have one or, if you’re feeling heroic, go make an appointment with the top guns? Bring all your little retards or whatever they are along; make it really dramatic.”
“They aren’t retards,” Aldrin said automatically. “They’re autists. And I don’t know what would happen if they had a clue how illegal this all was. They should know, by rights, but what if they called a reporter or something? Then the shit really would be in the fire.”
“So go by yourself. You might even like the rarefied heights of the managerial pyramid.” Paul laughed a little too loudly, and Aldrin wondered if Paul had put something in his coffee.
“I dunno,” he said. “I don’t think they’ll let me get far enough up. Crenshaw would find out I was making an appointment, and you remember that memo about chain of command.”
“’Swhatwe get for hiring a retired general as CEO,” Paul said.
But now the lunch crowd was thinning out, and Aldrin knew he had to go.
HE WASN’T SURE WHAT TO DO NEXT, WHICH APPROACH WOULD be most fruitful. He still wished that maybe Research would put the lid back on the box and he wouldn’t have to do anything.
Crenshaw disposed of that idea in late afternoon. “Okay, here’s the research protocol,” he said, slamming a data cube and some printouts on Aldrin’s desk. “I do not understand why they need all these preliminary tests—PET scans, for God’s sake, and MRIs and all the rest of it—but they say they do, and I don’t run Research.” The yet of Crenshaw’s ambition did not have to be spoken to be heard.
“Get your people scheduled in for the meetings, and liaise with Bart in Research about the test schedules.”
“Test schedules?” Aldrin asked. “What about when tests conflict with normal working hours?”
Crenshaw scowled,then shrugged. “Hell, we’ll be generous—they don’t have to make up the time.”
“And what about the accounting end?Whose budget—?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Pete, just take care of it!” Crenshaw had turned an ugly puce. “Get your thumb out and start solving problems, not finding them. Run it past me; I’ll sign off on it; in the meantime use the authorization code on those.” He nodded at the pile of paper.
“Right, sir,” Aldrin said. He couldn’t back away—he was standing behind his desk—but after a moment Crenshaw turned and went back to his own office.
Solve problems. He would solve problems, but they wouldn’t be Crenshaw’s problems.
I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I CAN UNDERSTAND AND WHAT I MISUNDERSTAND while thinking I understand it. I look up the lowest-level text in neurobiology that I can find on the ’net, looking first at the glossary. I do not like to waste time linking to definitions if I can learn them first. The glossary is full of words I never saw before, hundreds of them. I do not understand the definitions, either.
I need to start further back, find light from a star further away, deeper in the past.
A text on biology for high school students: that might be at my level. I glance at the glossary: I know these words, though I have not seen some of them in years. Only perhaps a tenth are new to me.
When I start the first chapter, it makes sense, though some of it is different than I remember. I expect that. It does not bother me. I finish the book before midnight.
The next night, I do not watch my usual show. I look up a college text. It is too simple; it must have been written for college students who had not studied biology in high school. I move on to the next level, guessing at what I need. The biochemistry text confuses me; I need to know organic chemistry. I look up organic chemistry on the Internet and download the first chapters of a text. I read late into the night again and before and after work on Friday and while I am doing my laundry.
On Saturday we have the meeting at the campus; I want to stay home and read, but I must not. The book fizzes in my head as I drive; little jumbled molecules wriggle in patterns I can’t quite grasp yet. I have never been to the campus on a weekend; I did not know that it would be almost as busy as on a weekday.
Cameron’s and Bailey’s cars are there when I arrive; the others haven’t come yet. I find my way to the designated meeting room. It has walls paneled in fake wood, with a green carpet.