Cubs of the Wolf

Cubs of the Wolf, by Raymond F.
Jones

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cubs of the Wolf, by Raymond F.
Jones This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Cubs of the Wolf
Author: Raymond F. Jones
Illustrator: Rogers
Release Date: September 6, 2007 [EBook #22526]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CUBS OF
THE WOLF ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

[Illustration: MARKOVIA]

CUBS OF THE WOLF
BY RAYMOND F. JONES
It may be that there is a weapon that, from the viewpoint of the one it's
used on, is worse than lethal. You might say that death multiplies you
by zero; what would multiplication by minus one do?
Illustrated by Rogers
In the spring the cherry blossoms are heavy in the air over the campus
of Solarian Institute of Science and Humanities. On a small slope that
rims the park area, Cameron Wilder lay on his back squinting through
the cloud of pink-white petals to the sky beyond. Beside him, Joyce
Farquhar drew her jacket closer with an irritated gesture. It was still too
cold to be sitting on the grass, but Cameron didn't seem to notice it--or
anything else, Joyce thought.
"If you don't submit a subject for your thesis now," she said, "you'll
take another full six months getting your doctorate. Sometimes I think
you don't really want it!"
Cameron stirred. He shifted his squinting gaze from the sky to Joyce
and finally sat up. But he was staring ahead through the trees again as
he took his pipe from his pocket and began filling it slowly.
"I don't want it if it's not going to mean anything after I get it," he said
belligerently. "I'm not going to do an investigation of some silly subject
like The Transience of Venusian Immigrants in Relation to the Martian
Polar Ice Cap Cycle. Solarian sociologists are the butt of enough
ridicule now. Do something like that and for the rest of your life you
get knocking of the knees whenever anybody inquires about the
specialty you worked in and threatens to read your thesis."
"Nobody's asking you to do anything you don't want to. But you picked
the field of sociology to work in. Now I don't see why you have to act
such a purist that it takes months to find a research project for your

degree. Pick something--anything!--I don't care what it is. But if you
don't get a degree and an appointment out of the next session I don't
think we'll ever get married--not ever."
Cameron removed his pipe from his mouth with a precise grip and
considered it intently as it cupped in his hands. "I'm glad you
mentioned marriage," he said. "I was just about to speak of it myself."
"Well, don't!" said Joyce. "After three years--Three years!"
He turned to face her and smiled for the first time. He liked to lead her
along occasionally just to watch her explode, but he was not always
sure when he had gone too far. Joyce had a mind like a snapping,
random matching calculator while he operated more on a slow,
carefully shaping analogue basis, knowing things were never quite
what they seemed but trying to get as close an approximation of the
true picture as possible.
"Will you marry me now?" he said.
The question did not seem to startle her. "No degree, no
appointment--and no chance of getting one--we couldn't even get a
license. I hope you aren't suggesting we try to get along without one, or
on a forgery!"
Cameron shook his head. "No, darling, this is a perfectly bona fide
proposal, complete with license, appointment, the works--what do you
say?"
"I say this spring sun is too much for you." She touched the dark mass
of his hair, warmed by the sun's rays, and put her head on his shoulder.
She started to cry. "Don't tease me like that, Cameron. It seems like
we've been waiting forever--and there's still forever ahead of us. You
can't do anything you want to--"
Cameron put his arms about her, not caring if the whole Institute
faculty leaned out the windows to watch. "That's why you should
appreciate being about to marry such a resourceful fellow," he said

more gently. And now he dropped all banter. "I've been thinking about
how long it's been, too. That's why I decided to try to kill a couple of
sparrows with one pebble."
Joyce sat up. "You aren't serious--?"
Cameron sucked on his pipe