Free Probability Sun by Nancy Kress Page A

things Marbet wanted.
    When he returned, he had controlled himself again. He laid the things beside her and then seated himself, cross-legged like her, against the back wall of the room.
    Marbet drew squares on the tablet, then laid it beside her in easy view of the Faller, who did not react. Although how could you tell? Maybe it was reacting all over the place, Kaufman craned his neck to see the tablet:

    Primes. Well, that made sense: The one thing in common between humans and Fallers was the space tunnels, which were marked in primes. Although the tunnels, inexplicably, included “one” along with the primes. Kaufman would have to remember to remind Marbet of that.
    Marbet held up both hands, fingers splayed. She held up one finger, waited. Two fingers, waited. Three fingers, waited. Five. Seven. Eleven.
    The alien did nothing.
    Marbet repeated the pantomime several times, got no response, then stopped. After that she just sat, watching.
    An hour passed. Somewhere in it, the alien stopped baring his teeth, perhaps because his facial muscles got tired. He did nothing else. Neither did Marbet, except watch.
    Eventually, to Kaufman’s surprise, she curled up naked on the floor and went to sleep.
    He watched her a while. She was so lovely. But watching even a beautiful woman sleep, and an alien do nothing, could only hold his attention so long. Kaufman left. It was all being recorded anyway, with flag programs to alert him to anything interesting.
    Kaufman felt pessimistic as he went to report by comlink to McChesney, now en route to the space tunnel. No response to something as basic as primes. How were they ever supposed to wrest from this enemy any knowledge as complex as the physics of the beam-disrupter shield? It seemed hopeless.
    Maybe Gruber’s buried artifact would somehow help. Tomorrow they would make orbit around World.

SEVEN
    WORLD
    I don’t want to go down to the stupid planet,” Sudie said. She stuck her lip out at her father. “I want to stay on the ship with Marbet.”
    “Where is Marbet, anyway?” Amanda said. “I haven’t seen her for two days, and she promised to help me with my math.”
    “Life is a vale of tears,” Tom Capelo said. “Why don’t you ask me to help with your math? I’m a world-renowned physicist, after all, available to you at one-half my usual price.”
    “You don’t explain things clearly,” Amanda said.
    “Yeah,” Sudie echoed. “We want Marbet.”
    Capelo pushed back his irritation. He couldn’t afford it, not today. He needed all his concentration for the job ahead. He looked at his daughters. God, they were so beautiful. Amanda, with her mother’s blonde calm. And Sudie, a miniature of himself, now working up to what he had to ruefully admit could be a Tom Capelo tantrum if it weren’t squashed now. He tried again.
    “Sudie, Jane is going down to the planet with us.” And where was Jane? She was supposed to be getting the girls ready. Sudie’s hair was still a snarl, Amanda’s bag stood open but unpacked. Now Capelo had an appropriate outlet for his irritation. “Jane!”
    “Don’t bellow, Daddy,” Amanda said. “Jane’s in the toilet.”
    “I’m not going down to that stupid old planet!” Sudie said. “I’m not! I want Marbet!”
    “Jane!”
    Jane Shaw came out of the bathroom. Capelo was even more annoyed to see that her short gray hair was neatly combed, her coverall spotless. While Sudie sat in a dejected tearful untended lump. He repressed this annoyance. Jane was a treasure, the one tutor-cum-nanny who had not quit within one month of being hired, and Capelo needed her too much to rile her.
    “Jane, we have insurrection. We have mutiny. We have limp pajamas, and I have to be in shuttle bay in five minutes, all of us leaving in forty-five. I am clay in your digits.”
    “Go on, Tom,” Jane said. “We’ll be there on time. You just go.”
    “May your blossoms bloom forever,” Capelo said, and Amanda smiled. They had all been