The Turing Option

When the car started the boy fell asleep almost at once in the backseat. Paddy yawned widely then apologized.

“No need. Was it an awful trip?”

“Just long and wearisome. And, you know” — he glanced over his shoulder at Brian — “not easy in many ways. I’ll tell you all about it tonight.”

“What was the problem about the passport you mentioned on the phone?”

“Red tape nonsense. Something about me being born Irish and a nationalized American and Brian still being Irish, though the adoption papers should have taken care of that. But not according to the American consul in Dublin. They found some forms to fill out and in the end it was easier to get Brian an Irish passport and sort the rest out at this end.”

“We’ll do that at once. He is an American boy now and has no need for a strange foreign passport. And wait until you see. I fixed up the spare room like we agreed. A bunk bed, a little desk, some nice pictures. He’s going to like it.”

Brian hated this strange place. He was too tired at first to think about it. Woke up when his father carried him into the house. He had some strange-tasting soup and must have fallen asleep at the table. When he woke in the morning he cried out in fear at the strangeness of everything. His bedroom, bigger than the parlor at home. His familiar world was gone — even his clothes. His shorts, shirt, vest, gone while he slept. New clothes in bright colors now replaced their grays and blacks. Long trousers. He shivered when the door opened, pulled up the covers. But it was his father; he smiled, ever so slightly.

“Did you have a good sleep?” He nodded. “Good. Take yourself a shower, right in there, it works just like the one in the Dublin hotel. And get dressed. After breakfast I’ll show you around your new home.”

The shower still took some getting used to and he still wasn’t sure that he liked it. Back home in Tara the big cast-iron bathtub had been good enough.

When they walked out he felt that it was all too strange, too different to take in at once. The sun was too hot, the air too damp. The houses were all the wrong shape, the motorcars were too big — and drove on the wrong side of the road. His new home was a strange place. The pavement was too smooth. And water all around, no hills or trees. Just the flat, muddy-looking ocean and all the black metal things in the water on all sides. Why did it have to be like that? Why weren’t they on land? When they had arrived at the big airport they had changed to another plane, had flown across the state of Texas — that is what his father had called it — to get here, an apparently endless and empty place. Driven from the airport and parked the car.

“I don’t like it here.” He said it without thinking, softly to himself, but Paddy heard.

“It takes some getting used to.”

“Middle of the ocean!”

“Not quite.” Paddy pointed to the thin brown line on the distant horizon; it shimmered in the heat. “That’s the coast, just over there.”

“There ain’t no trees,” Brian said, looking around at this strange new environment.

“There are trees right in front of the shopping center,” his father said.

Brian dismissed them. “Not real trees, not growing in barrels like that. It’s not right. Why isn’t this place properly on the land?”

They had walked the length of the metal campus and the adjoining housing area. Stopped now to rest on a shaded bench overlooking the sea. Paddy slowly filled his pipe and lit it before he spoke.

“It’s not simple to explain, not unless you know a lot about this country and how things work here. What it comes down to is that it is all a matter of politics. We have laws in the United States about research money, research projects at the universities, who can and ca

“Headhunters live in New Guinea and kill people and cut off their heads and smoke them and shrink them. You got them here too?”

Paddy smiled at the boy’s worried look and reached out to ruffle his hair; Brian pulled away.

“Different kind of headhunters. That’s slang for offering someone a lot of money to leave their old job. Or giving big grants to get the best students.”

Brian digested this new information, squinting out at the glare of the sun upon the water. “Then if you was headhunted here, then you must be something special?”

Paddy smiled, liking the way Brian’s brain worked. “Well, yes, I suppose I must be if I am here.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a mathematician.”

“Twelve and seven is nineteen like in school?”

“You start there and then it gets more complicated and more interesting.”

“Like what f’rinstance?”

“Like after arithmetic there’s geometry. And after that comes algebra — and then calculus. There is also number theory, which is sort of out of the mainstream of mathematics.’’

“What’s number theory?”

Paddy smiled at the serious expression on the little boy’s face and started to dismiss the question. Then thought twice about it. Brian seemed to be always surprising him with odd bits of information. He appeared to be a bright lad who believed that everything could be understood if you asked the right questions. But how could he possibly begin to explain higher mathematics to an eight-year-old? Well, one step at a time.

“Do you know about multiplying?”

“Sure — it’s fun. Like 14 times 15 is 210 because so is 6 times 35 and 5 times 42.”

“Are you positive?”

“Ain’t no mistake. Because they’re both as 2 times 3 times 5 times 7. I like 210 because it’s made up of four. different chunky numbers.”

“Chunky numbers? Is that an Irish term?”

“Nope. Made it up myself,” the boy said proudly. “Chunkies are numbers with no parts. Like 5 and 7. And big ones like 821 and 823. Or 1721 and 1723. A lot of the big ones come in pairs like that.”

Chunky numbers was Brian’s term for prime numbers, Paddy realized. Should eight-year-olds know about primes? Were they taught at this age? — He couldn’t remember.

It was after eleven that night when Dolly turned off the television. She found Paddy in the kitchen. His pipe had gone out and he was staring, unseeing, out into the darkness.

“I’m going to bed,” she said.

“Do you now what Brian seems to have done? All by himself. At the age of eight. He has discovered prime numbers. Not only that — he seems to have worked out some pretty efficient ways to find primes.”

“He’s a very serious little boy. Never smiles.”

“You’re not listening. He’s very bright. More than that — he has a basic understanding of mathematics, something almost all of my students are lacking.”

“If you think so then have them do an I.Q. test in school. I’m tired. We can talk about it in the morning.”

“I.Q. tests are too culturally orientated. Later maybe, when he has been here a while. I’ll talk to his teachers about it when I take him to school.”

“Not the very first day you won’t! He has to get used to things first, settle in. And it’s about time you thought about your own classes, research. I’ll take him to school tomorrow. You’ll see, it’s going to work out fine.”

Brian hated the school. From the very first moment he arrived. Hated the big fat black headmaster. He was called a principal here. Everything was different. Strange. And they laughed at him, from the very begi

“That will be your class seat,” she said, pointing not too precisely at the row of desks.