The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories

by Connie Willis

  Dr. King smiled, a large friendly grin that reminded Sarah of the practice jaw in Field Techniques. “We all know the tremendous impactization technology has had on our modern society,” he said.

  “Impactization?” Chuck said, eating a lemon tart the distinguished-looking gentleman had just brought out from the kitchen. “I thought ‘impact’ was a verb.”

  “It is,” Sarah said. “And once, back in the Late Cretaceous, it was a noun.”

  “Shh,” Dr. Albertson said, looking disapproving.

  “As we move into the twenty-first century, our society is transformizing radically, but is education? No. We are still teaching the same old subjects in the same old ways.” He smiled at the dean. “Until today. Today marks the beginning of a wonderful innovationary experiment in education, a whole new instructionary dynamic in teaching paleontology. I’ll be thinktanking with you dinosaur guys and gals next week, but until then I want you to think about one word.”

  “Extinction,” Sarah murmured.

  “That word is ‘relevantness.’ Does paleontology have relevantness to our modern society? How can we make it have relevantness? Think about it. Relevantness.”

  There was a spattering of applause from the departments Dr. King would not be thinktanking with. Robert poured a large glass of sherry and drank it down. “It’s not fair,” he said. “First the Parking Authority and now this.”

  “Pilots make a lot of money,” Sarah said. “And the only word they have to think about is ‘crash.”

  Dr. Albertson raised his hand.

  “Yes?” the dean asked.

  “I just wanted Dr. King to know,” he said, “that he can count on my support one hundred percent.”

  “Are you supposed to eat this white crust thing on the cheese?” Chuck asked.

  Dr. King put a memo in the Paleontology Department’s boxes the next day. It read “Group ideating session next Mon. Dr. Wright’s office. 2 P.M. J. King. P.S. I will be doing observational datatizing this Tues. and Thurs.”

  “We’ll all do some observational datatizing,” Sarah said, even more alarmed by Dr. King’s preempting her office without asking her than by the brie.

  She went to find her TA, who was in her office eating a Snickers. “I want you to go find out about Dr. King’s background,” she told him.

  “Why?”

  “Because he used to be a junior-high girl’s basketball coach. Maybe we can get some dirt on him and one of his seventh grade forwards.”

  “How do you know he used to be a junior-high coach?”

  “All educational consultants used to be junior-high coaches. Or social-studies teachers.” She looked at the memo disgustedly. “What do you suppose observational datatizing consists of?”

  Observational datatizing consisted of wandering around the halls of the Earth Sciences building with a clipboard listening to Dr. Albertson.

  “Okay, how much you got?” Dr. Albertson was saying to his class. He was wearing a butcher’s apron and a paper fast-food hat and was cutting apples into halves, quarters, and thirds with a cleaver, which had nothing to do with depauperate fauna, but which he had seen Edward James Olmos do in Stand and Deliver. He had been very impressed.

  “Yip, that’ll do it,” he was saying in an Hispanic accent when Dr. King appeared suddenly at the back of the room with his clipboard.

  “But the key question here is relevantness,” Dr. Albertson said hastily. “How do the depauperate fauna affectate on our lives today?”

  His students looked wary. One of them crossed his arms protectively over his textbook as though he thought he was going to be asked to tear out more pages.

  “Depauperate fauna have a great deal of relevantness to our modern society,” Dr. Albertson said, but Dr. King had wandered back into the hall and into Dr. Othniel’s class.

  “The usual mode of the tyrannosaurus rex was to approach a herd of hadrosaurs from cover,” Dr. Othniel, who did not see Dr. King because he was writing on the board, said. “He would then attack suddenly and retreat.” He wrote “1. OBSERVE, 2. ATTACK, 3. RETREAT,” in a column on the board, the letters of each getting smaller and squinchier as he approached the chalk tray.

  His students wrote “1. Sneak up, 2. Bite ass, 3. Beat it,” and “Todd called last night. I told him Traci wasn’t there. We talked forever.”

  Dr. King wrote “RELEVANTNESS?” in large block letters on his clipboard and wandered out again.

  “The jaws and teeth of the tyrannosaurus were capable of inflicting a fatal wound with a single bite. It would then follow at a distance, waiting for its victim to bleed to death,” Dr. Othniel said.

  Robert was late to the meeting on Monday. “You will not believe what happened to me!” he said. “I had to park in the daily permit lot, and while I was getting the permit out of the machine, they gave me a ticket!”

  Dr. King, who was sitting at Sarah’s desk wearing a pair of gray sweats, a whistle, and a baseball cap with “Dan Quayle Junior High” on it, said, “I know you’re all as excited about this educationing experiment we’re about to embarkate on as I am.”

  “More,” Dr. Albertson said.

  Sarah glared at him. “Will this experiment involve eliminating positions?”

  Dr. King smiled at her. His teeth reminded her of some she’d seen at the Denver Museum of Natural History. “‘Positions,’ ‘classes,’ ‘departments,’ all those terms are irrelevantatious. We need to reassessmentize our entire concept of education, its relevantatiousness to modern society. How many of you are using paradigmic bonding in your classes?”

  Dr. Albertson raised his hand.

  “Paradigmic bonding, experiential role-playing, modular cognition. I assessmentized some of your classes last week. I saw no computerlearner linkages, no multimedial instruction, no cognitive tracking. In one class”—Dr. King smiled largely at Dr. Othniel—”I saw a blackboard being used. Methodologies like that are extinct.”

  “So are dinosaurs,” Sarah muttered. “Why don’t you say something, Robert?”

  “Dr. King,” Robert said, “do you plan to extend this reorganization to other departments?”

  Good, Sarah thought, send him over to pester English Lit.

  “Yes,” Dr. King said, beaming. “Paleontology is only an initiatory pretest. Eventually we intend to expand it to encompassate the entire university. Why?”

  “There’s one department that drastically needs reorganization,” Robert said. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the Parking Authority is completely out of control. The sign distinctly says you’re supposed to park your car first and then go get the daily permit out of the machine.”

  “What did you find out about Dr. King?” Sarah asked Chuck Tuesday morning.

  “He didn’t coach junior-high girl’s basketball,” he said, drinking a lime Slurpee. “It was junior-high wrestling.”

  “Oh,” Sarah said. “Then find out where he got his doctorate. Maybe we can get the college to rescind it for using words like ‘assessmentize.’”

  “I don’t think I’d better,” Chuck said. “I mean, I’ve only got one semester till I graduate. And besides,” he said, sucking on the Slurpee, “some of his ideas made sense. I mean, a lot of that stuff we learn in class does seem kind of pointless. I mean, what does the Late Cretaceous have to do with us, really? It might be fun to role-play and stuff.”

  “Fine,” Sarah said. “Role-play this. You are a coryhosaurus. You’re smart and fast, but not fast enough because a tyrannosaurus rex has just taken a bite out of your flank. What do you do?”

  “Gosh, that’s a tough one,” Chuck said, slurping meditatively. “What would you do?”

  “Grow a wishbone.”

  Tuesday afternoon, as soon as her one o’clock class was over, Sarah went to Robert’s office. He wasn’t there. She waited outside for half an hour, reading the announcement for a semester at sea, and then went over to the Parking Authority office.

  He was standing near the front of a line that
wound down the stairs and out the door. It was composed mostly of students, though the person at the head of the line was a frail-looking old man. He was flapping a green slip at the young man behind the counter. The young man had a blond crew cut and looked like an adolescent Himmler.

  “…a heart attack,” the old man at the head of the line was saying. Sarah wondered if he had had one when he got his parking ticket or if he intended to have one now.

  Sarah tried to get to Robert, but two students were blocking the door. She recognized one of the freshmen from Dr. Othniel’s class. “Oh, Todd,” the freshman was saying to a boy in a tank undershirt and jeans, “I knew you’d help me. I tried to get Traci to come with me—I mean, after all, it was her car—but I think she had a date.”

  “A date?” Todd said.

  “Well, I don’t know for sure. It’s hard to keep track of all her guys. I couldn’t do that. I mean”—she lowered her eyes demurely—”if you were my boyfriend, I’d never even think about other guys.”

  “Excuse me,” Sarah said, “but I need to talk to Dr. Walker.”

  Todd stepped to one side, and instead of stepping to the other, the freshman from Dr. Othniel’s class squeezed over next to him. Sarah slid past and worked her way up to Robert, ignoring the nasty looks of the other people in line.

  “Don’t tell me you got a ticket, too,” Robert said.

  “No,” she said. “We have to do something about Dr. King.”

  “We certainly do,” Robert said indignantly.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you feel that way. Dr. Othniel’s useless, He doesn’t even realize what’s going on, and Dr. Albertson’s giving a lecture on ‘The Impactization of Microscopic Fossils on Twentieth-Century Society.’”

  “Which is what?”

  “I have no idea. When I was in there, he was showing a videotape of The Land Before Time.”

  “I had a coronary thrombosis!” the old man shouted.

  “Unauthorized vehicles are not allowed in permit lots,” the Hitler Youth said. “However, we have initiated a preliminary study of the incident.”

  “A preliminary study!” the old man said, clutching his left arm. “The last one you did took five years!”

  “We need another meeting with Dr. King,” Sarah said. “We need to tell him relevance is not the issue, that paleontology is important in and of itself, and not because brontosaurus earrings are trendy. Surely he’ll see reason. We have science and logic on our side.”

  Robert looked at the old man at the counter.

  “What is there to study?” he was saying. “You ticketed the ambulance while the paramedics were giving me CPR!”

  “I’m not sure reason will work,” Robert said doubtfully.

  “Well, then, how about a petition? We’ve got to do something, or we’ll all be showing episodes of The Flintstones. He’s a dangerous man!”

  “He certainly is,” Robert said. “Do you know what I just got? A citation for parking in front of the Faculty Library.”

  “Will you forget about your stupid parking tickets for a minute?” Sarah said. “You won’t have any reason to park unless we get rid of King. I know Albertson’s students would all sign a petition. Yesterday he made them cut the illustrations out of their textbooks and make a collage.”

  “The Parking Authority doesn’t acknowledge petitions,” Robert said. “You heard what Dr. King told the dean at the reception. He said, ‘I’m parked right outside.’ He left a note on his windshield that said the Paleontology Department had given him permission to park there.” He waved the green paper at her. “Do you know where 1 parked? Fifteen blocks away. And I’m the one who gets a citation for improperly authorizing parking permission!

  “Good-bye, Robert,” Sarah said.

  “Wait a minute! Where are you going? We haven’t figured out a plan of action yet.”

  Sarah worked her way back through the line. The two students were still blocking the door. “I’m sure Traci will understand,” the freshman from Dr. Othniel’s class was saying, “I mean, it isn’t like you two were serious or anything.”

  “Wait a minute!” Robert shouted from his place in line. “What are you going to do?”

  “Evolve,” Sarah said.

  On Wednesday there was another memo in Paleontology’s boxes. It was on green paper, and Robert snatched it up and took off for the Parking Authority office, muttering dark threats. He was already there and standing in line behind a young woman in a wheelchair and two firemen when he finally unfolded it and read it.

  “I know I was parking in a handicapped spot,” the young woman was saying when Robert let out a whoop and ran back to the Earth Sciences building.

  Sarah had a one o’clock class, but she wasn’t there. Her students, who were spending their time waiting erasing marks in their textbooks so they could resell them at the bookstore, didn’t know where she was. Neither did Dr. Albertson, who was making a papier-mâché foraminifer.

  Robert went into Dr. Othniel’s class. “The prevalence of predators in the Late Cretaceous,” Dr. Othniel was saying, “led to severe evolutionary pressures, resulting in aquatic and aeronautical adaptations.”

  Robert tried to get his attention, but he was writing “BIRDS” in the chalk tray.

  He went out in the hall. Sarah’s TA was standing outside her office, eating a bag of Doritos.

  “Have you seen Dr. Wright?” Robert asked.

  “She’s gone,” Chuck said, munching.

  “Gone? You mean, resigned?” he said, horrified. “But she doesn’t have to.” He waved the green paper at Chuck. “Dr. King’s going to do a preliminary study, a—what does he call it?—a preinitiatory survey of prevailing paleontological pedagogy. We won’t have to worry about him for another five years at least.”

  “She saw it,” Chuck said, pulling a jar of salsa out of his back pocket. “She said it was too late. She’d already paid her tuition.” He unscrewed the lid.

  “Her tuition?” Robert said. “What are you talking about? Where did she go?”

  “She flew the coop.” He dug in the bag and pulled out a chip. He dipped it in the sauce. “Oh, and she left something for you.” He handed Robert the jar of salsa and the chips and dug in his other back pocket. He handed Robert the flight brochure and a green plastic square.

  “It’s her parking sticker,” Robert said

  “Yeah,” Chuck said. “She said she won’t be needing it where she’s going.”

  “That’s all? She didn’t say anything else?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, dipping a chip into the salsa Robert still held. “She said to watch out for falling rocks.”

  “The predatory dinosaurs flourished for the entire Late Cretaceous,” Dr. Othniel said, “and then, along with their prey, disappeared. Various theories have been advanced for their extinction, none of which has been authoritatively proved.”

  “I’ll bet they couldn’t find a parking place,” a student who had written one of the letters to the Parking Authority and who had finally given up and traded his Volkswagen in on a skateboard, whispered.

  “What?” Dr. Othniel said, looking vaguely around. He turned back to the board. “The diminishing food supply, the rise of mammals, the depredations of smaller predators, all undoubtedly contributed.”

  He wrote:

  “1. FOOD SUPPLY

  2. MAMMALS

  3. COMPETITION,” on the bottom one fifth of the board.

  His students wrote “I thought it was an asteroid,” and “My new roommate Terri is trying to steal Todd away from me! Can you believe that? Signed, Deanna.”

  “The demise of the dinosaurs—” Dr. Othniel said, and stopped. He straightened slowly, vertebra by vertebra, until he was nearly erect. He lifted his chin, as if he were sniffing the air, and then walked over to the open window, leaned out, and stood there for several minutes, scanning the clear and empty sky.

  Royalty

  The Curse of Kings

  There was a curse. It lay on all of us, t
hough we didn’t know it. Anyway Lacau didn’t. Standing there, reading the tomb seal out loud to me in my cage, he didn’t have a clue who the warning was meant for. And the Sandalman, standing on the black ridge watching the bodies burn, had no idea he had already fallen victim to it.

  The princess knew, leaning her head in hopelessness against the wall of her tomb ten thousand years ago. And Evelyn, eaten alive by it, she knew. She tried to tell me that last night on Colchis while we waited for the ship.

  The electricity was off again, and Lacau had lit a photosene lamp and put it close to the translator so I could see the dials. Evelyn’s voice had gotten so bad that the fix needed constant adjusting. The lamp’s flame lit only the space around me. Lacau, bending over the hammock, was in total darkness.

  Evelyn’s bey sat by the lamp, watching the reddish flame, her mouth open and her black teeth shining in the light. I expected her to stick her hand in the flame any minute, but she didn’t. The air was still and full of dust. The lamp flame didn’t even flicker.

  “Evie,” Lacau said. “We don’t have any time left. The Sandalman’s soldiers will be here before morning. They’ll never let us leave.”

  Evelyn said something, but the translator didn’t pick it up.

  “Move the mike closer,” I said. “I didn’t get that.”

  “Evie,” he said again. “We need you to tell us when happened. Can you do that for us, Evie? Tell us what happened?”

  She tried again. I had the volume dial kicked as high as it would go, and the translator picked it up this time, but only as static. Evelyn started to cough, a sharp, terrible sound that the translator turned into a scream.

  “For God’s sake, put her on the respirator,” I said.

  “I can’t,” he said. “The power pack is dead.” And the other respirator has to be plugged in, I thought, and you’ve used up all the extension cords. But I didn’t say it. Because if he put her on the respirator he would have to unplug the refrigerator.