Read Online As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem - Free Book Online Page B

personally is the exchange we’ve negotiated with the Italian team. Carmo and his staff will be given access to Lack, in return for a share of hours at their supercollider in Pisa, something we’ve craved for years. Lack is a considerable bargaining chip.”
    The Italian pursed his lips. “We have been following your results very closely. It is important work. Cannot be monopolized, you see? The international community has claims.”
    “Carmo’s team has some very interesting theories, and they’re eager to put them to the test.”
    “Hah! Yes. It’s a very narrow interpretation, so far.”
    Soft winced. The Italian’s enthusiasm obviously irritated him. Maybe there was a political side to this exchange, some debt being paid.
    “The reason I called you here,” continued Soft, “is that I’d like to ask you to administer Professor Coombs’ hours. Be her, ah, chaperone. I wouldn’t dream of disrupting her work, but I am looking to tighten up our sense of procedure here. I want to develop a variety of approaches, foster a little give-and-take among the various teams. And naturally there’s going to be some downtime, when one team is breaking down equipment or cleaning up the observation area. There’s only one Lack. So we’re all going to have to move forward in a spirit of cooperation. I’m looking to you, Philip, as someone who’s really an experton how we do things around here, to help apply the subtle brakes and levers that can make this thing go. Especially with Professor Coombs. Because it’s not an easy thing, but in effect we’re downgrading her status in this situation, cutting into her time. Not that there aren’t compensations, of course, but still. I’m sure you’re cognizant of my drift.”
    Soft smiled at Carmo—Texaco? Relaxo? Ataxia?—and folded his hands across his desk.
    “But Alice—” I began.
    “I don’t think this is really the time and place and time to talk about Professor Coombs’ recent difficulties, Philip. Professor Braxia isn’t interested in our petty little disputes or eccentricities. There’s a difference of opinion between myself and Professor Coombs. That’s no secret, I’m not hiding that from the Italian team. The point is to open this thing up to a variety of approaches.”
    “We are not coming in here blind,” said Braxia smoothly. “We know your Professor Coombs’ work. She is passionate, stubborn. We like that, we understand that.”
    “I think it goes somewhat beyond that,” I said. “Alice’s feeling is that we’re past traditional approaches here. That this is more along the lines of, say, alien contact, first contact, and that we ought to have a heightened sensitivity to, uh, anthropological or exobiological concerns. I think she’s likely to object to a strenuously hard-physics approach at this point. Speaking as her representative here.”
    I was winging it. Stalling. But if Soft wanted to come between Alice and Lack, did I really want to stand in the way? My wishes and hers weren’t necessarily one and the same.
    Carmo Braxia stretched back in his seat, and crossed his leg over his knee. “My dear fellow. It’s extraordinary to me that youwould oppose an exercise of the basic scientific rigorousness that the situation is demanding. Just, for example, setting up a sonar or light beam to try and bounce a signal off the interior surface of this Lack. No damage is risked. Why has this not been attempted?”
    “I’m afraid he’s right, Philip. There’s a basic threshold of responsibility here. We’re currently below it.”
    “Perhaps there is a corresponding Lack, an out-hole,” suggested Braxia excitedly. “Undiscovered somewhere. Spewing out the junk you push into your end here. In some third-world nation perhaps. Hah! Very American.”
    “Professor Coombs will have her time,” said Soft. “She’ll have plenty of chances to vindicate her theories. We’re all going to stay open and receptive. We’ll all pursue our own