Far Off

Discovery

"I don't invent, I discover. These are not mine, they belong to posterity." His arm would go out like a great orator. "We gleaned these insights from the mountains of knowledge laid bare before us." Professor Ithuriel was always saying things like that. He'd repeat them to anyone that would listen, even if you weren't listening.

I once made the mistake of calling it pontificating. I don't remember seeing him so angry. He must not like people who pontificate. His head started bobbing back and forth, his chest puffed out. "I fail to see how offering the truth constitutes pontification!"

I only said it the one time. Honest. He wouldn't let it go after that. I don't know why he kept me around. Maybe it was just to make fun of me for that.

A couple of weeks ago, he called us together. The three of us. He said something like, "We need only apply the appropriate lens." We were all paying attention, but I don't think any of us found the occasion as important as he did. That happened a lot.

I asked him what made this so important. "Momentous!" is all he would say.

Janice interrupted before I asked him again. She'd been his assistant for a couple of years by then, but she would graduate soon. No one knew if she would stay after that. I asked her several times but she said didn't know either. Nobody understood him better than she did. "Does this mean you've cracked gravity?"

"Cracked," he said. It seemed more like a statement than a question. That's another thing he did a lot. "No, I wouldn't say I cracked it, but I have established a constant worthy of the symbol. Not even Einstein himself would argue with that."

He always spoke this way. To be honest, it made my hair hurt. I understood some of what he was saying, but I wished he would simplify things a little. He'd throw in the odd "forthwith" and "whereof" just when I wasn't expecting it. I think he did that to make it even more confusing. It was easy to get distracted by the words and I'd fall behind what he was saying. I'm smart enough, I guess, but this is physics, and math doesn't come so easy to me.

"Professor, please go on," Janice asked. She was trying to capture everything he said by hand. Not sure why she still used a notebook. I couldn't get through school without my laptop. If I had to write everything down, I'd never remember anything.

The three of us? Oh, that's right. Eryl Scout was the other person in the room. Funny name. Nice guy. We went to the same high school, but he was a year ahead of me. Grew up two towns over.

Anyway, he sat in his usual corner, taking it in the same as he always did. He was supposed to be some child prodigy, or so I heard, but he didn't do much except listen and nod. He was just as caught up in it as Janice, only without writing anything down. I tried to get his attention because I had to leave.

"Surely you've captured it all, Janice. I speak clearly, don't I?" the Professor asked.

"But you haven't told us why it's important." She was getting exasperated with him. I could tell. Her voice went up an octave at the end of her sentences when she got impatient.

"I would expect my protege to understand the importance of something so momentous." The Professor was a little indignant. I guess he was usually indignant.

"Having it in your words would complete things." This was hardly the first time she and the Professor talked past each other. Sometimes I wondered if it was part of a dance. You know, maybe they meant to do it. Like checking off a list.

The next part of the dance had the Professor turn and look off in the distance. There's never any telling what's going on in his head when he does that, but he does it all the time. You could bet on it, especially when someone asked him to make things clearer.