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acceptable to answer a "Thank you" with "No problem." Prolonged exposure to
journalists made her distrust any news report; they got matters wrong so
casually, even the simple ones. A supposedly major media figure she had never
heard of came to ask scowling, abrasive questions focused on how she got the
Cosm away from Brookhaven.
The man had a tapered nose descending to a tight, pouting mouth, the
combination a fleshy exclamation point. He commanded TV Mini-cams that stared
in cyclopean stupor at her, unwavering even when she blew her nose--or maybe
because she did. She never watched the final product but heard enough to write
a fuming letter of com-plaint-which nobody answered.
But these were mere passing irritants. Deeper were the systemic
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COSM
troubles. She stressed the many unknowns; the media wanted sharp answers to
huge questions, preferably in a compact one-liner. She tried to emphasize the
progressive questioning of her method and how all answers were provisional,
awaiting confirmation; reporters liked zippy adventure and exciting guesses
with, of course, striking visuals in primary colors.
As the results began appearing, she started to perceive by a sort of radarlike
reflection how the vast audience beyond saw her world.
The barely awake public, trained to the attention span of a commercial,
thought that science had two children: either consumer yummies, served up by
the handmaiden of technology, or else awesome wonders like the beauties of
astronomy. The unsettling side they largely ignored, unless for the momentary
shock value of, say, swollen insects doing disgusting things. But the root
promise of science was of a world unshaped by humans. The expanses of time and
space that stretched out from the human community were terrifying, and most
avoided even thinking of them.
She recalled that polls showed over half the American population thought
astrology had scientific principles undergirding it. Many believed in
clairvoyants, faith healers, palm readers, and everyday para-scientific
notions like energy halos, mystical pyramids, UFOs, and
ESP. The Cosm seemed like more of the same to them.
She was checking out at the Glenneyre Market when she saw the
National Enquirer' s headline:
GIRL WHO MAKES GALAXIES
Is Shiny Bowling Ball A Universe?
She yanked all the copies out of their wire rack and stuffed them behind
another tabloid. Two days later somebody sent her anonymously, through
interdepartmental mail, an even worse rag:
THIEF OR GODDESS?
Is 'Brilliant But Driven' Scientist A Swindler?
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GREGORY BENFORD
"Ummm," Max said, finding the whole matter funny, while she fumed. "How come
you can't be both?"
The melancholy clouds in her mind she increasingly dispelled with long walks
with Max on the beaches north of Laguna. They were being swallowed by housing
tracts from inland, an upscale fungus.
She had not been at UCI long, but the feeling of constriction, even along the
besieged beaches, alarmed her.
How did we lose all this? she wondered. By inches. The developers, the eager
immigrants, the boundless plenty of sunlight and sharp air--all conspired to
wedge in just one more condo, another street, a minimart to shave seconds of
convenience from myriad lives. As the universe expanded, humanity seemed to
outrace it, filling it with their numbers, with riotous life's unstoppable
growth.
Her fame in the larger world rose exponentially. She even began getting
invitations to receptions, evenings at the opera, dinner parties, and the like
from people she did not know. She went to some, sometimes straight from the
lab, not changing out of her work clothes.
They reminded her of why she had never cultivated the usual university crowd
and preferred people like Jill.
e
To Alicia it seemed that academics often tossed around political topics,
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