The room is very open and spacious. There are about a dozen tables grouped together with not many people seated at them. One or two here and there.

Around the perimeter are couches and coffee tables, modern in style and very stark. Near them are pedestals with sculptures on them and some room dividers with paintings hanging on them. It doesn't break up the feeling of a very open room.

Jake and Larry wind their way through the tables where three men are seated at one of the tables. Larry has no trouble doing this because they all sit at the same table every day. Larry finds his usual seat and sits down.

Larry says, "Aw Benson, not Kim Chee again!"

A Korean-American in basketball shoes, jeans and a black leather jacket replies, "Can I help it if my grandmother brought me enough to last into the next millennium? I'm sorry if my cabbage offends your nose!"

Hedley is also there, sort of a wise guy, thirty-ish, wears thick glasses and very nice clothes. He muses, "How can a culture that eats rotten cabbage consider itself superior to the rest of the world?" Hedley talks a good game but is maybe one step behind everyone else.

Larry slowly starts unpacking his bag and brings out brown rice salad. A grapefruit, unfiltered apple juice, stone ground wheat crackers.

The others at the table all purchased their lunches from the cafeteria. They look down at their food, noticing for the first time what they are actually eating. Dried up broiled chicken, over-cooked mushy string beans, anemic looking potatoes.

Hedley picks up the tone, "Did you guys see Hal Adams' latest simulation?"

Benson enthuses, "Yeah, it's amazing!"

But Larry is skeptical, "What's the big deal of all these pictures you guys are making?"

Jake replies, "The experience of seeing images from the frontier of knowledge is an epiphany of understanding -- a 'eureka' moment. It's a moment of enlightenment."

"That's if you can see it," Larry disagrees.

"Well, not to mention," Jake continues, "Just being able to consider the data in a different form -- a transformed state. It's a chance to see the problem from a different point of view."

Larry shrugs, goes back to eating, begins to drift off a little. The others go back to their conversation.

Larry remembers back to college. He always had an excellent grasp of the abstract mechanics of mathematics and physics. Laboratory classes were difficult when the materials weren't manipulative. But he had teachers who were able to explain the principles in terms he could grasp. And he had mathematical software on his computer which could do translations into Braille.

Now he's re-living one class where he is again just sitting and listening not being able to participate. The professor is just writing on the black board myriads of equations. Larry is sitting there with his tape recorder. He hears nothing but the sound of chalk on the blackboard.

The professor stops and says, "Fine, any questions?"

Well, Larry thinks, his Braille computer certainly saved him during that course. Larry shakes off the mental image.

The conversation has suddenly stopped and everyone's attention is drawn to Fiorella Terenzi walking past them through the room. She is a trim and magnificently endowed, blonde Northern Italian woman -- with a Ph.D. in astrophysics, who writes and composes music about cosmic romance.

She doesn't notice them, but they notice her. Larry sniffs the air softly after she has passed.

Larry whispers to himself, "Fiorella..."

"I'll say," Hedley agrees.

Benson pipes up, "Hey, are you going to her presentation on Friday?"

"No, I have to be someplace else that night," Larry replies, "Besides, I'm not sure I completely buy her story that her music is directly generated from radiotelescope data. It sounds awfully stylized to me. I think she's tweaked the information more than a little."

Benson's still thinking about Larry's problems in data interpretation. "Maybe you should talk to that guy Steve, down in the machine shop. He can make solid stuff out of computer data."

Larry can't believe he's been in the dark about this all this time. "Um, I've worked here what, almost two years now, who's Steve?"

Jake replies, "I can understand why you wouldn't know him. He's just arrived here from Switzerland. He's working on architectural designs on the computer."

"You'll have to hurry if you want to talk to him," Hedley says, "He's leaving for Mars Colony soon."

Larry is surprised, "Mars Colony, Wow. How'd he get to do that?"

Benson says, "Um, He's working on the magnets for the accelerator."

This doesn't make any sense, Larry is thinking, "They want an accelerator on Mars Colony?"

"No, No," Hedley breaks in, " That's what he first came here for.

Now they've got him working on some simulator machine."

"Simulating what?", Larry asks.

"A good time," Hedley laughs, "They can't be having much of one up there with the group they've got."

"What do you mean by that?" says Larry.

"Well you know," Benson offers, "You have to be in the upper echelons to be even considered to go up there."

Hedley adds, "You know 9 year old geniuses and 12 year old whiz kids."

Larry is incredulous, "What?"

Benson reassures him, "He's kidding, but you know they do have an IQ. requirement."

Larry still can't believe it, "No way!"

Jake gets up to leave, "I'm heading back on up now. Got a meeting with Hal about his proton simulation. You coming up with me Larry?"

"I'll be up in a minute, Larry replies.

After lunch Larry is on his way back to his office when Fiorella Terenzi approaches him in the hall. She is moving very swiftly, in an animated conversation with another scientist. She evidently doesn't know Larry is blind, for she walks straight into him.

"Oh, pardon me, please," she says.

Larry, realizing who it is, becomes very flustered. Dr. Terenzi reads his name tag and realizes who he is -- they have corresponded before. They are against the wall, crushed up against each other, off balance.

Fiorella purrs, "Dr. Larry, what a pleasure to meet you." His strong muscular body feels great to her. "Thank you for your paper on boson-spin polarization."

Larry stammers, "Dr. Terenzi." The feel of her is incredible. Her perfume makes him dizzy.

"Ah, you remember me?" Fiorella continues, "And my work?"

"Um, yes," Larry responds. They straighten up and Larry collects himself

Fiorella concludes, "Then I must catch up on what you have been doing lately, Dr. Larry. Another day. I must go with Dr. Alles. I have a meeting with him. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," Larry says.

Copyright 2000 Stewart Dickson and Rebecka Dickson