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One Favor By S. Leigh Farmer CHAPTER 1: IN THE LAB The stale air among the instrumentation racks hung heavy with the odor of ozone and warm shellac. The lab air conditioning labored at full strength, but a few pockets of uncomfortably warm air persisted. Valerie Owens shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she stood among the tall cabinets of exotic electronic instruments trying to calibrate an obstinate phase correlator. She could feel rivulets of perspiration slithering down her neck as she carefully rotated the regeneration adjustment a fraction of a turn to the left. The young woman brushed the damp bangs out of her eyes as she concentrated on the null meter and gently nudged the calibration control a bit farther. The mirror-like front panel of the correlator reflected eyes that were bloodshot and tired, no doubt from the long hours she had already spent on the project; and skin pale from too many days without exposure to sunlight. Despite those temporary flaws, Valerie thought herself moderately attractive. She was just under five- six, weighed one-fifteen and had an ample figure. Her slender waist and narrow hips served to accentuate her bust which was actually less generous by measurement than it appeared to the eye. Her husband of five months, Barry, never failed to compliment her face or body. He particularly liked her long blond hair and deep blue eyes. Barry's flattery at the end of a tiring day could erase the cares and make her feel as lovely as his words described her. Five months she'd been married. Nearly half a year. Even now, she frequently had to remind herself that the name imprinted on her security badge was Doctor Valerie Bergstrom Owens Ph.D. Doctor Owens. Doctor of engineering. Getting this far had not been easy. During her undergraduate years there were few other women in her classes and by the time Valerie entered the engineering doctoral program she was the only female among a few dozen male candidates. She worked hard and did well in her studies and had carved out a niche for herself in magnetic theory. She impressed a number of people at the Institute with her brilliant thesis and received her doctorate in only sixteen months. Along with the doctorate had come the offer to stay on at the Institute as an engineering professor and the youngest-ever head of a research project in the Applied Energy Labs. She'd received her degree six months ago, at the tender age of twenty-four and now she was leading a major project funded by grants totaling several million dollars. Her wedding day arrived not long after she received her degree, but as soon as Valerie unpacked from the honeymoon the National Energy Commission awarded their annual grants and she was working against a deadline. In addition to conducting two daily graduate lecture classes, she dedicated as many as sixteen hours of each day to her research, sometimes seven days a week. The research was ostensibly funded by the Commission, but Valerie realized that the grants were more likely from the Department of Defense. The rumor mill suggested that the DoD funneled research through the Commission when there was some concern about public disclosure of the weapons aspect of one project or another. The goal of this study was to determine the effect of intense magnetic fields on living tissue and Valerie was not sure what connection the research had to weapons, if any. Valerie had done her doctoral thesis on monopolar flux dots. These were incredibly tiny regions of magnetism so intense that each had only one 'pole' instead of the customary pair euphemistically named 'North' and 'South'. Her idea for the project was to move one of these highly charged magnetic regions through living tissue and measure the distortion of the field surrounding the dot. A computer would store distortions measured at each point in the scan and then the recorded pattern would modulate an even more powerful magnetic domain as it swept through the same region of tissue a second time. The idea was to disturb the local magnetic domains and determine the biological effects that might result. Her proposal had suitably intrigued someone at the Commission, enough so to merit a multimillion dollar one-year grant. Hyper-intense magnetic fields were difficult to produce outside of the laboratory, except for the electromagnetic pulse generated by nuclear detonations. Even so, Valerie had dismissed the rumors that her funding was related to weapons research, because although her equipment was able to create the flux dots, she needed enormous amounts of energy and very expensive equipment to focus the energy into a tiny bundle. Any weapon based on this technique would be too temperamental and prone to failure for battlefield use, not to mention that the laboratory system could project the tiny domains less than twenty centimeters. Beyond that distance from the energy transducers, the flux dots simply dissipated without a trace. With such a limited range, the intense bursts of magnetic energy were little threat as a weapon and relatively harmless to anyone including Valerie and her assistant. Valerie's graduate assistant was Carol DePaul, a quiet, bookish young woman with encyclopedic knowledge of lab mouse physiology and a strange penchant for giving names to each of the lab mice. Carol knew so much more about rodents than the other interviewees for the position that Valerie just assumed the woman was pursuing a degree in Medicine, Physiological Studies or Biology. In truth, mice were only her hobby. Carol was working toward her Masters in Computer Engineering. In addition to what she knew about mice, she was amazingly competent at rewiring the instrumentation and could jury-rig the power control systems when they failed. There was no doubt from the first moment Valerie met her, that Carol was the right person for the graduate assistant job. Carol had commandeered a corner of Valerie's lab for an area of her own. She'd built a small wooden maze to test the memory and reasoning ability of the mice that Valerie used for the magnetic energy experiments. Carol's rationale for spending time on the wooden labyrinth was that it would allow her to determine any neural effect of the magnetic energy even if there was no visible change to the mice. So far there had been no results in the experiments with the mice, visible or otherwise. Valerie's original plan was to gradually scale up the magnetic power and to scan the flux dots through a razor-thin slice of each test subject and observe the effect on organs and tissue by autopsy. Carol had argued that the most sensitive tissues would be neuromuscular and that the most plausible effect might be disabled muscle action or reduced nerve sensation in the area where the flux dots impinged. Those effects would be observable as changes in strength, sensitivity to stimulus and dexterity. Observing those changes would not require vivisection. Valerie adopted Carol's suggestion since they could expose each mouse to the flux dot scan numerous times and reserve autopsy as a last resort. Less than a month after assembling the lab, the experiments had begun to concentrate on brain tissue, which both women reasoned would be the most easily affected neuromuscular element. The two researchers had expected their progress to be slow, but had not predicted the total lack of results that had so far occurred. Valerie planned to expose precisely chosen slices of the mouse brains to carefully selected levels of magnetic energy. If nothing ever happened, the world (or at least the Commission) would then know that concentrated magnetic energy beams are harmless. The Commission had rated this project 'Confidential' and that meant that only Valerie and her assistant Carol knew the combination to the special locks on the doors to the lab. The project seemed hush-hush on the surface, but clearance for additional researchers had been simple to obtain by telephoning the Commission for a cursory search of criminal and national security databases. It had taken only ten minutes to get Carol's clearance when Valerie chose her as an assistant. Of course, visitors could enter the lab under escort, when the experiments were not in progress after the women had locked away their lab notes. For the most part, however, the two women worked in undisturbed isolation. The null meter in Valerie's hand indicated that the correlator had begun to stabilize. In a laboratory full of equipment like hers, one instrument or another was certain to be out of tolerance at any moment. The correlators were the worst of the lot, requiring a surgeon's touch and the patience of Job to nudge them into alignment and there were forty-eight of them in total. The network of sixteen Digital Semiconductor Alpha computers made the job manageable by periodically auto-compensating the instruments including the correlators. When the compensation circuits had drifted too far for the computers to automatically adjust something, it was time for Valerie to demonstrate her skill with a screwdriver and null-meter. Valerie had milked the Commission for money to buy some very leading- edge equipment and a few terabytes of data storage for the computers. Compared to what a human brain could remember, a terabyte of storage was relatively puny. For an electronic computer, that much memory was truly vast. In addition, Carol had written some interesting data compaction routines that stored the flux echo patterns in a tiny fraction of the customary space and so it was possible to save the data from a huge scan without overflowing the system memory. Valerie removed the test probes from the correlator and turned off the null meter. The systems were balanced, for a while at least. As she stepped out of the equipment bays, the cooler air of the surrounding lab caused her to shiver. She could see goosebumps forming on the part of her forearm that extended past the cuff of the lab coat. Valerie grabbed her sweater from the coat rack and draped it over her shoulders until the chill passed. Carol huddled over her maze, intently watching the behavior of one of the mice. Like Valerie, Carol wore a long white lab coat, but underneath she had the casual attire favored by many students: jeans and a T-shirt. A stopwatch hung around her neck and she held a clipboard in her hand. "That's it, Jeff!" Carol encouraged the mouse. She punched a button on the stopwatch and glanced at the time readout. "Really good, Jeff! You beat your old record!" She lifted the mouse out of the maze and gave it a hunk of carrot from her lab-coat pocket. "Carol!" Valerie admonished. "Is that mouse named after the guy who picked you up here last night?" "Yes, Doctor Owens. I named some of the mice after my boyfriends. You don't mind, do you?" Carol held the mouse up near her face and then scrunched her own features into a rodent-like visage. "Besides, this one looks a lot like Jeff, don't you think?" "They all look alike to me," Valerie admitted, "and except for the colored stripes we dyed into the edge of their ears, I wouldn't be able to tell them apart." "They may look alike to you, but they have different personalities. For instance: Jeff does well in the maze, but I'm still having trouble with Keith and Nigel. They just sit there at the starting line. Nigel won't eat the carrots. Robbie and Eddie prefer cookies. Billy and Hugh like being petted, but Andy bites me when I try to pet him." "That's nice, but we really need to get back to work, now," Valerie interrupted, becoming serious almost immediately. "Could you prep two mice for me?" "Right away," Carol sighed at Valerie's single-mindedness. She put Jeff back into his cage and went to the cabinet that held the bottle of tranquilizer in addition to a number of veterinary chemicals and surgical tools. There were also a few other items like cotton balls, swabs and eyedroppers. Carol chose two miniature sterile eyedroppers and withdrew a tiny amount of the anesthetic into each one. She selected one of the mice, gingerly plucked it from its cage and gently forced the tip of the eyedropper into its mouth to administer the droplet of anesthetic. In a few moments, the animal had become limp and it's breathing shallow. Carol had lobbied for use of this particular sedative because it was harmless to the mice, could be administered orally and it wore off quickly. The rapid recuperation period allowed her to assess the physical state of the mice almost immediately after a scan. Carol selected a second rodent and sedated that one just as quickly. She took the two mice to the experiment table and positioned each on a small circular experiment pad. She covered each mouse with a flux recovery dome. The flux recovery domes were transparent plastic hemispheres about twenty-five centimeters in diameter. Magnetic lenses and inductive pickups littered the outer surfaces of the domes and a large bundle of wires connected to the instruments in the cabinets around the lab. Although circuitry peppered the surface of the domes, it was possible to see through the areas between the sensors and observe the mice. Carol could see that the mice were still inert, their gentle breathing evident in the subtle pulsing of their nostrils. Tranquilizing the mice was necessary to allow the coordinate transformation software to work with unmoving test subjects. Carol was well aware of how difficult it was to track the position and orientation of moving subjects and she did not relish having to write algorithms to perform that complex task. She stepped to a terminal in the control area of the lab and typed a few staccato keystrokes that recorded which mice were under each dome. As she typed the last key, the experiment control program brought several power circuits on line. The subtle deep hum was evidence of the energy being funneled through the equipment in the lab. The screen of the monitor showed a series of commands automatically being issued to the instruments from the control program. The monitor screen erased the text and two drawings appeared. Each showed the wire- frame outline of a mouse: one drawing per test subject. The computer briefly flashed a complicated sequence of numbers and equations and then one of the images rotated to be viewed from the same angle as the other. Valerie looked over Carol's shoulder as she monitored the experiment. "I'm really proud of the new program. It is almost automatic," Carol told her mentor. "You start the program and type in the mouse identity color stripe codes. You answer a handful of questions about the type of scan and the energy levels to use and the program does the rest. It locates the subjects under the domes and re- maps the coordinate spaces as you can see." The graphic images slowly zoomed into the area of the mouse heads. Soon the image of a brain appeared inside each drawing of a mouse skull. After several seconds, the wire-frame skulls vanished and the images became more detailed as the computers isolated the brain tissues. A rectangular plane was drawn intersecting each brain and the computer electronically erased the rest of the drawing. Now the screens showed two kidney shaped slices that represented the area of each brain to be scanned. "Zero-point-four millimeters from the brain-stem normal to the central axis," explained Carol, anticipating the question. "What power are you using?" Valerie asked. "Initial scanning at ten teslas. Write-back at two-point-four kiloteslas," was the answer. As the two women watched, the computer monitor showed a green dot rapidly tracing a tight zigzag path through each drawing as the computer sensed the field distortion of the flux dot moving through the brain tissue. In less than ten seconds, the scan was complete. Carol glanced at the screen expectantly. One of the mouse brain images became a negative of itself. Carol's expression became one of proud satisfaction that the program was working as designed. "There! See that? The system is configuring itself to deliver a positive feedback signal to one mouse and a negative feedback signal to the other," Carol explained. "That lets us test both control aspects at the same time." The hum from the power cabinets became slightly louder as the output jumped to several hundred times the energy of the first scan and a second pass began re-tracing the first. This time, a red dot showed the path for write-back on each of the drawings on the screen. The experiment finished and the computers erased the monitor screens as the noise of the power systems rapidly attenuated to silence. Carol checked the computer to be sure that the program was stopped before she approached the experiment table. Although there should be no danger, the tests were designed, after all, to determine if the energy levels inside the domes was harmful. The signal levels now shown by the sensors were the same as normal background magnetic readings. She lifted the domes off the mice and watched for signs that the either subject was regaining consciousness. Almost immediately, one of the mice started to twitch a foreleg, slowly at first and then with increased vigor. In a few moments, the other mouse came around. In less than a minute, the mice were alert and moving about. Carol could see nothing that indicated paralysis. She offered the rodents pieces of a cookie from her pocket. Both eagerly grabbed the morsels in their paws and began eating. That reaction proved that they had a healthy appetite and no apparent residual effects from the anesthetic. The mice, Joel and Patrick as Carol called them, seemed none the worse for wear. Carol took the mice back to their cages. She was staying at the lab much later than she had intended and decided to put off a run through the maze for Joel and Patrick until morning. She knew that any neurological damage from the experiment would be permanent and that a few hours delay wouldn't mean much. The nearby telephone rang just as she closed the last cage. She picked up the receiver and cheerily greeted the caller, "Lab Two-four- four! This is Carol!" She listened for a moment before shouting, "Doctor Owens! It's for you! Somebody named Barry!" "Thanks," Valerie said to Carol, hurrying to the lab phone. She swept her hair out of the way and pressed the phone to her ear. "Hi, honey! What's up?" She listened briefly and a deep blush crossed her features. "I mean besides that!" she reproved. This time she listened for a longer time as the person on the other end of the line explained something. "Really? That much? That's great news! Yeah!" A brief flicker of sadness crossed her face as the other person spoke. "Gee, I'm sorry honey, I'm going to be running a little late again tonight. Why don't you have supper without me? I'll grab a burger for myself on the way home." Valerie paused as the person on the other end of the line stated his case. "Listen," she offered sweetly, "if you're not busy when I get home we can celebrate then. How about that? Great! I love you too! I'll be home in a few hours! Bye!" Valerie hung up the phone. "A few hours?" Carol whined, unable to avoid overhearing. "It's already after nine PM!" "We've already used more than four months of our grant and I want to get preliminary results before the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks get here," Valerie explained. "All right, all right," Carol groused and then changed the subject to avoid thinking about the late hour. "So it sounds like Barry and you have good news of some kind." Valerie considered whether to open her personal life to the graduate student or not and finally spoke. "Barry is my husband. His agent called this afternoon to say that Trent Press wants to publish his third book." Carol didn't say anything for a moment as her brain processed the information. She stared at Valerie with curiosity. "You married a writer?" "Yes," Valerie answered cautiously. "Why is that so odd?" Carol giggled. "I don't know! It's just that you have a reputation as someone that never leaves the laboratory." "I have a reputation?" Valerie inquired, somewhat bemused. "Who says?" Carol blushed. "Just about everybody. Your students, mostly." "Okay," Valerie admitted. "I know I put in long hours and that during my Masters studies I slept on a cot in the lab for a few weeks. But that's no reason..." "It's just that you seem kind of focused on the institute and sort of practical and down-to-earth. Not the kind of person who'd be attracted to a creative person. So how'd you meet a writer?" Carol dodged the embarrassing topic of Valerie's reputation. Valerie sat on the edge of the desk and stared into a corner of the ceiling for a moment. Her blue eyes returned to settle on Carol and begin her answer. "It was about two years ago, when I'd just started my doctoral work. I was in the institute library reading at one of the tables near the book return desk. It happened that Barry chose that moment to return a stack of material he'd used to write his thesis. I don't even know exactly how it happened, but he ended up spilling his books and papers all over me and the table where I was sitting." Carol was giggling at the mental image. "Do you think he did it intentionally?" she asked her mentor. "He claims it was an accident," Valerie replied. "Anyway, he started to apologize and when I saw those beautiful brown eyes and heard his sweet voice, I knew he was someone I wanted to get to know better. He asked me out for coffee that morning. To make an already long story short, we became engaged a few months after he got his doctorate and were married last summer." "Wow!" enthused Carol. "So there's two Doctor Owens's?" "Yes." "Your husband has a degree in English Literature or Journalism or something?" Carol guessed, considering his vocation as a writer. "Is he teaching at the institute, like you?" "He has a Ph.D. in Physics, but he'd much rather stand out in the backyard at night looking through his telescope than stay cooped up in a lab or classroom somewhere. He writes astronomy books." "Astronomy? That sounds so romantic!" Carol bubbled. "I'll bet you two used to watch the stars a lot on dates." "Sadly, no," Valerie related. "On clear nights he does research for his books and on cloudy nights, the only stars we see are those we can imagine." Carol sighed, envisioning someone like Barry. Her own boyfriends were no match for her romantic imagination. "When I had your class last year, you still went by the name Miss Bergstrom. That means you've been married for..." "About five months," Valerie clarified, somewhat impatiently. "June twentieth in a garden ceremony in a little town called Mumford. Are there any other facts I can clear up?" Carol nervously shifted her glance to the floor and mumbled, "No," belatedly realizing how personal her questions were becoming. Valerie looked at her wristwatch and shook her head. "We should get back to work. It's almost nine-forty-five." "Nine-forty-five?!" Carol grumbled. "It sounds like you have other plans tonight." Carol averted her gaze from Valerie for a moment. "Y...yes. My boyfriend asked me to meet him at the community rink for the late-nite skate." Clearly, she was nervous at asking for time off from a boss with a reputation for burning the midnight oil. Valerie tapped a pen on the desk for several long moments. Finally she spoke. "Go on, then. I'll do the next run myself." "Are you kidding?" Carol asked, unsure whether to believe her ears. Valerie smiled at her. "Go ahead before I change my mind. It wasn't more than a year ago that I desperately needed to see my boyfriend the same as you." "Gee! Thanks, Doctor Owens! I'll be here early in the morning to make up for it, I promise!" Carol practically tore her lab coat off and wrapped her sweater around her shoulders. She snatched her purse off the coat rack and was out the door in a flash. The lab was quiet after Carol left. Valerie read her lab notes over for the tenth time, hoping she had missed something important. There had been no reaction to the flux dot scans so far. Seven weeks of experiments - countless runs with varying tissue slices and power levels. There had been no effect. Valerie wanted results. She looked to her left at the dozens of mice in the cages. Nothing so far seemed to affect them. The only thing that had happened in seven weeks was that the mice were getting accustomed to Carol. A few paces to Valerie's right were the racks of complex instruments. So much capability and so little to show for it! She muttered a curse and read the notes again. Maybe this methodical approach was the wrong way to proceed. Valerie wondered what would result if she exposed the entirety of each subject's brain at the highest power the systems could produce. If the scan caused no damage, then she would need even stronger equipment to continue the experiments. On the other hand, it might cook some poor mouse's brain, but that was why the mice were here. She decided to go for broke. Valerie filled two of the smallest eyedroppers with the anesthetic, guessing the dosage and tranquilized a pair of mice. She knew the dosage that Carol had been using was a mere drop of the tranquilizer, but the scan Valerie planned would take much longer to complete than one exposing a mere slice of tissue, so she needed to have the mice inert for that much longer. She placed the somnolent mice under the flux recovery domes and went to the control terminal nearby. Valerie started the program and typed the color stripe codes from the ears of the two rodents. The first flux scan was permanently set to ten teslas of flux energy, so Valerie did not have to enter anything there. When the screen with write-back options came up, Valerie typed in the maximum flux intensity the equipment could generate, seventy-four megateslas. The screen for selecting the slice to expose was a bit more complex. Valerie entered a range of values that encompassed the entirety of the mouse brain volume. The program was now set to scan it's most powerful signal throughout every cubic micron of each brain. Valerie hit the 'go' key and watched the familiar screens that portrayed the location of the mice under the domes using low-level flux scanning. Once the computers identified the brain tissue, they aligned the coordinate systems to be sure that the flux dot in one brain was in the same place as in the other. When the brain images came up, no rectangular slice was superimposed this time. The systems began a laborious three-dimensional scan of the brains. Nearly ten minutes later, the normal sensory scan completed. The leftmost brain image became negative and the sudden deafening growl of the power circuits reconfiguring for the high power mode startled Valerie. The magnetic lens systems had never been used or tested at this level. Pencils skittered across the desk and the file drawers rattled as the floor vibrated from the enormous power being channeled through the power conversion units. Valerie could feel the strong tremors shuddering through the cushioned seat of the chair and she could hear the door to the hall rattling in its frame. Several of the instruments flashed intermittent warning lights. From her terminal, Valerie could see that needles on the meters on a few panels were buried into the red zone. The air in the lab warmed noticeably, as the straining power converters dumped their waste heat into the room. The automatic ventilators struggled to exhaust the heated air to the outside of the building, but were overmatched. The red dots on the displays made slow progress through the images of the mouse brains displayed on the computer monitors. The flux recovery domes were bombarding each mouse skull with seventy-four megateslas of energy in a playback of the pattern recorded on the first scan. Considering the high-tech nature of the experiment and the enormous power being used, the process was relatively uninteresting to witness. Other than the deep powerful hum and the vibrations, there were no electronic noises and no visible energy discharges around the domes. Not at all the way science was depicted in the movies. It seemed an eternity, but it was only ten more minutes before the second scan completed and the power systems ramped down. When the last system shut down, it was deathly quiet in comparison to the loud rumble that filled the lab moments earlier. Valerie checked that the systems had completely stopped generating magnetic energy before she went to the table to inspect the mice. All of the instruments indicated zero output and the amplifiers were in safety standby mode. Her hands were trembling as she lifted first one flux recovery unit and then the other. The domes were noticeably warmer than they had been before the scan because of the power that had so recently been passed through them. This much energy was bound to have an effect of one sort or another on the mice. The mice were unmoving. Perhaps the high-powered scan had killed them. No. On closer inspection one mouse was barely breathing. The other was, too. Valerie put a piece of carrot in front of each mouse and waited. Nothing. She waited almost another forty-five minutes, but the mice did not regain consciousness. Their limbs were limp and they were totally unresponsive to stimuli. She again checked the mice for activity just after eleven thirty. Valerie wanted to know how the mice had been affected before proceeding with additional scans. Were they still unconscious because of the sedative or had they been affected by the energy from the experiment? The determination of lingering effects would have to wait until the morning when Carol could examine the two inert rodents. There was nothing more that could be accomplished this night. Valerie took the comatose mice back to their cages, updated her lab notes and then reluctantly left the labs. CHAPTER 2: YOUNG AND IN LOVE Barry looked away from the eyepiece of the telescope and triggered the camera. He was photographing the variable star in the constellation Perseus for an illustration in his next book. The telescope in his backyard was the largest one outside of those found in an observatory and quite expensive, but had paid for itself in the quality of research Barry had been able to do with it. Those tasks that could not be done on his personal telescope fell within the capability of remotely- controlled observatories maintained by universities in Brazil, Australia and Sweden. He'd even had an opportunity to use the Hubble Space Telescope to collect one image. Barry's first book had become the standard astronomy textbook at several European academies. It had sold enough copies that the publisher suggested a slightly different focus for his next work. Barry's second outing was more a coffee-table book for the masses than a textbook and it had earned several hundred thousand dollars for him. No one was mistaking Barry Owens for Carl Sagan, the famous astronomer and writer, but his books were gaining critical acclaim. He was already at work on his third book. When finished, the new tome would concentrate on oddities in the heavens like binary stars, gas clouds, nebulae, comets and galactic whorls. Astronomy was his topic; his field of expertise. Barry derived immense personal pleasure from writing about celestial objects and the things that filled the vast distances between them. Writing was, for him, not a job but an obsession. There had not been a day in recent memory when he did not write at least two or three pages either for a book, a speech, a magazine article, or just a random monograph. The institute had been stifling to his muse and he could not leave the place fast enough after receiving his doctorate in Physics. The research had not been too bad, but he never liked teaching assignments while pursuing his degree. Maybe it was the sneers and groans that greeted him every time he stepped behind the podium in front of a class. There were the inevitable departmental rivalries and politics that he'd despised. Regardless of the reason, he'd been much happier since he'd left the institute. But, Barry was no fool. He recognized the coincidence of receiving his degree at about the same time he'd met Val. She was an even greater positive influence than his abandonment of the academic cocoon at the institute. She was everything to him. A friend and soul- mate to accompany him on his journey through life. A critical ear, a friendly shoulder, a loving heart. She was kind, gentle, insightful and as brilliant as she was beautiful. She was an angel and an inspiration. He still remembered the day he first saw her sitting in the library. He'd completed his thesis and was returning and armload of the reference materials he'd used. Valerie's blond hair had attracted his attention and when he turned for a better look, he could not take his eyes off her. The next thing he knew, he tripped over a chair and spilled the books in his arms all over her. He recalled mumbling an incoherent apology before she turned to face him. Once he beheld her face, he was in love. Her eyes were sparkling jewels. Her skin: fair alabaster. Her hair was pure spun gold. Her voice was heavenly music when she spoke. He offered to buy her lunch or something and when she said yes and smiled her glorious smile, his heart leapt from his chest. They'd become serious about each other within a month and not long afterward he proposed. Val had taken a few days to think over Barry's request and finally agreed to marry him. At the time, her reluctance to answer made him wonder if he would lose her. Barry knew now that she was a careful person who thought everything out and stuck by her decision once made. This was a contrast to Barry's more impulsive nature, but the difference in their personalities never became an issue. When Valerie was finished with her doctoral research, they set a date for the wedding. The marriage ceremony had been almost five months ago, a few days after the ceremony where Valerie received her Ph.D. in Engineering. They'd married in a public garden in her hometown on a sunny June morning. The marriage was great so far. They were discovering each other in so many ways, physically, emotionally, socially and spiritually. Val enjoyed the same movies he did and both shared a common interest in books; between them they had quite a collection. Valerie seemed to enjoy his attention and at times it was difficult to know which of them loved the other more. Apparently, she'd described him in glowing detail to her friends, since more than one let slip the nickname 'Prince Charming' when they thought he was out of earshot. Barry thought that an overstatement. His looks were rather plain: dull dark brown hair, brown eyes, a tall, almost lanky but not overly muscular frame. For someone whose job involves a lot of standing around or sitting, though, he was still trim and fit. Barry did the cooking for both of them, since he'd developed skills in the kitchen during bachelorhood and he was at home nearly all the time anyway. As far as he could tell, Valerie seemed to know little about cooking except how to microwave a TV dinner and open a bottle of soda. Barry did the laundry, vacuuming, banking and shopping for the two of them, since those activities fit around his daytime sleep and nocturnal work schedule, too. Valerie pitched in on the chores whenever she was home, which wasn't very often. Right after the honeymoon, Val had immersed herself in a project at the institute and that kept her at the school from early in the morning until very late at night. Weekends were, often as not, absorbed by the project, too. Just before the wedding, they'd bought a house with the profits from Barry's second book and were turning it into a home. In reality, Barry alone was turning it into a home, because of Valerie's schedule. He'd been using his carpentry skills to turn the back porch into a glassed- in solarium and had done a bit of furniture shopping. Valerie had no complaints about his efforts or taste in furniture. The nature of astronomy research required Barry to pursue his research at night. At least he was awake during the wee hours when Val finally came home. Most mornings he was still awake when she left for the institute. He would complete the shopping and banking as soon as the banks and stores opened. He usually slept during midday and awoke with the bats and owls at sundown. The housework and dinner preparation took only a few minutes each evening and by the time the glow of sunset was gone, Barry was ready to go to work at the telescope. The only exceptions to this routine were the evenings that clouds obscured the heavens and those rare occasions when Val was home to spend the night in his arms. Barry glanced at his wristwatch. The digits of the faintly- glowing panel read just past midnight. The sky held few clouds and was unsullied by moonlight. It was a good night to photograph the stars as long as the clouds got no thicker. Now that a publisher wanted the book, he would eventually be bound by contract to finish it. The lawyers at Trent had offered ten percent royalties on the first ten thousand copies and fifteen percent on all copies beyond that and that kind of money was nothing to sneeze at. Warren, Barry's literary agent, thought they might even go higher before the contract was signed. At the rate Barry was writing and photographing, the book would be ready to go to the editors in April or early May. He heard the distant whine of the garage-door opener, signaling that Valerie had returned home. "Hi, honey!" Valerie called a minute later as she approached on the gravel walk between the house and telescope. "I figured you would be out here since there was no moon and fairly clear skies." "Hi, you beautiful creature, you," Barry greeted her with a brief welcome-home kiss. "This is the optimum week to photograph the stars in Perseus, particularly Algol Beta Persei, the eclipsing binary star." "I see," Valerie replied, unenlightened by the significance of that remark. "You're home earlier than I expected," Barry observed. "The research is going nowhere," Valerie frowned. "I ran the experiment at the maximum power my equipment can generate and I cannot tell if anything happened. I might have overexposed a few of the test subjects we use, or maybe not. It's just so frustrating!" Barry saw the worry in her features. "Maybe I can help. Can you tell me what the project is about?" Valerie shrugged. "I'd love to, but unless you are part of the research team, the Commission wants me to keep the details under my hat." Barry quickly adjusted the camera and checked the image in the telescope before opening the shutter again. "Those kinds of policies and rules are why you don't see me doing research at the Institute. Here, I'm my own boss. I set my own schedule, within reason and avoid all of the red tape and stress." Valerie was getting depressed talking about how badly things were going at the labs. She decided to change the subject slightly. "So Trent Press wants your new book, hmm?" "They liked the sample chapters and one of the editors there has read my other two books. My agent is still hammering out the details, but he says it's bound to be a real sweetheart deal." Valerie hugged his arm and trailed her fingers over the chest of his sweater. "I'm in the mood to celebrate the book contract," she said, softly and suggestively. Standing this close to Barry, the difference in their heights was obvious. She was seven inches shorter than him and her head came up to just below his lips when they stood against one another. Barry raised one eyebrow as he looked down at his wife. "What kind of celebrating did you have in mind?" Valerie stood on tiptoe, stretched up and placed her lips adjacent to his ear. She began to describe a scenario that involved a bottle of wine, two consenting adults and no clothing. As she elaborated, her breath warmed and tickled Barry's earlobe. Barry blushed at the sexually explicit whispers flooding his ear. Valerie kissed him on the cheek as final punctuation to her proposal. Barry put a cap on the end of the telescope, shut off the camera and disengaged the motor drive, a clear signal to his wife that he was through photographing the heavens for the evening. "So, when does this celebration of yours start?" he asked. Valerie backed a few slow steps away before looking at him coyly. "We can start," she purred, "as soon as you...catch me!" She sprinted away giggling and shrieking. Barry gave her a generous head-start before he began pursuit. He watched her shapely bottom retreating into the darkness of the backyard, a tantalizing hint of the sensuality of the woman he'd married. He chased her playfully for several minutes in the chilly night air until his long legs and greater relative strength closed the gap and he caught her. He grabbed Valerie from behind, swept her off her feet and into a kiss. He carried her into the house in his arms just as he had on their return from the honeymoon and the two lovers celebrated several times before falling into an exhausted sleep. CHAPTER 3: EARLY INDICATIONS The next morning, Barry woke to the sounds of Valerie showering in the bathroom adjacent to the master bedroom. He closed his eyes and considered how lucky he was. His next book was all but sold and he had a lovely bride. The holidays, his favorite time of the year, were approaching quickly. Barry eagerly anticipated the season of entertaining, gift-giving and being with family, although Val and he had decided they would spend Christmas with her folks. It would be the first Yuletide Barry would spend away from his childhood home. Fortunately, Barry's father would be spending the season with a few distant cousins on the coast, anyway. Barry's mother had passed away in January and this would be the first Christmas he or his father would have without her. Barry knew that Valerie had long planned to spend the holidays here at home or her parent's house, so the best he would be able to do would be a Christmas Day telephone call to his father. Valerie entered the bedroom with a large towel wrapped around her body and a smaller one around her head. "Good morning, Val," Barry murmured, to let her know that he was awake. She smiled at him as she walked to her closet. "Good morning, Bar'. Sleep well?" Barry smiled back at her. "I had a nice dream. I dreamt that you stayed home from work and we 'celebrated' the book contract. All day." He raised one eyebrow in a come-hither gesture. "I see," was all she said as she ignored his attention. Valerie selected a blouse and pants suit and set the clothes on the bed. She walked over to her bureau and looked through the top drawer. When she found what she wanted, she removed the large towel and slipped her arms into one of her brassieres. She reached behind herself and fastened the clasp. Barry watched her with fascination. He was still enraptured by the sight of a beautiful naked woman putting on clothes right in the same room with him; sort of a reverse strip-tease. Valerie turned around and Barry could see the matted hair between her legs that obscured the bulge of her womanhood. Nestled somewhere near the bottom of that triangle of golden fur was a warm slit that had accepted his throbbing shaft several times the night before. Valerie stepped into her panties and pulled them up around her pelvis. "What are you looking at?" she asked Barry, finally noticing his rapt attention to her body. "I was just admiring a very beautiful woman...no...a goddess," Barry explained, as Valerie blushed. "I was hoping that the goddess would hear my prayers and stay home from work to grant a mere mortal another few hours of her companionship." Valerie disregarded him and stuffed her arms into the blouse without an answer. "Aw, c'mon, Val!" Barry complained. "I love you and I had a lot of fun last night!" Valerie paused from her dressing to respond, "I had fun too, dear, but I need to dedicate every minute I can to my research project. Surely you can understand that!" She stepped into the pants of her suit and went to the bathroom to dry her hair. "I tell you what!" she shouted over the whine of the hair drier. "If my project makes some progress and you're a good boy, we could spend the Thanksgiving holiday doing whatever you want." Barry thought about Valerie's offer. It had real potential. The Thanksgiving holiday was a four day weekend. With a little planning, he could buy enough food and supplies in advance so they wouldn't have to leave the house at all. "Four days? Promise?" he shouted back. The hair drier shut off. "What?" Valerie shouted once she could hear. "All four days? Is that a promise?" Barry reiterated. "We'll see!" she responded noncommittally and the hair drier started up again. Valerie stood in the hallway outside her laboratory and waited for the security lock to click before she pushed the door open. A coat and purse were already hanging on the coat rack just inside the door. That meant that Carol was here somewhere. "Hello! Carol?" Valerie shouted as she entered the lab. Carol's voice issued from the back of one of the instrumentation racks. "Good morning, Doctor Owens! I'll be right out!" Carol appeared from the end of the row of cabinets. She carried a soldering iron and sheaf of papers. "I was just re-routing the control lines to the master correlator. When I came in this morning, I saw your notes about the mice and the experiment last night." "Was there any effect?" Valerie asked, hopefully. She draped her jacket and purse on the coat-rack and slipped into a lab coat. A smile slowly crossed Carol's face. "I think we finally got something," she said. "You're kidding," Valerie challenged. The glow of rekindled enthusiasm glowed in her eyes. "I have almost no doubt. I tested Jeff, one of the mice you used and his maze time was abysmal; worse than it has ever been." "Could that be a result of my tranquilizer dose?" Valerie asked. "How much did you give them?" Carol asked. "Half an eyedropper or so." "Half...?" Carol sputtered. "That's too much!" "I needed the mice to be unconscious for almost thirty minutes and I had to guess," Valerie admitted. "Do you think I did any permanent harm?" Carol silently glared at Valerie for several seconds. She opened the desk drawer and withdrew a small green book and threw it to her mentor. "That is the anesthesia guide," she explained, curtly. "You were lucky you didn't kill the mice. They're okay, but they were probably asleep for a few hours with that much of the drug!" Valerie thumbed through the book, the Veterinary Anesthesia Handbook. It was page after page of charts and tables to allow precise calculation of the effect of each type of anesthetic. The charts were labeled with the drug names, animal species and weights. The dosage and the effects were shown as lines on the charts. Carol leaned over her mentor's shoulder and turned pages as she spoke. "There are charts for all kinds of animals; horses, cattle, various breeds of dog, cats, mice, hamsters, even a few charts for humans. See? Fourteen milligrams of Phenyltrimethochloride with a 1.2 ounce lab mouse results in approximately thirty-five minutes of unconsciousness and a three minute recovery. The dose you used was way out here on the chart." Carol pointed to the far right of the page that she had obviously memorized. "That's almost in the lethal range." "I'll check the book next time," Valerie pledged. "I'm sorry." "Apology accepted. At least there was no permanent damage. To answer your question about the mouse being affected by the anesthetic, he was not acting drugged. He acted as though he was lost. Even more curious was the way Nigel reacted. He was the other mouse you used." "What happened?" "He suddenly developed quite an interest in the maze and did about as well as Jeff ever did." Valerie was beaming. "This is great news! I suspect that one type of flux feedback stimulates the parts of the brain responsible for initiative and concentration, while the other feedback negatively affects those parts of the brain." "Interesting hypothesis," Carol allowed. "We'll try a few other mice and see if the effect is repeatable or not. I'll isolate Jeff and Nigel from the others to see if they return to normal or if the result was permanent." "I'll set up some experiments to zero in on the flux energy threshold," Valerie said, already formulating her plan. "And later we'll try to narrow the scan to the most affected parts of the mouse brains." "You know," Carol mused, "my professors would kill to have a machine that made students think better and work harder." "Wouldn't we all?" Valerie replied. "By the way, I have a big midterm coming up just before the Thanksgiving holidays and I'll be cutting back my hours at the lab the weekend before so that I can study. On the Wednesday before the holiday, I have a flight to Boston to see my folks." Valerie's face showed a little disappointment. "You'll be back the Monday after the holiday, won't you?" "Of course," Carol responded. "My flight comes in at ten Sunday night. Are you and your husband going anywhere for Thanksgiving?" "No," Valerie replied. "Our honeymoon this summer was mostly spent in airports trying to get to and from Hawaii during the airline strike, so we're spending the weekend together here at home. He's going to cook a big Thanksgiving dinner." "He cooks?" Carol asked incredulously. "Better than me," Valerie told her. "He sounds more and more attractive all the time," Carol enthused. "Does he have a brother?" "I'm lucky," Valerie allowed. "Barry is very special." "I'll say," Carol agreed. "I'd want to spend as much time with him as I could, but I know you. You won't last the weekend. I bet you come in here at least once during the Thanksgiving holiday." "Oh yeah?" Valerie sneered, derisively. "How much do you want to bet?" "I don't know. How about a lunch at the Chinese restaurant? My money says you will be back in here before Friday evening." Valerie enjoyed this challenge. "I think I can stay away the whole weekend. Until Sunday morning at least." "Let's split the difference. If you come in before Saturday afternoon after Thanksgiving, you owe me a lunch at the Dragon Palace. You stay away until after twelve noon on Saturday and I owe you lunch there." Valerie stuck out her hand to seal the deal. "Done!" she stated. Carol responded with a firm handshake. "Done." "Now let's try a few more passes of this experiment," Valerie said. "We have only a little over two weeks until Thanksgiving!" CHAPTER 4: TURKEY DAY Barry scanned the recipe for pumpkin pie. It was only eight AM and there remained plenty of time to bake the pie before dinner. He'd started cooking two hours before dawn and the stuffing was almost ready to go into the bird. The potatoes and bean dishes were ready to cook and the wine was already chilling. Valerie had not come to the kitchen for breakfast yet, because she'd come home around midnight last night. Barry hoped that she remembered the promise she'd made to spend the holiday weekend with him rather than going in to the lab. He had reminded her that he was planning to cook a big meal and he expected her to have dinner with him later in the afternoon. If she went to the lab today, he realized, she'd probably stay until one or two AM. Barry pushed the crown of the starched white balloon hat upward and away from his brow. He'd found the chef's cap and smock in the culinary supply store at the mall months ago, but waited until today to wear them. The outfit was excessive for home use, something a master chef at a hotel might wear, but it made him feel like an expert as he planned every step of the meal. "Look like a chef, cook like a chef," he murmured, studying the cookbook. The portable television on the counter showed the street scene in Manhattan as the crowds waited for the Thanksgiving Day parade. Barry glanced over to see the camera panning the throng of people. He had always wanted to see the parade in person. Maybe he could take Valerie to New York next year. If the scuttlebutt was accurate, one had to book the hotel rooms a year in advance anyway. Barry opened the oven and checked the peanuts he was roasting for the stuffing. Pre-roasted peanuts would have been okay, but he wanted to show-off for Valerie. After all, how often does one get to make a six course meal for two people? The smell of warm legumes tumbled out of the oven and tickled Barry's nose. The roasting was almost done. "Barry?" a soft voice asked. He turned around to see Valerie standing inside the swinging door that led to the dining room. She was wearing a robe, with likely nothing else on underneath. A column of sunlight from the window across the room illuminated her like a spotlight, adding a warm tone to her skin. Valerie's golden hair shone in the bright direct rays, but her eyes were not visible, squinted against the harsh glare. Her hands were against the door behind her and her body language hinted at something out of the ordinary. She did not approach Barry for a good-morning kiss. "Good morning, beautiful! Happy Turkey Day, honey!" Barry enthused. "Gobble Gobble!" He kissed Valerie and was somewhat disappointed at her lack of response. "What did I do now?" he asked, stepping back and standing so that his body blocked the sun's direct rays. Valerie looked beyond him and tonelessly responded, "Nothing." He had never seen her this distracted before. He searched her features for a clue but there was no hint of what was bothering her. "What's wrong, honey?" he asked. Valerie silently extended a trembling hand, holding a sturdy white plastic wand about six inches long. One end of the wand was rectangular in cross-section and tapered to a thin cylinder near the other end. Barry could see a colored cross in a slight depression about halfway along the handle. He stared at the artifact for several seconds before he realized the significance of what he was seeing. He looked up from the device to Valerie's face. "This is one of those pregnancy test things. Y...you...you're pregnant?" he asked, unbelieving the evidence before him. Valerie nodded and bit her lip as the tears swelled in her eyes. Barry hugged her tightly. "Oh, sweetheart! How?" Valerie squirmed out of his arms. Her expression was one of hurt and disappointment. "How?! Get a clue, Barry! Or didn't you take Biology 101?" Barry tried to look more concerned, but found it hard to disguise his joy at discovering that he'd be a father. "No, I know about the birds and the bees. What I meant to ask was 'When did this happen?'" Valerie crossed to the sink and stared out the kitchen window at the sunlight glistening off the frost on the lawn. "From the timing and all, it had to be the night we celebrated your book deal." Barry chuckled at the memory. "I remember that night well. You were a wild woman, Val." He walked up behind Valerie and stood behind her, looking out the window with her. He kissed her gently on the back of her head. "It's my fault, hon'. I guess I should have thought to use a condom that night." Valerie leaned her head back to rest on his chest. "And I should have been more conscientious about my birth control pills," she admitted with a sigh. "I guess my mind has been so focused on the project that I went a few days without taking them." "How long did you go without...?" Barry wondered. "I don't know. A few weeks. A month." Barry gulped audibly. "Maybe the test is wrong," he suggested. "There's surely a margin for error." "I used two different kinds of tests, just to be sure!" Valerie explained, glumly. "Both came out positive. Do you want to double check?" Barry wrapped his arms around Valerie from behind. "No. That's fine. But everything will be okay. We'll get through this together." "It's all wrong, don't you see? I shouldn't be pregnant!" she cried. "My project needs me every moment these days!" Barry reinforced the hug. "You'll have nine months until there's a baby to worry about. By then, the grants will have run out anyway and you can take a well-deserved break between projects." "I'd planned to do research for four or five years and establish a name for myself before we started a family," she whined. "Now, I'll be stuck at home and cut off from the big research money!" "Val, it won't be that way. I promise. You can go back to the labs right after the birth if you want. I'm home all the time anyway and I can care for the baby while you're at the institute, establishing a name for yourself." "Yeah?" Valerie asked, turning to face her husband. She searched his expression for hints of insincerity. "What about before the baby comes? What about the fatigue? You don't know the barracudas I work around. My colleagues won't take a woman seriously who wears a maternity dress!" "That's not true and you know it," Barry soothed. "No one will notice whether you are pregnant or not. As for the fatigue, I'll cook healthy energy-filled meals for you and even pack things you can microwave at the institute for lunch and snacks. In fact, I'll do anything you ask to help you. I promise. Absolutely anything. Besides, you'll do great, you'll see." "You men don't understand!" "Us men?" Barry asked in reply. "Please don't lump all men together. I'm trying to understand your situation as best I can." The timer on the counter buzzed indicating that the peanuts were roasted. Barry disengaged from Valerie to remove the tray of warm goobers from the oven. When he turned to the window, Valerie was facing him and the sunlight from behind her caused a halo to encircle her head. "Can we just not talk about it for a while?" she asked, before her husband had an opportunity to resume the discussion. "Anything you say," Barry agreed. "You can go into the den and watch the parade, while I make dinner. By the time the football games are on, I'll be done here and we can sit and t..." Barry paused before the wrong words left his mouth. "We can sit and NOT talk as we watch the games," he concluded. Valerie thought her husband's suggestion made sense and his words indicated that he really was trying to understand her perspective. She went to watch the parade on the television in the den while he cooked. The dinner was even better than she had imagined it would be. Barry had roasted a small turkey with peanut dressing and had prepared several side dishes of beans and potatoes. He even made a fresh pie for dessert. After dinner, she helped him wash the dishes and clean up the dining room. They talked about the upcoming holidays and how they would decorate the house. Valerie dropped some hints about Christmas presents she would like as they sat by the fire in the living-room hearth and rested, watching the sunset. She loved Barry and he loved her. He was being very sweet and understanding about this whole pregnancy thing. She noticed that he'd carefully avoided saying anything all day that would remind her about her condition. Regardless, the thoughts were in the forefront of her mind. They might recede for a minute or two, but were never far away. By ten PM, Barry had gone out to the telescope to take more photographs for his book. Valerie was aware that he had been awake thirty hours by that time, but it wouldn't be the first time he'd gone without sleeping when something special required his attention during daylight. She knew that the sun probably would rise once more before he finally came to bed. Valerie looked out the bedroom window at her husband's indistinct form standing in the darkness of the backyard. His telescope was pointed to the northwest, to take a picture of a globular cluster or something like that, tonight. The final contract for his book had been agreed upon and signed only a few days ago. Barry had promised to deliver the manuscript by May and the illustrations and photos by late June. The galleys would be proofed before mid-June and the book would be in stores by the time the baby was born. A baby. If only the research didn't demand all of her time and attention, a baby might not be too bad. Valerie had always felt an emotional pull anytime she was near a small child. Her friends called it 'the maternal leash'; a hormonal, genetic response to an infant that tugged on your womb when a baby was nearby. Just holding a baby was enough to make some women want to have one of their own. Valerie's reaction had never been that strong, but made her uncontrollably grin whenever she was around an infant. She'd just gotten careless about the contraceptives, she rationalized. She was so busy that she forgot. Without the pills, there was only a two or three day window when she could conceive each month and even having sex during that time, a pregnancy wasn't guaranteed. Barry forgetting to use a condom compounded the error, though. She'd just been the victim of bad luck and bad timing. Making love without protection on the wrong day was all it took to change the odds dramatically. Now two weeks after the fateful night of her ovulation, the fatigue had been Valerie's first clue that something was amiss. She had awaken feeling very tired the last few mornings and found herself exhausted long before each day was over. She reasoned that it couldn't be the flu, since she had no other symptoms like headache, runny nose, or sore throat. She had checked her temperature and was a quarter of a degree above her normal reading. She felt a little out of sorts, but that was par for the course when her period was due. When her normally punctual monthly flow did not materialize she immediately purchased two pregnancy test kits. Just that morning, she'd risen and taken the test kits to the bathroom with her. Valerie sampled her urine stream as the directions indicated. The first kit produced a strong positive result, but Valerie knew well the variability of chemical processes. She crossed her fingers and used a different brand of test, getting a definite positive response from that one as well. The verdict was devastating. She had stood in the lavatory and silently cursed her bad luck. Why did it have to happen now, when she had the opportunity to make a breakthrough in the research? Why to her? When she calmed slightly, she had taken the test stick from the second pregnancy test and gone to the kitchen to tell Barry the news. As she remembered the event, it had been only fifteen hours ago that she'd told she was pregnant. Valerie stood at the bedroom window and pondered the future. How could she overcome this exhaustion and resume her long daily grind at the institute? Would she miscarry from the burden of stress at work? How would a pregnancy affect her professional stature or reputation? What about her life? She wasn't ready to have children! Although babies were cute, they were noisy and messy and inconvenient. They required constant attention and affection. She was sure that she loved her husband, but wasn't as positive that she would be able to extend that love to a child. At least Barry was being helpful rather than aloof. He'd offered to do everything for her. With him helping out, things might not be too bad. If only the research hadn't hit the doldrums for several months, she wouldn't be working so hard to compensate! It would take another week or more of long hours to get the project back on track! What about the strange way the mice were acting? So far there hadn't been any correlation between the type of feedback and the ability of the mice to learn. As Valerie watched Barry viewing the stars, she recalled Carol's frustration with the changes in the mice. Every time the women ran a scan, the mice changed in one or more ways. A docile mouse might become belligerent after the scan or it might not. A lethargic mouse might or might not suddenly develop prowess at running the maze. It didn't seem to matter whether the mouse was under the positive or negative f