Dante's Equation Part 11

"Thank you."

"And then we compared the two sets of data. . . ." She sighed, trying to look discouraged. It was hard. "And found out that they were off from one another by over thirty percent. I'm afraid my equation was a failure."

It hurt her to say it. Really, it bugged the c.r.a.p out of her. Grover would have the news all over the department within hours. Yet something within her felt confident enough today to take the inevitable heat. In fact, she was almost enjoying this confrontation. She felt strong, invincible.

"Can Isee your results, Jill?"

"Of course, Chuck." She went over to Nate's computer, feigning calm. Was the old data still in place? Could she remember how to run the program that showed the original error? She booted up Nate's machine and looked around his C Drive.

While she was searching, Chuck picked up something off Nate's desk. It was an operations manual for their new radio generator. He stared at it with a frown, flicked its cover with his fingers thoughtfully.

Her mouth went dry. "Here we go." She double-clicked on the program she thought was the right one and stood back. She glanced at her watch as though this were routine and she had better things to do. Inside, she was screaming.

The two columns of data and the box that read:DATA OFF BY 31% came up. Hot d.a.m.n.

"There you go, Chuck. Just like I said. Now I'm very sorry, but I do have a cla.s.s starting in five minutes."

Grover would not be rushed. He put the generator manual down and looked at the screen for a good long time, like it might change in front of him from a pile of garbage to a pot of gold. Jill folded her arms, tapped her fingers on her collarbone, and bit her cheeks to keep back an evil smile.

"Why didn't you tell me this two months ago? And what've you been doing since then? Iknowyou're working on something. I gave you two more slots on Quey and you never-"

"I realized we needed to do a lot more groundwork before we bothered you again. Then . . . well, to be honest, we're on a completely different track now. But I do appreciate your interest, Chuck." She turned off Nate's machine. "Can I walk you out?"

Walk him out. Yeah, all one and a half steps to the door.

Grover stood up slowly, his face uncertain. "Even if the equationwas wrong, you couldn't have known that without Quey, so whatever-"

"Excuse me?" She had a flash of temper. "Yes, Quey showed me that my approach was in error, and for that I'm grateful. But now I'm on to new things. Are you seriously going to claim my work for the rest of my life? How many people have you done this to, Chuck?"

Grover paled to the color of Swiss cheese. He pointed a finger at her chest. "You'd better hope you never need anything from me again . . .Jill . Because I don't like being jerked around. If I seeanythingin your work which points to Quey being even a factor,anything, Iwill have what we agreed on."

Jill's confidence faltered. Grover had a lot of weight in the department. h.e.l.l, he had a lot of weight just about everywhere. And shehadagreed to a partners.h.i.+p, even if he'd had no right to ask her in the first place.

But the sun was streaming in through the window and she felt remarkably buoyant, like, well, like he couldn't touch her. "Gosh, I'm sorry you feel that way. As for me, it's been a pleasure working with you, and I hope someday we can work together again."

She held out her hand. He stared at it wordlessly and walked out.

After her morning cla.s.s, Jill hurried down to the bas.e.m.e.nt lab and donned their protective gear- lead ap.r.o.ns of the sort X-ray technicians used. She didn't know if the ap.r.o.ns did anything or not, but the precaution soothed her conscience. Nate was seated at the radio transmitter table where they had a computer set up. He was wrangling data.

"How's it going?" Jill went over to the test subjects and eyeballed them for any change.

Their experiment was quite silly. Silly enough that she would feel idiotic should anyone-Chalmers, for example-get wind of it. Then again, playing with mold must have seemed equally silly in its time. Besides, she'd be d.a.m.ned if it wasn't working.

Nate joined her. "They still look really good." He peered at a plate of fruit.

The experiment: bombard the room with a solid one pulse. They didn't need the power of a HAARP station because they weren't trying to reach the ionosphere. In fact, they worked very hard to keep the waves right inside this room. They'd chosen the bas.e.m.e.nt room because it was unused, but more important, it was underground. A heavy rubber curtain hung in front of the door, and they'd covered the walls and ceiling with soundproofing. On a few of the walls Nate had hung up vast sheets of papers, charts of equation matrices they'd worked on months ago. She thought he meant the charts for inspiration-or perhaps he just wanted to clear them out of their crowded office in the physics building.

Jill had purchased a transmitter with her own money and had scavenged the rest of their equipment. They could produce a total of three kilowatts of power, which was modest. But even now, running at 50 percent of their capacity,something was happening.

"Ready to record today's numbers?" Jill asked.

"Sure."

Nate went over to a grid on an enormous old white board. Down the left side of the grid was a detailed list of their three subject groups; each banana, apple, mouse, and virus culture was listed. Along the top of the board were three months' worth of days. Only the first weeks had been filled in.

"Go ahead."

Jill began, with infinite care, to study each of their subjects. "Banana one gets a four. Banana two: four."

Nate recorded the numbers in the grid.

"Apple one: three; apple two: three."

Fruit was judged on the amount of its surface area that was bruised, sunken, or dried; the virus dishes, by the amount of growth and activity in the culture. The mice were harder, but the amount of food they ate was measured; their general appearance, health, and activity were also quantified on a 110 scale.

Jill found her excitement kindling as she went through each group. Silly or not, they were seeing results. The control group was at her house in Wallingford. She and Nate made trips to the market, taking care to put together pairs of fruit in exactly the same condition, bringing one of each pair to the lab and placing the other in Jill's spare bedroom. They had mice from the same litters at her house also and virus dishes carefully prepared to match their twins in the bas.e.m.e.nt lab. The basic idea: to determine if altering the one-minus-one in the lab made any discernible difference in their subjects.

"Remarkable," she said, straightening up from the fruit. "All the fruit at my house are in stages six or seven at least. They're lasting much longer here."

Nate came over and squatted down, peering at a banana. "It's cooler here than at your place. That might slow the decay."

Jill shrugged, knowing it was a valid point and knowing, also, that there wasn't much they could do about it-not on their budget. But that was why they had a variety of subjects. None of them would respond favorably or negatively to exactly the same conditions.

"Virus one-point-one gets a six," she reported, peering down at the culture through a microscope.

The virus cultures, too, were doing noticeably better here than at Jill's house. The growth rate was up almost a third over the control group. And the mice were distinctly more active, waiting in line for a turn at the wheel and the males sniffing aggressively around the females, copulating often.

When they were done, Jill poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down. Nate got a gla.s.s of water from the sink.

"No coffee?"

"Nah. I'm already on full pilot. Don't wanna blow a fuse."

Jill watched him surrept.i.tiously. Before, she might spend entire days with Nate in the office and not have the faintest idea what he was wearing or if he'd been tired or ill or what. But it had dawned on her recently that he was as much a subject as the mice in the room, a.s.shewas herself. It had given her a whole new interest in him. At the moment, for example, he looked jumpy. She felt that way, too, energized and hyper. She was filled with such eager antic.i.p.ation, such optimism about their work, that she could hardly sleep at night. a.n.a.lyzing, hypothesizing, planning-she couldn't shut her brain off. And today she'd even had the nerve to face down Chuck Grover.

"I wish we could make it less subjective," she said. "I think the virus will be our best bet, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"What we need are incubators so we can keep the virus at the same temperature, same light conditions, same humidity, here and at my place. I'll visit the biology department later, see what they have to spare."

"Good idea." Nate was beating his fingers against the lip of the table like a kid mimicking drums. He grabbed a pen and wrote that down.

Her freckled brow scowled at a sudden thought. "d.a.m.n! I wish we could keep our control group close by. We ought to be taking our readings simultaneously. The time of day might have an effect, particularly on the mice. We never get over to my place until after three with my cla.s.s schedule." Chalmers. The worm.

"But wecan'thave the control group anywhere near the pulse, and we're not sure how pervasive the pulse is." Nate waved at the ceiling, "Or if any of this stuff keeps it in. We agreed: the control group shouldn't even be on campus."

"I know. I'm just saying-if wedid know exactly what would contain the pulse . . ." She chewed on a fingernail. "We know so little about the one-minus-one."

She felt Nate looking at her and met his gaze. He had his pensive philosopher's face on. "I'm not even sure it's smart to have the control group at your house."

"Why not?"

"Well . . . you're down here quite a bit. So am I, actually. Anyway, the change in the one-minus-one affects waves, right? See what I mean?You and I are made up of particles, just like the fruit and the virus cultures.More particles maybe. But that could even make it worse. Becauseyouare connected toyour house and the objects in it. We both are in a way, since I go over there, too. It's not myplace , but I'mthere ."

He was talking with his hands, his words rapid.

"Nate-"

"So if the interference model is correct, wouldn'tyour own personal waves have some effect on the waves over in the control lab? If wereally wanted to be safe, our control group should be run by someone we don't even know over in Siberia or something. And maybe we shouldn't even talk to that lab on the phone. We could pa.s.s the information through a router which-"

"Nate!" "Huh?" "You're babbling." Nate blinked, as if he couldn't remotely see her point. "Me? I'm cool. I'm justsaying ." Jill went over to check on the radio transmitter. It was broadcasting steadily. "Which reminds me, I think we both should start journals." She hesitated, not eager to bring this up, to verbally admit to the chances they were taking. "How are you feeling? You're down here even more than I am. If you start to feel bad, Nate, I want you to tell me."

"Bad?" Nate's eyes grew big and bright. His fingers bounced on the desk,rat-a-tat-tat . "No way. I feel great. Great. Really. Really, I feel great. It's totally fun." "I feel good, too," Jill admitted. A smile of sheer unfettered optimism teased her lips. She gazed lovingly at the white board across the room.

Nate cleared his throat. "It's kind of strange, actually." "What?" He didn't answer and the silence grew . . . pointed. She glanced at him curiously. He was blus.h.i.+ng.

"What, Nate?"

"Never mind."

"What?"

Nate tried to make light of it, joked, "Well, you know, I'm feeling about as . . . as, um, reproduction-oriented as the mice.Big -time. Big-, big-time."

He gave her a look that was so smoky it punched her in the gut like a fist. She turned away, looked at some dials. Her face burned like a G.o.dd.a.m.n schoolgirl's. She hated herself for reacting so virginally, hated it even more that it had to be visible a mile away. Then she was irritated at him for bringing up something so . . . personal. And inappropriate, d.a.m.n it. Then she thought that shehad asked.

She said, in the coolest voice she could muster, "That's the sort of thing you should write in your journal. Of course, anything we feelmay be purely psychological. You know that expectations often-"

"This isnot psychological. Trust me. So you're not feeling anything like . . ."

"No."The machinery below her was really quite interesting, though she was beginning to feel that if she didn't get out of here soon, she'd make a complete a.s.s of herself. And now that he mentioned it . . . she had been particularly enjoying her hot baths recently, her skin especially sensitive. And this sudden interest she had in studying him-was it really just because he was a subject in the experiment? The thought made her hyperventilate.

"Jill the Chill," Nate muttered, almost too soft for her to hear.

She spun to look at him, but he was typing at his keyboard, face stolid, and somehow . . . It was easier to pretend she hadn't heard. She went to the sink, poured her coffee down the drain, then rinsed the cup with a thoroughness that would have made Martha Stewart sweat.

"The important thing," she said firmly, "is our subjects. I think we have to makesomea.s.sumptions. We have to a.s.sume that the further we get from this room, the weaker and more inconsequential any effect of the pulse will be. As long as we recognize what our a.s.sumptions are, and doc.u.ment them, we're ahead of the game."

"I guess so."

Satisfied that she'd made her point, or at least sidestepped his, Jill glanced at his screen. "Where are we at now? Can you run the numbers?"

Nate punched some keys, brought up an Excel spreadsheet that matched their white board. "I haven't finished entering today's data yet."

"So finish."

She waited while he typed in the numbers. When he was done he ran the total. "Twenty-one percent differential between the subjects here and the control group."

That put her in a better mood. Her shoulders relaxed. "Good. It's still increasing. But I'd like to see at least a fifty percent differential. I think we're ready to b.u.mp up the power; don't you?"

Nate grimaced. "To what-sixty percent of power? Sixty-five?"

Jill drummed her fingers against her collarbone, considering. "Why not seventy-five? We're not seeing anything allthat spectacular. I don't think there's any danger. We can always lower it if . . ."If something happens. ". . . if we want."

Nate stood, shakily, like he'd been drinking a lot of caffeine after all. He went to the transmitter and pumped up the power level to 75 percent.

Neither of them said anything. They both stood there,feeling the room, feeling that additional 25 percent, as if the one-minus-one were a living creature and if they listened hard enough, felt deeply enough, they would be able to detect its now-panting breath brus.h.i.+ng up against their very cells.

5.3. Aharon Handalman

JERUSALEM.

Rabbi Aharon Handalman was becoming very frightened. Over the past month it had come upon him gradually. At first, his stomach terrorized his esophagus and he was reduced to living on yogurt and saltines. Then, as their discoveries acc.u.mulated, the acidic fingers were superseded by a deadening numbness at his breastplate, which was maybe worse. Emotionally, he was a wreck, as if a divine finger were stirring up the stuff of his soul.

Usingweapon as a secondary keyword, they had found200 instances in the Kobinski arrays. And in marking those finds down in their binders he and Binyamin had checked for phrases on either side of the wordweapon and had found the following: "weapon of obliteration"-5 instances "from him the weapon"-3 instances "weapon of torment"-5 instances "weapon of terror"-4 instances "weapon of evil"-4 instances "the great weapon"-5 instances "weapon loosing demons"-4 instances And the biggest discovery: in three separate places where the wordweapon ran horizontally one of its letters was shared by a phrase running vertically, which, as far as Aharon could tell, read: "the law of good and evil."

That single word-weapon-had opened up the door on a deeper, more sinister dimension of the arrays, like the key that Bluebeard's wife wielded. They searched ongood ,evil ,demons ,angels ,heaven , andh.e.l.l and found them again and again in the arrays. Looking uptorment they found a phrase,book of torment, that appeared in the arrays thirty times!

Aharon neglected his cla.s.ses again. Dean Horowitz noticed. He called Aharon into his office and had a long talk with him. Aharon was going to tell him about the arrays, but as soon as Horowitz heard the wordcode , he shut Aharon down, talking about his duty to the students. If the man chose to remain ignorant, was it Aharon's fault? As for life at home, what home! He hardly saw it. Normally, Hannah would rattle his cage to get his attention. But lately she'd grown cool and distant. The other day his six-year-old, Devorah, had asked, "How come you never come home anymore?" and the baby, Layah, had cried when he'd walked in-as if her own father were a stranger!

He felt an increasing pressure to tell someone, and he knew who hemust tell. After several days of leaving urgent messages (he plagued the answering machine with the determination of Jacob setting his sights on Rachel), the man finally returned his call. Aharon would not describe the situation on the phone: "For this, the eyes must see for themselves," he insisted. s.h.i.+mon Norowitz agreed to meet him in Jerusalem at a particularly good kosher deli.

s.h.i.+mon Norowitz was not the excitable type. He was in his fifties, a onetime military officer, secular (no facial hair), but perhaps not completely irreligious. Aharon, because he needed the man, gave him the benefit of the doubt. Also, G.o.d works in mysterious ways: Norowitz truly loved Haman's Deli on Jaffa Road, so it was excuse enough to drive all the way over from Tel Aviv. Even corned beef could have a greater purpose.

Aharon had sought a Mossad contact several years ago when he'd made his first big discovery in the code. He'd had no luck finding one until he learned that one of the boys inAish HaTorah had a father in the government. Aharon had finagled an invitation to meet the father, and that was how he'd been put in touch with s.h.i.+mon Norowitz, a man who might or might not head up the Mossad's encryption department. Aharon was never able to get a straight answer on that point.

Over corned beef, Norowitz broached the topic: "So what do you have for me this time, Rabbi? Last time you were convinced Israel would come under nuclear attack from Syria. I believe the dates you pinpointed came and went last year, didn't they?"

"The codealso includes might-have-beens. That doesn't mean that when a revelation falls into our lap we should not take the proper precautions or we should not pay attention."

s.h.i.+mon savored his corned beef, unmoved by this profundity. "And this time?"

Aharon looked stern so the man would take this seriously. "What I'm about to show you is the most important code discovery ever." "Good. Is that it?" Norowitz nodded at the binder. Corned beef juice dripped from his pinkie.

"What would you say if I told you that I have foundfour hundredarrays, all about the same subject?" "I suppose it would depend on what the subject was. Four hundred arrays containing the name Moses wouldn't be so remarkable. Those letters can be found in ELS a thousand times over."

"Oh, yes," Aharon scoffed, "if the name wereMoses and if the other words in the arrays were made up of equally common letters. Would I bother you if that were the case?" "So are you going to show me, Rabbi Handalman?" "You must be prepared."

"Believe me, I'm prepared." Aharon gave him a warning look:You only thinkyou're prepared. But he opened the binder and held it out. Norowitz released his sandwich to take the thing with both hands, but Aharon didn't let him have it.

"Your hands," he said. "This is Scripture." Norowitz, reddening, wiped his hands clear of corned beef juice and took the binder. Aharon had planned to explain the whole thing. Who could resist such an opportunity? But his instinct now told him to let the binder tell its own tale. "If a word is worth one shekel, silence is