no doubt to give him time to think on the idea. Hrunkner Unnerby was a very practical fellow; he suspected that was the reason he was essential to some of General Smith’s wilder projects. But even he could be brought up short by an idea that was spectacular enough. He had only the vaguest notion how such short wavelengths would behave, though they should be highly directional. The power needed for echo detection would vary as the inverse fourth power of the range—they’d have effective ground uses for it before they ever had enough juice to go looking for rocks in outer space. Hmm. The military angle could be more important than anything this Jaybert was planning… “Has anyone built this high-frequency transmitter?”
His interest must have shown; Underhill was smiling more and more. “Yes, and that’s Jaybert’s real work of genius, something he calls a cavity oscillator. I’ve got a little antenna on the roof; it looks more like a telescope mirror than a radio mast. Victory installed a row of relays down the Westermost Range to Lands Command. I can talk to her as reliably as over the telephone cable. I’m using it as a test bed for one class’s crypto schemes. We’ll end up with the most secure, high-volume wireless you can imagine.”
Even if Jaybert’s stargazing never works out. Sherkaner Underhill was as crazy as ever, and Unnerby was beginning to see what he was getting at, why he refused to drop everything and work on atomic power. “You really think this school is going to produce the geniuses we need at Lands Command?”
“It’s going to find them, anyway—and I think we’re bringing out the best in what we find. I’ve never had more fun in my life. But you have to be flexible, Hrunk. The essence of real creativity is a certain playfulness, a flitting from idea to idea without getting bogged down by fixated demands. Of course, you don’t always get what you thought you were asking for. From this era on, I think invention will be the parent of necessity—and not the other way around.”
That was easy for Sherkaner Underhill to say. He didn’t have to engineer the science into reality.
Underhill had stopped at an empty classroom; he peeked in at the blackboards. More gobbledegook. “You remember the cam-and-gear devices that Lands Command used in the War, to figure ballistic tables? We’re making things like that with vacuum tubes and magnet cores. They’re a million times faster than the cam gadgets, and we can input the numbers as symbol strings instead of vernier settings. Your physicists will love it.” He chuckled. “You’ll see, Hrunk. Except for the fact that the inventions are first-patented by our sponsors, you and Victory will have more than enough to keep you happy…”
They continued up the long spiral stair. It opened finally onto an atrium near the top of the hill. There were higher hills around Princeton, but the view from here was spectacular enough, even in a cool drizzle. Unnerby could see a trimotor coming in at the airport. Tracts of late-phase development on the other side of the valley were the colors of wet granite and just-laid asphalt. Unnerby knew the company on that job. They had faith in the rumors that there would be power available to live long into the next Dark. What would Princeton be like if that were so? A city under the stars and hard vacuum, yet not asleep, and its deepnesses empty. The biggest risks would be late in the Waning Years, when people must decide whether to stock up for a conventional Dark, or gamble on what Hrunkner Unnerby’s engineers thought they could do. His nightmares were not of failure, but of partial success.
“Daddy, Daddy!” Two five-year-olds careered into sight behind them. They were followed by two
more cobblies, but these looked almost big enough to be in-phase. For more than ten years, Hrunkner Unnerby had done his best to overlook his boss’s perversions: General Victory Smith was the best Intelligence chief he could imagine, probably even better than Strut Greenval. It shouldn’t matter what her personal habits were. It had certainly never bothered him that she was born out-of-phase herself; that was something a person had no control over. But that she would start a family at the beginning of a New Sun, that she would damn her own children as she had been damned…And they aren’t even all the same age. The two babies had hopped off Underhill’s back. They scuttled across the grass and up the legs of their two oldest siblings. It was almost as if Smith and Underhill had deliberately set out to smear offal in the eyes of society’s regard. This visit, so long avoided, was turning out to be just as bad as he’d feared.
The two oldest, both boys, hoisted the babies up, pretended for a moment to carry them like real fathers. They had no back fur, of course, and the babies slipped and slid down their carapaces. They grabbed hold of their brothers’ jackets and scrambled back up, their baby laughter loud.
Underhill introduced the four to the sergeant. They all trooped across the soggy grass to the protection of an awning. This was the biggest play area that Unnerby had ever seen outside a schoolyard, but it was also very strange. A proper school went through discrete grades, targeting the current age of the pupils. The equipment in Underhill’s play garden spanned a number of years. There were vertical gymnets, such as only a two-year-old could easily use. There were sandboxes, several huge dollhouses, and low play tables with picture books and games.
“Junior is the reason we didn’t meet you and Mr. Unnerby downstairs, Dad.” The twelve-year-old flicked a pointed hand in the direction of one of the five-year-olds—Victory Junior? “She wanted you up here, so we could show Mr. Unnerby all our toys.”
Five-year-olds are not very good at hiding their feelings. Victory Junior still had her baby eyes. Even though baby eyes could turn a few degrees, there were only two of them; she had to face almost directly toward whatever she wanted to observe. In a way that could never be true of an adult, it was easy to see where Junior’s attention was. Her two big eyes looked first at Underhill and Unnerby, then glanced toward her older brother. “Snitch!” she hissed at him. “You wanted them up here, too.” She flicked her eating hands at him, and sidled close to Underhill. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I wanted to show my dollhouse, and Brent and Gokna still had their lessons to finish.”
Underhill lifted his forearms to enclose her in a hug. “Well, we were going to come up here anyway.” And to Unnerby: “I’m afraid the General has made rather a big thing of you, Hrunkner.”
“Yeah, you’re an Engineer!” said the other five-year-old—Gokna?
Whatever Junior’s desires, Brent and Jirlib got to show off first. Their actual educational state was hard to estimate. The two had some kind of study curriculum, but were otherwise allowed to look into whatever they wished. Jirlib—the boy who had tattled on Junior—collected things. He seemed more deeply into fossils than any child Unnerby had ever seen. Jirlib had books from the Kingschool library that would have challenged adult students. He had a collection of diamond foraminiafera from trips with his parents down to Lands Command. And almost as much as his father, he was full of crazy theories. “We’re not the first, you know. A hundred million years ago, just under the diamond strata, there are the Distorts of Khelm. Most scientists think they were dumb animals, but they weren’t. They had a magic civilization, and I’m going to figure out how it worked.” Actually, that was not new craziness, but Unnerby was a little surprised that Sherkaner let his children read Khelm’s crank paleontology.
Brent, the other twelve-year-old, was more like the stereotype of an out-of-phase child: withdrawn, a little bit sullen, perhaps retarded. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands and feet, and though he had plenty of eyes, he favored his foreview as though he were still much younger. Brent didn’t seem to have any special interests except for what he called “Daddy’s tests.” He had bags of buildertoys, shiny metal dowels and connector hubs. Three or four of the tables were covered by elaborate dowel and connector structures. By clever variation of the number of dowels per hub, someone had constructed various curved surfaces for the child. “I’ve thought a lot about Daddy’s tests. I’m getting better and better.” He began fiddling with a large torus, breaking up the carefully built framework.
“Tests?” Unnerby waved a glare at Sherkaner. “What are you doing with these children?”
Underhill didn’t seem to hear the anger in his voice. “Aren’t children wonderful—I mean, when they aren’t a pain in the ass. Watching a baby grow up, you can see the mechanisms of thought grow into place, stage by stage.” He slipped a hand gently across his back, petting the two babies, who had returned to safe haven. “In some ways, these two are less intelligent than a jungle tarant. There are patterns of thought that just don’t exist in babies. When I play with them, I can almost feel the barriers. But as the years pass, the minds grow; methods are added.” Underhill walked along the play tables as he spoke. One of the five-year-olds—Gokna—danced half a pace in front of him, mimicking his gestures, even to the tremor. He stopped at a table covered with beautiful blown-glass bottles, a dozen shapes and tints. Several were filled with fruitwater and ice, as if for some bizarre lawn party. “But even the five-year-olds have mental blinders. They have good language skills, but they’re still missing basic concepts—”
“And it’s not just that we don’t understand sex!” said Gokna.
For once, Underhill looked a little embarrassed. “She’s heard this speech too many times, I fear. And by now her brothers have told her what to say when we play question games.”
Gokna pulled on his leg. “Sit down and play. I want to show Mr. Unnerby what we do.”
“Okay. We can do that—where is your sister?” His voice was suddenly sharp and loud. “Viki! You get down from there! It’s not safe for you.”
Victory Junior was on the babies’ gymnet, scuttling back and forth just below the awning. “Oh, it is safe, Daddy. Now that you’re here!”
“No it’s not! You come down right now.”
Junior’s descent was accompanied by much loud grumbling, but within a few minutes she was showing off in another way.
One by one, they showed him all their projects. The two oldest had parts in a national radio program, explaining science for young people. Apparently Sherkaner was producing the show, for reasons that remained murky.
Hrunkner put up with it all, smiling and laughing and pretending. And each one was a wonderful child. With the exception of Brent, each was brighter and more open than almost any Unnerby remembered. All that made it even worse when he imagined what life would be like for them once they had to face the outside world.
Victory Junior had a dollhouse, a huge thing that extended back a little way into the ferns. When her turn came, she hooked two hands under one of Hrunkner’s forearms and almost dragged him over to the open face of her house.
“See,” she said, pointing to a hole in the toy basement. It looked suspiciously like the entrance to a termite nest. “My house even has its own deepness. And a pantry, and a dining hall, and seven bedrooms…” Each room had to be displayed to her guest, and all the furniture explained. She opened a bedroom wall, and there was a flurry of activity within. “And I even have little people to live in my house. See the attercops.” In fact, the scale of Viki’s house was almost perfect for the little creatures, at least in this phase of the sun. Eventually, their middle legs would become colored wings. They would be woodsfairies, and they wouldn’t fit at all. But for the moment, they did look like little people, scurrying to and fro between the inner rooms.
“They like me a lot. They can go back to the trees whenever they want, but I put little pieces of food in the rooms and they come every day to visit.” She pulled at little brass handles and a part of one floor cam
e out like a drawer from a cabinet. Inside was an intricate maze built of flimsy wood partitions. “I even experiment with them, like Daddy plays with us, except a lot simpler.” Her baby eyes were both looking down so she couldn’t see Unnerby’s reaction. “I put honeydrip near this exit, then let them in at the other end. Then I time how long it takes… Oh, you are lost, aren’t you, little one? You’ve been here two hours now. I’m sorry.” She reached an eating hand undaintily into the box and gently moved the attercop to a ledge by the ferns. “Heh, heh,” a very Sherkanish chuckle, “some of them are a lot dumber than others—or maybe it’s luck. Now, how do I count her time, when she never got through the maze at all?”
“I…don’t know.”
She turned to face him, her beautiful eyes looking up at him. “Mommy says my little brother is named after you. Hrunkner?”
“Yes. I guess that’s right.”
“Mommy says that you are the best engineer in the world. She says you can make even Daddy’s crazy ideas come true. Mommy wants you to like us.”
There was something about a child’s gaze. It was so directed. There was no way the target could pretend that he wasn’t the one regarded. All the embarrassment and pain of the visit seemed to come together in that one moment. “I like you,” he said.
Victory Junior look at him for a moment more, and then her gaze slid away. “Okay.”
They had lunch with the cobblies up in the atrium. The cloud cover was burning off, and things were getting hot, at least for a Princeton spring day in the nineteenth year. Even under the awning it was warm enough to start sweat from every joint. The children didn’t seem to mind. They were still taken by the stranger who had given their baby brother his name. Except for Viki, they were as raucous as ever, and Unnerby did his best to respond.