Free Death Qualified by Kate Wilhelm Page B

mathematics? Or computer science?
     
        Why don't you wake up?"
     
        "You never had any faith in me, in anything I did," he had said sullenly.
     
        "Nothing changes, does it?"
     
        "That's not true," she said in a low voice, still keeping her gaze on the water. "We were happy. I had faith enough to move mountains. And then Emil Frobisher came along and pretended you were something you know you're not.
     
        You have something he can use, a way of seeing that he needs, and that's all he wants you for. That's what I saw three years ago, and that's what I see now. You don't know any more about mathematics than I do. If I had more money than you could count I wouldn't help you buy a degree with it, not for Emil Frobisher's work."
     
        "You don't know anything!" he had snapped.
     
        "If we can bring this off it'll change the world. That's how big it is. And I'm part of it. I'm the one who said we need to work with younger subjects. The psychiatrist Emil's talking to just wrote a book about the perceptions of children before puberty, and the effects of the changes of puberty, the way they solidify perceptions. If she comes in, we'll be able to persuade Schumaker to stick with it a few more years. By the time Travis reaches puberty, five or six years, the whole thing will be ready. His generation will be the first to benefit. What good will it do me? We'll all get Nobel Prizes! Every one of us!"
     
        She had stopped breathing. Travis!
     
        "If it's all so cut and dried, why are you here now? Why are you trying to raise money?"
     
        "If we can show matching funds, it's easier to get grants and backing. And if I can come up with it, they can't ease me out. Don't you see, even if they never give me the degree, they can't ease me out!"
     
        "Don't you hear what you're saying?" she had cried then.
     
        "You know they'll kick you out as soon as they decide they don't need you any longer." Before he could say anything, she added, more quietly, "Explain to me what the project is, Lucas. I asked you before and you said you couldn't. I'm asking you again."
     
        "I know I couldn't. It's too .. . complicated."
     
        "Do you mean I wouldn't understand? Is that it?"
     
        "Yes. Exactly. You wouldn't understand astrophysics without a lot of background, you accept that. Why can't you accept that I 'm involved with something just as complex?"
     
        "I'm having trouble with the idea that there's anything you could explain that I would fail to grasp," she said coldly.
     
        "You can't explain it, can you? You don't understand what they're doing. Can't you admit that?"
     
        He was silent for a long time, and the voice of the river was the only sound. When the wind blew a certain way from the west, going against the grain, Grampa said, it sometimes created a new river voice, like a half-heard lullaby.
     
        She listened to the murmurous, soothing rhythm without words, and waited for Lucas to speak again.
     
        He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close.
     
        "Let's drop it for now," he said.
     
        "We're both beat. Let's go to bed. I've missed you so much."
     
        She shook him away and stood up.
     
        "You know what they'd call me if I did what you're trying now? Prostitute.
     
        Whore." She started up the path.
     
        "Harlot. Call girl. Cunt.
     
        Gold digger."
     
        He caught up with her and grabbed her arm, pulled her to a stop. She glared at him in the brilliant, indifferent moonlight.
     
        "Isn't it funny how many names they have for women selling the only thing they have to offer? How few for men."
     
        He had shoved her arm away from him and pushed past her, running. The next day he had left again.
     
        Nell reached the edge of the grove; from here she could see both houses through the trees. James was