John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

He waggled his head. "You're a wonder, Goat-Boy! Maybe WESCAC tells me what to make of you. You don't want me to ask it anything?"

I replied that while I no longer regarded WESCAC as essentially Trollish (on the contrary, I rather respected it now as the embodiment of Differentiation, which I'd come to think the very principle of Passage), nevertheless I trusted myself to find my own Answers. I wished him success with his great oölogical treatise, promised to consult it on the day of its appearance to find out whether chicken or egg had paleoontological priority, and pressed the Down -button.

My plan for dealing with the Boundary Dispute was necessarily tentative, more a principle than a program; but its wisdom seemed to me confirmed by my luncheon-briefing in the history of the problem. Leaving Tower Hall I had crossed Great Mall to the Chancellor's Mansion ("Lucky's Light House," wags had dubbed it, because of Mr. Rexford's installation of floodlights all about the grounds and his custom of leaving the interior-lights burning all night in virtually every room), where, on the strength of my special Candidacy, I was admitted — not directly to Lucius Rexford, as I had hoped, but to the office of one of his advisors, a gentleman whose skin was the rich fawn color of Redfearn's Tom's coat, and whose knowledgeable, crisp analysis belied my assumption that all Frumentians were either brutes like Croaker or gentle servitors like G. Herrold. His dress was impeccable, his mind and tongue were quick, and though he could not affect the Rexfordian forelock, his accent was closer to the Chancellor's than to Peter Greene's, for example. An elegant meal was sent in, of which I ate the salad- and vegetable-courses while it was explained to me that the Chancellor was about to depart for a Summit Symposium at the University Council that afternoon, where he was expected to censure the Nikolayans for breaking the "Provisional Fast" agreement and provoking fresh incidents at the Power Line.

"Originally that boundary was defined jointly by EASCAC and WESCAC," the advisor said; "our only experiment so far in cooperative computation. The principal sightings were made just after Campus Riot Two from the Tower Clock fulcrum on our end and a similar reference-point in the Nikolayan Control Room in Founder's Hill, and the main power-cables for East and West Campuses were laid side by side along most of the boundary." For many terms, he said, students and staff from the westernmost East-Campus colleges had "transferred" freely in large numbers, without authorization, across the line to West Campus. More recently, however, EASCAC had read out that any further unauthorized transferees would be EATen at the line — and only the sick or feeble-minded were ever authorized. WESCAC's reply had been a threat to EAT Nikolay College automatically the instant any Nikolayan EAT-wave crossed the west side of the Power Line, and EASCAC had read out an identical counter-threat. There the dangerous situation stood: a few determined East-Campusers still managed to slip across; a few more were EATen in the attempt by "short-order" waves designed to fade out just a hairsbreadth from NTC's line. A few border-guards on each side — those intrepid fellows who walked the great cables like armed acrobats — had fallen to their deaths in the no-man's land between East and West or been shot from their perches by unidentified snipers. Any such incident, both sides feared, might touch off Campus Riot III, the end of the University. Yet it was contended in New Tammany that the Nikolayans were covertly advancing their line towards NTC's to exploit an ambiguous clause in the original read-out ("The Boundary shall be midway between the East and West Power Lines"); the Western position was that this clause was intended to locate the cables with reference to the Boundary, not vice-versa, and they demanded a resurvey from Tower Hall and Founder's Hill. But the Nikolayans refused to admit outside surveyors, even from "neutral" colleges, to enter their Control Room, calling the proposal a mere pretext for cribbing secrets, and argued besides (though not officially) that it was the Power Lines that determined the location of the Boundary. Thus the dispute, which had been being debated continuously in the University Council for at least six terms, and had come to involve the equally thorny question of "fasting" (the popular term for abstention from EAT-tests): on the one side, pacifists like Max advocated unilateral fasting; on the other, "preventive rioters" like Eblis Eierkopf taunted, "He who fasts first fasts last," and counseled, "He who fasts last, lasts." In between was every shade of military- and political-science opinion: Chancellor Rexford's own, as affirmed in the Assembly-Before-the-Grate, was that the debate must continue, however meager its yield or exasperating the harrassments, inasmuch as the hope of effective compromise, though slim, was in his judgment the only hope of studentdom.

"I expect we'll test as long as they do," my host concluded; "but we won't break off the Summit Symposium or leave the U.C., even if it's proved that they're moving their cable."

"I'm not so sure that's a good idea," I ventured.

"Pity." He patted his lips on a linen napkin. "The Political Science Department, after years of study, seems rather to approve of it."

"What I want to suggest to Mr. Rexford is a different principle entirely," I said. "I thought of it a few minutes ago."

"Ah. Care for a cigar?"

"No, thank you, sir. You see, I was discussing a different matter this morning with Dr. Eierkopf, and before that I'd been talking with Mr. Maurice Stoker…"

His eyes turned up from the end of his cigar. "I see. Eierkopf and Stoker."

I would have bade him please not to misunderstand me, that my strategy for the Quiet Riot was not derived from those gentlemen, though my conversation with them had inspired it. But as he repeated their names his eyes flashed over my shoulder and he jumped smiling to his feet, jamming the fresh cigar into an ashtray. I glanced doorwards and had presence enough of mind to rise quickly also as the Chancellor himself strode in, unannounced. His forelocked entourage pressed just outside, some with concerned expressions, others grinning like Rexford himself, whose visit to the office was apparently not expected.

"Did I hear someone say a naughty word?" He shook hands with me, waved off his assistant's apology in my behalf, and congratulated me on my penetration of Scrapegoat Grate; I thanked him in turn for his prompt action in clearing my entry into various College buildings.

"It's not Maurice Stoker's idea I wanted to tell you about," I said; "it's my own. My second Assignment-task is to end the Boundary Dispute, and I thought — "

"Look here," he interrupted, obviously enjoying his associates' discomfiture; "want to ride along with us to the Symposium? You can tell me your plan on the way, and we'll wrap up the whole Quiet Riot by dinner-time."

Though I knew the prediction for a tease, the invitation seemed sincere, and I accepted it eagerly. With the train of guards and assistants I gimped after him through elegant corridors, pleased to be photographed in his presence, though I knew that the mightiest deans and chancellors were as pallid candleflames beside the radiance of Truth, which from the sun of Grand-Tutorhood warmed and lit the University. On another impulse he turned onto a verandah, where, from a respectful distance, we saw a handsome young woman turn her cheek to him for kissing; she was sitting with a group of similarly comely young men and women, all of whom except herself rose at his approach; he chatted for some moments, more with them than with her, and then led us to a row of white motorcycles with large closed sidecars, along the curb. I found myself honored with a seat in the first of these, along with the Chancellor; the remainder of the party paired off in the others.