by Jeff Sutton
"I wish she'd break it off," Kane said irritably.
"No use waiting." Maxon eyed her tolerantly. "I have the definite feeling that Androki will see her home."
"You're reading too much into it," he snapped.
"Am I? I don't believe so but I'll see." Maxon crossed the room and spoke briefly with Anita. She answered, smiling, and Androki's face took on a smug expression. The psychologist returned and said, "Let's shove off."
Kane suppressed his irritation. "Is he seeing her home?"
"After they stop by to view his art collection," he answered dryly. Kane moodily bade good night to the chancellor, then followed Maxon from the house. His thoughts were glum. In his belief, the person who brings a girl to a party should see her home. Was that old-fashioned?
He got into the car dejectedly, regretting that he'd bothered to come. The only good thing had been the string quartet, to which no one had bothered to listen.
"Don't let it get you down," Maxon advised, as they approached his apartment.
"Who's fretting?" he demanded.
"You are." The psychologist cast a tolerant glance at him. "Anita's a good kid, a fun kid, but she's not one to get serious over. I told you that long ago."
"Why do you say that?"
"She wants the good things of life, Bert. And she wants fun. I suspect that's why her first marriage broke up."
"What do you mean by the good things of life?" he challenged. It struck him that Anita had used almost those exact words.
"Money, power, status. Who knows?" Maxon shrugged. "We each have our own goals."
"We were speaking about Anita."
"Who's to say what she wants, Bert? Certainly it's not love she's after. That's just a biological balm. But whatever it is, she sees it in Androki." _ "Pure surmise," he answered stiffly.
"The message was clear, Bert."
"The wealthiest man in the world? He has his choice. She's smart enough to know there's nothing in it for her."
"Would her ego allow her to accept that?" Maxon demanded. Kane didn't reply, remaining silent until he dropped the psychologist off at his home.
"See you mafiana." Maxon waved airily as he turned along the dark path that led to the porch. Driving home, Kane moodily thought that it was the lousiest reception he'd ever attended. Anita hadn't helped things one bit. Neither had Androki.
Especially not Androki.
IX
Kane was leaving his office the following afternoon when he encountered Anita. Smiling, she brushed back her hair.
"Sorry about last night," she apologized. "I just couldn't pass up the opportunity of seeing Mr. Androki's art collection. It's positively fabulous. Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Matisse, Modigliani, Picasso—I never realized his collection was anywhere near that extensive."
"Well, with a few billion dollars…" He tried to stifle his miffed feelings.
"It's not that," she answered archly. "You would know that if you saw his collection. Paul Klee, Malevich patterns, a Dali, an Orozco canvas; oh, it required far more than money. He's a real connoisseur, Bert."
"Perhaps." He had to smile at her enthusiasm.
"He's absolutely charming."
"He seemed nice enough."
"He's not at all like the papers and magazines make him out to be," she declared. "He's a highly sensitive person. He really is."
"Gordie's more than ever convinced that he's a down-through."
"He was extremely interested in Gordie."
"He didn't appear to be."
"Oh, but he was, and in you, too."
"I can't imagine why," he replied dryly. Androki hadn't struck him as a man who would be interested in anyone outside of Androki.
"He believes you rank with Cantrup and Vosin."
"How can he say that?" he demanded. "Has he ever met Vosin, or talked with him?"
"I believe he was quoting Dr. Cantrup." She eyed him musingly. "Don't be so churlish, Bert."
"I'm not trying to be," he apologized.
"He was absolutely sincere," she said. "He believes that you're far closer to the final solution than you'll admit."
"I wish that were true."
"How do you know it's not?" she demanded.
"I don't really. The breakthrough is one of those things which, if it comes, will come suddenly."
"He was also interested in Gordie's work."
"Gordie never mentioned his work," he rebutted.
"He indicated his interest in extrasensory perception," she answered pointedly. "And he did indicate his belief that Mr. Androki was psychic."
"He certainly did." Kane was forced to smile.
"Mr. Androki wanted to know if Gordie really believed that."
"What did you tell him?"
"That he believed in it as sincerely as you believe in multidimensional space."
"What did he say to that?"
"He had thought that Gordie's bit about prognostication was an attempt at humor," she explained. "He was quite surprised when I told him that Gordie not only believed in prophecy but was trying to prove its existence scientifically."
"Did that shake him?"
"He was skeptical. He asked how it could be proved. I told him that Gordie's main methods were based on the statistics of probability. That's true, isn't it?"
He nodded. "How did he react?"
"He's certainly dubious that such a thing exists," she explained. "He said that good prediction stems from good analysis, that many things are predictable if one understands the past."
"I can't argue with that." Kane eyed her speculatively. "As I recall, you believed quite strongly that he might be psychic. How do you feel about him now?"
"I'm not certain." She moistened her lips.
"Did he convince you that he's not?"
She smiled brightly. "My beliefs in the matter never came up."
"But you have an opinion," he pressed. "He's a brilliant man, Bert. I'm convinced of that. He's also very sensitive, and lonely."
"Lonely? I wouldn't have imagined that."
"He likes his work, loves his art collection, but he doesn't strike a rapport with many people. He told me that. Oh, I know, he goes to a jillion receptions, but that's just because of his involvements."
"He seems to make plenty of other parties," he observed dryly.
"You can't believe half of what you read or hear, Bert." She eyed him sharply. "You can tell he's lonely. Haven't you ever felt lonely in a crowd? In many ways it's the most poignant loneliness of all; it sings of a mass of people while telling you that you have no one. I know he gets around, but he still walks in loneliness. It's written all over him."
He smiled faintly. "I can't argue with a woman's insight."
"Observation, not insight," she corrected.
"I'm glad you enjoyed the evening," he said impulsively. The realization that he'd been acting like a boor made him flush.
"I'm glad, too," she answered simply. "I wouldn't have missed seeing his collection for the world."
"It was nice of him to invite you."
"Very nice, Bert." She glanced at her watch. "Gracious, I'm late for class. I'll have to be running."
"See you later," he called, but she had already turned away. Watching her walk swiftly along the corridor, he felt a sadness and wondered why. There's been an estrangement, he thought; it had dominated their entire conversation. Had he been that churlish? But she had been defensive, too. She had leaned too heavily on Androki's art collection to explain her fascination; and she had been too defensive in the financier's behalf. Or was that his imagination?
Suddenly the whole affair struck him as trivial.
Despite his efforts to push John Androki from his mind, Kane found himself ever more absorbed in questions pertaining to the financier. In part, Maxon kept the subject alive; but much of it, he knew, was because the man was an enigma who both baffled and perturbed him.
Why had he disclaimed all but a superficial knowledge of the mathematics he reportedly had discus
sed in detail with Dr. Cantrup? Androki supposedly had no known academic background. If that were true, how had he acquired such specialized knowledge? How had he managed to amass such a tremendous fortune in so short a time? Was he simply a genius who had turned his talents to the financial world? Or was he, as Maxon firmly believed, a downthrough?
Or was Anita the real source of his perturbation?
Moodily he considered it. Since the night of the reception, she had assiduously avoided him. Aside from their chance encounter in the corridor, he'd scarcely seen her. At first, when he had called, there had been a series of excuses: she was loaded with work, she wasn't feeling well, she had an appointment. Then after a while she had stopped pretending.
"Not tonight," she answered coolly, when he had phoned to suggest supper. Hurt, he wondered what he had done to drive her away. Finally he confided in Maxon.
"She's got Androki on the hook," the psychologist bluntly told him.
"Is that a surmise?" he demanded.
"The word gets around." Maxon added gently, "Find yourself a new playmate, Bert. The woods are filled with them."
"Why does she hide it from me?" he protested.
"Women usually hide their affairs. It adds to their mystery. Besides, she probably was trying to let you down easily."
"It wasn't that serious," he protested.
"Not with her." The psychologist eyed him tolerantly. "But it was with you. It's etched into your face, Bert."
"What does she hope to gain from it?"
"Her stakes are high."
"High?" He searched Maxon's face for meaning.
"She's shooting for the moon."
"I can't believe that, Gordie."
"I can."
"You're too quick to judge," he countered. Finding the conversation suddenly depressing, he turned away. Why was Maxon always so cynical?
Plunging back into his work with renewed fervor, Kane shut out the world around him. As during the long months following Margaret's death, he became a recluse to all but Maxon, and he avoided even him for days at a time.
When his task became too tiring, he sought relaxation through philosophizing his problems in an effort to formulate them in his mind. Almost invariably his thoughts would drift from space to time.
Must time, as in Riemannian geometry, serve only as a function of the clock so that the objective world could be placed properly in the curved planes of space? Or did time have dimensions analogous to multidimensional space?
Maxon believed that it did, but he sought another course to discover the truth. The proof of prophecy also would prove the dimensionality of time; he'd argued that long and vociferously. He reasoned that the true prophet didn't merely predict the future, as a fortune-teller might, but actually saw it; that, in turn, proved that our objective world existed simultaneously in different stages of development along an infinite time continuum. But did prophecy, as he defined it, exist? Proof that it did was his goal.
Kane was intrigued by the thought that other dimensions of time might lie beyond the transitional present that linked a dead past with a nonexistent future. Would the solution to his own problem also be the solution to Maxon's problem? It seemed reasonable.
And if he or Maxon proved the thesis? Then the great thinkers of the future would rush in to unlock those worlds. In time, perhaps after long generations, theory would seep out into the test laboratories, and eventually into the hands of imaginative engineers; someday hardware would begin to shape up. Or was that all a wild dream?
He didn't believe so. Neither had David Cantrup nor Martin Freyhoff; nor did Vosin, Bernardi, Tanaki. They believed as he did: that after untold millennia on Earth, man stood at last at the threshold of his universe; he had but to open the door to gaze at the wonder of it.
Returning home from the campus, he idly noted the car behind him through his rearview mirror. Later, going out for supper, he was surprised to spot the same car following him. The sight stirred the subconscious memory of having seen it on other occasions. After that, he became watchful.
During the next few days he spotted the vehicle several times, usually a car or two behind him. Why would he be followed? He pondered the question uneasily. Once, glimpsing it in his rearview mirror, he stopped abruptly in midblock, waiting to see what the other driver would do. The vehicle pulled around him and continued along the street, but not before he'd glimpsed the stocky figure at the wheel.
Later, as a test, he turned into a side street that he knew was dead end. No one followed him. Still, he had the uneasy feeling of being watched. His imagination?
Several days later, returning late to his apartment, he detected movement in the dark shadows as he turned onto the walk leading to the porch. Stifling a quick fear, he wheeled and darted in that direction. A figure stepped forward to meet him.
"Who are you?" Kane demanded roughly. He was both frightened and angry.
"I'm a police officer." The man facing him, middle-height and stocky, displayed a badge, illuminating it briefly with a pencil flashlight. "What is your name, please?"
"Bertram Kane." He gestured toward the apartment. "I live here."
"There have been several burglaries in the area," the other explained. "We're keeping it under surveillance."
"Oh, I hadn't heard."
"I would appreciate your not mentioning this."
"Of course not."
"Good night, Dr. Kane."
"Doctor?" Kane's head jerked up. "How did you know that?"
"Your name is quite well-known."
"Not that well-known," he stated firmly.
The other chuckled. "We make it a point to know those things. Good night again, Dr. Kane."
"Good night," he answered. Reaching his apartment, he left the lamp unlit and peered out through the wide window that faced the front lawn. Trees, grass, shrubs—he detected nothing out of the ordinary. When finally he turned away, it was with a distinctly uneasy feeling.
Burglaries in the area? That was possible, but such news generally got around. Would a cop on a burglary stake-out be apt to know his professional identity? It wouldn't seem so. That point, more than any other, disturbed him.
Next day, in the lounge, he mentioned the incident to Maxon.
"A police officer?" The psychologist looked up quickly.
"He flashed a badge," Kane explained.
"Did you examine it?'*
"Why should I?" Kane felt irritated. Maxon was always so damned practical.
"No reason." Maxon scowled reflectively. "I'd say there was more to it than that."
"I have the same feeling," he admitted soberly.
Maxon said hesitantly, "I don't want to alarm you, but…" He stared at Kane over the brim of his coffee cup.
"Shoot," Kane said crisply.
"Cantrup and Freyhoff were murdered," he said finally. "Perhaps this is precautionary to preserve the brain trust."
"Ridiculous," Kane snapped. "The L.A. cops never heard of Cantrup, let alone Freyhoff. How many people have?"
• "I imagine several government bureaus are quite aware of who they were and what they were doing, Bert." Maxon smiled faintly. "Don't sell your kind of knowledge short. More than one longhair has turned theory into a prop for the nation."
"This wasn't government," he objected.
"No, but the government could have tipped the local cops," Maxon argued. "That's a reasonable assumption."
"You're saying they're providing me with a bodyguard? That's absolutely stupid."
"What do we know of the chains of intrigue?"
"You've been watching too many spy thrillers," Kane accused.
"Have I? I know that Cantrup, Freyhoff and Vosin of Russia are dead."
"Vosin?" Kane's head jerked up.
"You didn't know? It's in the morning paper. He died of a heart attack in a hospital in Moscow. The story gave his age as sixty-eight."
"Vosin dead." Kane felt a sadness. He'd never known the Russian mathematician except through his work, wh
ich had marked him as a giant among men. He looked at Maxon. "Thank God it wasn't murder."
The psychologist asked quietly, "Would they say if it were?"
"I don't know." The thought troubled him.
Maxon said steadily, "Your ranks are thinning, Bert. How many are left who are following the same line of inquiry?"
"Besides me? Bernardi of Italy and Tanaki of Japan." He smiled ruefully. "That's not very many."
"Any promising students?"
"Yes, of course, but they will take years to develop."
"Aside from Vosin, you have to remember that the other two were murdered, Bert, and in the same manner."
"You can't say the two acts were related," he protested.
"I can in my book of probabilities."
"Why would anyone want to stop that work?"
"I wouldn't hazard a guess," Maxon replied.
"There would be no point to.it."
"Oh, yes." Maxon nodded emphatically. "There is always a point to murder, at least in the mind of the murderer. Don't talk about reason and logic, Bert. Those are sensible things, but they seldom are prime motivators to violence. Jealousy, hate, fear, greed, self-preservation—those are the more usual mainsprings. Or the impulse might spring from pure fantasy. The human mind can be a warped conspirator."
Kane smiled crookedly. "The contention that I'm important enough to rate assassination is food for the ego."
"Not you, but your work."
"What's in that to cause murder?"
Maxon shrugged. "Perhaps to you, nothing; perhaps to another person, everything."
"Mathematical theory as the cause for murder…" Kane pondered it skeptically. "Even the pulps wouldn't buy that."
"Don't bank on it, Bert."
"I can't conceive of it."
Maxon leaned toward him. "Hear the latest? Anita's resigned from the faculty."
"What?" He felt a quick dismay.
"As of this morning. I bumped into her while coming to the lounge. She was packing her things."
"What's she going to do?"
"Work as the curator of Androki's art collection." Maxon's face was bland. "He's building a museum to house it adjacent to an estate he has under construction up around Malibu somewhere."
