Pawn's Gambit: And Other Stratagems

To be honest, Gerald couldn’t blame him. The woman was a beauty, with high cheekbones, raven-black hair, big eyes, and perfect lips, the kind of woman who one would normally expect to have gone into acting, modeling, or politics instead of chemistry.

  She was going to be a distraction, Gerald knew. And not just to the students.

  But he was the instructor, and he would make sure he acted professionally. And while these men and women were in his classroom, they would do likewise.

  Fortunately, this particular semester he was going to have an unusual and, for the students, unexpected diversion to help keep the focus on their classwork.

  “And as an added bonus,” he continued, surreptitiously tapping his fingers to pull up the woman’s name, “we’re going to have an unofficial observer who’ll be vetting both the class and your performance.” Putting his tongue to his upper teeth, he blew a short whistle.

  And from the back of the room, where she’d been lying unseen under one of the tables, came Rosie.

  She was an impressive sight: seventy-five pounds of the sleek coat, panting tongue, and wagging tail of a perfect chocolate Labrador retriever. Personally, Gerald had always preferred the black variety, but the chocolate was his second favorite. “This is Rosie,” he announced as she trotted up to the desk and sat down on her haunches. Sherrie Nolan, he noted, and her ID picture didn’t nearly do her justice. With a twinge of guilt he tapped back out of the roster. “She’s a sniffer dog on loan from the Justice and Legal Studies Department. We’re going to be helping her learn how to find and identify various chemicals and drugs.”

  A hand went up. “Does that mean we’re going to be making illegal substances?” one of the men asked.

  “Are you asking hopefully, or apprehensively?” Gerald countered.

  “Neither,” the student said hastily. “Just asking.”

  “Ah,” Gerald said. “Well, either way, the answer is no. Justice and Legal Studies, remember? However, we will be dealing with some of the fragments and chemical markers all dangerous drugs and chemicals have in common. Smugglers sometimes bring in their contraband in fragments, planning to put the pieces back together with the aid of one of the NanoSembler’s baby brothers. We’ll be helping Rosie learn how to spot those fragments.”

  He tapped up the first page of the class curriculum. “And since she may start chewing the furniture if she gets bored,” he added, “let’s head back to the tables and get ready to do some science.”

  The class, as Gerald had tentatively concluded on that first day, turned out indeed to be one of the middle-road ones.

  Most of the students were competent, though not brilliant. A couple were near-brilliant, and there were a couple of slightly-laggard ones in the mix to balance them out. All in all, it made for a very credible Gaussian curve in his gradetext.

  Sherrie turned out to be not as much of a distraction as he’d feared. None of the males in the class was ever quite able to forget she was there, but she’d clearly learned a few tricks over the years for making it clear, in a nice and non-down-putting way, that she was there for the class work and the class work only. Most of the men figured it out within the first two weeks and accepted it with varying degrees of grace or regret.

  All except Winston. His eyes simply wouldn’t let the woman go, whether she was sitting at her desk during the instruction and recap sessions, or bent over her lab table juggling beakers and burners.

  He was also one of the laggards, and Gerald had to wonder how much of that relative slowness was the unalterable limitations of talent and ability and how much was the perfectly alterable limitation of unfocused attention.

  Still, whenever he judged Winston’s eyes and mind had lingered too long, he could always send in Rosie.

  Everyone in the class loved her. Even those who’d clearly had reservations about having her underfoot quickly became comfortable with the arrangement. It even added an extra layer to the friendly competition, as each lab pair tried to be first to create that session’s chemical mix and earn themselves Rosie’s first bark of approval.

  It got to be so normal, in fact, that the one day Gerald accidentally gave Rosie the wrong sample to sniff, resulting in a class with no approving barks at all, an outside observer would have thought everyone’s favorite uncle had just died. The relief in the room when he discovered and owned up to his error had been palpable, but he’d had to send Rosie to each table for a sniff and bark in order to fully restore the class’s spirits.

  She had become a part of the class. It wasn’t until the day before Winter Break, though, that Gerald found out just how vital a part she was.

  The lab session was over, the see-you-in-Januarys had been said, and the last students had trickled out. Gerald sat at his desk, tapping up the last comments and keeping half an eye on the clock. If he hurried, he might still be able to miss some of the mad rush as the campus turned itself inside out and scattered students and professors alike all across the Eastern Seaboard and beyond.

  He’d finished the last report and was checking the grammar and format when he suddenly noticed that Rosie was across the room, sitting on her haunches and staring up at the NanoSembler. “Rosie?” he called.

  There was no response. Frowning, Gerald got up and walked over to her.

  Only then did he spot the softly-glowing indicator lights on the NanoSembler’s control panel.

  “What the hell?” he muttered under his breath. He’d demonstrated the machine for the class two weeks ago, just to show them a little of what it could do. But he’d been careful to shut it off, and no one else in the class was DNA-coded to the device.

  Or were they?

  He hurried back to his desk as a sudden horrible thought struck him. The only way this could happen was if two errors happened to line up just right …

  They did. The TA who’d had this room and class last semester had failed to properly clear his students’ access codes.

  And Winston DeVries had taken, and failed, that same class.

  Winston was able to access the NanoSembler, and even having failed 301 once had probably learned enough to know how to operate the machine.

  The question was, what exactly had he used it to create?

  Clearly, Gerald’s first call needed to be to Campus Security. He grabbed his phone, keyed it on—

  And hesitated. He had no proof that Winston had done anything wrong. For that matter, he had no proof that the young man had done anything more than simply turn on the machine.

  Actually, he couldn’t even prove that.

  Winston had already failed a mid-level class. Calling Security down on him would add a second black mark to his record.

  Gerald couldn’t do that to the kid. Not unless it was really justified.

  The NanoSembler had an activity log, of course. But given the machine’s primary function of creating patentable chemicals, that log came from the factory heavily protected, seriously encrypted, and wrapped in a double layer of legal thorn hedges. Getting a clear readout could take weeks.

  Gerald couldn’t afford to wait that long. If Winston had created something dangerous or illegal he needed to be stopped before he could use it, and only Security could find him in time.

  Security … or maybe Rosie.

  She was still sitting by the NanoSembler. “Rosie, come,” Gerald ordered, going over to the desk where Winston had been sitting half an hour ago. It was a long shot, but Rosie should be capable of what he had in mind. “Winston DeVries,” he said, pointing to the chair. “Come on—Winston DeVries.”

  For a moment those big brown eyes just gazed at him. Then, leaning forward, she gave the chair a sniff. “Got it?” Gerald asked. “Good. Let’s go find him.”

  A minute later they were out in the cold afternoon air.

  Gerald kept his hands jammed into his pockets as he walked, wishing he’d brought his heavier coat this mornin
g. Of course, he hadn’t known when he left his apartment that he would be going anywhere except the short walk between his car and the chem building.

  At least there wasn’t any snow on the ground. He had no idea how Rosie would have handled that, or if human scent even stuck to ice crystals.

  As it was, she seemed to have no doubts at all about where she was going.

  They had left the campus proper, crossing the busy boundary street into town, when he spotted Winston. He was in one of the neighborhood’s most popular soup-and-sandwich diners, sitting at a two-person table one row back from the big front window.

  And he wasn’t alone. Sherrie Nolan was with him.

  Gerald puzzled over that as he hurried across the last fifty yards separating him from the diner. As far as he’d noticed, there had never been sparks of any kind flying between Winston and Sherrie. Certainly no sparks had come from Sherrie’s direction.

  But on second, closer study he realized it wasn’t what he’d first thought. Sherrie’s body language was completely proper, almost to the point of being prim, the posture of a woman just having a simple, Platonic drink or snack with a fellow classmate. If Winston thought his invitation was going to end differently, Gerald reflected, he was looking down the barrel of a big disappointment.

  Having his chem lab TA crash the party wasn’t going to make that final letdown any easier. But Gerald had no choice. He had to find out what the young man had been up to.

  He was nearly to the diner, and was working out what exactly he was going to say, when Sherrie turned around in her seat to look at something over her shoulder.

  And as Gerald watched, Winston reached over the table and surreptitiously sprinkled something into her soup bowl.

  He nearly ran down the girl handing out menus at the reception station as he barreled his way into the diner, Rosie trotting along right behind him. He bumped past a couple of frat-type guys, nearly flattened an oblivious tap-texting girl, and reached the table just in time to flick Sherrie’s spoon out of her fingers as she started to dip it into her chowder. “What in—?” she demanded, twisting around. “Oh—Mr. Kleindst. I didn’t realize—”

  “What was it?” Gerald snapped, glaring at Winston. “The stuff you put in her soup. What was it?”

  Winston’s face had gone white. “What are—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he managed.

  “You got into the NanoSembler,” Gerald said, distantly aware that the whole diner had gone suddenly quiet. “You made up something, and you just now put it in Sherrie’s soup. What was it?”

  In a tri-vi thriller, Gerald reflected bitterly, the villain either blurted out a confession or else made some desperate move that confirmed his guilt. Real life, unfortunately, didn’t play by such easy rules. Winston had had a moment to collect himself, he’d done so, and he wasn’t about to go down easily. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he insisted. “I picked up the salt—that’s all. Anyway, how could I have fiddled with the NanoSembler? I’m not even coded for it.”

  “You had coding left over from last semester,” Gerald said. But the moment had passed, and he knew it.

  Worse, so did Winston. He might have been caught, but there was no way Gerald could prove anything. In fact, he couldn’t even prove enough to get Security interested or a court order for the NanoSembler’s log. Whatever Winston had done, whatever he’d created in Gerald’s chem lab, he was going to get away with it.

  Unless …

  It was a long shot. A dangerous long shot. But it was all Gerald had left.

  “Fine,” he said between clenched teeth. “So there’s nothing wrong with this soup?” Before Winston could answer, Gerald picked up the bowl—

  And set it on the floor beside the table.

  “Rosie?” he invited, gesturing to the bowl and mentally crossing his fingers. “Here. Eat.”

  Winston’s eyes widened as Rosie dropped her head obediently to the bowl. “Wait a second,” he protested. “You can’t—”

  “Eat,” Gerald repeated.

  And with a gurgling that sounded remarkably like the noise from a half-stopped drain, Rosie did.

  Winston’s face had recovered from the earlier shock of Gerald’s unexpected entrance and accusation. Now, as he watched Rosie gobbling down Sherrie’s soup, the process reversed, again draining his skin of color. Gerald watched in silence, noting out of the corner of his eye that Sherrie was doing the same.

  A minute later, the slobbering sounds faded away. “Fine,” Gerald said into the fresh silence. “Whatever you put in the soup is now inside a dog. A dog who, incidentally, weighs only half as much as Sherrie. We can all sit here and see what it does to her, or you can tell me—right now—whether I need to get her to the vet for emergency treatment. Which is it going to be?”

  Winston was still staring at Rosie. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

  “Winston?” Sherrie said. To Gerald’s surprise, there was no anger or outrage in her voice, but only softness and compassion. Compassion for Rosie, certainly, but also compassion for Winston.

  Maybe it was her tone, and the implied forgiveness, that finally made the difference. Or maybe it was Winston’s own compassion and fears for what he’d done to the beloved class pet. “GHB,” he whispered, almost too softly for Gerald to hear. “Gamma-hydroxybutyric­ acid.”

  Gerald felt his stomach tighten. He should have guessed. Winston, mooning unrequitedly after the most beautiful, most desirable woman he’d probably ever known … “I see,” he said. “In that case, I guess I’d better find a vet. Come on, Rosie.”

  He looked at Sherrie, watching as the compassion in her face turned to a quiet horror. She, too, knew what GHB was, and what had almost happened to her.

  She also wasted no time with conversation or accusations. Even as Gerald and Rosie walked back out into the cold air she was already in her coat and heading at a fast walk for the exit. It was, Gerald knew, the last time she would ever have a friendly snack with Winston.

  In fact, given the number of witnesses in the diner, it was possibly the last time any woman on campus would do so.

  The NanoSembler had been designed to facilitate the building of disease-ending drugs, hunger-curing plant variants, and revolutionary fabrication materials.

  Not so desperate and depraved college students could create their own supply of date-rape drugs.

  Clem Chee’s eyes stopped moving as the news article came to an end, and he shook his head as he tapped it away. “Whoa,” he said. “That was not what I was expecting when I suggested this little trial.”

  “Well, that’s science for you,” Gerald said philosophically. “Was Galileo looking for new wonders in the heavens? Was Einstein trying to unify time and space?”

  “Actually, yes, they were,” Clem said dryly. “On the other hand, a lot of your field’s discoveries came from trying to turn lead into gold.”

  “I suppose,” Gerald said. “The point is that in science you should always expect the unexpected.” He braced himself. “I just hope you’re pleased enough at the results that you’re willing to overlook whatever problems came from me making Rosie eat that soup.”

  “Oh, there weren’t any problems,” Clem said casually. “Actually, she was designed so that she could follow up olfactory data with taste samples. Eating is fine—I just haven’t put the sensors in there yet.”

  “Oh, wonderful,” Gerald growled. Two days of worrying, for nothing. “That would have been nice to know. I was afraid she would short out and collapse halfway to the door.”

  “Not at all,” Clem said. “But after this, I’m definitely putting those sensors on the fast track.”

  “They could be useful,” Gerald agreed. “So will you be changing her name?”

  “What, from Rosie?” Clem asked. “No way. Besides, what would I change it to?”

  “Rots
ie, of course,” Gerald said. “Robotic Olfactory and Taste Sensor and Integrator, Experimental.”

  “That only makes sense if I build her into a Rottweiler design,” Clem pointed out. “Besides, the technical term for sense of taste is gustation. Rogsie? Ugh.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Gerald said. “Anyway, congratulations. Chemical Labrador Model 301 was a resounding success.”

  He smiled. “I can hardly wait to see what you’ve got planned for Chem Lab 302.”

  Pawn’s Gambit

  To: Office of Director Rodau 248700, Alien Research Bureau, Clars

  From: Office of Director Eftis 379214, Games Studies, Var-4

  Subject: 30th annual report, submitted 12 Tai 3829.

  Date: 4 Mras 3829

  Dear Rodau,

  I know how you hate getting addenda after a report has been processed, but I hope you will make an exception in this case. Our most recently discovered race—the Humans—was mentioned only briefly in our last annual report, but I feel that the data we have since obtained is important enough to bring to your attention right away.

  The complete results are given in the enclosed film, but the crux of the problem is a disturbing lack of con­sistency with standard patterns. In many ways they are un­sophisticated, even primitive; most of the subjects reacted with terror and even hysteria when first brought here via Transphere. And yet, unlike most primitives, there is a mental and emotional resilience to the species which frankly surprises me. Nearly all of them re­covered from their fear and went on to play the Stage-I game against their fellows. And the imagination, skill, and sheer aggressive­ness used in the playing have been inordinately high for such a young species, prompting more than one off-the-record comparison between Humans and the Chanis. I suppose it’s that, more than anything else, that made me unwilling to let this data ride until our next report. Confined as they are to their home planet, the Humans are certainly no threat now; but if they prove to be even a twelfth as dangerous as the Chanis they will need to be dealt with swiftly.

  Accordingly, I am asking permission to take the extraordinary step of moving immediately to Phase III (the complete proposal is attached to my report). I know this is generally forbidden with non-spacing races, but I feel it is vital that we test Humans against races of es­tablished ability. Please give me a decision on this as soon as possible.