Vicious Circle (short story 5)

Inspired by A. Chekov's Perpetuum Mobile

An elderly government physician Lee Bevers, who had entered the civil service even before World War 3, and XKV, his emotibot who had taken a melancholy turn, are on their way to an autopsy. They're cruising at low altitude along a scenic route to their next appointment. Even with enhanced night-vision, the moon-lit winter night casts dark shadows and the blue snow was gently swirling down.

On the snow planet, Alderan-Taygeta.
Licenced CC SA 3.0 (screen grab from Sintel by flickr's Futurilla

“It’s vile, this planet!” Bevers says. “There’s no civilization, ‘bots everywhere you turn, and nothing but fowl weather! To think that this is a United Worlds territory. The snow ... the snow! As though it were being paid to pour on us. Go faster XKV or I’ll scrap you for parts, you giant tin can!”

A ‘bot craft flew by them going in the opposite direction. XKV beeped at them in a friendly way. “I am programmed to mimic emotions, but I do not feel this weather as you do. I do feel a sense of dread, as though we or someone close to us may die at any time,” the ‘bot says.

“You ought to be feeling ashamed, talking like an old woman, that’s the way you should feel. Get us out of this weather. I can’t go on with this snow. Who lives on this rock that we know?”

“Searching data-banks ... connecting ... please wait ... searching ... Martin Bell.”

“Martin, that old bastard! I haven’t visited him in a long time. Head for Bell’s place.’

“Recomputing trajectory ...”

They banked and then flew over frozen ice-covered hills and thick monsterous forests and deep raging rivers.

Frozen ice-covered hills on Alderan-Taygeta.
Licenced CC SA, by flickr's Futurilla

They landed in a large courtyard of Judge Bell’s estate. The light posts turn on automatically as their craft set down. “He’s in!” Bevers said, climbing down to look in the brightly lit windows of the house of Martin Bell, judge of the district court of the Interplanetary Judicial System. “This is a change for the better. We’ll get some good hot food, you can run a circuit diagnostic while you recharge and I can get a decent night’s sleep. For a worthless fellow, Bell’s friendly enough, you have to admit. Don’t record that.”

“Deleting ...”

“Transmit a greeting to Bell,” Bevers says. XKV emits some beeps.

They walked up to the entrance and XKV emits some beeps. The doorway lit up and beeped back. In a moment, it opened and Bell himself greeted them. He was a thin, wrinkly old man with a short white beard and a balding head. “Hello, Lee. I was happy to get your message. It was surprisingly flattering of you,” Bell says. Bevers squints questioningly at XKV. “Come in," Bell says, waving them forward.

Bevers and XKV entered the huge entrance hall. There were marble floors and balconies on either side.

Bell's estate on Alderan-Taygeta.
modified from a photo by A. Milligan, licenced CC by 2.0

"You’ve come at the right moment, as we are just starting dinner. We’re having Fennebian steak, imported from Ancius-Alcyon. My daughter Maddie is here. Did you hear she lost her husband in a airbot crash recently?”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bevers said.

“Also, Assistant District Councillor Louston is here. He’s come out to make sure I’m be in court tomorrow,” Bell said. “The docket has been backed up for the past month.”

Bevers and XKV entered the dining hall. A large table is set with apetizers, wines and ales. Also at the table is the judge’s sad-eyed daughter Madeline, mourning in a dark dress. Next to her sits Louston, a young man from the other side of Alderan-Taygeta with blue whiskers and thick viens in his neck.

“Maddie, are you acquinted with my old friend Dr. Bevers? Lee, this is my daughter and this is Councillor Louston.”

The young woman gifts Bevers with a faint smile, but with sad eyes. She extends her hand to Bevers.

“As you are freshly arrived,” Bell said, pouring two drinks for Bevers, “you have some catching up to do! To our health!” They downed their glasses and Bevers attacked the steak. XKV asked to be excused to recharge batteries and run diagnostic tests on its circuitry. Bell poured more glasses. “The glasses are waiting! Doctor! Let us drink to medicine, and the power to keep us feeling young!”

Bevers and Madeline moved to the other room with their drinks. They all fell into conversation, except the Councillor. It was obvious he did not think highly of Bevers, who cheered up Madeline by playing a simple piano tune.

“You are on your way to an autopsy?” she asked. “To dissect a dead body? What courage that must take. I admire men with courage. I am afraid of flying, especially after my husband’s crash. He was very brave, may he rest in peace.”

“So sad,” Bevers said, distracted.

“Doctor, is something bothering you?” she asked.

“Call me Lee. I don’t like this weather. My emotibot XKV feels a sense a dread, as though a loved one would die.”

“Are you married? Do you have any children?”

“I have no one. XKV is my only friend, if you can call a robot a friend.” “You are lucky to have such a nice emotibot. This dread it reports could just be a malfunction.”

Bevers and the widow finish several bottles of wine while discussing emotibots and other matters of the heart. Bell and his other guests get involved with some sort of multi-player game involving lots of shouting and swearing and eating and drinking. Hours passed as seconds.

Suddenly, Bell realized that time was getting late and he had to be in court the next morning. “What am we doing? In only a few more hours, I’ve got to set off for my court session and here we are drinking and gaming. Maddie, time for sleep. To bed everyone, I declare our party adjourned.”

Madeline wished Bevers a good night. “I have trouble sleeping these nights. The wind knocks against my window, and I miss my husband terribly. You are lucky that you can sleep on a night like this.”

“I can give you something to help you sleep, if you like,” Bevers offers.

“No, thank you doctor, I’ll go read myself to sleep with a good book. If the light from a lamp on the window sill is visible under my door in the hallway, then you will know I’m still awake.”

*

In the room assigned to the doctor and XKV, a large comfortable bed invited Bevers. While XKV reported his diagnostics, Bevers got undressed and slipped under his covers. “The diagnostics report a circuitry problem,” XKV says.

“Fixable?”

“No, a controller board must be replaced. Inventory reports there are several in supply at the home base.”

“Can it wait?” Bevers said, flipping onto his back and belching loudly.

“Yes.”

Bevers squirmed restlessly in his bed and said, “I can’t stop thinking about the widow.”

“That's because you’re drunk,” XKV says.

“She told me she had trouble sleeping and would be awake if I saw her reading light on from under her door. Do you think I should go knock on her door?”

XKV beeps a warning. “No. That’s a stupid idea. I advise against it.”

“You’re a robot, how would you know?”

“I know because I am a robot. You are drunk. Go to sleep.”

Bevers got up and started getting dressed, swearing at XKV as he did so. XKV moved in front of the door, blocking his exit. “What the hell do you think you are going?” Bevers asks.

“I’m not letting you pass. You’re 60. She’s 30. Use your head.”

“I’ll use my fists to smash you into bits, you tin can!”

“Titanium alloy. You will break your knuckles. It’s happened before. If you have forgotten, I can replay the video.”

“Uhmm...”

“3D or 2D?”

“Oh, I remember now. Don’t play the video. Suddenly, I don’t want to stay here any longer. Let’s go home."

They packed up quietly and slipped down the long hallway past the light under Madeline’s door, and out the front door. After dusting off the snow from their craft, they take off. “What about the autopsy?” XKV asks.

“Some other time. I will not feel right until we are home. Do you still have the sense of dread you reported before?”

“Following the diagnostics, I turned off all related emotional sensors. Are you still thinking of the widow?”

“Yes, but when we get home I will be fine. Can you make this go faster?”

“Lovely female shapes are terrible complicators of the difficulties and dangers of this earthly life...”

“Are you running through your database of quotations?” Bevers interrupts.

“Yes, I thought it would make you feel better. That was George du Maurier. Shall I continue?”

“Just shut up.”

XKV whirs a bit and a few of the indicator lights turn off. Several days go by silently during the interplanetary flight. Bevers busies himself by reading, watching videos, and isometric exercises. When they dock at their home base, he directs XKV to go to the repair shop and get his controller card replaced. On return, XKV says “My controller card has been replaced and I now pass all diagnostics. I apologize for any inconvenience my performance caused. I am under warranty and can file a claim on your behalf if you wish.”

“No, thank you XKV, that won’t be necessary.”

“Shall I prepare for the trip to the autopsy?”

“What autopsy?”

“The one you were going to do on the snow planet when my controller card went bad.”

“I completely forgot. Yes, of course.”

They pack and take off again.

“I’m sorry I got so upset and called you a tin can.”

“I was given an upgraded controller board during my repairs. My new circuitry has an improved ability to process irrational emotional outbursts.”

They had a pleasant trip back to the snow planet, and were flying low over an area not far from Bell’s estate.

“I think I see lights over there. What is that? Cruise over and let’s check it out.”

Alien's Alley, a bar on Alderan-Taygeta.
by A. Milligan, licenced CC by 2.0

“Records indicate that is a drinking establishment, Alien's Alley. Recomputing trajectory ... the ship identification system reports Bell’s ship is docked in the area.”

“Bell, that bastard son of an alien, is at that bar down there?” Bevers asks. XKV searches his records and then projects the Alley's menu on the front screen.

“I do believe that’s the bar with the cute barmaid! Let’s get a drink and see what old Bell is up to.” The travelers dock and make their way over to the tavern.

Bell's inside and surprised to see them. “Doctor! Where are you coming from? Where are you heading too this time?” he asks.

“We keep heading out for the same autopsy and we keep having running into problems getting there. It’s a vicious circle,” Bevers says, slapping the cute waitress on her bottom. She's got a gorgeous face and figures, but ams like a spider.

"Do that again and I will rip the skin off your face,'' cute waitress says, holding her hand up at him. Instead of a palm of skin, it's covered with tiny hooks.

“Doctor, let us drink to vicious circles!” Bell says.

They drank and told stories of medicine and law and cute barmaids and vicious circles, or was it vicious barmaids and cute circles?

In Memorium (short story 3)

Over a year ago, as an exercise, I started writing one short story a week. This was something Harlan Ellison (I think) suggested to one of his fans, his reasoning being "You can't write 52 bad short stories in a row." I'm not sure about that, but here's one of those stories.

Inspired by A. Chekov's short "The Orator."
*

Helen Sodre, the youngest mathematics professor ever tenured at Yale, unlocks her door. It has a name plate “Professor Helen Sodre” above the paper tray mounted beside her door. She enters her office and dumps a pile of papers and books on a chair. To anyone else, it’s a messy office, but to her it is carefully organized. She knows where everything is. If you were to ask her, where’s Zalivsky’s paper on the classification of strongly regular signed graphs? She’d tell you it’s the third paper under the red book by Gramwood on combinatorics in the pile on the floor near the window.

Emily, her only graduate student (meaning, Helen’s Emily’s thesis advisor), knocks on the doorframe and comes in asking a math question. “What if I use Kramer’s method to do the estimate?” Emily’s about the same age as Helen. They communicate like equals.

“Good idea, Emily. Try it,” Helen said, as she sits in front of her computer reading emails. “Did you ever meet Jorgensen?” Helen asks.

“Jorgensen spelled with an ‘son’ or with an ‘sen”’ Emily asks.

“Spelled with an ‘sen”’ Helen says.

“No. I heard he got cancer the year before I arrived. Why?”

“I knew him pretty well until he got sick. He mentored me when I first got here. The organizers of his memorial conference have asked me to give a talk. Wanna go?”

“Where is it?”

“Bowdoin.”

“Maine in the summer? Sounds nice. Thanks Professor.”

“It kind of does, doesn’t it? Let’s go. Pack light, no sweaters or coats.”

*

Helen and Emily depart a shuttle van in downtown Bowdoin, each wearing a short-sleeved shirt and dragging two-wheeled luggage behind them. A “Welcome to Bowdoin” sign is ahead. They see a Bank of Bowdoin sign with a time of 2pm and a temperature of 35 degrees. Next door to the bank is Annie’s Tavern.

“Why do we have to fly into Bowdoin the one day of the summer when it’s friggin’ freezing?” Helen asks.

“That tavern looks warm.” They head to Annie’s Tavern.

Once inside, Helen and Emily sit at a small table, with their luggage beside them. “Nice and toasty in here,” Helen says, taking her coat off. A waiter walks up. “Just two beers,” she orders.

“You got it,” the waiter says, then leaves.

“What are you going to say about Jorgensen in your talk?” Emily asks.

“Good question. I guess people what to know what it’s like to work with him. I knew him as a co-worker, not as a co-author or advisor.”

The waiter returns with their beers. “Here you go,” he says, putting the bill down as well.

“Were you friends?”

“God no. He got my friend Matilda pregnant. She had to leave grad school to have the baby. She never told him.”

“I had no idea. Are you going to tell everyone that?”

“Should I? What do you think? He’s dead, what good would it do?”

“Won’t his widow be at the talk?”

“He never married,” Helen says.

“What if Matilda's not the only one? What difference does it make?”

Helen thinks about it as they finish their beers.

“We should make it to our rooms. Your talk is at 5 o’clock, right?” Emily says.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Helen says, putting a ten down down for the bill as they put their coats back on.

Outside, Helen and Emily start to shiver as soon as they leave the tavern. Dragging her two-wheeler suitcase behind her, Helen says “Holy crap, it’s cold. Did the temperature drop that fast?”

Emily points ahead. "See The College Tavern a block ahead? Let’s stop in there just to warm up,” she suggests. They head to The College Tavern.

Inside, Helen and Emily sit at a small table, with their luggage beside them. “My teeth were chattering out there,” Emily says.

“This feels much better. The heater’s overhead.” A waitress walks up. “Just two light beers,” Helen says.

"Did he ever hit on you?" Emily asks. "Jorgensen, I mean, with the -sen."

"Back then? Let me think. I think it was more sexist jokes. I didn't laugh."

"Sounds like a misogynist jerk."

"He wasn't that bad. Is that a problem with you or the other female graduate students?"

"At a grad student mixer, one guy said he wanted to fuck me right there. Just like that. We'd just met that day."

``Sounds like a jerk. I hope you slapped his face."

"Look at the time," Emily says, changing the topic. Helen and Emily leave the tavern dragging two-wheelers behind them.

“Holy mother of christ, it’s freezing out here,” Emily says, teeth chattering. Helen points to a "The Polar Bear Bar & Grill" sign a block ahead.

Inside, Helen and Emily sit at a small table, with a large neon “Polar Bear Bar & Grill” above the bar on the other side of the room. Emily is shivering. “I’m starting to defrost,” Emily says.

A waitress walks up. “T-t-two beers, p-p-please,” Helen says, teeth chattering. In a moment, the waitress returns with their beers. “I gave you ladies ale’s. No up-charge,” she says, putting the bill down as well.

“Thank you,” Helen says, taking a large sip.

“So Jorgensen with an 'e' slept with at least five grad students, getting three of them pregnant?” Emily asks. “I heard Jorgenson spelled with an 'o', who's much younger, slept with some of his students. Almost sounds like him.”

“No, we’re talking about Jorgensen spelled with an ‘e.’ Plus, Jorgensen stole Smottle’s construction of strongly regular graphs.”

“You mean, Jorgensen graphs are actually Smottle graphs?”

“Yep. Smottle slept with the chairman’s wife around the same time Jorgensen refereed his paper. Jorgensen put his name on it and told Smottle to shut up about it to keep the affair secret,” Helen says.

“That’s the worst case of academic dishonesty I’ve ever heard of. I thought the Jorgenson in Jorgenson graphs were spelled with an ‘o.”’

“‘E’, Emily, not ‘o.’ That jerk Jorgensen will not be missed.” They finish their beers.

“It’s 4 o’clock and your talk is at 5,” Emily says.

“We'd better go straight to the auditorium,” Helen says.


*

Helen and Emily sit at the edge of the front row of a crowded auditorium. Helen belches loudly.

Professor Morgenstern introduces Helen. “Our last speaker of the day is the youngest mathematics professor ever tenured at Yale. She’s also the only scientist who’s won both the Abel Prize and the Wolff Prize: Professor Helen Sodre!”

To generous applause, Helen mounts the stairs to the stage, tripping drunkenly over the top step.

“Here did that fucker come from?” Helen jokes on her way to the podium. Helen looks over the crowd of smiling faces. A elderly woman in black sits in the center of the front row. Behind her sits Professor Jorgenson. (That’s Jorgenson with an ‘o,’ for those keeping score at home.) “We are here to reflect on the memories of by former colleague Professor Jorgensen. What a man,” Helen says.

The elderly woman in the center sniffs and dabs her eyes with a hankerchief.

“We mathematicians are personifications of truth and rigor,” Helen says. Everyone nods. “I want to share the truth about Jorgensen.”

“Oh, no,” Emily says. She slouches down in her seat.

“I have a friend named Matilda who he got pregnant. She had to leave grad school to have the baby she had with Jorgensen,” Helen says.

“What did you say?” asks the elderly woman in the center.

“She never told him,” Helen adds.

“What did you say?” Jorgenson asks.

“Is there an echo in here?” Helen asks. Then she belches.

“She wasn’t the first,” Helen continues.

The elderly woman in the center breaks down and cries.

Helen belches. “But that wasn’t all. Have you heard of Jorgensen graphs?”

Jorgenson gets up with an embarrassed huff and quickly leaves.

“Jorgensen graphs ... wait, Jorgenson graphs are spelled ‘son’ not ‘sen”,’ Helen says.

“That’s what I told you before,” Emily says.

“After three beers, I can’t understand what you are saying,” Helen says.

“Are you saying my husband stole his results?” asks the crying elderly widow.

“Who are you?” Helen asks.

“Mrs Jorgensen,” she replies.

Beellccchh. “Is that spelled ‘son’ or ‘sen”,’ Helen asks.

Professor Morgenstern mounts the stairs to the stage shouting, “Let us thank our speaker?”