* * *
The next day a more subdued Aub called. “All kinds of rumors flying around here—something to do with people being selected as candidates to work on some new top-security thing. My boss hinted this morning that I might be lined up for a move, but clammed up when I tried to pump him.”
“We had something similar going on at ACRE,” Clifford said. “Any idea what’s up?”
Aub grimaced. “Couldn’t get a lead on that . . . it’s all political and everybody’s getting neurotic about security. I’m pretty sure it’s being set up from somewhere high up though—probably Washington.” He frowned and cocked his head to one side. “So what’s the score at ACRE? A reshuffle in the wind there?”
“Looks like it,” Clifford replied. “Some other places too, I hear.”
“Are you involved in it?”
“What do you think?”
Aub shook his head in despairing incredulity. “It’s crazy,” he declared. “What kind of an operation are those nuts going to be able to run with all wheels and no engine? Do you think they’re doing what I think they’re doing?”
“Don’t tell me, Aub,” Clifford sighed. “Right now I don’t wanna hear it.”
A few minutes later, after he had cleared down the call, Clifford turned toward Sarah, who had been watching from across the room.
“Have I got two heads or something?” he demanded.
“Not that I’ve noticed,” she replied, then became more serious. “Oh, Brad, how can people be so stupid?”
He thought for a second and growled. “I guess it doesn’t matter which way the wheels go round, as long as they’re all going round the same way together.”
* * *
The Aub that Clifford grew to know better during this time turned out to be even better than his first impressions had suggested. Like Clifford, he was preoccupied, almost obsessed, with a compulsive urge to add further to the stock of human scientific knowledge; he had no political persuasions and few ideological beliefs, certainly none that could be classed as part of any recognizable formal system. He accepted as so self-evident that it was not worthy of debate the axiom that only the harnessing of knowledge to create universal wealth and security could provide a permanent solution to the world’s problems. It was not, however, the desire to discharge any moral obligation to the rest of humanity that spurred him onward; it was simply his insatiable curiosity and the need to exercise his own extraordinary inventive abilities. He had no interest in impressing his beliefs on those who were not disposed to listen; in the end they would come to think his way anyhow, and whatever he did or didn’t do in the meantime would make no difference that mattered.
Unlike Clifford, Aub was not unduly perturbed by a situation in which the interests of pure science were subordinated to those of politics, a state of affairs that he looked upon as transient and one that would change nothing in the long-term history of the universe. He reacted to the warped world that others had shaped by extracting from it and using the things that he needed while remaining indifferent to and, for the most part, uninfluenced by the rest. Life was to be made the most of despite the follies of others, not by their license. Aub, the individualist, the opportunist, and the eternal optimist, would pursue unswervingly the path he had elected to follow, happily riding the tide when its direction happened to coincide with his own and just as easily striking out on his own when their courses diverged. For the time being, life at Berkeley suited him by affording ample opportunity for him to develop and refine his talents. Tomorrow—who could tell?
Everything came to a head one day when Clifford was working at home in his study at the top of the house. He was staring at the screen of the upstairs terminal, digesting the meaning of a group of tensor equations out of ACRE’s computers, when the chime sounded and a message superimposed itself on the display to inform him of an incoming call. He cursed, suspended the program, and touched a key to accept. It was Aub, looking angry and disturbed in a way that Clifford had never seen before.