Free Smart House by Kate Wilhelm Page B

it was too much and gradually I gave it up. Three years ago I moved all the way out to go to Berkeley. I had an apartment, and after that I saw very little of him. I don’t know how far he moved during those four years; pretty far, I guess.”
    “Did he object?” Charlie asked. “Did you fight over leaving him for school?”
    She pushed her spoon around with one finger and shook her head. “We never fought,” she said. “Never. He said at first that going back to school was a good idea, and later he said he didn’t really have time for me anyway, not then. He was too immersed in the work on Smart House. He agreed to help me financially, of course, until the money ran out anyway. We never were separated the way people thought we were. We just weren’t together. He believed right up to the end that one day I’d be fed up with trying to support myself, and I’d be back.”
    “And you? Did you think that?” Charlie asked, baffled by her in a way he could not fathom. Didn’t she know she was a damn good looking young woman? And smart as hell?
    She looked at him candidly and sighed. “I don’t know. Probably I would have gone back eventually, if he insisted. Once he said that he knew computers would do anything you wanted them to—the trick was to find the right language, the right method and sequence of commands to tell them what you wanted. He believed that about people, too. And he was right, at least about people. They always did exactly what he wanted them to. Always.”
    Charlie shook his head at her gravely. “One of them didn’t, Beth. Either a computer or a person did not do exactly what he wanted at the end.”

Chapter 6

    “Dessert,” Charlie announced, “is loganberry pie, and I intend to have it. Ladies?” They both shook their heads. “Good. I eat. You, Beth, talk. Thumbnail sketches of the players at Smart House.”
    She looked toward Constance, as if for help, and got only an encouraging smile. Did this mean they trusted her, or that they were testing her? She felt her confusion rise and shook her head, but Charlie was motioning the waiter over, and Constance was watching him. He finished with the waiter and turned expectantly to Beth.
    “First, the brother, Bruce,” he prompted, when she did not speak immediately.
    “Bruce,” she said after a lengthy pause, “seems to equate genius with insanity, but he’s acting. Gary wasn’t crazy,” she added hurriedly, not certain why she was defending him even now. She stopped in confusion, then said carefully, “He wasn’t aware of what he did to the rest of us… them.” She had to stop again, because that wasn’t right, either. Charlie made a noncommittal noise, and Constance simply waited; Beth tried again. “His priorities were different,” she said finally. “Anything to do with problems, puzzles, games, anything intellectual, I guess, came first, people second.” She thought a moment, then nodded. “Look, it wasn’t that he was unaware of people, it was rather that he had a way of delegating importance that left them behind other things. Once,” she hurried, wondering again why she was trying so hard to make them understand Gary, since it no longer mattered, “when Jake was still married, his wife gave him an ultimatum. He could keep working eighteen-hour days forever, or he could be married to her, but he couldn’t do both. Gary understood exactly what was happening, and he gave Jake even more work. He tested him. In full awareness of the consequences, the cost to Jake, his wife. It was another problem, nothing more than that. He had a good understanding of human problems, but he filed them under a different category than most people.”
    The waiter brought coffee, and they were silent until he left again. Then Charlie said, “Harry.”
    Beth blinked and regathered her thoughts, tried to encapsulate Harry. “He’s driven,” she said slowly. “It’s as if he got a glimpse of something he never used to believe was