Bellwether

by Connie Willis

The flock was still in the hall, so they must be. Gina was at the far end, coming out of the stats lab.

  “Time for a bathroom break,” she said as soon as she saw them, and ducked through a door.

  I started through the sheep, leaning down to lift up their chins and look into their vacant faces for an expression that looked slightly cross-eyed or halfway intelligent.

  The door opened again. “There’s one in the bathroom,” Gina said. She edged her way down the hall toward where I was gazing into the sheeps’ eyes.

  They all looked cross-eyed. I peered anxiously into their long faces, into their vacant eyes, that were born to have an i branded between them.

  “There’d better not be one in my office,” Gina said, and opened her door.

  “Shut your door!” I said, but too late. A fat ewe was already through it. “Shut it,” I said again, and she did.

  The rest of the sheep congregated outside her door, milling and baaing, desperately seeking someone to tell them what to do, where to go. Which must mean the ewe in Gina’s office was the bellwether.

  “Keep it there!” I shouted through the door. The ribbon wasn’t strong enough for a leash, but I had a Davy Crockett jump rope that might be. I started for my lab, wondering what had happened to Ben. Probably Alicia had found him and was telling him about her Niebnitz sure thing.

  There was a shriek from Gina’s office, and her door opened.

  “Don’t—” I shouted. The ewe dived through the door and into the midst of the flock like a card disappearing into a deck. “Did you see where she went, Gina?”

  “No,” she said tightly. “I didn’t.” She was clutching a battered pink box. A torn white net ruffle trailed from one corner. “Look what that sheep did to Romantic Wedding Barbie!” she said, holding up a lock of brunette hair. “It was the last one in Boulder.”

  “In the greater Denver area,” I said, and went into the stats lab.

  All I need now is Flip, I thought, and was amazed she wasn’t there in the stats lab, having quit or not. A sheep was, munching thoughtfully on a disk. I grabbed it out of her mouth, or most of it, pried her large square teeth apart, fished out the remaining piece, and looked squarely into her slightly crossed eyes.

  “Listen to me,” I said, holding on to her jaw. “I’ve had all I can take for one day. I’ve lost my job, I’ve lost the only person I’ve ever met who doesn’t act like a sheep, I don’t know where fads come from and I’m never going to find out, and I’ve bad it. I want you to follow me, and I want you to follow me now.” I threw the pieces of disk on the floor and turned and walked out of my lab.

  And she must have been the bellwether, because she trotted after me all the way down two flights into Bio, and through the lab to the paddock, just like Mary and her little lamb. And the rest of the flock followed, wagging their tails behind them.

  ostrich plumes (1890—1913)—–Edwardian fashion fad inspired by Charles Darwin and related public interest in natural history. The curling plumes were dyed all colors and worn in the hair, on hats, fans, and even feather dusters. Related fads included trimming hats and dresses with lizards, spiders, toads, and centipedes. As a result of the fad, ostriches were hunted into extinction in Egypt, North Africa, and the Middle East. Recurred in 1960s with minidresses, wigs, and capes of ostrich plumes dyed neon orange and hot pink.

  I called Billy Ray to come pick the sheep up.

  “I’ll send Miguel down with the truck right away,” he said. “I’d come myself, but I’ve got to go down to New Mexico and talk to this rancher about ostriches.”

  “Ostriches,” I said.

  “They’re the latest thing. Reba’s raising fifty of them on a spread outside Gallup, and ostrich steak’s selling like gangbusters. Lower in cholesterol than chicken and tastes better.”

  One of the sheep had gotten itself stuck in the corner of the fence again. It stood there, looking blankly at the fence post like it had no idea how it had gotten there.

  “Plus you can sell the feathers and tan the skin for purses and boots,” Billy Ray said. “Reba says they’re going to be the livestock of the nineties.”

  The sheep butted its head against the post a couple of times and then gave up and stood there, bleating, a nice object lesson.

  “I’m sorry the sheep thing didn’t work out,” Billy Ray said.

  Me too, I thought. “You’re getting out of range,” I said. “I can’t hear you,” and hung up.

  You can learn a lot from sheep. I went over to the corner and put my hands under its chin and on its rump. “You have to turn around,” I said. “You have to go in another direction.”

  I dragged it around to face the other way. It immediately began to graze.

  “You have to admit it’s no use and go try something else,” I said, and went back into the lab. Shirl was there. “Where’s Dr. O’Reilly?” I said.

  “He was in talking to Dr. Turnbull a minute ago,” she said.

  “Good,” I said, and went back up to my stats lab to write up my report for Management.

  “Sandra Foster: Project Report,” I typed on a disk the ewe hadn’t eaten.

  Project goals:

  Determine what triggers fads.

  Determine the source of the Nile.

  Project results:

  Not found. Pied Piper may have something to do with it, for all I know. Or Italy.

  Found. Lake Victoria.

  Suggestions for further research:

  Eliminate acronyms.

  Eliminate meetings.

  Study effect of antismoking fad on ability to think clearly.

  Read Browning. And Dickens. And all the other classics.

  I printed it out, and then gathered up my coat and non-wallet-on-a-string and went up to see Management.

  Shirl was there, running a carpet cleaning machine. Management was dusting off his desk, which had been pushed against one corner.

  “Don’t step on the carpet,” he said when I came in. “It’s wet.”

  I walked squishily over to his desk. “The sheep are all in the paddock,” I said over the sucking sound of the carpet steamer. “I’ve arranged for them to be sent back.” I handed him my report.

  “What’s this?” he said.

  “You said you wanted to reevaluate my project’s goals,” I said. “So do I.”

  “What’s this?” he said, scowling at it. “Pied Piper?”

  “By Robert Browning,” I said. “You know the story. Piper is hired to free Hamelin of rats, does so, but the town refuses to pay him. ‘And as for our Corporation—shocking.’”

  Management reared up behind his desk. “Are you threatening me, Dr. Foster?”

  “No,” I said, surprised. “‘Insulted by a lazy ribald?’” I quoted, “‘You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst/Blow your pipe until you burst.’ You should read more poetry. You can learn a lot from it. Do you have a library card?”

  “A library—?” Management said, looking apoplectic.

  “I’m not threatening you,” I said. “Why would I? I didn’t get rid of any rats or find out what causes hair-bobbing. I couldn’t even locate a piper.”

  I stopped, thinking about that, and just like the night before, standing in line at Target with the late Romantic Bride Barbie, I felt like I was on the verge of something significant.

  “Are you calling HiTek a rat?” Management said, and I waved him away impatiently, trying to focus on my elusive thought. A piper.

  “Are you saying—” Management bellowed, and it was gone.

  “I’m saying you hired me for the wrong reason. You shouldn’t be looking for the secret to making people follow fads, you should be looking for the secret to making them think for themselves. Because that’s what science is all about. And because the next fad may be the dangerous one, and you’ll find it out with the rest of the flock on your way over the cliff. And no, I don’t need a security escort back to my lab,” I said, opening my purse so he could see inside. “I’m leaving. ‘Up the Hill-side yon
der, through the morning,’” and I squished my way back across the carpet “Bye, Shirl,” I called to her, “you can come smoke at my house anytime,” and I went out to my car and drove to the library.

  rubik’s cube (1980—81)—–Game fad involving a cube made up of smaller cubes of different colors that could be rotated to form different combinations. The object of the game (which more than a hundred million people tried to solve) was to twist the sides of the cube until each side was a solid color. The fad’s skill threshold was somewhat too high—as witness the dozens of puzzle-help books published—and the fad died out with many people never having solved it even once.

  Lorraine was back. “Do you want Your Guardian Angel Can Change Your Life?” she asked me. She was wearing a fairy godmother sweatshirt and sparkly magic wand earrings. “It came in, and so did your book on hair-bobbing.”

  “I don’t want it,” I said. “I don’t know what caused it, and I don’t care.”

  “We found that book on Browning. You had checked it in after all. Our media organization assistant shelved it with the cookbooks.”

  See, I told myself—walking over to Kepler’s Quark and giving my first name to a waitress with chopped-off hair and a waitress uniform that probably wasn’t a uniform—things are looking up already. They found Browning, you never have to read the personals again, and Flip can’t slouch in here to ruin your day and stick you with the check.

  The waitress seated me at a table by the window. See, I told myself again, she didn’t seat you at the communal table. She isn’t wearing duct tape. Definitely looking up.

  But it didn’t feel like it. It felt like I was out of a job. It felt like I was in love with somebody who didn’t love me back.

  He’s totally fashion-impaired, I told myself. Look on the bright side. You no longer have to worry about what caused hair-bobbing. Which was a good thing, because I was pretty much out of ideas.

  “Hi,” Ben said, sitting down across from me.

  “What are you doing here?” I said as soon as I was able to. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

  “I quit,” he said.

  “You quit? Why? I thought you were going to work on Dr. Turnbull’s project.”

  “You mean Alicia’s statistically-thought-out, science-on-demand, sure-to-win-the-Niebnitz-Grant project? It’s too late. The Niebnitz Grant has already been awarded.”

  He didn’t look upset about it. He didn’t look like somebody who’d just quit his job. He looked containedly excited, his eyes jubilant behind the Coke bottles. He’s going to tell me he’s engaged to Alicia, I thought.

  “Who won it?” I said, to stop him. “The Niebnitz Grant. A thirty-eight-year-old designed experimenter from west of the Mississippi?”

  Ben motioned the waitress over and said, “What have you got to drink that’s not coffee?”

  The waitress rolled her eyes. “There’s our new drink. The Chinatasse. It’s the latest thing.”

  “Two Chinatasses,” he said, and I waited for the waitress to quiz him on whole vs. skim, white vs. brown, Beijing vs. Guangzhou, but Chinatasses apparently had a lower skill threshold than caffe latte. The waitress slouched off, and Ben said, “This came for you,” and handed me a letter.

  “How did you know where to find me?” I said, looking at the envelope. It was blank except for my name.

  “Flip told me,” he said.

  “I thought she was gone.”

  “She told me a while back. She said you hung out here a lot. I came here three or four times, hoping I’d run into you, but I never did. She said you came here looking for guys in the personals.”

  “Flip,” I said, shaking my head. “I was reading them for trends research. I wasn’t trying … you did?”

  He nodded, no longer jubilant. His gray eyes were serious behind the Coke-bottle glasses. “I stopped coming a couple of weeks ago because Flip told me you were engaged to the sheep guy.”

  “Ostrich,” I said. “Flip told me you were crazy about Alicia, that that’s why you wanted to work with her.”

  “Well, at least now we know what the i on her forehead stands for. Interfering. I don’t want to work with Alicia. I want to work with you.”

  “I’m not engaged to the sheep guy,” I said. I thought of something. “Why did you buy that Cerenkhov blue tie?”

  “To impress you. Flip told me you’d never go out with me unless I got some new clothes, and this awful blue was the only thing I could find in the stores.” He looked sheepish. “I also took out an ad in the personals.”

  “You did? What did it say?”

  “Insecure, ill-dressed chaos theorist desires intelligent, insightful, incandescent trends researcher. Must be SC.” “SC?”

  “Scientifically compatible.” He grinned. “People do crazy things when they’re in love.”

  “Like borrow a flock of sheep to keep somebody from losing their grant?”

  The waitress plunked down two glasses in front of us, spilling Chinatasse everywhere.

  “We need those to go,” Ben said.

  The waitress sighed loudly and stomped off with them.

  “If we’re going to be working together,” Ben said to me, “we’d better get started.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “We both quit, remember?”

  “Well, the thing is, HiTek wants us back.”

  “They do?”

  “All is forgiven.” He nodded. “They say we can have anything we need—lab space, assistants, computers.”

  “But what about the sheep and the secondhand smoke?”

  “Open the letter.”

  I did.

  “Read it.”

  I did. “I don’t understand,” I said.

  I turned the letter over. There wasn’t anything on the back. I looked at the envelope again. It still only had my name on it. I looked at Ben, who looked jubilant again. “I don’t understand,” I said again.

  “Me neither,” he said. “Alicia was there when I opened mine. She had to recalculate all her percentages.”

  I read the letter again. “We won the Niebnitz Grant?”

  “We won the Niebnitz Grant.”

  “But … we aren’t … we don’t …”

  “Well, that’s the thing,” he said, leaning across the table and, finally, taking my hand. “I had this idea. You know how I told you chaotic systems could be predicted by measuring all the variables and calculating the iteration? Well, I think Verhoest was right after all. There is another factor at work. But it’s not an outside factor. It’s something already in the system. Remember how Shirl said the bellwether was the same as the other sheep, only a little greedier, a little faster, a little ahead? What if—”

  “—instead of butterflies, there’s a bellwether in chaotic systems?” I said.

  “Exactly.” He was holding both my hands now. “And it doesn’t look any different from the other variables in the system, but it’s the trigger for the iteration, it’s the catalyst, it’s—”

  “Pippa,” I said, clutching his hands. “There’s this poem, Pippa Passes, by—”

  “Browning,” he said. “She sings at people’s windows—”

  “And changes their lives, and they never even see her. If you were making a computer model of the village of Asolo, you wouldn’t even put her in it, but she’s—”

  “—the variable that sets the butterfly’s wings in motion, the force behind the iteration, the trigger behind the trigger, the factor that causes—”

  “—women to bob their hair in Hong Kong.”

  “Exactly. The trigger that causes your fads. The—”

  “—source of the Nile.”

  The waitress came back with the same two glasses. “We don’t have cups to go. It pollutes the environment.” She set the glasses down and stomped off again.

  “Like Flip,” Ben said, thinking about it. “She misdelivered the package, and that’s how I met you.”

  “Among other things,” I said, and felt that feeling again of being on
the verge of something, of the Rubik’s cube starting to turn.

  “Let’s go,” Ben said. “I want to see what happens when I add the bellwether into my chaos theory data.”

  “Wait—I want to drink my Chinatasse, in case it’s the next fad. And there’s something else … You didn’t give HiTek our decision yet, did you, about staying?”

  He shook his head. “I thought you’d want to be there.”

  “Good,” I said. “Don’t tell them no yet. There’s something I want to check on.”

  “Okay. I’ll meet you back at HiTek in a few minutes then,” he said. “Okay?” and went out.

  “Umm,” I said, trying to catch the thought I’d had before. Something about trains, or was it buses? And something the waitress had said.

  I took a thoughtful sip of the Chinatasse, and if I needed a sign that chaos was reattaining equilibrium at a new and higher level, this was it. It was the Earth Mother’s wonderful spiced iced tea.

  Which should inspire me if anything could. But I couldn’t capture the thought The idea that I should have gone back with Ben kept intruding, and that, except for that sensitivity exercise, and some incidental hand-holding, he had never touched me.

  And apparently there was some kind of feedback loop operating in our system because he was back and pushing past the waitress, who wanted to write his name down, and through the tables and pulling me to my feet. And kissing me.

  “Okay,” he said, when we pulled apart.

  “Okay,” I said breathlessly.

  “Wow!” the waitress said. “Did you meet him in the personals?”

  “No,” I said, wishing she would shut up and that Ben would kiss me again. “Through Flip.”

  “We were introduced by a bellwether,” Ben said, putting his arms around me again.

  “Wow!” the waitress said.

  couéism (1923)—–Psychology fad inspired by Dr. Emile Coué, a French psychologist and the author of Self-Mastery by Auto-Suggestion. Coué’s method of self-improvement consisted of knotting a piece of string and reciting over and over, “Every day in every way, I am getting better and better.” Died out when it became apparent no one was.