Rapture

"Star Wars," Bonnie exclaimed. "Wow!"

Georgianne nodded in recognition now.

"Are they spending money on that already?" Sean asked.

"The money, well ... money is always there," Jeff said with a condescending smile. "Several companies have been working on various parts of what will be the SDI package for years now. That's how it goes. This project is irresistible. And once private work and research get to a certain point, everything else falls in place, and the government money starts pouring init's on the way now. Of course, it's a great project, and absolutely necessary. There's no future in building only more warheads. We've done that trip."

"What's your part of it?" Bonnie asked. "I mean, if it's not a state secret." She was genuinely interested, which pleased Jeff.

"It's incredibly complex," he told her. "And I can't go into any kind of detail. But, basically, we're trying to develop a preliminary set of sensor signature codes for the computer banks. So they can tell the difference between a missile being launched and, say, a natural-gas flare-off, or a truck exploding in an accident ... anything like that."

"I don't know," Sean said gloomily. "Why don't they save a lot of time and money and just dismantle all those nuclear weapons everywhere?"

Again Jeff smiled at the other man's naivete. "Right up the street from me in Santa Susana," he said, "North American Rockwell has the world's largest land-based laser, and it's fully operational. You can't stop research. These things have a life of their own. Once you say A, you must say B."

"Oh, really?" Sean had a look of cool cynicism on his face, as if he finally understood Jeff.

But Jeff was paying no attention to Sean. He had been addressing his remarks to Georgianne and Bonnie, and now he realized that the teenager was a potential ally. He should have seen it sooner. It was hard not to think of her as just a sexy little high school kid, but she was a brilliant student on her way to Harvard. Bonnie was the only one here who could understand the significance of his work. She looked impressed.

"I may have a job for you in a few years," he told the girl. "The other really exciting frontier we're working on is the marriage between molecular biology and supercomputers."

Bonnie's eyes widened, and then she grinned and said, "I'm interested, I'm very interested."

`Okay. Do well at Harvard and you can write your own ticket. The possibilities are infinite."

Sean wore his gloomy expression again. Jeff stopped talking, satisfied that he had achieved his purpose. It wasn't at all like him to tell others about himself or his work, but it had been necessary this morning, and he felt he had regained the stature he might have lost by emptying his belly at the Gorge. Now, whenever they heard Star Wars mentioned, they'd think of him. He had evened things up with Sean somewhat, although he still disliked the man intensely.

After breakfast Jeff persuaded Georgianne to show him some of her sketches. She didn't want to, was surprisingly shy about them, but she gave in finally. Jeff liked them very much, though he admitted that he knew nothing about art.

"That's all right," Georgianne said. "It's not art; it's simply therapy. Which one do you like most?"

Jeff picked out a sketch of an old, falling-down barn, with a stone wall and a cluster of birches in the background. Georgianne gave it to him, rolling it up carefully and putting it in a cardboard tube. He would have preferred a self-portrait of Georgianne, but she did only country scenes. He promised to have it framed and to hang it on his wall as soon as he got back home.

"And now I have to go," he said, looking at his watch.

Bonnie was upstairs dressing, and Georgianne went to get her. Sean led Jeff out to the front step.

"If you're back this way anytime, do call and stop by," he said. "Come and stay with us next time; never mind about a hotel."

'Thanks very much. I really appreciate your hospi tality. I've had a great time, meeting you and your daughter, and of course seeing Georgianne after all this time."

"I mean it," $ean repeated. "Come see us."

The mistake, Jeff thought. 'I}+pical. He had to say he meant it. You can trust some people to show how false they are by overemphasizing their sincerity.

"You've got a wonderful home and a wonderful family," Jeff said, since that seemed to be what Sean wanted to hear.