Страница 37 из 96
One morning when Cooksey was meeting with Rupert on the terrace, and she was mopping the floor, Kevin came and had a look and commented that she had finally found her place in life as a janitor. He meant the remark as one of his casual put-downs, but rather to her surprise Je
She turned away from him and continued mopping, and waited for a nasty comeback, which failed to come. Instead, Kevin said, “So what’s the situation, babe? When’re you coming back to the cabin?”
“I don’t know, Kevin”-still mopping-“do you want me back?”
“Well, shit, yeah! What do you think?”
She stopped her work and faced him. “What do you think I should think? When they kicked me out, you were, like, totally cool with me taking off. So, what, you changed your mind?”
“Hey, I’m sorry, all right? I was wrong, okay? You don’t have to get all bitchy about it.”
She leaned on her mop and stared at him, as all the good energy she had enjoyed over the past few days seemed to drain out of her. For the first time she noticed something blurry in his face, and she realized that it had to do with all the time she’d been spending with Cooksey. The professor’s face was solid in a way, a reflection of what was really going on in his head, while Kevin’s was always waiting to see which expression was right for getting him what he wanted, like now, he was giving her the melting, yearning look, slightly hurt, and despite herself it was starting to work. She really did love him, even when he was a total piece of shit, and she knew he really loved her, or would someday if she just kept at him, if she could find a way of making him more like Cooksey. But not just now, just at the moment she had no patience for his tricks. She said, “Well, if I’m bitchy, you don’t have to hang around, do you?”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Come on, babe, be nice.” The fetching smile, and now he took a step onto the freshly mopped floor. “Out!” she said. “I got work to do.”
And he slammed out, muttering curses, leaving her shaken and amazed at herself. This argument had proceeded at a peculiar low volume, for Rupert was out on the terrace and Rupert required at least the appearance of harmony. Luna was the only resident allowed to give vent at full voice. Later that day, Je
Cooksey appeared at her elbow. “Moving in, are you?”
“Only if it’s all right.”
“Not to worry, my dear. You created the space, and may claim it. Although I’d appreciate it if your domestic affairs did not interfere with our work, hm?”
“No. And thanks.”
“Good. As to that, work I mean, I believe we are ready to begin.”
“I thought Iwas working.”
“No, no, I meanwork. Scientific work. Surely you didn’t think I required a mere slavey? A char?”
Je
“What kind of work?” she said suspiciously.
“Evolutionary biology. That’s what I do, you see. In addition to my work for the Alliance, I have to maintain scientific respectability by doing research and publishing papers, or else no one will take me seriously when I speak out about the destruction of rain forest habitat and so on. Now, the cryptic species of fig-pollinating wasps are an important area of study in evolutionary biology. The trees can’t reproduce without the wasps, you see, and the wasps can’t live without the trees. Moreover, each species of tree has one and only one species of wasp that can pollinate it, so we have an example of coevolution. We think; the issue of one-to-one specificity is much discussed now in Agaonid circles, and that’s what I’m working on. Have I lost you?”
“Uh-huh. Professor, I dropped out of school in seventh grade.”
“Yes, quite, but perhaps not entirely a disadvantage. Taxonomy is one of the few scholarly fields in which original contributions can still be made by people with no education whatever. You’ll call me Cooksey, by the way, except if we’re ever on a campus where I’m actually professing.”
He led her over to his desk, now uncluttered, and sat her down in the leather chair he used for reading. He sat behind his desk.
“Now, what do you know about evolution?” he asked.
She thought; a scene from a movie crossed her mind. She said, “Monkeys turned into people?”
“Just so, very good. But a great deal happened before that. In the begi
Je
“I’ll tell you, then,” he said. “The cells of our body contain a chemical code that causes our bodies to make us and nothing else, out of food and water and air. And we reproduce, don’t we? But, of course, not exactly. Nigel and Je
A small blush covered Je
It was not a rhetorical question. Je
“Very good. Mrs. McGrath was practicing artificial selection. Charles Darwin made a similar observation, and that’s how he came to invent the whole idea. But in nature there’s no state to close her down. So we have both a struggle for existence and small variations among creatures from the same parent, and what follows?”
A shorter pause this time. Je