The process for identifying my sample was surprisingly simple. Matthews, wearing no special protection other than lab coat and -loves, placed the piece of sticky tape into a tube, which he then set inside a two-foot-long aluminum container containing the germanium crystal. Finally, he stacked lead bricks on every side to shield the sample from background radiation.
Activating the process required a simple computer command, and a counter on the canister began measuring radioactivity so it could tell us which isotope we had. This was all rather strange to see, for I was accustomed to arcane instruments like scanning electron microscopes and gas chromatographs. This detector, on the other hand, was a rather formless house of lead cooled by liquid nitrogen and did not seem capable of intelligent thought.
“Now, if you’ll just sign this evidence receipt,” I said, “I’ll be on my way.”
“It could take an hour or two. It’s hard to say,” he answered.
He signed the form and I gave him a copy.
“I’ll stop by after I check on Lucy.”
“Come on, I’ll escort you up to make sure you don’t set anything off. How is she?” he asked as we passed detectors without a complaint. “Did she ever go on to MIT?”
“She did do an internship there last fall,” I said. “In robotics. You know, she’s back here. For at least a month.”
“I didn’t know. That’s wonderful. Studying what?”
“Virtual reality, I think she said.”
Matthews looked perplexed for a moment. “Didn’t she take that when she was here?”
“I expect this is more advanced.”
“I expect it would have to be.” He smiled. “I wish I had at least one of her in every class.”
Lucy had probably been the only non-physics major at UVA to take a course in nuclear design for fun. I walked outside, and Marino was leaning against the car, smoking “So what now?” He said, and he still looked glum.
.” thought I’d surprise my niece and take her to lunch.
You’re more than welcome to join us.”
“I’m going to drop by the Exxon station down the street and use the pay phone,” he said. “I got some calls to make.”
HE DROVE ME TO THE ROTUNDA, BRILLIANT WHITE IN sunlight and my favorite building Thomas Jefferson had designed. I followed old brick colonnaded walkways beneath ancient trees, where Federal pavilions formed two rows of privileged housing known as the Lawn.
Living here was an award for academic achievement, yet it might have been considered a dubious honor by some.
Showers and toilets were located in another building in back, the sparsely furnished rooms not necessarily intended for comfort. Yet I had never heard Lucy complain, for she had truly loved her life at UVA.
She was staying on the West Lawn in Pavilion III, with its Corinthian capitals of Carrara marble that had been carved in Italy. Wooden shutters outside room I I were drawn, the morning paper still on the mat, and I wondered, perplexed, if she had not gotten up yet. I rapped on the door several times and heard someone stirring.
“Who is it?” my niece’s voice called out.
“It’s me,” I said.
There was a pause, then a surprised, “Aunt Kay?”
“Are you going to open the door?” My good mood was fading fast for she did not sound pleased.
“Uh, hold on a minute. I’m coming.”
The door unlocked and opened.
“Hi,” she said as she let me in.
“I hope I didn’t wake you up.” I handed her the newspaper.
“Oh, T. C. gets that,” she said, referring to the friend who really belonged to this room. “She forgot to cancel it before she left for Germany. I never get around to reading it.”
I entered an apartment not so different from where I had visited my niece last year. The space was small with bed and sink, and crowded bookcases. Heart of pine floors were bare, with no art on whitewashed walls except a single poster of Anthony Hopkins. Lucy’s technical preoccupations had taken over tables, desk and even several chairs. Other equipment, like the fax machine and what looked like a small robot, was out cold on the floor.