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Frth-willum, as he styles himself these days. I’m sure he’d fit you in.”
Bram knew what Olan really meant. Astronomy was a Nar science. With its expensive toys and space-based establishment and millennia-long projects, there was no analog for it within the human community. Biology was a Nar science, too. Everything was. It was a Nar world, after all. But human beings were free to build little kingdoms within it, kingdoms in which the Nar were not especially interested. And Willum-frth-willum’s bioengineering sideshow was one of those.
Mim had missed the point. “Bram’s tutor-guardian is Voth-shr-voth,” she said, giving Bram a dig in the ribs. “He thinks very highly of Bram. I’m sure Bram could get a place as a human apprentice to Voth-shr-voth’s touch group if he wanted!”
“Well, there you are! ” Olan said with a blinding artificial smile. “A few years or a decade under Voth, an accomplishment or two of your own, and you could come back here with an honorific and have a brilliant career still ahead of you. It’s not unheard of.”
“I suppose not,” Bram said gloomily. The image of Jun Davd had come to him, older and more bent after all these years and still an apprentice at the observatory. Jun Davd had given him much the same advice that afternoon.
“I’m a poor example for you to copy, Bram,” Jun Davd had said. “It’s true enough that you have the aptitude. I’ve watched you since you were a wee wrig, coming here whenever you could get someone to take you on the bubble car and begging for telescope time so that you could have a glimpse of that fuzzy patch in the sky that the protohumans called the Milky Way. And you absorbed everything I taught you. But I haven’t seen much of you the last couple of years, and maybe that’s a sign. You’re getting older, and maybe it’s time for you to put away childish things.” Jun Davd had smiled sadly. “That’s all it is, Bram, this passion for the glory of the heavens, though I’ve given my own life to it. It leads nowhere in the end. A human apprentice is nothing but a helping cilium here, and there are no facilities for humans in orbit. But if you apprenticed yourself to the bioengineering touch group, you’d have your own guardian, Voth-shr-voth, to take you under his mantle. Voth encouraged your interest in astronomy because he thought it would make you happy, and as a Nar he doesn’t see much practical difference between what you can accomplish here during a human lifetime and what you could accomplish with a boost from him. But he’s wrong. The Nar don’t understand everything. A ripple to them is a wave to us. You’ve become a young man. You’ll be thinking about permanent pair-bonding soon, and you’ll want your mate to be proud of you in the human community we all have to live in, like it or not. And you have a chance of accomplishing something more tangible in bioengineering than you do in astronomy—something people can understand. Whatever Voth-shr-voth may have said to you, I know that he would be as pleased as a fingerling with a new touch toy if you’d only go to him and tell him you wanted to be apprenticed to his group.”
And Bram, one hand in a sidepocket fingering the talisman he had saved all these years—the flake of charge-coupled material that once might have been struck by an actual photon from the Milky Way—thought guiltily of Mim and admitted to himself that yes, he did want to impress her.
Now Mim, at his side, was smiling up at Olan Byr, whose attention was wandering as he listened with half an ear to a dialogue a few feet away about the string quartet performance he had given tonight.
“Hey, Olan, come over here and settle this,” a voice called out. “Can you double-stop an interval larger than a minor third with one spin-wheel?”
“Excuse me,” Olan said with a little pat on the arm for Mim. “Nice to have met you, Bram.”
He turned away to join his colleagues. Mim followed his
Bram knew what Olan really meant. Astronomy was a Nar science. With its expensive toys and space-based establishment and millennia-long projects, there was no analog for it within the human community. Biology was a Nar science, too. Everything was. It was a Nar world, after all. But human beings were free to build little kingdoms within it, kingdoms in which the Nar were not especially interested. And Willum-frth-willum’s bioengineering sideshow was one of those.
Mim had missed the point. “Bram’s tutor-guardian is Voth-shr-voth,” she said, giving Bram a dig in the ribs. “He thinks very highly of Bram. I’m sure Bram could get a place as a human apprentice to Voth-shr-voth’s touch group if he wanted!”
“Well, there you are! ” Olan said with a blinding artificial smile. “A few years or a decade under Voth, an accomplishment or two of your own, and you could come back here with an honorific and have a brilliant career still ahead of you. It’s not unheard of.”
“I suppose not,” Bram said gloomily. The image of Jun Davd had come to him, older and more bent after all these years and still an apprentice at the observatory. Jun Davd had given him much the same advice that afternoon.
“I’m a poor example for you to copy, Bram,” Jun Davd had said. “It’s true enough that you have the aptitude. I’ve watched you since you were a wee wrig, coming here whenever you could get someone to take you on the bubble car and begging for telescope time so that you could have a glimpse of that fuzzy patch in the sky that the protohumans called the Milky Way. And you absorbed everything I taught you. But I haven’t seen much of you the last couple of years, and maybe that’s a sign. You’re getting older, and maybe it’s time for you to put away childish things.” Jun Davd had smiled sadly. “That’s all it is, Bram, this passion for the glory of the heavens, though I’ve given my own life to it. It leads nowhere in the end. A human apprentice is nothing but a helping cilium here, and there are no facilities for humans in orbit. But if you apprenticed yourself to the bioengineering touch group, you’d have your own guardian, Voth-shr-voth, to take you under his mantle. Voth encouraged your interest in astronomy because he thought it would make you happy, and as a Nar he doesn’t see much practical difference between what you can accomplish here during a human lifetime and what you could accomplish with a boost from him. But he’s wrong. The Nar don’t understand everything. A ripple to them is a wave to us. You’ve become a young man. You’ll be thinking about permanent pair-bonding soon, and you’ll want your mate to be proud of you in the human community we all have to live in, like it or not. And you have a chance of accomplishing something more tangible in bioengineering than you do in astronomy—something people can understand. Whatever Voth-shr-voth may have said to you, I know that he would be as pleased as a fingerling with a new touch toy if you’d only go to him and tell him you wanted to be apprenticed to his group.”
And Bram, one hand in a sidepocket fingering the talisman he had saved all these years—the flake of charge-coupled material that once might have been struck by an actual photon from the Milky Way—thought guiltily of Mim and admitted to himself that yes, he did want to impress her.
Now Mim, at his side, was smiling up at Olan Byr, whose attention was wandering as he listened with half an ear to a dialogue a few feet away about the string quartet performance he had given tonight.
“Hey, Olan, come over here and settle this,” a voice called out. “Can you double-stop an interval larger than a minor third with one spin-wheel?”
“Excuse me,” Olan said with a little pat on the arm for Mim. “Nice to have met you, Bram.”
He turned away to join his colleagues. Mim followed his
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