Gravitys Angel | Page 5

front door.
"Yeah," I said. "I got it in Germany. It's just plastic, but there's something wonderful about it-almost the Platonic idea of a bicycle. There's one in the Museum of Modern Art." Hanging above her head, it seemed to glow in the soft light given off by baby spots. "I usually ride it to think."
"What do we do now?" she asked. She wasn't interested in my toy.
"We get Dickie Boy over here," I said. "If we can. I'll call him."
"New physics," I told Dickie Boy on the phone. "Nothing you've ever seen."
"Bullshit," he said.
"No bullshit. Wrong physics, maybe--that's what we want you to help with, find out if we're missing something tricky."
"Or something obvious." He had no respect for anyone's ability on The Thing but his own.
"I don't think so. I think we've got a whole set of tracks here like nothing you've ever seen."
"I've got the Meson Group on my schedule."
"I know. Diehl said I could borrow you today."
"Where do you want me?"
"Come over to my house." No way I wanted anyone looking over our shoulders.
Dickie Boy had made his name as a post-doc at Fermilab where Diehl had recruited him when the SSC was nothing but a stack of plans, an empty tunnel, and mounds of heaped dirt. He hadn't been brought on for his good looks: He stood just over six feet tall and weighed maybe a hundred and thirty pounds; his dull, brown hair was tied into dreadlocks; he had a long, thin nose and close-set eyes and usually seemed slightly dirty. However, in his brief time at Texlab he had already made legendary forays on The Thing--the last, a tricky sequence of pion studies, lasted nearly seventy-two hours, during which time Dickie Boy had worked through several shifts of physicists and finished by asking the group leader if he needed anything more.
Carol had heard about Dickie Boy, but she had her own reputation, and so when they said hello and looked each other over, I could almost hear the wheels turning, the question being posed, "Are you as good as they say?"
We went to the terminal, and Carol ran the Monte Carlos as Dickie Boy-sat almost squirming with impatience to have at what she was doing. When she got out of the chair, he almost leapt into it and said, "You two go somewhere else, okay? The other room's all right; just leave me alone."
"I need to do some work at the office," I told Carol. "What about you?"
"Yeah," she said. "I should check my mail at the lab, see who's angry that I'm gone. You got another terminal with a modem?"
"In the bedroom," I said. "I'll see you two later."
At HBET I found a line of people waiting for me to talk about or approve their experimental arrangements, and so I spent the afternoon there, amid the chaos of getting the SSC ready for its first full-energy runs, scheduled for just a month away.
Carol and Dickie Boy were seated next to one another when I returned, with another variation on her Monte Carlos on the screen in front of them. "What's up?" I said, and Dickie Boy said, "This is fantastic." Carol was smiling.
"Think we can take it to Thursday Group?" I asked.
"Tough audience," Dickie Boy said.
"Is it the one that counts?" Carol asked.
"Yes, it is," I said. "If we can convince them, they'll go up against Diehl or anyone else."
"Let's do it, then," she said.
"Can you do a presentation?" I asked. "Good talk, good pictures?"
"Yes," she said. "I've been getting ready to do it."
"Fine," I said. "I'll call Allenson and ask if I can take over the agenda. I don't think anyone's got anything hot working."
Bad haircuts, cheap clothes, and an attitude--that's the way I once heard a gathering of theoretical physicists described. They--we--consider ourselves aristocrats of the mind, working in the deepest and most challenging science there is. Getting there first with good ideas, that's the only thing that counts--under all circumstances, that was the unspoken credo.
The whole group showed up that night. The living room of Allenson's house was shabby and comfortable, with couches, chairs, and large pillows enough to hold the sixteen of us: thirteen regulars and me, Carol, and Dickie Boy. Eight Caucasians and five Orientals, three Chinese and two Japanese. Most were in their late thirties, though a few were in their middle forties. No one under thirty, no one over fifty. These were the theoretical heavyweights at the lab, men in their short-lived prime as it exists in high-energy physics. A few were drinking coffee; most just sat waiting, talking.
I gave her the simplest possible introduction. I said, "This is Carol Hendrix, who is here from Los Alamos where she is Simulations Group Leader. She has some very interesting simulations she would like to present to us."
Carol