Poul Anderson - Operation Chaos

We’d been around for a couple of weeks when someone noticed we were going steady, and blabbed. Ginny was called into the president’s presence. He showed her the fine print in his regulations, that she had not thought to read.

Students and faculty, right down to the instructor level, were not permitted to date each other.

We had a grim session that evening.

Naturally, next day I stormed past every clerk and secretary to confront Malzius in his office. No use. He wasn’t going to revise the book for us. “Bad precedent, Mr. Matuchek, bad precedent.” I agreed furiously that it was, indeed, a bad president. The rule would have had to be stricken altogether, as the geas didn’t allow special dispensations. Nor did it allow for the case of a student from another school, so it was pointless for me to transfer.

The sole solution, till Ginny’s contract expired in June, would have been for me to drop out entirely, and her cold-iron determination wouldn’t hear of that. Lose a whole year? What was I, a wolf or a mouse? We had a big fat quarrel about it, right out in public. And when you can only meet by chance, or at official functions, it isn’t just easy to kiss and make up.

Oh, sure, we were still “good friends” and still saw each other at smokers, teas, certain lectures . . . real dolce vita . Meanwhile, as she stated with the icy logic I knew was defensive but never could break past, we were human. From time to time she would be going out with some bachelor colleague, wishing he were me, and I’d squire an occasional girl around—

That’s how matters stood in November.

The sky was full of broomsticks and the police were going nuts trying to handle the traffic. The Homecoming game always attracts an overflow crowd, also an overflow of high spirits. These I did not share. I edged my battered prewar Chevvy past a huge two-hundred-dragonpower Lincoln with sky-blue handle, polyethylene straw, and blatting radio. It sneered at me, but I got to the vacant rack first. Dismounting, I pocketed the runekey and mooched glumly through the mob.

The Weather Bureau kachinas are obliging about game nights. There was a cool crisp tang to the air, and dry leaves scrittled across the sidewalks. A harvest moon was rising like a big yellow pumpkin over darkened campus buildings. I thought of Midwestern fields and damp earthy smells and streaming mists, out beyond the city, and the wolf part of me wanted to be off and away after jackrabbits. But with proper training a were can control his reflexes and polarized light doesn’t have to cause more than a primitive tingle along his nerves.

For me, the impulse was soon lost in bleaker: thoughts. Ginny, my darling! She should have been walking beside me, face lifted to the wind and long hair crackling in the thin frost; but my only companion was an illegal hip flask. Why the hell was I attending the game anyhow?

Passing Teth Caph Sameth frat house, I found myself on the campus proper. Trismegistus was founded after the advent of modern science, and its layout reflects that fact. The largest edifice houses the Language Department, because exotic tongues are necessary for the more powerful spells—which is why so many African and Asian students come here to learn American slang; but there are two English halls, one for the arts college and one for Engineering Poetics. Nearby is the Therioanthropology Building, which always has interesting displays of foreign technique: this month it was Eskimo, in honor of the visiting angekok Dr. Ayingalak. A ways off is Zoology, carefully isolated inside its pentagonal fence, for some of those longlegged beasties are not pleasant neighbors. The medical school has a shiny new research center, courtesy of the Rockefeller Foundation, from which has already come such stunning advances as the Polaroid filter lenses that make it possible for those afflicted with the Evil Eye to lead normal lives.

The law school is unaffected. Their work has always been of the other world.

Crossing the Mall, I went by the grimy little Physical Sciences Building just in time for Dr. Griswold to hail me. He came puttering down the steps, a small wizened fellow with goatee and merry blue eyes. Somewhere behind their twinkle lay, a look of hurt bafflement; he was a child who could never quite understand why no one else was really interested in his toys.

“Ah, Mr. Matuchek,” he said. “Are you attending the game?”

I nodded, not especially sociable, but he tagged along and I had to be polite. That wasn’t to polish any apples, I was in his chemistry and physics classes, but they were snaps. I simply hadn’t the heart to rebuff a nice, lonely old geezer.

“Me too,” he went on. “I understand the cheerleaders have planned something spectacular between halves.”

“Yeah?”

He cocked his head and gave me a birdlike glance. “If you’re having any difficulty, Mr. Matuchek . . . if I can help you . . . that’s what I’m here for, you know.”

“Everything’s fine,” I lied. “Thanks anyway, sir.”

“It can’t be easy for a mature man to start in with a lot of giggling freshmen,” he said. “I remember how you helped me in that . . . ah . . . unfortunate incident last month. Believe me, Mr. Matuchek, I am grateful.”

“Oh, hell, that was nothing. I came here to get an education.” And to be with Virginia Graylock. But that’s impossible now . I saw no reason to load my troubles on him. He had an ample supply already.

Griswold sighed, perhaps feeling my withdrawal. “I often feel so useless,” he said.

“Not in the least, sir,” I answered with careful heartiness. “How on Midgard would-oh, say alchemy, be practical without a thorough grounding in nuclear physics? You’d either get a radioactive isotope that’ could kill you, or blow up half a county.”

“Of course, of course. You understand. You know something of the world-more than I, in all truth. But the students . . . well, I suppose it’s only natural. They want to speak a few words, make a few passes, and gets what they desire, just like that, without bothering to learn the Sanskrit grammar or the periodic table. They haven’t realized that you never get something for nothing.”

“They will. They’ll grow up.”

“Even the administration . . . this University simply doesn’t appreciate the need for physical science. Novat California, they’re getting a billion-volt Philosopher’s Stone, but here—” Griswold shrugged. “Excuse me. I despise self-pity.”

We came to the stadium, and I handed over my ticket but declined the night-seeing spectacles, having kept the witch-sight given me in basic training. My seat was on the thirty-yard line, between a fresh-faced coed and an Old Grad already hollering himself raw. An animated tray went by, and I bought a hot dog and rented a crystal ball. But that wasn’t to follow the details of play. I muttered over the globe and peered into it and saw Ginny.

She was seated on the fifty, opposite side, the black cat Svartalf on her lap, her hair a shout of red against the human drabness around. That witchcraft peculiarly hers was something more old and strong than the Art in which she was so adept. Even across the field and through the cheap glass gazer, she made my heart stumble.

Tonight she was with Dr. Alan Abercrombie, assistant professor of comparative mantics, sleek, blond, handsome, the lion of the tiffins. He’d been paying her a lot of attention while I smoldered alone.

Quite alone. I think Svartalf considers my morals no better than his. I had every intention of fidelity, but when you’ve parked your broomstick in a moonlit lane and a cute bit of fluff is snuggled against you . . . those round yellow eyes glowing from a nearby tree are remarkably style-cramping. I soon gave up and spent my evenings studying or drinking beer.