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"On what grounds?" she asked.
"Your age, mostly," said the dean. "You are extraordinarily young to be ru
"But it's my project. It only exists because I thought of it."
"I know it seems unfair," said the dean. "But we won't let this interfere with your progress toward your doctorate."
"Won't let it interfere?" She laughed in consternation. "It took a year to get this grant, even though it's one with obvious value for the current world situation. Even if I had a new research project on the back burner, you can't pretend that this won't postpone my degree by years."
"We recognize the problem this is causing you, but we're prepared to grant you your degree with a project of... less... scope."
"Help me understand this," she said. "You trust me so much that you'd grant me a degree without caring about my dissertation. Yet you don't trust me enough to let me even take part in a vital project that I designed. Who's going to run it?"
She looked at her committee chairman. He blushed.
"This isn't even your area," she said to him. "It's nobody's area but mine."
"As you said," her chairman answered, "you designed the project. We'll follow your plan exactly.
Whatever data emerges, it will have the same value regardless of who heads it up."
She stood up. "Of course I'm leaving," she said. "You can't do this to me."
"Theresa," said Dr. Howell.
"Oh," said Theresa, "is it your job to get me to go along with this?"
"Theresa," repeated the old woman. "You know perfectly well what this is about."
"No, I don't," said Theresa.
"Nobody here at this table will admit it, but... it's only 'mostly' about how young you are."
"So what's the 'partly' that's left over?" asked Theresa.
"I think," said Dr. Howell, "that if your father came out of retirement, suddenly there'd be no objection to one so young ru
Theresa looked around at the others. "You can't be serious."
"Nobody has come out and said it," said the dean, "but they have pointed out that the impetus for this came from the foundation's main customer."
"The Hegemony," said her chairman.
"So I'm a hostage to my father's politics."
"Or his religion," said the dean. "Or whatever it is that's driving him."
"And you'll let your academic program be manipulated for... for..."
"The university depends on grants," said the dean. "Imagine what will happen to us if, one by one, our grant applications start being refused. The Hegemony has enormous influence. Everywhere."
"In other words," said Dr. Howell, "there really isn't anywhere else you can go. We're one of the most independent universities, and we aren't free. That's why they're determined to grant you a doctorate despite the fact that you can't do your research. Because you deserve one, and they know this is grossly unfair."
"So what's to stop them from keeping me from teaching, too? Who would even have me? A Ph.D.
who can't show her research—what a joke I'd be."
"We'd hire you," said the dean.
"Why?" demanded Theresa. "A charity case? What could I possibly accomplish at a university where I can't do research?"
Dr. Howell sighed. "Because of course you'd continue to run the project. Who else could manage it?"
"Without my name on it," said Theresa.
"It's important research," said Dr. Howell. "The survival of the human race is at stake. There's a war on, you know."
"Then tell that to the foundation and get them to tell the Hegemony to—"
"Theresa," said Dr. Howell. "Your name won't be on the project. It won't be listed as your dissertation. But everybody in the field will know exactly who did it. You'll have a tenure track position here, a doctorate, and a dissertation whose authorship is an open secret. All we're really asking you to do is swallow hard and get along with the ridiculous requirements that have been forced on us—and no, we will not listen to your decision now. In fact, we will ignore anything you say or do for the next three days. Talk to your father. Talk to any of us, all you want. But no answer until you've had a chance to get over the shock."
"Don't treat me like a child."
"No, my dear," said Dr. Howell. "Our plan is to treat you like a human being that we value too much to... what is your favorite term? ...'throw away.' "
The dean stood up. "And with that, we will adjourn this terrible meeting, in the hope that you will stay with us under these cruel circumstances." And he walked out of the room.
The members of her committee shook her hand—she accepted their handshakes numbly—and Dr.
Howell hugged her and whispered, "Your father's war will have many casualties before it's through.
You may bleed for him, but for God's sake, please don't die for him. Professionally speaking."
The meeting—and, quite possibly, her career—was over.
John Paul spotted her crossing the quad and made it a point to be leaning against the stair rail at the entrance to the Human Sciences building.
"Isn't it a little hot for a sweater?" he asked.
She paused, looking at him just long enough that he figured she must be trying to remember who he was.
"Wiggin," she said.
"John Paul," he added, holding out his hand.
She looked at it, then at his face. "Isn't it a little hot for a sweater," she said vaguely.
"Fu
"Is this some technique that works for you? Telling a girl she is dressed inappropriately? Or is it merely the mention of clothing that ought to come off?"
"Wow," said John Paul. "You saw right to my soul. And yes, it works on most women. I have to beat them back with a stick."
Again a momentary pause. Only this time he didn't wait for her to come up with some put-down. If he was going to recover any chance, it would take some fast misdirection.
"I'm sorry that I spoke the thought that came into my head," said John Paul. "I said 'Isn't it a little hot for a sweater?' because it's a little hot for a sweater. And because I wanted to see if you had a minute I could talk to you."
"I don't," said Ms. Brown. She walked past him toward the door of the building.
He followed. "Actually, we're in the middle of your office hours right now, aren't we?"
"So go to my office," she said.
"Mind if I walk with you?"
She stopped. "It's not my office hours," she said.
"I knew I should have checked," he said.
She pushed open the door and entered the building.
He followed. "Look at it this way—there won't be a line outside your door."
"I teach a low-prestige, bad-time-of-day section of Human Community," said Ms. Brown. "There's never a line outside my door."
"Long enough I ended up clear out there," said John Paul.
They were at the foot of the stairs leading up to the second floor. She faced him again. "Mr. Wiggin, you are better than average when it comes to cleverness, and perhaps another day I might have enjoyed our badinage."
He gri
"Yes, yes," she said, as if trying to answer his smile. "Today isn't a good day. I won't see you in my office. I have things on my mind."
"I have nothing on mine," said John Paul, "and I'm a good listener, amazingly discreet."
She walked on up the stairs ahead of him. "I find that hard to believe."
"Oh, you can believe it," he said. "Practically everything in my school records, for instance, is a lie, and yet I never tell anybody."
Again it took her a moment to get the joke, but this time she answered with one yip of laughter.
Progress.
"Ms. Brown," he said, "I really did want to talk to you about ideas from class. Whatever you might have thought, I wasn't coming on to you with some line, and I'm not trying to be clever with you. I was just surprised that you seem to be teaching a version of Human Community that isn't like the standard stuff—I mean, there's nothing about it in the textbook, which is all about primates and bonding and hierarchies—"