8

CLASSES

I walked around the campus circles that Saturday. My weight dropped slightly as I wandered away from the center line of the equator, but I couldn’t really feel the difference until I had gone a ways and come back. I looked at a lot of buildings, tennis courts, and swimming pools. The crystal-clear openness of Bernal’s inner space was a wonder that could not be worn out.

Once in a while I saw a sign:

NO CHILDREN PAST POINT C

Only adults were permitted to live in the lower-g regions around the poles. Children needed something close to Earth gravity to grow normally, especially if they ever wanted to return to Earth. Kids were common in the rural toruses, which were outside the sphere and free of changes in gravity. Child monitors routinely returned children who escaped into low-g zones.

The campus seemed deserted. Everyone was resting up from the partying of the night before and getting ready for tonight’s socializing. I sympathized with Morey and wished that it were Monday, even though I knew that for most students it was just a way of building up motivation for schoolwork. Morey didn’t need it, apparently, and I was in no mood, after Linda, to start something that might distract me from my resolve to give college a long, hard shot.

I sat around in the student-center lounge, listening to more about Mercury on the news holos. A strike by the miners would cut off the flow of metals into Earth’s industrial space, with serious consequences for the quality of life on Earth itself. The commentator also claimed that the Near Earth Space Habitats would also suffer to some degree, but I wondered if this was an attempt to shift the sympathies of a portion of the Sunspacers away from Mercury’s mining community. It was true that Bernal and the other habitats needed rare metals and structural components to keep up their maintenance, but I couldn’t believe that shortages would be life threatening. Another commentator pointed out that the habitats were well stocked with maintenance supplies. The profits of many companies would drop, however. No one really thought that would be a good thing, but the Sunspacers were willing to sacrifice to help their sister community.

I got up after a while and walked back toward the dorm, wondering about Linda. I wanted to call her, but why should I put her on the spot? If she wanted to see me again, she would call and explain why she had disappeared, or she would ignore me. I couldn’t believe that she had been faking her attraction for me. There had to be other reasons. I would have to wait and see.

* * *

The small amphitheater was crowded on Monday morning. I found an aisle seat in the back row.

The room quieted at 9:01. My empty stomach rumbled gently, and I wondered if it was going to detect coriolis acceleration after all.

“I’m Gordon Vidich,” the Physics 1 professor said in a rich bass. He was middle-sized, black hair combed straight back, looking like glossy paint from where I sat. “Most of you are preparing for a science career. How many physicists?” Half the hands shot up, most of them belonging to women. I figured I could become a physicist even if I didn’t raise my hand. “A few pet peeves,” he continued. “I know that you’re in love with the mystery of the universe, with what’s out there as well as with the bit of you that’s curious about it. Existence is ultimately mysterious, but we do know a lot, short of final answers. Speculate, but please show me always that you know the difference between the assemblage of facts we call a theory and speculations that may or may not contain a few sparse facts. I want to see in you a habit of mind that will always pit theory and speculation against some kind of experimental experience.” I pictured him peeling off his thin layer of black hair and tossing it to the class as his concluding point. “If the experiment can’t be done,” he continued, “wait until it can. Don’t build careers on its imagined income.” No one laughed at his bad substitution of income for outcome. “We had a lot of imaginary science at the turn of the century, until the public couldn’t tell crackpots and popularizers from honest scientists. Anyone might guess the nature of the universe, or even the outcome of an experiment. The number of answers is always limited. But that does no good unless a mathematically expressed experiment pulls your answer out of the realm of possible worlds into our own.” He seemed to be trying to look up at his bushy eyebrows. “Clear?”

Heads nodded.

“You must go on your knees,” he shouted, “before the universe of facts, as you weave them into theories!”

I tingled from the projected energy of his spoon-feeding.

“Give your name when you speak,” he followed up softly. “If I forget, it will be because you have failed to say anything interesting.”

Uneasy laughter.

“Tell me the difference between gravity and centrifugal force.”

“Christopher Van Cott,” a voice said from the front row. “Gravity’s a field, like magnetism. Centrifugal force is a product of acceleration.” Vidich shrugged. “Vague terms, field and force. Why should there be a difference at all?”

An auburn-haired girl stood up in the third row, the same one who had gotten the better of Van Cott at orientation. “Rosalie Allport. The more general a question, the less likely it can be answered in a scientific theory. Why is a question that may or may not one day be answered, depending on how specific a chain of lesser answers we can construct.”

“Good!”

Van Cott snorted.

Vidich glared at him. “That’s all for now. I wouldn’t want any of you to miss the beautiful day outside.”

It took a moment for the class to laugh.

* * *

Chemistry 1 started at 10:15.

Tall, big boned, and blond, Helga Akhmatova spoke in British tones as she glided back and forth, very relaxed in a loose tweed coverall.

“Chemistry’s link to other sciences,” she said, “its sharing of problems, has only increased with time. Physics is fundamental, of course, followed by chemistry and biology. Then we gaze across a great abyss to psychology and the social sciences. Crude divisions, admittedly, and the abyss is not all that empty. But if you can imagine a bridge of special, connecting areas, then you can get a feeling for how a complex universe, with things like persons and nations, is built up, layer by layer, out of fundamentals which themselves do not have the properties to be found at higher levels. Chemistry is one of the first hierarchies of complexity in the slow climb toward a unified science of nature.” She paused and smiled. “I suggest that you grasp problems as you can and work from there to other things, going back only when you must. Don’t be afraid of gaps. Fill them in or learn to live with them.” She smiled again. “You will all do well enough, I expect.”

She made me believe every word. I realized, with some uneasiness, that what she had said applied also to self-knowledge. What was the use, then, if we could never know ourselves completely?

Morey and I sat together in Astronomies, which began at 11:10.

“I’m Muhammad Azap,” the tall, slightly plump professor said, closing his mouth as if to trap the “p.” He scratched his fine brown hair. “I’ll assume that nothing escapes you. Wing it if you wish. Maybe something interesting has got your attention. Who knows? As long as you remedy weaknesses before term’s end.” He was spooky, but I liked him.

He turned sideways, as if trying to disappear. “Eight different astronomies from now until May, from visual to gravity-lens observations. What’s the difference between astronomy last century and now? Don’t say there are more kinds of astronomy, or that you have to know more physics.”

“It’s become more of an experimental science,” Rosalie Allport said softly, “as we’ve moved out into Sunspace.”

Azap nodded. “Astronomy will become a completely experimental science when human beings and their instruments can go anywhere in the known universe.” He looked at us as if he had delivered himself of a great truth. “Tomorrow the hard stuff. Go to lunch.”

Morey shook his head as we stood up. “A loon, but I like him.”

“He must be good to be here,” I said.

Linda came up the aisle with Jake LeStrange. I tensed, but they didn’t notice me. Then Rosalie Allport came by, and I had a chance to see more than her back for a change. Her hair was tied in a short ponytail. She had clear brown eyes and full but delicate lips. I stared. She smiled and looked away.

“Come on, let’s go,” Morey said, nudging me a bit too hard.

I turned and looked at him. He smiled. “I can see how you’re going to waste your time.”

* * *

Human Development A, at 1:10, sounded like a course to housebreak scientific types, to give them culture and couth, as Morey put it.

We sat down four rows from the pit. Van Cott turned around in front of me.

“Say, Morey, don’t you think we could get this stuff on our own?”

“Probably.”

So they had met, I thought as a smiling, middle-sized man with white hair walked into the pit. He wore an all-in-one black slacks/white shirt combo with green bow tie.

“A clown,” Morey whispered.

“Good afternoon. My name’s Christian Praeger. This is probably the only course you’ll take whose subject matter is beyond all of us. I’m not always sure myself what the subject matter is, but it has to do with making some sense of what humankind has done in its short history.”

Van Cott was shifting restlessly in his seat.

Praeger smiled. “Does human history make a pattern of some kind? Is there a vision which unifies human knowledge? Einstein once said that he wouldn’t try politics because it was much harder than physics—too many variables, and calling for decisions, not just understanding, where too little was known, at moments when decisions still had to be made, and where partial success was the best that could be expected.

“There will be a lot of necessary nonsense in this course, but we’ll try to remove it by developing some kind of crap detector. There’s no one way to make one, but it does demand the readiness to shift perspective while retaining a sense of values.”

“Whatever that means,” Van Cott whispered. I didn’t like admitting that he had a point.

“As scientists,” Praeger continued, “each of you must be able to share in the general culture, if for no other reason than that it is the culture that supports science. I know the dedication required to make a success of a career in science, to even get to the point where one has a chance at making a contribution, much less something major.”

“I wish he could talk,” Van Cott said.

“It’s still us against them,” Morey added.

“But the investment of time and patience also belongs to the burden of an artist or writer. I remember what it took for me to get degrees in physics and chemistry.”

“No kidding,” Van Cott whispered in surprise. “He has scientific degrees?”

“We’ll be reading the so-called great books. There are only a few hundred of these. Read casually this term, but you’ll find that your care will grow as our discussions become more pointed. Your interest will increase and you’ll be pleased to work harder. Many past students have told me that this work complemented their scientific careers, putting their later work in a much-needed human context. I hope that you will come to feel the same.”

“We’re in church,” Van Cott said softly.

“Quiet,” I said, nudging him.

“Human cultures have advanced on more than one front at a time. Science is one of the most successful, and the one that sets the most exacting models of honesty and attention to merit. But on other fronts—”

“Example!” Van Cott shouted.

“Well, the habit of complex observation in literature, for one. Human characters are entered, social systems observed, with a personal accuracy that cannot be accomplished in other ways. An analog of experience remains that is often truer than formal histories, of how people felt about themselves and the universe. Then there’s music, a realm of striving forms, pure feeling and beauty, atmosphere, rationally expressed, voicing the ineffable . . .”

I was moved by Praeger’s love of his subject.

“Sounds good,” Van Cott said loudly.

“How many of you have read Milton?” Praeger asked.

Van Cott laughed. “You mean that clumsy poem where all the science is wrong?”

“Can someone else answer?”

I raised my hand and stood up. “It seemed very real to me.”

“Exactly the point. The cosmology of Paradise Lost, or Dante’s Inferno, was the real stuff for many people, once.”

“Astrology!” Van Cott shouted.

“It was a way of dealing with human fears and hopes.”

“So is hiding under the bed,” Van Cott added.

“I see it’s going to be an interesting semester,” Praeger said, completely undisturbed.

Van Cott was a go-getter; that was why Morey liked him. Dedicated as Morey was, he needed to see others swimming in the same direction. I had nothing against dedication, but Van Cott was shouting his to the world. I didn’t like his style, even if he was brilliant; but that made me feel backward, even primitive, to notice his style and not his substance. I think Morey needed to see me swimming his way, but I felt that maybe I had nothing to crow about. If I did, then maybe I’d be snickering along with the two of them and having a fine time of it.

As the lecture hall began to empty, Van Cott turned to me and grinned. “That was pretty good, Sorby.” For a moment I thought he was making fun of me, but then I saw that he meant it. In his own way Van Cott was sincere.

And then I didn’t know what to think.

* * *

Sunlight from the rings was warm on my face as I lay in the grass on the hillside. I thought of all the course work, but I didn’t see myself doing it, even though the first day of classes had filled me with visions of new worlds to know.

I sat up and looked around. This bit of ground near Bernie’s lock would make a great reading spot. I lay back again and closed my eyes. The Sun was very special here, tamed and turned inward by the mirrors of human dreams made real. The past seemed like a bad dream, the future too far away to even think about.

I liked my teachers; they made me feel that I could accomplish everything. I felt happier, just lying there, than I had ever felt before in my life, even though part of me knew that I had to be kidding myself. I didn’t want to admit that what I could do fairly well was probably not what I wanted to do at all—but what was there for me to do? How can you be happy when you suspect that you no longer know what you want, and refuse to face up to the problem? I wanted to be here, to be part of the Sunspace way of life. School, I realized dimly, had only been my way of getting out here.