Ossian's Ride (24 page)

I took up a position in the middle of the second row, leaving the front row for men of established reputation. It was astonishing how quickly the system took effect. Within a month the high and mighty were looking at me with averted vision. Within two months they were nodding openly. Within three months I had a recognized seat in the front row.

This policy had two effects. The more immediate, and the less important from a long-term point of view, was that I was asked to give a seminar myself, i.e. to be the lecturer on a certain day, the subject to be of my own choosing. Now it was indeed lucky that I had been hard at work during the past five months, for I did have something new to talk about, not completely developed it is true, but interesting. I chose the following topic: “The Interpretation of Electric Charge as a Rotation.”

One day I had a conversation with one of the older scientists. Would I undertake the solution of a set of equations that had proved very puzzling? They were of a non-linear partial type that could only be tackled numerically on a high-speed digital computer. I agreed to this proposal because I particularly wanted to gain some experience in the use of such a computer.

The special difficulty of the equations was that derivatives with respect to each of the variables became so large in certain ranges of the variables that it seemed impossible to store a lattice with the usual property of small changes of the functions from one lattice point to the next.

Once I had agreed to tackle the problem, I set about it with great energy, if only to prevent my new-found reputation from sagging too badly. The first step, and the most difficult, was to decide the mathematical method of attack. Then came the job of coding for the computer, which was of the ultrahigh speed, superconducting variety. Naturally I started by building up a stock of sub-routines. These I tested separately until they were working properly. Then came the big job of fitting all the individual pieces together and of writing the logical program for controlling their operation.

It was well past high summer before everything was working properly. I was now ready for producing results. This meant that instead of needing the computer for a few minutes at a time I would be requiring long “production” runs, each lasting an hour or more. Clearly I should soon find out whether I.C.E. was really serious about this problem, or whether the idea was merely to keep me busy and quiet. In the latter case, they would soon jib at providing adequate time for these longs runs on the machine.

As things turned out I had no serious complaint to make. I got a fairly adequate ration of time on the computer, not as much as I’d have liked, but then nobody ever gets as much time as he would like. Since the program worked pretty well I was soon on good terms with the machine manager and with his staff. I had an arrangement whereby I’d take over the computer whenever it happened to be free. This was fairly often, because plans for machine operation made in advance frequently go awry. So it was with many who were officially scheduled to use the machine. Things would go wrong, the instrument would lie unused, and then I could step in. By this device I was able to extend very considerably the amount of time for which I was able to operate the computer.

I mention all this to explain why I got into the habit of examining the machine schedules pretty closely. It annoyed me considerably that no shifts were normally worked over the week ends. The waste of the computer seemed scandalous, if not downright wicked. But I was told that there simply wasn’t enough work to justify the extra staff that would be necessary for week-end operation. I suppose this was right, for with a computer of such great speed the amount of calculation that could be done in a five-day week was quite fantastically large. Still, it seemed a shocking waste.

On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday the computer was run from 9 A.M. to 6 P.M., and from 8 P.M. to 7 A.M. The intervening short periods—viz. 6 P.M. to 8 P.M., and 7 A.M. to 9 A.M.—were used for engineering maintenance. On Wednesdays and Fridays the computer was run from 9 A.M. to 4:30 P.M., and there was no night shift. Naturally I was curious about this difference, and my curiosity was sharply augmented by my complete failure to find any explanation for it. When I mentioned the matter to the machine manager, he jumped so violently that I was very careful to say nothing more.

The obvious tactic was to try to get a run that would last right up to 4:30 P.M. on one of these latter days. It was a long time before success came my way, and then only as result of a double accident. The manager was on holiday, and his assistant’s wife was expecting a baby. One Friday, the assistant phoned to say that the computer was available from 3 P.M. to 4:15 P.M., but that on no account must I continue to work after 4:15 P.M. Foolishly he told me that he himself would not be in the laboratory that particular afternoon. This meant that I had only the young operator to deal with, and I knew he would be anxious to get away for the week end, probably with his wife to the sea.

It was something of a dubious trick to assure the young fellow that he could leave at 4 P.M. I made all the necessary motions to indicate that I was “packing up” and told him to go off, saying that I would set a new roll of paper in the “printer” as soon as I had all my tables, cards and tapes collected together. By now I had learned how to operate the machine pretty well, and I had worked with this particular operator fairly often. So, being Irish—and therefore no instinctive stickler for rules and regulations—he left me to my own devices at about 4:05.

I restarted the computer with a scarcely ruffled conscience. When 4:15 came, I continued to let the machine calculate. Slowly the minutes slipped away. I was on tenterhooks lest someone should come in. The following quarter of.an hour provided the first case of a lack of security that I could recall since my entry into the services of I.C.E. Someone should certainly have been detailed to make sure that the computer had been vacated. It is strange indeed how—easily a simple security precaution can be overlooked at the end of a week in the holiday season, especially on a really beautiful day.

The clock came to 4:30 and still there was no interruption. The computer went merrily along, chattering out its results. Then I was aware that someone had come in quietly. I was examining the results at the printer, and I forced myself to go on doing so for maybe half a minute.

“Oh, I’d no idea the machine was in use.”

“No, you can have it straightaway,” I replied.

“If there’s something you want to finish ...”

“No, no, I can output the calculation onto tape and pick it up later.”

I flicked a switch, and one of the magnetic units came immediately into motion.

“All right, I’m finished now.”

I moved over to retrieve the tape with my unfinished calculation on it, intensely conscious that I had just managed to win a round in this long-drawn-out game. For the intruder was none other than Fanny, the half-blonde girl who had been right about her topology when the other five were wrong, back so long ago on the island of Inishvickillane.

I watched out of the corner of my eye as her deck of cards went into the “reader.” Plainly it was a very big program, some three times the size of my own. Since the difficulty of a program depends about on the square of the number of instructions, this had roughly ten times the difficulty of mine
.
I hope to heaven it doesn’t work, I thought uncharitably—otherwise I’ll be getting the inferiority, not I.C.E.!

The machine worked for perhaps ten seconds and stopped. The girl, swearing
sotto voce
to herself, keyed in a manual instruction and immediately a group of numbers was hammered out on the printer. Then the girl retired to study her program together with the numbers. Time crept on. Five o’clock came and I was in agony lest someone in authority should find me there. I was sorely tempted to seek some redress for the day on the cliffs of Inishtooskert, which I had by no means forgotten. But I kept quiet at a distance while she worked away. I think the computer must have been lying idle for some forty-five minutes before she got up with a long sheet of new instructions that had now to be inserted manually into the machine. In this way it was possible to modify the program at an enormous expense of operating time.

“You’d better read out the instructions, and where you want ’em to go, while I do the keying,” I said.

We worked for about half an hour, flicking the keys. I concentrated really hard, determined not to make an error, which is only too easily done. Then we cross-checked all the changes, reading from the machine as it was now modified against the girl’s list. When at length she was satisfied, one more instruction was keyed—to start the computer calculating again. “It can’t possibly work,” I said to myself, “not after all this agony.” But it did. At least it didn’t stop this time.

The girl sat over the printer, watching the numbers that were tapped out from time to time. She compared them with a handwritten table taken from a file.

“It looks to be working all right now—as far as I can tell.”

“Well, well, I must say for a fisherman you seem enormously versatile,” she added.

“I’m afraid my program is a very modest affair compared with this,” I said, indicating the machine and its present calculation.

“What are you doing?”

I gave a brief sketch of my own problem.

“You know,” she said, “I had an idea you were around Caragh when I saw a notice of a seminar on the nature of electric charge. Perhaps you could tell me about it over dinner? I want to get about another hour’s work done. You don’t mind waiting?”

In the circumstances waiting was the last thing I minded.

When the machine had been switched off, and we’d gathered together our respective belongings, I asked the girl where we should go. With the first grin I’d seen from her, she answered, “Make for the public places.”

We packed our things in the back of a car parked close by the lab. While the girl drove, I guided her to a good restaurant about five miles to the south, one that wouldn’t be too noisy. Our entry was marked by some curious glances from one or two of the tables.

I took this to be a tribute to the girl’s appearance, which in truth was very remarkable—violet eyes, light hair and a skin that looked as if it had been deeply tanned by a month of climbing on sunlit snow mountains. She appeared to be in her early twenties, but I had a suspicion she was older.

There were obvious reasons why I didn’t want to talk physics. But by the time the edge of hunger had been assuaged, the girl’s demands to hear about the nature of electric charge had a curiously commanding ring. So there was nothing to be done except to let the conversation swing to technicalities, away from the matters that were on my mind.

I drew pictures and jotted down various equations on the back of a menu. When I was through all the explanations, she said, “You’ll get a fair measure of success with that approach, but it’s very ugly.”

“Can you suggest one better?”

“Yes, of course, but not without quite extensive changes. The whole way of writing the theory needs inverting. Instead of using space-time for the basic variables, put field quantities as the independent variables in the equations that describe the particles.”

“Which is something I’ve vaguely wondered about—getting space-time as a derived quantity, getting it from field variables with a degree of arbitrariness equivalent to the usual invariance conditions.”

“Well, you’d better stop vaguely wondering. I’ll show you later how to get started, although I really oughtn’t to be telling you all this.”

The waiter brought the dessert. I waited for him to leave before asking the obvious question: “And why shouldn’t you be telling me this?”

She answered in a quiet voice, “Because according to what I’m told you happen to be a most desperate and dangerous fellow.” Then she laughed quite unaffectedly.

“You must have been told a whole lot of nonsense.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. About a month ago I read through quite a long and entertaining dossier about you.”

Again she laughed, and like a fool I couldn’t see the joke.

“When you came here to Ireland, what was it you were looking for, Mr. Fisherman?”

“Maybe you.”

“Well, and now you’ve found me, what do you propose to do?”

“Find out about those equations, of course.”

“You don’t like being laughed at, do you? You’re every bit as bad as the others.”

“Did you have a hand in that business on the cliffs of Inishtooskert, by the way?”

This stopped the laughter.

“No, I didn’t know anything about it at the time. That particularly futile brain storm was cooked up by Arthur or by his wife. But I did make sure that nothing of the sort was tried again.”

“For which my thanks! The blonde climber was Mitchell’s wife?”

“Is; the tense is wrong.”

“He’s welcome to her, the ...”

“Tsh-sh.”

“And what was so futile about the idea of leaving me hanging onto that damned cliff?”

“It was obvious you’d get down. And if you didn’t you didn’t deserve to, being taken in by a ninny like that!”

“When you’ve need of it you seem to have access to a pretty fair fund of irrationality, don’t you?”

“Look, I think we’d better get back to the car. I dislike having to cross to the island after dark, although with you there, Mr. Fisherman, I suppose I really shouldn’t worry. You’d better pay the bill. You do pay the bill, don’t you?”

“Yes, I pay my debts.”

“That’s rather what I thought. I do too.”

The girl drove the car rapidly northward toward Killorglin.

“I suppose you know that the northern peninsula is out of bounds for me?”

“Scared? Do you want to get out?”

“The answer to both questions is no. I mention it because I shall have to depend on you to get me through the security checks.”