Nemesis (53 page)

She put her drink on the ground, stretched and yawned like a cat. “What about your people?”

Webb said, “I heard the Minister on the World Service, speaking to the House. Our diligent watchers of the skies etcetera. What a blatant old hypocrite! He’s been freeloading on the American asteroid search effort for years.” He finished the tequila sunrise. His head was spinning a little, but the sensation was pleasant. “So how did you get involved in this business, Judy?”

“One merry evening with Clive—that’s my boss, now under suspension—I got the feeling I was being probed for my politics. I thought at first he was just curious. Then I thought maybe there’s some question over my loyalty. It carried on
over a few days. Nothing obvious, you understand, just the odd remark. I could easily have missed it. I began to think there’s something strange going on here and so the more he probed the more outrageous the opinions I expressed. At the end I looked so right wing they must have reckoned I thought J. Edgar Hoover was a communist. Then one warm evening in La Fuente, with soft lights, sweet mariachi music and Bar-B-Que ribs, Clive introduces me to Mark Noordhof. The whole plot was spelled out on a what-if basis. I must have made the right noises, because at that point Mark tells me the Eagle Peak team has to include someone who knows their way around nukes, and would I like to join them to make sure you all stayed on track. I agreed.”

“But you kept all this to yourself.”

“I was trying to find out how high it went,” Judy said. “Like you, I didn’t know whom I could trust. But enough about me, Ollie. You’ve resigned from your Institute.”

“Broken free, is the way I’d put it. I never did fit in with the groupthink.”

“It’s getting cold.” She stood up, dropped her shawl and climbed into the tub, making waves. “What will you do?” she asked, slipping off her bikini under the water.

Webb thought, Is this really happening to me? He said, “They’ve fixed me up with a scholarship at Arizona University.”

“It’s the least they could do.”

“This is a wonderful place. How often do you come here?”

“To Oljato? Whenever I can. Most weekends. In New Mexico I have a small downtown apartment.”

Webb screwed up his courage, and said it. “I was wondering if I might rent this place from you. It’s only half an hour from the University.”

Judy laughed delightedly.

“Ollie!”

“A strictly platonic arrangement, Judy. You’re basically uninteresting.”

Judy’s mouth opened wide. She splashed water at him. “What gives with these insults?”

“I’m trying out a new technique. I got it from the master of a charm school, an old friend who calls himself Judge Dredd. It’s supposed to dazzle women. First you ignore them, and then you insult them. And after that, so Judge Dredd assures me, they’re eating out of your hand. Is it working?”

“Brilliantly.”

Once again, he thought, Webb the Rational is baffled. If I’m a blind machine in a pointless Universe, how can I feel these emotions? Can computer software feel pain? Could an assembly of wires fall in love?

He suddenly realized that of all the mysteries he had explored, the most baffling was here beside him, her blonde hair backscattering the starlight, her toe casually exploring, her very presence dissolving him.

Judy reached over the side of the whirlpool tub to a switch. He caught a glimpse of breast. The water began to swirl powerfully. They sat back awhile, letting the warm jets pummel their bodies. In the near-dark he could just make out her expression; she seemed amused by something. Her toe explored some more. He lifted it aside but it came back.

Now she was half-swimming towards him.

She lifted a bar of soap and straddled him. Her breasts were glistening wet and her nipples were standing out, dark circles against white, round flesh. “Your chest or mine, Ollie? Strictly platonic, of course.”

“Teresa, Teresa, what are you doing out here?” Vincenzo asked, scolding.

In the starlight he could just make out that his woman was wearing a cotton cloak over her nightwear, but her white hair was uncovered and the air was chilly.

“When are you coming in, Vincenzo?” she asked, handing him a glass of hot mulled wine.

“Soon.”

“When will you start coming to bed at a reasonable hour? You’re not a young man any more.”

“Mind your own business, woman. Now get yourself out of this cold.”

Vincenzo heard the woman’s footsteps retreating along the gravel path. He put the glass down at the side of the flickering candle, enjoying the momentary warmth of the flame near his hand. He returned to the eyepiece of the little telescope, mounted on a tripod which sat on a marble bird table. He glanced along the brass tube, took his bearings from Aldebaran in the Hyades cluster, and moved his telescope towards a faint star to the left of the Bull’s Eye. The faint, fuzzy star was still there, barely visible through the eyepiece of his instrument. It had moved, a full degree since last night. It had no tail but otherwise looked cometary.

The eleventh, secret volume of his notebook was almost full, and it was opened at a page near the back. He always found it hard to judge the sizes of the stars; indeed, they even seemed to vary from night to night. But he estimated the position of the fuzzy star. He labelled it “
A
,” and drew a line to another star which he labelled “
B
.” Underneath, he wrote a few lines of explanatory text in Latin.

A voice came out of the dark: “Vincenzo. You will die of cold. Either come to bed now or I will lock you out for the night.”

Vincenzo Vincenzi sighed. The ways of God are mysterious, he thought, and none more so than when they manifest themselves through a woman.

He snuffed out the candle and took a sip at the spicy wine. The old man closed the notebook, the last volume of his life’s work, and shuffled along the broad gravel path, through the garden scattered with cypress and myrtle trees, statues and tinkling fountains. Orion the Hunter guided his path; Sirius glittered over the roof of the villa; the Milky Way soared overhead, bisecting the Italian sky. A shooting
star came and went. He wondered if men would ever reach the stars. Cardano of Pavia had said that Leonardo the Florentine had tried to fly, but had failed. Momentarily, the reality of his own insignificance overwhelmed him; he felt crushed by infinity.

Near the door, his woman was holding a lantern. She took him by the arm and looked at him as if tolerating a foolish child. Vincenzo smiled. Why fear the infinite? Is God’s love not equally boundless?

And perhaps, Vincenzo thought, I am a foolish child. Nobody will ever care about my feeble attempts to chart the timeless wonders of the sky, or the wanderings of the little comets.

Will they?

Fixa A distabat ad Aldebaran 37 semidiametres: in eadem linea sequebatur alia fixa B, quae etiam precedenti nocte observata fuit
.