'Duke Ellington. Released two years ago. The 1943 Ellington band, baby!'

His voice rose as the music began and Ace wondered why, if he so loved the music, he didn't just shut up and let them listen to it. But Cosmic Ray kept on spouting facts. 'Jimmie Hamilton on clarinet! And the great Ben Webster, 30recorded just before he left the band in August of that year! "Jump for Joy" is the t.i.tle, cats. It's a hot little gem dreamed up by Ellington and Webster and some cat called Kuller. Originally written for a stage show which premiered at the Mayan Theatre in LA, City of the Angels, baby, on. . . '

He proceeded to detail the date in July 1941 when the song had first been aired. By now Ace was extremely irritated with his running commentary because it was preventing her hearing the music. Ace had always been partial to jazz, treasuring her personally autographed Courtney Pine CD, and responded to the Ellington tune immediately. She felt her hips sway and her feet begin to stir.

Ray finally shut up and began to listen to the music he had been espous-ing at such turgid length. And oddly enough, everyone else shut up too. A communal silence fell over the party, one of those odd synchronous moments when, as if by telepathic concord, the entire group runs out of things to say.

It was a comfortable, attentive silence, as the hissing, spinning disc gave up its music. The song had a sardonic swagger in the muted trumpets and an infectious, joyous swing. Ace saw the first stirring of movement among the party guests, as if they were on the verge of breaking out into communal, tribal dance.

The vocalist commenced singing on the record. She enquired in a voice rich with hip irony whether the listeners had seen pastures groovy. Several couples began to dance. Even the Doctor was swaying. Cosmic Ray had his eyes squeezed shut and was listening in stunned rapture.

With silky, syncopated cynicism the singer belted out in conclusion that Green Pastures was nothing other than the t.i.tle of a Technicolor movie.

Everybody in the room was dancing now with the exception of a sulking Fuchs, a dour and suspicious Butcher and, curiously, Ray himself. He stood utterly still as he listened. His eyes were shut, his countenance upturned as if the sun was shining down on him. His fat, goateed face was glistening and as Ace bopped across the Oppenheimers' sun-faded Navajo rug on what had suddenly become the dance floor, the Doctor squiring her with some swinging moves of his own, she realised they were the wet traces of tears.

'Babies,' said Cosmic Ray. 'Little babies, dig this beautiful music. Like a big beautiful bubble blown by everything sweet and hip and groovy in the glowing heart of the cosmos. Dig the way that rainbow bubble shines so beautiful. But know this cats and kittens, if you only knew how fragile that bubble is.'

The Doctor had stopped dancing. He stood staring at Ray like a hound trained for a very special hunt, who had finally spotted his prey.

'If only you knew, sweet groovers,' said Ray, 'how close this music came to not existing at all.'

The big man began to cry.31.

Chapter Three.

Cactus Needles The following day, Ace stood in front of a blackboard in a sunlit block of s.p.a.ce, chalk dust rising around her, sunlight falling through it in a luminous veil. The sunlight came from a high window in a cla.s.sroom in the old riding school.

She didn't know if the riding school had ever had much use for blackboards in its day, but the jokers using the premises now certainly did. The rooms were a.s.signed to groups of physicists, working in twos or threes, and the blackboards in every cla.s.sroom were crammed with equations.

This particular room was shared by Ace and a science geek called Abner Apple. The guy was a professor, despite his youth. But that wasn't so unusual here on the Hill where it seemed everyone had a doctorate with the possible exception of the Doctor.

In any case, Ace had never thought of the man as anything but Adam's Apple Adam's Apple since she first saw him, due to the scrawny, k.n.o.bbly jut of his neck. Professor Apple's big head swayed on top of that k.n.o.bbly neck, a shining dome covered with just the finest fuzz of colourless hair. since she first saw him, due to the scrawny, k.n.o.bbly jut of his neck. Professor Apple's big head swayed on top of that k.n.o.bbly neck, a shining dome covered with just the finest fuzz of colourless hair.

Apple was an egghead. A young one, but just as set in his quirks as the oldest, most irascible professor. He was standing in front of the blackboard with Ace, surrounded by the smell of freshly rising chalk. She hated that smell. The school smell.

The young physicist stood there, his big eyes staring down at her from his big shiny head, like a bird watching a worm. 'Well?' he said.

Ace returned her eyes to the blackboard. It was crammed from corner to corner with a complex tangle of scribbled equations. Numbers and abstruse mathematical signs were dotted everywhere. It was a big, complex chunk of a much vaster scientific calculation that was taking place here at Los Alamos, the unholy equation of maths and physics and chemistry that would determine the possibility, the probability, the feasibility of fashioning a doomsday weapon.

It meant nothing to Ace.

She stared up at the dense mess of technical squiggles on the blackboard, the scattered ma.s.s of numbers, clumped here and there, some big, some small.

And it meant nothing to her. Adam's Apple was staring at her as she felt her face get hot. Ace silently cursed herself. Why hadn't she listened to the 33Doctor? He was always banging on at her about her remembering to take the d.a.m.ned thing.

Maybe she had deliberately not taken it, out of spite, or out of some sub-conscious spark of rebellion. That's certainly what Henbest, the psychiatrist on the Hill, would have said. The goatish man had bored Ace at the party last night for what seemed like hours. He had kept asking, with bad breath and cigarette smoke floating salaciously from his mouth, whether Ace had any interest in hypnotism. Like she would let that creep put her into a trance.

She could smell his breath afterwards for hours.

Still, she would rather be with Henbest now than with this scrawny young man, here in this cla.s.sroom with the gleaming chalk dust floating around them. Apple was staring at her, waiting impatiently for an answer she couldn't give. Ace looked at the smeared, crowded figures on the chalkboard, hoping that the numbers would fall into some strange, numinous pattern rich with meaning.

It wasn't an entirely idle hope. It had happened before. But it wasn't going to happen now. 'Well?' repeated Apple. 'I thought you were supposed to be some kind of calculating prodigy. I'm not asking you to do any of the real labour, none of the actual physics. I just want your a.s.sistance with the donkey donkey work work, the raw calculation. The arithmetic.' He p.r.o.nounced the last word with outraged, venomous contempt. 'It's the sort of work anybody can do.'

'Look, I'm sorry, but '

He drew a circle around one group of numbers. 'It's the sort of work I could do myself if I had the time. If I didn't have more important matters to devote my attention to. That's the whole point. You are supposed to be the calculating prodigy. You are supposed to do this for me, to take the load off my back. That's the whole point of you. You're supposed to be here to help me.'

'I'm supposed to be here to help the Doctor.'

A tight, maniacal grin appeared on Apple's face. He was like the triumphant, voracious bird finally pouncing on the worm. 'But the Doctor isn't working here today, is he? He's seeing General Groves. For his security interview. So you're supposed to be a.s.signed to me. You're supposed to help me. But you can't, can you?'

Apple suddenly turned away from her and threw his piece of chalk across the room. It shattered in the corner with a vicious whip-crack sound. He turned back to her, wiping the chalk dust off his hands. 'You can't,' he said.

'Of course I can,' said Ace. 'But. . . '

'But?'

Ace silently cursed herself again. Why had she ignored the Doctor's warn-ings? She had meant to take it. She had fully intended to take it, immediately 34after breakfast. The problem was, Professor Apple had intercepted her the moment she left the table at Fuller Lodge. Breakfast had been pretty good, waffles and sausages and honey and white country b.u.t.ter. Ace had enjoyed it, with no premonition that doom was about to pounce. But doom had pounced, in the shape of Professor Apple. He hadn't given her a chance to go back to her quarters. He had marched her directly over here to the old ranch school and stood her in front of the blackboard.

'There's something I have to do,' said Ace. 'Back at my quarters.' It had turned out that the women's dormitory was full, so Ace had ended up moving into the WAC barracks, a very similar-looking soulless, long, low box of a building.

'What sort of thing?'

Ace had a sudden inspiration. 'Women's business.'

'What?' said Professor Apple. Then he fell silent as realisation dawned. His face darkened with embarra.s.sment. 'All right. But make it quick.' He didn't have to tell her twice. Ace was straight out of the cla.s.sroom, the door slamming behind her, her heels clicking and echoing in the hallway that smelled of lemon floor polish, walking past the other cla.s.srooms containing the busy, serious figures labouring over their own blackboards. She walked straight out of the schoolhouse and into the bright open air of the day and felt a tremendous thrill of relief.

Until she realised Professor Apple was following her. The relief melted away under a hot wave of shame. Ace knew she was a fraud and she knew she was about to be found out. Apple followed her down the curving road, making no attempt to conceal his presence. Ace began to feel irritated by his gooney pursuit and with the first stirrings of anger came a small return of confidence.

What could he do to stop her? There was nothing. He couldn't follow her into the women's dormitory, to her bed, to the bag she had so carelessly left behind. (Or perhaps deliberately, to annoy the Doctor. That was what Henbest would say.) But in any case Professor Apple couldn't follow her and he couldn't stop her getting her capsule and taking it. And if she took the capsule she wouldn't be exposed as a fraud and everything would be all right. Ace had just firmly decided that everything was going to be all right when, around a bend in the road and striding directly towards her, came Major Butcher.

Butcher's eyebrows jerked up as he saw Ace hurrying along the road with Professor Apple in pursuit. She dropped her head shamefully and hurried past him. If only she could get back to the WAC building. . . Butcher kept walking right on past her and she felt a moment of grat.i.tude but then she heard him falling into step with Professor Apple. She didn't dare risk a glance back at them, but she could hear their footsteps and s.n.a.t.c.hes of what they 35were saying.

' be working with you at the school?' said Butcher.

'She certainly should. But it's becoming evident she actually can't can't ' said Apple with venom. Ace kept hurrying towards her quarters, towards sanctuary She didn't look back. She increased her pace and tried to force a casual, carefree expression of innocence onto her face. It fell like the rictus of a cadaver. ' said Apple with venom. Ace kept hurrying towards her quarters, towards sanctuary She didn't look back. She increased her pace and tried to force a casual, carefree expression of innocence onto her face. It fell like the rictus of a cadaver.

' going now?'

'Back to her quarters on some sort of women's matter,' Professor Apple's voice dropped into inaudibility as he conferred briefly with Butcher. Ace kept walking. Then Apple's voice rose again, with a note of vicious anger in it.

'Calculating prodigy? She can't calculate two and two. He hasn't brought her here for that. She's just his, you know. . . '

Ace flushed and increased her pace.

'She's pretending she can perform complex mathematical calculations,' said Professor Apple. 'When in fact she only has one use. She's letting him put his hairy little hands on her and. . . ' Apple's voice sounded about to break, like that of an adolescent boy. It was rising towards incoherence, growing ragged with spite and anger behind Ace as she hurried towards the WAC barracks.

The barracks was a hastily erected, long two-storey building with a low flat roof, numerous windows (which at least provided plenty of light but also provided a sense of being constantly watched) and tarpaper walls. The building was flanked on both sides by telephone poles and was anything but aestheti-cally pleasing. Ace hurried up the wooden steps. She raced into her ground-floor dormitory, stood for a near-swooning moment of disorientation as she tried to remember which of the many identical bunk beds was hers.

She found it, experienced a dipping moment of terror when her bag was not where she thought she'd left it. Then she remembered where she actually had had left it, scooped it up, took out the metal case containing the capsules, opened it and quickly swallowed one, grateful for its loathsome oily flavour. left it, scooped it up, took out the metal case containing the capsules, opened it and quickly swallowed one, grateful for its loathsome oily flavour.

Once she had done that she felt an immediate profound sense of relaxation.

There was no longer any need to hurry. She took her time using the loo then sauntered back out through the dormitory. As she was leaving, a hawk-nosed ginger-haired office clerk she'd noticed sitting next to her at breakfast came hurrying in. As soon as she glimpsed Ace, the girl looked away, completely ignoring her, and pretended to hurry to another bunk bed where she rifled amongst her own belongings. But it was perfectly evident to Ace that Butcher had somehow summoned the hawk-nosed snooper and sent her in here, to the women's realm, to spy on Ace.

Ace walked out of the building and wasn't at all surprised to find Butcher and Professor Apple waiting on the porch for her. 'I understand you're having 36a little trouble,' said Butcher laconically.

'Not at all. Everything is fine.'

'Professor Apple here tells me that you've refused to perform any of the mathematical calculations a.s.signed to you.'

'Then Professor Apple there is mistaken.' Ace smiled. 'I didn't refuse. I just couldn't.'

Butcher gave her a cold, appraising look. 'Couldn't?'

'Not at that exact moment. I was caught short. I had to hurry back here and get something. Women's matters. You know.' Butcher didn't say anything.

'Internal plumbing,' added Ace, wondering just how far she could push it.

Both men stared at her in glum silence. Ace calmly returned their gaze.

Finally Butcher said, 'Then in that case you won't have any objections to going back to the schoolhouse and doing some work for Professor Apple now.'

'No objections at all.' Ace offered a dazzling smile to Butcher and then to Apple, and allowed them to escort her back to the schoolhouse.

Over the next hour, Ace was amused to note that Professor Apple's suspicion softened first into grudging respect and then into frank surprise, finally reaching its final transformation into outright dopey admiration. By this point they were alone in the cla.s.sroom, Major Butcher having at last grown bored with watching Ace successfully perform preposterously complex equations with total accuracy. He had gone clumping moodily off to go and spy on someone else.

Now Professor Apple was standing rather too close to Ace, gazing at her adoringly, eyes moistly gleaming, and Ace began to realise with a sinking feeling that she might simply have swapped one problem for another.

To her enormous grat.i.tude, the door opened at this point and the Doctor breezed in. 'h.e.l.lo Ace, Professor Apple.' He hopped up on a desk and sat there, his small legs swinging, peering at the blackboard. Apple gawked at him in frank dismay.

'But you're not supposed to be here. You're supposed to be with General Groves.'

'Indeed. But it seems my security interview took less time than anyone expected.' The Doctor smiled. 'That's how secure a fellow I am.'

'The General let you go?' spluttered Professor Apple.

'Only after we had a pleasant chat. Fascinating fellow Groves. He built the Pentagon, you know.' The Doctor hopped down from the desk. 'Now Ace, you had better come with me.'

'No,' cried Professor Apple as if someone had offered to put a dagger in his heart. 'Where are you taking her?'37.

The Doctor patted him sympathetically on the shoulder. 'I'm afraid Ace will be working with me from now on.'

'But. . . '

'Sorry, old man.'

'But she's brilliant.'

'Yes, she certainly is.' The Doctor smiled at Ace.

'I've never met a woman with such a mathematical turn of mind.' Apple's voice was tremulous with emotion.

'Well, you've met her now,' said the Doctor, steering Ace briskly towards the door. Professor Apple stared forlornly after them as they hurried out into the hallway and bolted from the building.

'That was a close one,' said Ace.

'In what sense?' The Doctor glanced at her. 'The result of my security interview with General Groves was never in question. I prepared very carefully for our arrival here. I made sure I had the highest clearance, on the highest authority. So what do you mean by "a close one"?'

'Nothing,' said Ace hastily. 'Nothing.'

The Doctor peered at her suspiciously. 'You didn't forget your capsule, did you, Ace?'

Ace affected a carefree giggle. 'After all your nagging? Of course not. How could I forget?'

'This is no laughing matter. It's very important that you remember your oil capsules. When we went to see Dr Judson you were posing as a mathematical specialist. But you were that in name only.'

'I know, I know.'

The Doctor smiled affectionately. 'Though during that caper, as you might put it, your grasp of logic theory was impressive. This time, however, we have the ability to transform you into a bona fide mathematical specialist.'

'I know.'

'But you simply must remember to take the capsules.'

'All right, all right. Don't nag. I don't really mind taking them. It's just that they taste terrible, that's all.'

'They are very beneficial.'

'Not for the poor b.l.o.o.d.y fish they're not.' Ace remembered the bleeding bulk of the giant pink-and-grey fish lying in the phosph.o.r.escent surf on the rocky beach near the Two Moons fishing station. The fish had been an alien creature on an alien world, but Ace had still felt a twinge of empathy for it as the natives of Two Moons had merrily butchered it, laughing at its death throes and playing music, ceremonially removing its large tri-lobed liver, from which they extracted the oil that was sealed in the capsules.38.

The Doctor sighed. 'True. It's a shame that poor creature had to die, but the oils it contained are essential to the diet of the fishing tribe. It endows them with the large and efficient brains they need to calculate the trajectories for deployment of their lines and hooks and harpoons against the corresponding trajectories of fast moving schools of fish. They make these calculations with tremendous accuracy, from the most swiftly moving schooner. The oils that enable them to do this are similar to the omega lipids you find here on Earth, though much more powerful. In a human brain these alien fish oils stimulate the centres involved in abstract thinking, specifically mathematical calculation. Making you an indispensable a.s.set in a world where electronic computers are only available in their most primitive and c.u.mbersome form.'

'All right, all right, I promise to be a good girl and take my capsule every day. I can already see one problem, though.'

'Which is?'

'That Professor Apple had no interest at all in me when he thought I was the common dunce that I really am. But as soon as he saw me in action as a mathematical wizard he started giving me that look.'

'Which look? The one of awestruck adoration?'

'Yes, that one.'