Gregory Benford - Timescape

And now in the metaphorical morning after, she had friends named Cliff and parents in Oakland and a liking for Goldwater. All right, he thought, so the details were not perfect. But maybe, in a sense, that was part of the magic, too.

GORDON HAD BREAKFAST AT HARRY’S COFFEE SHOP on Girard, trying to read over his lecture notes and invent some problems for a homework set. It was difficult to work. The clatter of dishes kept intruding and a tinny radio played Kingston Trio songs, which he disliked. The only recent item in pop music he could tolerate was “Dominique,” an odd hit recorded by an angel-voiced Belgian nun. He was not in the mood for concentration on things academic, anyway. The San Diego Union writeup of Saul’s PR blitz had been worse than he’d expected, sensational beyond the bounds of reason. Several people in the department had tut-tutted him about it.

He mulled this over as he drove up Torrey Pines, without reaching any conclusion. He was distracted by a weaving Cadillac with its headlights burning on high. The driver was the typical fortyish man wearing a porkpie hat and a dazed expression. Back in the late ‘50s, he remembered, the National Safety Council had made a big thing of that. On one of the national holidays they publicized the practice of driving with headlights on during the day, to remind everyone to drive safely. Somehow the idea caught on with the slow-is-safe drivers and now, years later, you would still see them meandering through traffic, certain that their slowness bestowed invulnerability, lights burning uselessly There was something about such reflex stupidity that never failed to irritate him.

Cooper was in the lab already. Showing more industry as his candidacy exam approaches , Gordon thought, but then felt guilty for being cynical. Cooper did seem genuinely more interested now, quite possibly because the whole message riddle had been elevated out of his thesis.

“Trying out the new samples?” Gordon asked with a friendliness fueled by the residue of guilt.

“Yeah. Getting nice stuff. Looks to me like the added indium impurities did the trick.”

Gordon nodded. He had been developing a method of doping the samples to achieve the right concentration of impurities and this was the first confirmation that several months of effort were going to pan out. “No messages?”

“No messages,” Cooper said with obvious relief.

A voice from the doorway began, “Say, uh, I was told…”

“Yes?” Gordon said, turning. The man was dressed in droopy slacks and an Eisenhower jacket. He looked to be over fifty and his face was deeply tanned, as though he worked out of doors.

“You Perfesser Bernstein?”

“Yes.” Gordon was tempted to add one of his father’s old jokes, “Yes, I have that honor,” but the man’s earnest expression told him it wouldn’t go over.

“I, I’m Jacob Edwards, from San Diego? I’ve done some work I think you might be interested in?” He turned every sentence into a question.

“What kind of work?”

“Well, your experiments and the message and all? Say, is this where you get the signals?”

“Ah, yes.”

Edwards ambled into the laboratory, touching some of the equipment wonderingly. “Impressive. Real impressive.” He studied some of the new samples laid out on the working counter.

“Hey,” Cooper said, looking up from the x-y recorder. “Hey, those samples are coated with—shit!”

“Oh, that’s okay, my hands were dirty anyway. You fellas got a lot of fine equipment in here? How you pay for it all?”

“We have a grant from—but look, Mr. Edwards, what can I do for you?”

“Well, I solved your problem, you know? I have, yeah.” Edwards ignored Cooper’s glare.

“How, Mr. Edwards?”

“The secret,” he said, looking secretive, “is magnetism.”

“Oh.”

“Our sun’s magnetism, that’s what they’re after?”

“Who?” Gordon began to rummage through his mind for some way to get Edwards away from the equipment.

“The people who’re sending you those letters? They’re coming here to steal our magnetism. It’s all that keeps the Earth going around the sun—that’s what I’ve proved.”

“Look, I don’t think magnetism has anything to do—”

“Your experiment here—” he patted the large field coils—“uses magnets , doesn’t it?”

Gordon saw no reason to deny that. Before he could say anything Edwards went on, “They were drawn to your magnetism , Perfesser Bernstein. They’re exploring for more magnetism and now that they’ve found yours , they’re gong to come and get it.”

“I see.”

“And they’re going to take the sun’s magnetism, too.” He waved his hands and stared off at the ceiling, as though confronting a vision. “All of it. We’ll fall into the sun?”

“I don’t think—”

“I can prove all this, you know,” the man said calmly in an I’m-being-perfectly-reasonable tone. “I stand before you as the man who has cracked— cracked —the unified field riddle. You know? Where all the particles come from, and where these messages come from? I’ve done it?”

“Jee-zus,” Cooper said sourly.

Edwards turned on him. “Whacha mean by that, boy?”

Cooper shot back, “Tell me, are they coming in flying saucers?”

Edwards’ face clouded. “Who tole you that?”

“Just a guess,” Cooper said mildly.

“You got somethin’ you’re not tellin’ the newspapers?”

“No,” Gordon cut in. “No, we don’t.”

Edwards poked a finger at Cooper. “Then why’d he say—Ah!” He froze, looking at Cooper. “You’re not gonna tell the newspapers, are you?”

“There is nothing—”

“Not gonna tell about the magnetism at all , are you?”

“We don’t—”

“Well, you’re not keeping it for yourself! The unified magnetism theory is mine and you, you educated—” he struggled for the word he wanted, gave up and went on—“In your universities, aren’t gonna keep me from—”

“There is no—”

“—from goin’ to the newspapers and tellin’ my side of it. I’ve had some education, too, y’know, an’—”

“Where did you study?” Cooper said sarcastically. “The Close Cover Before Striking Institute?”

“You—” Edwards seemed suddenly congested with words, so many words he could not get them out one at a time. “You—”

Cooper stood up casually, looking muscular and on guard. “Come on, fella. Move it.”

“What?”

“Out.”

“You can’t have my ideas!”

“We don’t want them,” Gordon said.

“Wait’ll you see it in the newspapers. Just you wait.”

“Out.” Cooper said.

“You won’t get a peep at my magnetism motor, either. I was going to show you—”

Gordon put his hands on his hips and walked toward the man, boxing him in with Cooper on one side and the only escape leading to the laboratory doorway. Edwards backed away, still talking. He glared at them and struggled for a last phrase to hurl, but his imagination failed him. Edwards turned, grumbling, and shouldered his way into the corridor outside.

Gordon and Cooper looked at each other. “One of the laws of nature,” Gordon said, “is that half the people have got to be below average.”

“For a Gaussian distribution, yeah,” Cooper said. “Sad, though.” He shook his head and smiled. Then he went back to work.