Steven Gould - Rory.pdf - Steven Gould - widez2

RORY

Steven Gould

Dr. Anton Grebenchekov banged his head on a doorway for the fourth

time that day and swore, "Chyort vosmoi!" His clumsiness infuriated him

for many reasons, not the least being the several gymnastic medals he'd

earned in college.

"Mind your head, Anton," said Dr. Ruth McMillian, the section head in

biochemistry.

Anton winced again. She'd found nothing to approve of in him since his

arrival six hours earlier. Starting with a piece of research he'd published

four years before and finishing with his spoken opinions of minutes

before, she'd attacked every concept he'd ever voiced. And, more than

anything in the solar system, Anton wanted Dr. McMillian to approve of

him.

"Excuse me, Dr. McMillian, what were you saying?" He floated into the

lab, still rubbing his head.

"Granulopoietin, Anton. You have heard of granulopoietin?" She turned

to face him. Close-cropped, salt-and-peppered hair framed her unlined

face. She wore an off-white coverall with a stiff, almost Roman collar. She

was pretty in a stern way. Anton found her beautiful.

Anton blushed. "My degree is in bio-chemistry!" he said, almost

angrily.

"I wasn't sure. That last piece you did in the JBC was so vague."

Anton's blush turned into a slow burn. Damn her eyes! "If you

disap-prove of my work and qualifications, why did you approve of my

appointment here?"

"I didn't. That decision was made on Earth, by the head of the

Institute."

"Dr. Herzig," supplied Anton.

"Hmmph. She probably sent you out here to learn some

discipline—some precision in your thinking."

"And perhaps she sent me out here to put some originality in yours!''

Anton cringed inwardly, wishing he hadn't spoken. He'd used all the

resources available to him to get this position with Dr. McMillian. "I'm

sorry, I didn't—"

She cut him off. "Perhaps you're right." Her face hadn't changed

expres-sion, but her voice was cooler. "I'll let you get settled in your cabin

before din-ner. Can you find your way?"

"Yes."

"Dinner at 1800." She turned and pulled a notepad from its clip on one

of the lab benches and began studying it.

Anton hesitated for a moment, then left. On the way out, he hit his head

on the doorway.

Rory flipped a switch on the diction-ary clipped to his belt and said,

"Define monarch."

The small black box hesitated an in-stant, then replied in a pleasant

tenor, "Monarch. One: a person who rules over a kingdom or empire as

(a) a sov-ereign ruler, (b) a constitutional king or queen. Two: someone or

something holding a preeminent position or power. Three: a large

migratory American but—" the device shut off in mid-sen-tence as Rory

hit the interrupt key.

"Thank you," said Rory automatically.

"You're welcome," the dictionary said.

Rory kicked the wall nearest him and went flying down the passage.

Halfway down, a large figure came floating backwards out of a side

passage. Rory had time to yell, "Look out!" before he collided with Anton's

stomach.

He and Rory pinwheeled down the passage.

Rory detached himself in mid-flight and pushed gently away from

Anton. They came to a stop against the frame of the next doorway. "You

should look both ways before you go into a passageway. Some people go

lots faster than me."

Anton stared at Rory while trying to draw a breath. Rory went on,

"You're new here. I haven't seen you. Did you just get here? Where did you

come from?"

"Sorry," Anton finally managed. "I should've looked, but I was lost and

trying to figure out where I was."

"Lost?" Rory scratched his head. "In the station?"

"Well, yes," Anton said, staring. He saw an oddly shaped male adult

with slanting eyes, broad short head, and stubby, short fingers. Age was

hard to guess, but Anton decided that he must be around twenty. "I'm

Anton Grebenchekov."

"I'm Rory. Are you the one who's going to work with Dr. Ruth?"

"Dr. Ruth? No . . . oh, Ruth McMillian. Right. That's what I hope to do.

What do you do, Rory?"

Rory grinned, and slapped his chest. "I'm the supercargo. That's

because I'm special." He flipped the switch on the dictionary again.

"Define mongolism."

The box beeped and said, "Mongolism. A congenital condition

characterized by slanting eyes, by a broad short skull, by broad hands with

short fingers, by trisomy of the chromosone numbered twenty-one in man,

and by moderate to severe mental defi—" Rory hit the interrupt again.

"Thank you," said Rory.

"You're welcome," the box said.

"See? Special. According to Dr. Ruth, there isn't anybody else like me in

space. She says I'm an 'investigator,' " Rory continued. "I investigate

things."

Anton smiled slowly. "I see. Could you investigate something for me?"

"Sure. I'm good at that."

"How do I get to cabin Ten-C?"

"Ten-C? Oh, you're in the same pod as me. Follow me." Rory grabbed

one of the lines running down the wall of the passage and pulled himself

hand over hand back in the direction he had come with the rapidity of a

monkey. Anton followed as best he could.

At every junction Rory paused, waiting for Anton to catch up. Then,

looking both ways, he kicked off the edges of that containment bulkhead

and zoomed down the next passge, often not touching a wall until the next

intersection.

Anton gradually got the hang of it. Before long, he was jumping as far as

Rory. And a few times he actually stayed clear of the walls. But he was

slowed by sightseeing. They passed open doors with people working over

equipment strange to him, or closed doors with intriguing labels like

Astrophysics, Agronomy, Plant Physiology, Astronomy, Electronics,

Metallurgy, Project SETI, Waste Reclamation, and Radiation Safety.

At regular intervals the windows looked out at other parts of the station

(a bewildering construct of struts, tubular passages, and spherical

chambers) and the small asteroid known as Lucy to which the station was

tethered. Anton also knew that if he looked in the correct direction, he

could see the faint disk of Ceres, fifteen thousand kilometers away; and

sometimes a bright flash of light as the sun caught the Ceres colony's

surface installations just right, thirty-two hours away by shuttle.

"Here we are," announced Rory as they came to yet another junction

with passages going right, up, left, down, and straight ahead. Each of the

passages was marked with a letter. "G" was the one to Anton's right. Rory

ducked into that passage. Anton followed. The passage ended with another

doorway, pressure door pinned back on sprung hinges, ready to snap shut

from any drop of pressure outside the pod. Another identical door was in

the passage, ready for any pressure drop inside the pod.

Anton hoped he'd be on the correct side, if that ever happened.

The passage opened onto a spherical lounge perhaps seven meters in

diameter. Twelve hexagonal doors, equally spaced, were set into the

carpeted surface of the room. They were labeled one through twelve in

white numerals, contrasting with the blue curving walls and green doors.

Anton had seen it briefly when he'd left his bags earlier, but the maze of

station passageways had left him lost moments after leaving.

"Thank you, Rory," he said.

Rory grinned. "You're welcome." He bounced over to number seven and

nulled the door open. "Wanna see Geary? He's my best friend."

Anton pushed off and came to a successful stop at the edge of Rory's

doorway. Like all the cabins, Rory's had a half-meter-square window

looking out on space. A ventilator outlet opened on one side of the room

and an intake grille was on the other. A storage unit was mounted on one

of the six side walls, and belongings were attached to other walls with

Velcro fasteners.

"See, he's also special."

Anton pulled himself into the room. As he got closer, he saw a sphere

made of wire mesh mounted rigidly before the ventilator intake. Bits of

vegetable debris clung to the side of the sphere closest to the inlet. Then he

saw the rodent floating in the sphere and looking back at him with black,

beady eyes.

"This is Geary. He's sort of a Mongoloid, too."

"What do you mean, Rory?"

"He's a Mongolian gerbil."

Anton nodded. He'd seen the animals used in laboratories on Earth.

They were extremely adaptable to temperature extremes, even if they

tended to look more like rats than gerbils.

"Dr. Stan says his name really should be Al—Algernon, I think. I don't

know what that means, do you?" Rory looked around at Anton.

Anton shook his head. "I don't know."

Rory continued. "Sometimes, I don't think Dr. Stan likes me."

In his cage Geary straightened out his tail, using it to push against one

side of the sphere. This propelled him to the other side of the cage, where

he hooked small claws in the mesh and squeaked.

"He wants food," said Rory. "Watch this." He traced his hand around

the outside of the mesh sphere slowly. Clinging to the mesh within, the

gerbil followed the hand around. Rory's hand moved faster and the gerbil

began running around the inside of the sphere, centripetal acceleration

keeping the creature against the mesh.

"See? Isn't he special?" Rory pulled his hand away. Geary continued to

circle the sphere for a few more circuits then stopped, watching Rory

expectantly.

"Yes, Rory. He's very special."

Rory took a small paper packet from a drawer and opened a door in the

cage. Sticking both hands in, he carefully tore the bag open. Almost

immediately the seeds and dried fruit within drifted to the side of the

sphere closest to the intake. The gerbil, already waiting there, started

eating.

Anton checked his watch. It was 1740, twenty minutes before supper,

and he hadn't the faintest idea how to get to the dining hall. "Rory, I need

another thing investigated. ..."

Life at the station soon became routine for Anton. He moved into the

lab vacated by Dr. Nielson, the biochemist he had replaced, and started

relearning every laboratory technique applicable to biochemistry. At least

centrifuges were still the same. But techniques like column

chromotography differed radically, requiring either separate centrifuges

Steven Gould - Rory.pdf

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