But Clifford was less interested in the issue of Big Bang versus Steady State than in that of Big Bang versus his own theories of k-space rotations and spontaneous particle events. Edwards had been skeptical on the grounds that Clifford’s theories seemed irreconcilable with Big Bang. However, if Big Bang were superseded by something else, Clifford could be right. Here was a hint that the ground upon which the edifice of Big Bang had been erected might not be solid bedrock after all; it made Clifford wonder how firm the foundations of its remaining pillars might turn out to be.
Whether Steady State became resurrected or not as a consequence was a separate, and largely irrelevant, matter.
Chapter 5
Clifford rested his elbows on the edge of the table and cocked his head, first to one side and then to the other, as he studied the checkered board being displayed on the Infonet screen. If he advanced his pawn to King 5 as he had been preparing to do for the last four moves, Black could initiate a series of exchanges that would leave Clifford with a weak center. So Clifford had no choice but to postpone the pawn move yet again and cramp Black first by pinning the knight on . . . no, he couldn’t; Black’s last move had unmasked the queen, protecting the square that Clifford wanted to move his bishop to. Damn! The machine had seen right through it. He sighed and began to explore possible ways of opening up his king’s bishop’s file to bring some rook power to bear on the problem.
Suddenly a flashing message in bright red letters appeared across the middle of the board:
you’re ignoring me!
and your dinner’s ready!!
and i’m fed up!!!
and it’s not good enough!!!!
He grinned, keyed the terminal into Local Override mode, and tapped in the reply:
armies might march on their stomachs
but have you ever tried it?
ok—i’m coming down.
“I should think so.” The voice of his wife, Sarah, chided him from the audio grille. “I wonder if computers have ever been cited in divorce cases before.”
“As core-respondents?” he offered.
“You idiot.”
“What’s to eat?”
“Bits, bytes, and synchronous whatsits—what else? Oh—and processed veg. There—how’s that?”
“Not bad.”
He canceled the override, stored the present position of the game, and cleared the connection, having been informed that the session had cost him $1.50 of network time. As he rose from the chair amid the shambles of books and papers that he had long come to feel at home in, he noted absently that the chart of elementary-particle decay processes was coming away from the wall above the desk and resolved for the fourth time that month to do something about it sometime.
Sarah came from an English family that had once been reasonably prosperous. Her father had risen from Marketing Assistant to Managing Director of a ladies-fashion business that owned a number of factories in Yorkshire and Lancashire, with its head office and showrooms in London. His life had been one of ceaseless work and total dedication; spending twelve hours a day at his desk—frequently more—and logging hundreds of hours flying time across the air lanes of Europe, he had transformed a demoralized sales force and a collection of antiquated mills into a vigorous, professionally managed and profitable business operation. On one occasion, in the early days when the going was tough, he had mortgaged his own house as security for a bank loan to pay that week’s wages.
But as the country stagnated under the burden of its own brand of socialism and everybody clamored for a more equitable distribution of a wealth that became steadily more difficult to create in the first place, the fruits of his labors were milked away and poured into the melting pot of free handouts and subsidies from which the new utopia was to emerge.
Although she had stayed with him through the rise and fall of his dreams, Sarah chose not to join her father’s business, preferring instead to pursue a career in medicine, in which she had developed an interest at an early age. She studied at London University and Charing Cross Hospital during the day and helped her father with his administrative chores in her spare time. A year before she was due to complete her studies, her parents parted amicably; her mother went north to join a Scottish company director in the oil industry while her father, leaving the carcass of his own enterprise to the squabblings of the vultures from various government ministries, cashed his shares and was last seen heading south for sunnier climes, accompanied by a glamorous Italian heiress. Sarah went to live with an aunt in California, where she continued studying medicine and qualified as a radiologist. It was there, while taking a short refresher course in nuclear medicine at CIT, that she met Clifford. They were married six months later. When he moved to ACRE, she obtained a job at the local hospital, working three days a week; the money helped and the job kept her from becoming bored and getting rusty.