You didn't talk to anyone before you looked into this?
Bimstein gave me a half hour to put some background facts together, Commander. I'd have been lucky to have even found one person who could have told me anything in that time.
You may be hearing from someone.
Once again, I was left alone at my console. And I was still supposed to come up with more for the McCall piece, and then get back to digging up more on the orbiter incident—and then the bioweapon thing. Whoever Marc Oler was, he hadn't gotten back to me. I had the feeling he wouldn't, and it would be a while before I could devote the time to chasing him down.
Chapter 14
Cornea
Wednesday morning was usually an easy morning, but since I had my appointment with the dean at ten-fifteen, I had to get up earlier to fit in everything. For some reason, the formulator wouldn't accept any of the breakfast menu codes. I'm anything but a morning person. I don't even watch the news. I couldn't ever eat a heavy meal first thing in the morning. I ended up with tasteless cheese, and some crackers, washed down with water. I couldn't even have made an omelet or something from scratch, or boiled water for coffee or tea, because my larder was bare. Organic ingredients weren't exactly cheap.
The only good thing was that I still managed a good hour of practice on the first part of what I'd be singing at the Clayton soiree. My cords were clear. I felt that I'd really managed to work the songs into my voice. The practice was good, so good that I ended up running late.
The maglev shuttle was off schedule, which never happened, except when I was behind schedule. I was going to have to hurry when I got to the university, in order not to be late for my appointment with Dean Donald.
As I stepped off the shuttle, the piercing ululations of an emergency medvan echoed across the university grounds. All of us on the platform looked around. I couldn't see the medvan, and I was running too close to being late to spend time searching.
I heard a second siren as I entered the Administration building, a four-hundred-year-old brownstone that had been a copy of an even older structure. The sound died away as I took the stairs up to the second floor. The Arts and Humanities section was in the back—the smallest and most crowded of the various university offices.
Malenda looked up from her console as I entered. "Good morning, Professor Cornett.”
"Good morning.” I glanced from her to the open door to Dean Donald's office. It was an old-style six-panel oak door, with brass knobs. It wasn't automatic or hooked into the link system. The dean was standing there, waiting.
Wharton Donald was a head taller than I was, but probably not more than ten kilos heavier, and I was scarcely that heavy anymore. How could I be when I couldn't even get a decent breakfast out of my formulator? He smiled all the time. He was smiling as he waited in the oak-framed doorway of his office, bobbing his head.
"Luara… do come in. Do come in. Professor Ibanez had told me you might wish to speak to me.” He stepped back into his office, and I followed.
"I did. That's why I made the appointment.” Of course, Jorje would have warned the dean. Jorje was looking out for Jorje. "I told him that I wanted to talk to you. He didn't seem to have any objections.”
"I am always here to talk to faculty. How can we maintain a smoothly functioning university without open communication? Please sit down and tell me what is on your mind.” He closed the door and motioned to one of the synthleather chairs—red, trimmed with black—in front of his desk.
Smiling benignly, he walked past me and seated himself. Then, he leaned back in the reclining leather desk chair that almost swallowed him. "You have added such a dimension to our music program. And Professor Ibanez has told me about how uniquely qualified you are to teach the new rez-prep course. You know, these are difficult times for higher education. Student numbers are no longer increasing, and we need to provide those courses which the students feel will best prepare them for the jobs that are open…”
"There's a problem with that,” I blurted. 'There are several.”
He frowned.
"Students don't know enough to know what they need. Also, they don't know what courses will provide lifetime preparation, and which are just short-term vocational prep courses. You aren't doing them any favors by catering to their present whims.”
"Whims? Luara, dear… we have some of the brightest students in NorAm. Surely, you wouldn't consider their career plans as mere whims? Don't you think that you're selling them short?"
I forced myself to smile. It was hard. "I think we have a lot of bright students, Dean Donald. But intelligence is not the same as experience. We live in a technological age, where heavy industry has been replaced by formulation. Don't you think that career patterns and industry can change quickly? As you said at the last convocation, the most important role a university can play is to teach its students to think.”
"Ah, yes. That is indeed what we must do.” He smiled again. "I don't believe you told me why you wanted to see me.”
There I'd gone again, tossing aside my carefully thought-out opening. I returned his smile. Mine was false. I wasn't sure his was. "Professor Ibanez had mentioned that you were considering reducing the number of music appreciation sections from three to two.”
"Efficiencies of scale, Professor. In this time of tightened educational funding, we are forced to seek such efficiencies.”
I managed to twist what I'd thought about earlier in response. "Efficiency isn't the same as education. The music appreciation section I'm teaching now already has more than eighty students in it. Even with a carefully prepared nanetic background on each student's face and name, it's difficult to make sure that they're all getting the material. No teacher can scan a class any larger. Once you lose the ability to assess their comprehension, it might as well become a link class. It's no longer education. It's just an assimilation of a lot of facts and names and a few partial melodies. I believe, and I hope you do, that education is the process of learning to think across a broad spectrum of academic disciplines. Music has been a critical discipline. Current studies and some even validated centuries ago prove that the study of music improves mathematical and critical thinking. Link classes don't. There's no way they can convey the intricacy or the beauty of music.”
The dean spread his hands. "I wish I had been able to bring you to the hearing before the trustees. But there's little that I can do now. There's only so much money for traditional studies. We received the rez-prep funding as an outside grant, and that's on a year-by-year basis. I had so hoped that you would be able to use it to generate greater in-person numbers…”
"I certainly plan to, but it's not the same as basic musical understanding. It will help a few in getting a job. It won't generate more critical thought.” Especially when students didn't care much for thinking. I suspected they never had, but once, I hoped, faculty had had more power in ensuring that students had to think in order to get through the courses. Then, maybe that was unfounded nostalgia on my part.
"The trustees look so carefully at our numbers…” The dean shrugged again.
"My numbers are up,” I pointed out.
"I'm certain you'll show the same success in the rez-prep class.” He smiled broadly.
Did I really want to point out that the falling numbers in the appreciation classes were due to the fact that Jorje taught two sections—lackadaisically—and I taught only one? He had a long-term contract. Mine was year-to-year.
"I know you've done the best you can, Dean Donald,” I lied. "I really felt that you should know that I'm deeply concerned about this. I'll continue to do my best, but when I have only been teaching a third of the sections, obviously I cannot generate numbers all by myself. I feel deeply that the students are the ones being shortchanged by this decision.”
"Your concern for the students does you great credit.” He leaned forward in the chair. "I do so appreciate your coming to see me. I can certainly see why you're so effective as a teacher. You have great passion
for your subject.”
In short, I'd been too passionate. Again.
He smiled yet again and stood.
I wasn't really through, but what else was there to say? I'd been hit with another decision made by politicians and bureaucrats who understood nothing except numbers and votes cast by a spoiled population. So I eased myself out of the chair and murmured, "Artists are passionate. That's what makes us artists.”
"Indeed, indeed.”
That was my appointment with Dean Wharton Donald, tool and spineless bureaucrat.
Instead of cooling off as I walked down the stairs, I just found myself getting angrier and angrier. Not only had it been decided before anyone had talked to either Jorje or me, but the people who had decided it knew nothing about education or what went on in a classroom or a lesson. They weren't interested in having students learn to think, no matter what they said publicly. They just wanted the impressions. Just as Wharton Donald wanted to create the impression of being a caring dean.
There was another series of sirens that accompanied my angry walk across the campus to the Fine Arts Center. Had there been some sort of accident? I just wished one had happened to Wharton Donald, the spineless mouse. He didn't even have enough backbone to make a good rat.
A group of students was milling outside the lecture hall, which doubled as the choral room, waiting for Jorje's appreciation class to get out.
"… let them launch it underwater a long ways from anywhere. Who could tell?"
"… say the Martians pressuring the PDF…”
I wondered what they were talking about. Had the sirens had something to do with it?
"Professor Cornett, what do you think about it?" The questioner was the roommate of Rachelle, who I'd have to face in a lesson on Thursday. I didn't recall the girl's name, just her face.
"Are you talking about all the sirens? I don't know. It's been a long morning already.”
"You haven't heard? Someone used an old-style nuke on an orbiter that was carrying the Foreign Secretary of Mars. It was a Russe shuttle.”
I stopped. I must have looked stunned. I felt stunned. A nuclear missile? "When?"
"Just about an hour ago.”
Why would anyone risk something like that? Was any political belief worth that kind of destruction? "It's… insanity.” I was having trouble grasping the fact.
"The new ebol4 bug… that's likely to kill more people.” Someone back in the group offered that.
What ebol4 bug? "They're both insane.” I felt like I was repeating myself. I've never been very good at making brilliant coherent statements when I'm caught off guard. I shook my head, and was saved when the door to the lecture hall opened and disgorged scores of students fleeing Jorje's class.
Ebol4 bug? Was that what had happened to the student on the shuttle platform? I shuddered at the thought of how few seconds had separated us.
After a moment of hesitation, I made my way down the corridor to my own office. Surprisingly, Mershelle wasn't standing outside, waiting, although I was there only a minute before the hour. She was almost always early. I pulsed the door. It opened, and the lights went on.
You have one message, the office link announced. I could have set it up to link to my home system, but if I had, I'd have been at everyone's mercy all the time. The people I wanted to hear from knew my home codes. So did those who had to reach me, like Mahmed. In the mood I was in, I never wanted to hear from the dean or Jorje.
I went to the gatekeeper. Message.
Raymon's image appeared. He was in his office, wearing what I called his doctor's uniform—the white tuniclike shirt and the dark trousers. Hope you're somewhere where you can backlink. It's urgent.
I'd been expecting a message from Mershelle, not my brother. Raymon almost never bothered me at the university. I hated linking when I didn't have to, and I called up a holo projection. It wasn't that big, less than half size because that was the limit on the office console.
"Office of Dr. Cornett. May we help you?" asked the simmie receptionist.
"This is Luara, his sister. I'm returning his call.”
Within a minute, his image appeared. He looked just as he had in the message. "Haven't you heard?"
"About the nuclear attack on the Russe shuttle? I just found out.”
"You haven't heard about Michael?"
"I never hear from him.” My stomach still clenched at Raymon's tone of voice. While it hadn't worked out with Michael, and things had been bitter at the end, I certainly didn't wish him ill.
"He's dead. This new ebol4 biowep.”
"Michael's dead?" I just looked at the holo image of Raymon. Michael… dead? The social reformer and activist? The man who never said no to anyone? The man who wanted to rebuild society whether it wanted rebuilding or not?
"I found out this morning.”
"When… how… How did he get it?" I finally asked.
Raymon offered a sad and sympathetic smile. "With all the people that come to him? Who could tell? Does how really matter? When are you free?"
"After my next lesson. Why?" I could tell that I was just reacting. Sometimes, I hated myself for that. After each time it happened, I'd ask why I didn't think things through more.
"I want you to come to the office. Take a cab, not the shuttle. I'll pay you back.”
"Would you mind telling me why? What's so urgent?"
"Ebol4's nasty. You need upgraded meds.”
"Raymon… I'm a singer… I can't afford… And what does it matter, with orbiters being destroyed with nuclear weapons?"
"We'll muddle through that. The Republic still needs too much from Earth to launch an attack. Besides, I can't do anything about that. I've only got one sister, and I can do something about that. I'm paying. I'll see you at my office as soon as you can get here. Clarice will be looking for you. And stay away from people you don't know. Or those you do.” His face was tight—strained.
"I have one lesson. I'll come right after that.”
"Promise?" His voice was intense.
"I promise.” Absently, I flipped back my hair.
"Good.”
After I broke the link, I just looked blankly at the Stein way. How long, I wasn't sure. Then I got up and checked the music that Mershelle was supposed to be working on and put it on the music rack of the piano. I still had to teach, even if the world was going crazy around me.
But it was hard to concentrate on music—and its beauty—under such circumstances. Michael… dead? We seldom talked, but he had been a big part of my life for a time, and I had been drawn to his idealism. The problem was that his idealism was even more all-consuming than my passion for music—and that very little else had worked past the initial attraction.
I shook my head. I'd been so angry with the dean. In some ways, it all seemed so small, at least compared to bioweapons and a nuclear weapon. But… maybe they were all part of the same problem. Maybe, people weren't thinking. Or thinking about matters too small, instead of seeking thought and beauty. Then, maybe I was just looking for a justification for my anger.
After another ten minutes, it was clear that I had no lesson to teach. Mershelle never showed up, and she hadn't left a message. So, fifteen minutes later, I left and headed out to Raymon's office. On the one hand, my instincts were that I doubted that I'd be exposed to the new virus. On the other, my more rational side pointed out that students got exposed to everything. They always showed up to tell me they were sick, as if to prove it, rather than leaving a message. Then, there had been the young man on the platform. Raymon was right, but I didn't have to like it Still, I closed the office and walked toward the station.
I didn't hear any more sirens while I waited for the maglev, but none of us on the platform got very close to each other.
Chapter 15
Chiang
I had to take Wednesday morning for my annual DPS physical. Physical and tests took less than an hour. Waiting between tests took the morning and lunch. Did give me nanomeds against the ebo
l. Saw about thirty other DPS types getting them as well. Got to my office at thirteen-thirty.
Sarao looked up from the consoles. Her short brown hair was shorter than usual. "Captain called. I told her you were getting your annual. She said not to bother you.”
"She say what she wanted?"
Sarao shook her head. "Very polite. Calm.”
"What's new?"
"Backstreet bodyshop ops are up. Couple more disappearances from northside.” She offered a cynical smile.
We both knew the two were related.
"What else?" I looked at her. "We got ebol4 jumping from continent to continent. Filch don't get hit unless they're careless. Those that do, they get full nanetic therapy and self-clone replacements. Poor sariman, if he gets hit with ebol4, choice to watch himself die or get a hack-smith washjob organs, and has to live from saldrop to saldrop paying for isup. Servies and pennies just die.” I glanced toward the consoles. "Death rates?"
"Not a trend yet. Up five percent from the beginning of the week. Disappearances will rise, mostly in pennies from northside, some from westside.” Sarao's voice was flat.
Stats like that have a terrible and inevitable beauty. "You put out an allpers on bodyshops?"
"It's ready to go. Wanted your approval. It's in your pending links.”
"Good. What else?"
"More ODs last night.”
"On what?"
Sarao shrugged. "Soop in their systems, but how can anyone OD on soop?"
Winced at that. Soop was an exhilarant, but the docs claimed no long-term effects. Except too much could set a heart racing. Not fatally. "Overdosing on soop? Can't be done.”
"Some alkie there, at least in one, but doesn't make for an OD,” Sarao confirmed. "You might see something I didn't.”
Alcohol mixed with soop? Kids used soop, mostly. Most adults used alkie. Some crossover. "That it?"
"Besides the usual? I didn't see anything else.”
"Thanks. I'll check the allpers first.” I walked into the office, glanced out at another sunny and cold early spring afternoon, and then pushed a link to the captain. Got her simmie.
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