Title: The Laboratorians
Author: Peattie, Edward
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Laboratorians" ***


                           The Laboratorians

                           BY EDWARD PEATTIE

                  _Playing "Napoleon" can get to be a
                habit, especially when a man is devoted
              to pure science. Which was Dr. Whitemarsh's
            devotion--until Dr. Sally Chester came along!_

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1955.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


"Yeah, we drop in just three c.c. from this here tube," said Rocco as
he expertly twirled the erlenmeyer flask and watched the color shoot
past the methyl orange end-point. Whitemarsh was annoyed and said so.

"That's the sixth straight you've missed, and the acid comes out of the
burette, not the tube; and you don't call the graduations c.c., you
call them milliliters."

"Yeah? Well, here we call it a tube!"

"And why don't you go down to the end-point drop by drop?"

"Because the book don't say so! That's why! You technos make me sick.
Here we do all the blasted work, and you try to tell us how to do what
we've been doing for ten years!"

Rocco was beginning to work himself into one of his famous rages. His
bull neck was beginning to redden; his eyes started to flash. His
entire squat body started to quiver.

Whitemarsh wasn't impressed. Over at the atomic plant, Phobus's Quercus
Mountain, he had bossed a pretty quarrelsome crew of isotope wranglers.
He had never dodged a fight in his life. But this was in a chemical
laboratory and it surprised him to hear the assistants talk back.

The only assistants he had ever known were clear-eyed youths taking
a year away from their studies to recoup their tuition money and who
tried to copy everything the chemists did. But Whitemarsh was new to
the Interspatial Research Center on the Moon, and he still could not
figure why the assistants acted as they did. So he waited.

Rocco banged the flask down on the stone bench, glared at Whitemarsh
for an instant, and then rushed out of the Laboratory, muttering a few
obscenities.

"Queer place this," mused Whitemarsh, filling up another flask and
finishing the titration himself. "Here the helpers tell the chemists
what to do and get mad if we ask them what they're doing."

He started to look over Rocco's notes and ruefully decided all the
work would have to be done over again. He was interrupted when a girl
opened the door. In the week he had been stationed at IRC, he had been
introduced to so many scientists that he had forgotten most of the
names, but he remembered all the girls. His former Atomic Plant at
Quercus Mountain had had all too few for him not to appreciate them
now. Miss Sally Chester was a statuesque chemist with long blonde hair
and a luscious figure which she hid under a white lab robe. He managed
to stammer some sort of greeting.

"Why Dr. Whitemarsh!" She seemed somewhat puzzled. "You're not actually
working with your hands?"

"I sure am, unless we're both space struck. Why not?"

"Well, I suppose it's all right other places, here we let the
Laboratorians do all the manual work. It's sort of their privilege."

"Yes, but their technique's lousy. I sat here this afternoon and
watched that blow-hard Rocco muff six straight end-points in a row and
when I asked him how come, he blew his top!"

She laughed at that. She sat down on the lab desk and said, "You're
absolutely right. Antonio Rocco's color blind and always misses his
Methyl Orange end-points. And he's been doing them for ten years.
But it hurts his feelings to be criticized, you should have been more
diplomatic. He's probably gone to complain to his boss!"

"His boss? Aren't we his bosses? On this sheet he's listed as my
assistant."

"Actually yes. But traditionally the shop foreman is the leader of the
Laboratorians. He certifies them to see that they know their work,
signs their time cards and tells them when to take time off. Of course
we outline the work they do, check their results and write reports from
their data. Normally we come into the lab as little as possible."

"But Sally, how the hell do we know that their results are right? This
mixed-up outfit is in the hands of a bunch of left-handed prima donnas
who don't know Beilstein from Budweiser!"

She smiled again (and he thought of the ads for Stargleam toothpaste).
"Let's go over to the Scientists' Snack Bar and get a cup of coffee,
and I'll tell you a little about the history of this laboratory."

So he let her lead him out of the individual laboratory into the pastel
blue corridor where they followed the spiral runways to the glass
enclosed Snack Bar.

Here they sat on pale leather chairs and looked out over the expanse of
the Central Laboratory. From where he sat, he could see a square mile
of magnificent equipment: Serpentine condensers, enormous distillation
columns, molecular stills, ultra-centrifuges, electron microscopes, all
were spread out before him. Surrounding the central laboratory were
the innumerable railings of the corridors leading to the individual
offices. Upstairs and downstairs strolled scientists and Laboratorians
respectively, all obviously contented. He turned to face Miss Chester
who was lolling in the chair beside him. She had poured him a cup of
coffee, given him a plate of rolls and was ready to talk.

She reminded him that in 2005 it was found necessary to build research
laboratories on the Moon to avoid the guided meteorites which the
Aliens had been hurling toward the Earth. Since there had also been a
shortage of trained scientists, it was necessary to train apprentices
to operate the complicated laboratory equipment ... to perform
the operations without bothering themselves with the theory. The
Laboratorians were needed and they did a good job running specification
tests on all the equipment necessary for the interplanetary war. After
the war, the Interspatial Corporation had made it the Central Research
Laboratory, since this had been the largest aggregation of instruments
ever gathered together, and in the ten intervening years, the numbers
of college-trained scientists had increased almost ten-fold. As long
as the Laboratorians confined their work to the equipment they were
familiar with, they were unbeatable. To guide them they had the Book,
as the Technical Manual of the Interspatial Corporation was known, and
the Laboratorians followed its procedures to the letter.

"But they don't know _why_ they're doing things," Whitemarsh
interrupted. "The manual's been in need of revision for the last five
years, and research workers don't use the same tests all the time!"

"Well that's right," admitted Sally without disagreement. "I usually
have my particular laboratory instructions mimeotyped and bound in
a little book. I've also got the instructions so fixed that if they
do things wrong, I can catch them. And I've learned not to modify my
instructions orally. That only confuses the men and results in chaos.
With a little planning, you can get good work done, and if you don't
mind humoring their whims a little, there's no reason why you can't get
along with them."

Whitemarsh wasn't so sure. He had no objections to jollying his
subordinates, but he did draw the line at sloppy lab technique. He
escorted Miss Chester to her own office, thanked her for the briefing,
and then started to worry on his own. He took the speed elevator up to
Dr. Sheridan's office.

The Laboratory director was sympathetic. He looked at the
broad-shouldered young giant, Dr. Whitemarsh, and reflected that this
man was rated the most promising scientist the Interspatial Corporation
ever had.

"You're damn right, Whitemarsh," he told the younger man, pushing him
into a chair and offering him a cigarette. "I've been here three years
and spent the first two fighting the system. Maybe the trouble goes
back to our Board of Directors. They're all so proud of this shining
Research Station on the Moon, that they hate to admit that anything's
wrong. They've got the Laboratorians responsible to the Lunar Mines
Service--and there it stands.

"So the only thing we can do is wait. Lo Presti the Master Mechanic
is up for retirement next year and there's going to be a big
organizational shake-up. Hold tight. After that we may have a free
hand."

So Whitemarsh thanked him and bided his time. He released Rocco back to
some other scientist and did his own laboratory work, even though the
Laboratorian Council made a written protest. He also spent many hours
in the excellent laboratory library, reading all the reports coming out
of the Lunar Laboratory over the past ten years.

His discoveries amazed him. Theoretically the Lunar Lab had one of the
best collections of scientific minds in the Solar System. Every Earth
university was represented on its staff. New techniques and products
had poured out of the Laboratory during the ten years of its existence,
yet every one of these had been based on doubtful data. Certain things
worried him. First, notes were kept in a very cavalier manner even by
the most experienced scientists. Secondly, the younger chemists and
physicists never had been exposed to any practical laboratory work
after their student days, and consequently had no means of judging
the technique of their assistants. Finally, the Laboratorians were
apparently proud of their ignorance, displayed a contempt for "paper
work" and were only too willing to fix their results if they thought
they could get away with it....

He did not let his social development slide either. Lunarport was far
more advanced culturally than the crude settlement on Phobus. Here
Dr. Whitemarsh was able to have a luxurious apartment in the New Dome
sector, could hear lectures and concerts, and could even indulge in
winter sports such as skiing in the lava around the craters (protected
of course by a heated suit and an oxygen mask.) He found Miss Chester a
satisfactory companion for such endeavors, even though she spoke little
of her private life or how she had avoided marriage in her twenty-five
years. But he played a waiting game with her as well as with the lab
job. He admitted to himself that a research chemist's life at Lunar
Lab was a pleasant one, particularly if one didn't care how accurate
one's results were. Unfortunately, the same quirk which had driven him
into science also made him suspicious of all easy methods. He had never
recovered from the shock of discovering that just because a reaction
worked in a book, it did not necessarily have to do so in a laboratory.

       *       *       *       *       *

Dr. Whitemarsh's promotion came within five rather than six months.
There was some grumbling among the older scientists, but there was not
much they could do about it. Kercheval, who had twelve years' service
on the Moon, did not have his Ph.D. and did not care particularly
for executive work. Neither did Sturtevant with a doctorate and ten
years service. But others objected; even Miss Chester, long one of
Whitemarsh's defenders, felt that the older men deserved at least the
chance of refusal. (It never occurred to Whitemarsh that she might have
had some ambitions of her own.)

He called the group leaders together for a conference the day after
his appointment. He was now ensconced behind Sheridan's desk and was
not yet accustomed to having a secretary. The leaders came in grim and
resentful. He wasted no words.

"I'm going to reorganize the set-up to get the Laboratorians under
us, whether they like it or not. This sloppy technical data and
unsubstantiated findings is not my idea of a good lab--nor yours, I'm
sure. It's up to you to show it during the next year. Meanwhile you've
all been pushed up fifty dollars a month in salary. So long!"

His next step was to call on Lo Presti. The Master Mechanic's Office
was outside the Lab Dome near the Shaft of Lunar Mine No. 1. The old
man had been in the preliminary Selenium exploration party and never
could forget the old days when he drove the men and robots to find the
metal that paid for the cost of the Expedition. The President of the
Home Office, Dr. Barker, had never forgotten either, and Lo Presti was
always taken care of. The 200 Laboratorians probably caused him more
headaches than the five thousand miners ever had, since a delegation
visited him every day or so now that Dr. Whitemarsh was rumored in.

But the Lo Presti knew that times change too, and realized that the
brawling space adventurer did not fit into a sleek world of test tubes
and retorts. Ninety-five years old and arrogant as ever, he sat in his
office and greeted Dr. Whitemarsh with a bonecrushing handshake. He
offered a cigar and Whitemarsh thanked him, lighting a pipe instead.

"I hear from the boys you've been cracking down on them," he stated.

"No more than you would if you'd been there yourself. What would you do
if a driller split a core?"

"Why I'd give the careless sap a clout that would wake him up. But the
Laboratorians aren't drillers!"

"That's right, but that's the way some of them are muffing their work."

Lo Presti eyed him appraisingly. "Aren't you the same Whitemarsh who
capped the crater on Phobus last year?"

"I sure am. And your Laboratorians are a bevy of Nice Nellies compared
to that mutinous bunch of space rats I had with me."

"Well, maybe you're the man for the job at that. The guys don't put
out anymore. Used to be I knew all the gang. I'd look around and see
when they were goofing off. Now they're all such experts, I can't tell
if they're loafing or just thinking." They both laughed at that.
Whitemarsh thought it would be a good time to say: "I don't want to do
anything to your boys for a while until I get my own gang straightened
out!"

"Don't kid me, Doc," responded Lo Presti, "you know when I retire
you're going to move in and crack down. Well I'm with you!"

So they parted friends.

Whitemarsh went back to his office in a happy mood. True, Miss Chester
had been avoiding him lately and he had to drink coffee by himself but
he now had the foremen on his side and the front office. Now was the
chance to reform the laboratory.

His first bombshell was the requirement that all the junior chemists
should take a qualifying examination. That really caused trouble in
paradise. Apparently, all of the younger set had thrown away their
books on graduation and remembered only their own specialties.
Whitemarsh, from being a pleasant companion at the Snack Bar who
discussed skiing and spaceball, had now become an ogre of the first
water. The senior chemists chuckled, since they were exempt, and the
Laboratorians guffawed aloud to see their harriers in turn harried.
In any event there was frenzied activity in the month before the
examination and the library staff did yeoman duty. And, no one had
threatened to quit. At least almost no one. Whitemarsh was musingly
staring out of his office's Plastoid window at the green eye of Earth
when he heard a commotion outside in the ante-room. He looked out to
see Sally Chester, and he sensed that their relationship was less than
idyllic.

"Let me see that egotistical ass, Whitemarsh," she shouted at his
secretary who cowered in silk clad finery as the white-coated Valkyrie
charged by.

"Be calm," he advised her, placing himself strategically behind his
desk.

"Calm," she screamed, "how can I be calm when an officious busybody
starts getting drunk with power and acting like a Twentieth Century
dictator? After all I've done for this stinking Lunar Lab, how come
that I have to take an exam in freshman chemistry?"

"I thought you were exempt," began the chastened director.

"Sorry, your honor! Your order says five years at Lunarport. I've only
been around this sweat shop for four years and six months. What are you
going to do if I fail? Throw me out and I'm moving over to Campo Sano
with every one of our trade secrets!"

"I'll get you exempted," he offered.

"What, and have the other chemists cry favoritism? Not on your life,
you coffee-swilling Judas," she yelled. "And stop grinning at me like a
Cheshire Cat!"

He did not answer. He was content only to admire her in her rage. Her
usually mild face was flushed through the tan and her graceful hands
were tightly clenched into fists that pounded on his desk.

"Answer me, you moron!" she shouted. Then she started to cry. Within
one minute the seething Amazon had changed into a defenseless
white-coated girl cowering in the visitor's chair, weeping bitterly.
Whitemarsh approached and held her hand.

"Listen, Sally," he told her, "the only reason I was going to let you
out of the test was because you know more chemistry than any of the
scientists here. But go ahead and take the test; you'll get the highest
grade!"

She brightened, "You think so?"

"Know it," he affirmed gallantly, "now, how about going to the Space
Opera at the Symphorium tomorrow? Kluchesky is singing in _Pomme de
Terre_."

She stiffened slightly and stood up. "Listen, Mr. Frank Whitemarsh!
Privately you're not a bad guy. You even had potentialities. But
you're a hell of a failure as a boss and the less I see of you, the
happier I'll be. Good-bye!" And she was gone. Whitemarsh resumed his
contemplation of the Earth with less interest.

       *       *       *       *       *

The results of the examination might have been foretold. The
intelligent and professionally alert junior chemists retained enough
fundamentals to do well. The majority failed the questions on
laboratory technique. Consequently Whitemarsh enlisted the aid of the
older men to conduct a series of refresher lectures to bring up to
date the scientific knowledge of those who failed. The Laboratorians
were delighted with the spectacle presented by these lectures, and
loved going home at night while erstwhile bosses sat listening to Dr.
Sturtevant discuss "The Theory of Washing Precipitates", or to hear Dr.
Whitemarsh talk on "Balancing the Redox equation." The Laboratorians'
happiness lasted until one day in October.

That was the day that Lo Presti retired. The old man was given a small
space ship by the Corporation and a space-time chronometer by the
Laboratorians. Then he sorrowfully said farewell. The next day the
Laboratorians were absorbed into Research.

Somebody had to plan for janitor service, figure where to place time
cards, design new proficiency ratings and decide on such complex
matters as where the Laboratorians were to hang their coats. All these
services had been provided for by the miner's shop organization.
Whitemarsh stayed late at night for a week arranging the new payroll
plan and raising the salaries somewhat.

All this was handled, if not without incidents, at least without
violence. Even the janitors and secretaries were now part of a team.
All but Miss Chester. She had stopped speaking to Whitemarsh in the
halls and had been seen in the company of a younger (and Whitemarsh
felt) better looking physicist.

Then Whitemarsh dropped his second bombshell. The junior chemists were
ordered to rate the Laboratorians for proficiency! Fresh from six
months' study under such taskmasters as Whitemarsh and Kercheval, the
chastened scientists were now able to interpret the antics of their
tormentors of yesterday. An old tradition had fallen and the howls
extended back to the Front Office on Earth.

For a change, Miss Chester did not object. She was evidently past all
comment. She merely wrote out a list of the faults and virtues of all
her assistants, rated them all Excellent and went back to her research.

But Rocco was tried and found incapable of running titrations. Harry
Crowe was found to be weighing incorrectly, Zachary had been fixing his
calculations for the last ten years and even faithful Bruno had been
found to be adding 15 to all of his Iodine numbers in order to pass the
specs easier.

It suddenly occurred to every one that all the laboratory's reports
were based on incorrect data. All work stopped for a week until the
scientists found what their assistants had been trying to do all along.
And the results were a bit terrifying. When Kercheval found that an
incorrectly calibrated reflectometer had negated five years of his pet
project, he tore up his notebooks, flung them on the floor and stalked
into Whitemarsh's office.

"Frank, I'm taking my back vacations and going to Venus to forget it
all for about six months. And mind you, when I get back I don't want to
see my present assistants. I'm going to start from scratch."

He left, banging the door.

Next was Sturtevant.

"Frank, we've got to get Interstellar Review to hold my last paper. I
want to recheck the melting points of some of those diazo compounds."

Then came the young physicist, Dr. Slezak, who was rumored to be Miss
Chester's present skiing companion. "Dr. Whitemarsh," he stammered,
"I'm not sure about the data on my last report."

"Didn't you take it all yourself?"

"Yes, but I used some of Kercheval's data for my fundamental
calculations and, if that's wrong, all my conclusions may not be valid."

"Stop worrying," Whitemarsh told him. "When Kercheval recalculates his
values, you can revise your own report. As long as your own work is
right, you have nothing to worry about."

The young man left, nervously wringing his hands. Whitemarsh couldn't
see what Sally saw in him. He figured she ought to be along by now.

She was.

"I told you so," Sally said theatrically. "You've got the whole lab
mistrusting each other. All the chemists are quarreling like mad and
the Laboratorians all look like whipped dogs. You've pulled the chair
right out from under everything and you sit here gloating."

"Relax, Sally," he told her. "They're just growing pains. Take it easy
and ride out the storm.... Now, how about tearing over to Lunar 7 to
see the crucial Spaceball series between the Space Rangers and the
Callisto Satellites?"

She looked horrified. "I'm afraid you don't take hints very well. I'm
not interested in going anywhere with you. Actually, I'm going with
Jack Slezak to see 'Nova of the Leprous Soul', and I might suggest a
fit subject."

She flounced out again and Whitemarsh felt lost. He tried to cheer
himself with a book on _Hyper Plutonium Elements_.

The transition took longer than Whitemarsh had bargained for. After
the Laboratorians were re-educated, and a tiresome process it was,
chemists went over the notebooks to look for inaccuracies, doubtful
data was examined, all microfilms had to be edited and corrected; and
they found that most of the chemicals developed at the laboratory in
the past decade had been founded on doubtful data. But since all of
them had passed the Development Group, Whitemarsh didn't think it was
wise to try to recall them. But new products scheduled for release were
re-examined and retested after the fundamental work on them was checked.

Finally the problems were unscrambled and the laboratory began to
run smoothly again. The research projects were reestablished and the
work started out anew. Frayed tempers were soothed and the scientists
finally got around to trusting each others' results again. The
Laboratorians were now carefully but tactfully watched by the junior
chemists who, in turn, were spending more time in the laboratories and
less in their offices.

When the new, sound results started grinding forth, Whitemarsh
permitted himself a sigh of relief. Lunar Lab had lost its
individuality, he admitted, even though the easy-going camaraderie he
had noticed when he first came was also gone. The results of Lunar
Research Lab of Interspatial were now as reliable as those of the
_Campo Sano_ and _Roque_ laboratories back on Earth.

But it had been a hard fight. None of the chemists ever stopped around
his office any more for small talk about sports and politics. His
secretary brought him coffee in his sanctum sanctorum and he did not
find himself wandering around the laboratory as he had formerly done.
When he did, there was usually a restrained silence and a suspicious
neatness. Miss Chester was apparently irrevocably lost and there were
rumors of an engagement with the brilliant Dr. Slezak. Though he had
won the day, he had lost something too. The Lab was now able to turn
out results, but Frank Whitemarsh had paid a personal price for its new
efficiency.

       *       *       *       *       *

Almost a year after taking over as Research Director, Sheridan, now a
Vice President, brought him some news. "Get ready to pack, Frank," he
told the younger man as they sat and smoked in the director's office
watching the clouds moving over the Earth.

"The Front Office like what I did?" asked Whitemarsh puffing on his
pipe.

"Well." There was a slight pause. "All the scientists on the board are
behind you to a man. But the business men, the advertising boys and
accountants, well ... you know how they are."

"What's eating them?"

"The lab didn't release any new products this past year. Development
and even Advertising are pretty much slowed down."

"That's right. We've got some good products about ready, but we're
making a final check before release. Don't you think we sent out a lot
of junk before?"

"We sure did, even in my time though I tried to stop it. But the
development boys want something, anything."

"Well?" asked Whitemarsh.

"So they'd probably rather run the risk of getting something bad than
nothing at all."

"They won't!"

"That's right, they never will again. Now, I know that the products you
have ready are going to be good and I'm not worried about them. All we
have to do is keep the business geniuses out of our hair for another
six months."

"And?"

"So we're kicking you upstairs. It's a good job, don't worry about
that, at three times your director's salary."

"What if I quit?"

"Don't be that silly."

"What's the other job?"

"Works Manager at Quercus Mountain on Phobus. Sole boss of the biggest
Isotope Works in the Solar System. You'll have 50,000 men under you and
have a free hand at starting any kind of laboratory you want."

"No Laboratorians?"

"Right. You can start out from scratch and make the kind of lab you've
always dreamed of. Here we're thinking of pushing up Kercheval if
it's all right with you, you always rated him highly. It's just like
changing Spaceball managers. We all know the Space Sox won the pennant
last year on the team developed by Kanter even though Balhiser was
manager. These wolves will keep off our tail until the new products
start coming through and then we'll say we knew it all along."

"You've got me half convinced not to quit," said Whitemarsh quietly.

"Now listen Frank," came back Sheridan just as seriously, "you're too
good a man to waste. Now take your promotion like a nice boy and keep
in line."

"I still think I did a good job here."

"So do I, but the Board of Directors can't forgive those retractions,
even though you and I know they're necessary. They don't know what
scientific truth and pride are. Within ten years, on the foundations
you laid, we'll have the best research record in the country...."

After Sheridan had left, Whitemarsh cast a last look at his former
domain. He called Kercheval in to give him the news and then tell him
to keep quiet until verified. Then he decided to take a last tour
around the laboratories. He finally found himself up at the Snack Bar
and his eyes were taking the same look over the Laboratory that they
had done two years before. The view looked about the same. He had
supervised the installation of a new Matter Probe over in the front
center and he was responsible for the Atom Analyzer, but these were
only minor changes.

The major change, he thought bitterly, is that no one speaks to me
unless spoken to--I've become a pariah. Never tamper with the status
quo, it disturbs too many people. It's a very lonely job.

There was no one else in the Snack Bar. At least, almost no one else.
He heard a discreet cough behind him. He turned and found Miss Chester
seated behind him. She had her legs crossed, a cup of coffee in one
hand and the Space News Want-Ads in the other.

"Hello, Napoleon," she greeted him. "Have you just been surveying your
empire? Did you see the stern men of science jumping through the hoops
out there? Can you remember the happy place this was a year ago when
you came? Then the Laboratorians took pride in their work; now they're
flunkies for the green kids fresh from Alma Mater!"

"Stop it, Sally," he told her. "You're not too far wrong on that
Napoleon business. I'm taking off for my new St. Helena, Quercus
Mountain on Phobus."

"Quercus Mountain? That's a big place. Lab Director?"

"No. Works Manager."

"Heaven help the poor Atomic workers!"

"Don't be that harsh. Dammit! Sally, maybe I am a Napoleon, but
scientific accuracy is too important to play fast and loose with, the
way they were around here. You know it. You're the only one who didn't
relax that vigilance--who saw to it that everything you turned out
was without error. I know now that I forgot the human equation--that
I was so eager for errorless research that I trod pretty roughshod
over a lot of people. But you're guilty too, you know, you had the
secret--you managed to balance the equation when everyone else here
didn't. Why didn't you help me? Sure, you came in and ranted and raved
at me--called me all sorts of names, but you didn't help me, you didn't
try to show me the way."

"I--"

"Let me finish," he interrupted her. "I love you, you know--have for
a long, long, time. I still need help, Sally. I don't want to keep
playing Napoleon and going into exile over and over again. A bigger
job with more men under me isn't the answer. When a man is lonely it
makes him hard and cruel in circumstances like that. I made all of you
here relearn scientific facts, I need to relearn the humanities...." He
paused for a moment. "Sally, will you teach me?"

Her eyes were bright with unshed tears and a catch in her throat
made the words husky and half-whispered. "I wanted to help--I love
you too--but I thought you were arrogant and didn't need me--" She
swallowed, controlling a sob. "I'll make it up to you, darling. You
won't be alone again--on Phobus or anywhere else in the galaxy."





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