Bug Park by James P. Hogan

“All the time for reference material and e-mail. You can’t get away from them. It’s out in the car.” She began moving to the door.

Great, Kevin thought as he followed her. What was he supposed to do now? He drew alongside her as they crossed the yard. “What kind is it?” he asked—anything to keep on the subject.

“I’m not sure. Bell, I think.”

“Oh. What model?”

“Seven hundred something. Does that sound right?”

Kevin tried to look astonished. “That’s really amazing! Do you know, I was having an argument about those with somebody just the other day.” He hoped it didn’t sound as stupid as he felt. “Does the internal phone come out on an ansi or International PIN configuration connector?”

“Kevin, would you believe?—I have absolutely no idea. Neither do I care.”

“Could I have a look? It would only take a second.”

“Well, sure . . . I guess.” Michelle gave him a strange look. “If it’s really that important.”

They came around to the front of the house, where the white Buick was parked in the driveway. Kevin stopped and pulled off his sweater. “Wow, it’s hot all of a sudden. Don’t you think it’s hot? Or maybe it’s just me.”

Michelle unlocked the doors. “It’s down by the seat there,” she said, indicating with a nod.

“Oh, right.” Kevin opened the passenger door and lifted out the laptop while Michelle climbed in the far side of the car. “Now let’s see, what have we got?” He unzipped the case, slid the computer partway out, opened the lid for no reason that he could have explained if she’d asked, and made a show of flipping open covers and peering at the connector arrays inside. All the time, his fingers were searching feverishly through the pouches inside the case. He found the plastic pack containing the relay card and slipped it into the folds of the sweater draped in his other hand. “Okay, right, that’s it.” He reclosed the case and put it back on the floor in front of the seat. Michelle leaned across to peer out at him.

“Did you find what you wanted?” she inquired in the kind of tone she might have used to ask if he were feeling well.

“Yes, thanks. . . . It’s what I thought.” He closed the passenger door, and stooped to wave as the car pulled away, sending Michelle an inane grin before he could stop himself. Taki, you’ll pay for this, he vowed savagely. He waited until the Buick had disappeared from the driveway, then turned and trudged back to the house.

CHAPTER SIX

Doug Corfe’s experiences had left him with a generally pragmatic approach to life.

His background before working for Eric Heber at Microbotics had been Navy. After enlisting and going through the Naval Training Center at Great Lakes, Illinois, he had been selected for electronics school, graduated in the top five percentile, and spent two years as an electronics technician in attack submarines. That qualified him for the Navy’s scientific education program, in which he did well enough to be sent to Cal Tech, where he got his electrical and electronics degree. He then received a commission as ensign, applied for flight training, and was sent to the Naval Air Station at Pensacola, Florida. After a year’s duty as a Navy Flight Officer based at San Diego, he transferred to carriers and left the service four years later having made full lieutenant.

His experiences said there was no such thing as a dysfunctional piece of equipment that couldn’t be fixed, and few problems that would admit to no solution. It was just a question of looking hard enough. In dealings with people, he valued directness and simplicity. While there were exceptions, his inclination was to mistrust those who seemed unable or unwilling to put plainly what they had to say. Too often he had found obfuscation a sign that somebody just didn’t know what they were talking about, or wasn’t being honest about something.

It was not surprising, therefore, that he had taken well to working with Eric, who, heedless of the scientists vying for status in the fast-growing environment that Microbotics offered at the time, had shown no interest in campaigning for self-glorification but saved his energies for the work at hand instead. So when the schism developed over whether to go with conventional or DNC interfacing, it had been almost predictable that Eric would be the one to defy what eventually emerged as the consensus, and perfectly natural that Corfe would move with him when he left.

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