Rainbows End

"Indeed so, though sometimes I wonder if I'm not just a fish on a very long line." He gave a wan smile. "I really did want to do my thesis about you, Professor Gu. In the begi

"How much was you, Sharif? How many — ?"

"I wondered that too! There were at least two besides myself. It was a most frustrating experience, sir, especially at the begi

"So you could still hear and see?"

"Yes, often that was so! So often that I think the others were using me to generate some questions for inspiration, and then warping them to their own purposes. In the end — and my confessing this to your police was a great mistake — in the end, I came to treasure these bizarre interventions. My dear hijackers were asking questions I would never have conceived. So I hung around throughout your Librareome conspiracy, and in the end I looked the perfect foreign provocateur."

"And if you hadn't been there the night of the riot, my Miri would have died. What did you see, Zulfi?"

"What? Well, I had been most thoroughly locked out that evening. The other players on my persona had agendas that did not include any discussion of literature. But I kept trying to get through. The police claimed I never would have succeeded without terrorist assistance. In any case, for a few seconds I could see you lying there on the floor. You asked for my help. The lava was creeping up against your arm…" He shivered. "In truth, I couldn't see any more than that."

Robert remembered that conversation. It was one of the sharpest fragments in the jumble.

The two of them, eight thousand miles apart, sat in silence for a few moments. Then Sharif cocked his head quizzically. "Now I am well quit of my perilous literary research. And yet, I ca

Ah. "You're right, there is room for something more. But you know — some secrets are beyond the expression of those who experience them."

"Not beyond you, sir!"

Robert found himself smiling back. Sharif deserved the truth. "I could write something, but it would not be poetry. I got a new life, but the Alzheimer's cure… it destroyed my talent."

"Oh no! I had heard of Alzheimer failures, but I honestly never suspected you. Thinking there might be another canto of the Secrets was about the only good thing I still hoped to come out of this adventure. I am so sorry."

"Don't be too sorry. I wasn't… a very nice person."

Sharif looked down and then back at Robert. "I had heard that. In the days I couldn't get through to you, I interviewed your former colleagues at Stanford, even Winston Blount when he wasn't making conspiracies."

"But — "

"It doesn't matter, sir. I eventually realized that you had lost your sadistic edge."

"Then surely you would have guessed the rest!"

"Do you think so? Do you think your talent and your malevolence were a package deal?" Sharif leaned forward, engaged in a way that Robert had not seen since their interviews of weeks before. "I… doubt that. But researching the issue would be intriguing. For that matter, I have long wondered — and been too timid to ask — what really changed in you? Were you a decent fellow from the time of your dementia cure? Or was the change as in Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol,' with new experience making you kindlier?" He rocked back. "I could make such a splendid thesis out of this!" His eyes swept back to Robert, questioning.

"No way!"

"Yes, yes," said Sharif, nodding. "It is such a great opportunity that I almost forgot my resolutions. And the first of those resolutions is no more activities that get me mixed up with the security authorities." He looked up, as if at unseen watchers. "Do you hear that? I am clean, clean in body and soul and even in my fresh fried clothes!" And then addressing Robert once more: "In fact, I have a new academic major."

"Oh?"

"Yes. It will take several semesters of prerequisite fulfillment, but that will be worth it. You see, the University of Kolkata is starting a new department with new faculty, real go-getters. We have a long way to go considering the competition from the universities in Mumbai — but the people here have funding, and they're willing to take on fresh faces such as myself." He gri

Robert was actually busy between semesters. His contrived synch hack had raised him to the lowest level of guru-hood. He'd been noticed by a small company called Comms-R-Us. In a way it was a traditional firm. It was old (five years old), and it had three full-time employees. So it wasn't as nimble as some operations, but it had managed several i

For the first time since he lost his marbles, he was creating something that others valued.

Otherwise, things were not going entirely smoothly. Juan Orozco was gone; his parents had taken him on vacation to Puebla, where they were visiting his mother's grandfather. Juan still showed up occasionally, but Miri was not talking to him.

"I'm trying not to care, Robert. Maybe if I stop bothering her, Miri will let me start over with her." Nevertheless, Robert had the feeling the boy might have camped out on their front steps if his parents had not dragged him away.

"I'll talk to her, Juan. I promise."

Juan had looked at him doubtfully. "But don't make her think I put you up to it!"

"I won't. I'll choose the time carefully."

Robert had decades of experience in choosing the right time to strike. This should have been easy. Miri had wangled an Incomplete grade on her demo project. That meant that when she finally did perform, at the end of the next semester, she would have even higher standards to meet. For now, she was a busybody around the house, mainly taking care of her mother. Alice Gu was a ghost of her former self. The steel of the last fifteen weeks of their acquaintance had been torn out of her. The result was… charming. More evenings than not, Alice and Miri were down in the kitchen, attempting to make hard work out of modern cookery. His daughter-in-law was distant, but her smile wasn't the meaningless reflex it had often seemed before.

Then Bob was out of town again, and Miri seemed to be busier than ever. Every day, she had some news for him about her searches on burns and limb rehabilitation. Real soon now he should use that as an excuse to set her straight about Juan… and about himself.

Maybe tonight was the right night. Bob was still out of town. Alice had retired to the ground-floor den shortly after di