Stephen Barr

“ After an almost totally unlit passage they came to a minute room, scarcely more than a cell. The jester struck a light with flint and steel to a tallow candle, and sat down on a low straw-covered bed. The floor was freezing. Dax jumped up onto a small table, but was instantly pushed off it. His instinctive jump up and then down happened so quickly that he only realized in retrospect what a feat it was from a man's point of view. Yet he had landed clumsily. He was not yet quite a cat.
The jester cut off a piece of dubious-looking meat and threw it onto the floor. ”

“ McGill groaned. "Now it's playing tricks with the wind. That's how they spotted us."
"We've got to get out of here, McGill," said Molly.
"Maybe the best thing would be for me to give myself up to the cops," I said.
"I don't know whether they'd be able to get you through that mob," McGill replied. "Just listen to them. I only wish I could think of some way to satisfy the damn crystal or whatever it is. I have the feeling it wants something. It can't be merely fooling around for no reason. But there doesn't seem to be any motive beyond the fact that it's apparently on your side. ”

“ A triangle perhaps, or a figure eight, that would catch the jester's eye. He looked up at a movement and saw that the man had picked up a small vellum book and was holding it close to his face. What luck! he could read after all! But how was he going to make letters? Near the sill of the door were some pieces of straw. He went over and examined them. He realized that a cat's vision is rather poor compared to a man's: quick to notice and interpret motion, but in other respects the over-large pupils, meant for nocturnal hunting, gave an inferior and uncertain image. ”

“ But at the top he almost lost his grip, and scarcely managed to get over onto the musicians' gallery from which the tapestry hung. He crouched there, trembling, while the din below increased. He could hear men shouting at the dogs, and the jester's voice calling him. He mewed loudly for help.
After a while he heard the old man's footsteps on the wooden ladder. He was picked up and comforted, but he was so dizzy with fear that he could hardly see. The jester seemed to think he was calm, and put him on his shoulder and went down the ladder again. The hounds had been taken away. ”

“ I begin to see light. Give with the idea, Alec."
"Well, there was all this talk of crystals and then you were telling Molly about carbon and diamonds, and it occurred to me that what we have is something trying to crystallize—something that once was a crystal, and got broken up and wants to re-form. It keeps trying with playing cards and pigeons and automobiles, but it's no go. Why don't we give it some carbon to play with, McGill?" ”

“ He looked at the principal. The man had a nerve to accuse him of seeming half asleep! Working in his private lab after dinner and then at his desk until all hours, struggling to learn Middle English—or rather, transitional Anglo-Saxon. He had done well at English lit at college, even though majoring in science, and Chaucer had come fairly easy to him. But Twelfth Century speech—and that was what he had to learn—was something else again. Chaucer himself couldn't have understood it. He wondered what young Mallison and his hipster friends would think if they knew his secret occupations. ”

“ The rabbit's foot was working, just as McGill said. I stepped down two inches and picked up the phone.
"I'm coming across," I said. "That is, if the wire that runs over here from the lab is strong enough to hold me."
"Alec! You're nuts!" McGill said, and I hung up. (Diamonds of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your nucleus.)
I took a look over the sill at the wire. It was held by a powerful steel eye-bolt, securely attached to the brickwork. Clutching the diamond fragment in its paper, I climbed over the sill and put a foot on the wire and felt immediately seasick. ”

“ McGill answered. "Most people haven't progressed beyond the Dark Ages. Look what happened with Orson Welles' broadcast about the Martians."
"Maybe we ought to leave town for a while." Molly said. "We could go to Oyster Bay or somewhere." Then she glanced up. "What's that noise?"
Outside, I now noticed, mingled with the soughing of the wind, a susurrus of many voices. We went to the lab windows. A crowd of two or three hundred people was standing in the campus, staring up at the sky over us.
"What are they looking at?" McGill asked. "No one can possibly know we're here." ”

“ The old man stroked his back gently, but he had a very strong smell. Dax supposed he would get used to his new keen senses in time. He hoped it would be soon. It was very cold in the jester's cell and he intended to creep close at bed time. In the meanwhile how was he going to make known his true identity? Obviously speech was impossible; and Morse-code tapping with his paw was out of the question.
You wouldn't get very far with mere facial expressions, either. Anyway, to most human eyes a cat has but two: contentment and fear. ”

“ A man is not a rabbit. But suppose he found himself not in the body of a Twelfth Century Englishman—a risky enough situation—but hanging by his tail from a tree in Java? How long before the hypothetical rebound to the time of the Plantagenets?
Howard Dax was too tired to concentrate on the problem: it was probably moonshine. The rabbit had been frightened, not atavistic.
The cumulative effect of overwork and irritation at the boy Mallison and the principal's manner had made him reckless and impatient. He made a sudden decision to stop worrying about precautions and take the plunge ... now. ”

“ Psychiatry tells us that some people are accident-prone; I, on the other hand, seemed recently to be coincidence-prone, fluke-happy, and except for the alarm clock, I'd had no control over what had been going on.
I went into our little kitchen to make a drink and reread the directions Molly had left, telling me how to get along by myself until she got back from her mother's in Oyster Bay, a matter of ten days. How to make coffee, how to open a can, whom to call if I took sick and such. My wife used to be a trained nurse and she is quite convinced that I cannot take a breath without her. ”

“ They seemed to be parlaying among themselves, but the crowd had a menacing sound. A brilliant light suddenly hit our windows, illuminating the lab ceiling—a police searchlight. I saw that Molly had disappeared and I assumed she had gone into McGill's office. ”

“ Dax wondered if narcotics could be responsible for Mallison's pallor.
After dinner Dax went into his little lab, which was actually the kitchenette he never used. On the table and sink was some chemical apparatus. The principal's remark had been ill-chosen since Dax at college had started with chemistry as his major and had only switched to physics in his senior year. He had also become interested in genetics, and it was this all-around interest in the sciences that had perhaps militated against him. Nowadays one ought to specialize. ”

“ There were other humans too. Several men-at-arms standing by the walls and a few serving men. At the big trestle-board were seated five people—one of them clearly the lord of the castle—it must be a castle—and the one woman sitting next to him in soiled finery would be his lady. The place reeked with the stale odor of humans and dogs, and less obnoxiously the smell of wood smoke and cooked meat. Dax realized that he now had a feline nose, and made allowances. ”

“ She was looking at the display of various chemicals and reagents on the shelves.
"What's that stuff?" she asked, pointing to a large jar of black powder labeled Deflocculated Graphite. "I bet those cops have gone for a search warrant."
"Finely divided carbon," McGill said. "Damn, I wish I could think of something! A chunk of glass ... blowing up...."
"Graphite is carbon?" Molly said. "You don't think they'd actually do anything to Alec, do you?"
"It's another form of carbon. A diamond is still another: the rare crystalline form," he said. "I wouldn't put it past that mob to do anything." ”

“ The group nodded. Dax realized that they had been briefed in advance. The boy Mallison had certainly a sulky and uncooperative air. He seemed the epitome of juvenile delinquency on the defensive, and yet....
"You," the principal said to the boys, "are a little band of trouble-makers. You cut classes, you stay up late and go to what I believe you call juke-joints. I have heard reports of your riding in hot-rods!" He paused significantly.
"None of us here's got a car," Mallison said in a flat voice. He was definitely sneering now. "I've never even seen a real drag-race!"
Mr. Lightstone blinked. ”

“ There's a similar idea about the atom. Another thing that's like a crystal is that it appears to be forming around a nucleus not of its own material—the way a speck of sand thrown into a supersaturated solution becomes the nucleus of crystallization."
"Sounds like the pearl in an oyster," Molly said, and gave me an impertinent look.
"Why," I asked McGill, "did you say the coins couldn't have the same date? ”

“ The principal had noticed the direction of Dax's glance. "Mallison, wasn't it?"
"Yes, but the packet might just as well have been thrown from one of the paths outside."
"There's no path near here. You know that perfectly well," said the principal. "There's a wide stretch of grass beyond the flower bed and no one's allowed to walk on it! I've had my eye on that boy...."
Howard Dax thought this over. Come to think of it, he wouldn't put such a thing past the young smart-alec. Hoodlumism doesn't necessarily advertise itself in the classroom. ”

“ McGill grinned. "Don't be superstitious. And especially don't be anthropomorphic."
"Well, if it's the opposite of random, it's got to be a form of life."
"On what basis? All we know for certain is that random motions are being rearranged. A crystal, for example, is not life, but it's a non-random arrangement of particles.... ”

“ Mallison said.
"But old enough to pull yourself together and do some real work. You could do much better in class. You're not stupid."
The boy said nothing and continued to stare at him without expression.
"When I see signs of an improved attitude," Dax said, "and a little more work, I shall mark you accordingly. One gets the impression usually that your mind is on other things. Things like jazz records."
"Didn't you listen to jazz when you were young, Mr. Dax?"
Howard Dax at thirty-nine hardly thought of himself as old. ”

“ We were at the top of the ramp to the Westside Highway and he abruptly put on more speed: no traffic was in sight.
"But what is it?" I asked a little wildly. "How's it doing it? Why pick on me?"
"I don't know, but I'd say it picked you as the nucleus because you had just been the subject of various flukes—the taxi and subway and so on—so you represented a sample of what it's made of—flukes. I have a hunch you'll continue to be protected."
"Did you happen to catch Bill Bart's broadcast?"
"Yes, I did. On the car radio coming over. Not good. ”

“ Damn the heat, damn the pencil, damn Madison Avenue and advertising. My drink was gone and I went back to the kitchen and read Molly's notes again to see if they would be like a letter from her. I noticed one that I had missed, pinned to the door of the dumbwaiter: "Garbage picked up at 6:30 AM so the idea is to Put it Here the Night Before. I love you." What can you do when the girl loves you?
I made another drink and went and stared out of the living room window at the roof opposite. The Sun was out again and a man with a stick was exercising his flock of pigeons. ”

“ But I felt the time had come for me to get expert advice, so I went to the phone to call McGill. McGill is an assistant professor of mathematics at a university uptown and lives near us. He is highly imaginative, but we believe he knows everything.
When I picked up the receiver, the line sounded dead and I thought, more trouble. Then I heard a man cough and I said hello. McGill's voice said, "Alec? You must have picked up the receiver just as we were connected. That's a damn funny coincidence." ”

“ Hipster?
"I give students the grades that in my opinion they deserve," Dax said. "In your case they are low because I don't think you're trying."
"I am trying," Mallison said, then added, "sir."
"You are," Dax said. "Very." He thought the remark was rather neat, but the boy looked at him without any change of expression. Why was he here? What did he want to say? "I must confess," Dax went on, "that I am surprised at your interest in grades. I should have thought that rock-and-roll was more your style. That and ... er ... racing around at night in a fast car!" ”