"A railgun. Precisely."
Things began to fall into place for Casimir. "Oh. I see. So you want to know if I could build-- basically a railgun." "Sure. Sure," said Heimlich in an aggressive, glinting voice. "What's research without practical applications?" The question hung in the air. Krupp took over, sounding much calmer. "You see, Casimir, in order to continue with this research-- and you are off to an exceptionally fine start-- you will need outside funding on a larger scale. Now, as good an idea as lunar mining is, no one is ever going to fund that kind of research. But railguns-- whether you like it or not, they have very immediate significance that can really pull in the grants. I'm merely pointing out that in today's climate relating your work to defense is the best way to obtain funding. And I imagine that if you wanted to set up a specialized lab here to advance this kind of work, you might be able to get all the funding you'd want."
Casimir looked down at the shattered plywood in consternation. "I don't need an answer now. But give it some careful thought, son. There's no reason for you to be stuck in silly-ass classes if you can do this kind of work. Call me anytime you like." He shook Casimir's hand, Heimlich made a brief smiling spastic bow, and they walked out together.
--February--
Sarah quit the Presidency of the Student Government on the first of January. At the mass-driver demonstration, S. S. Krupp had simply ignored her, which was fine by Sarah as she had no desire to give the man a point-by-point explanation.
As for the death of Tiny, here the other shoe never dropped, though Sarah and Hyacinth kept waiting. His body was in especially poor condition when found, and the bullet holes might not have been detected even if someone had thought to look for them. The City police made a rare Plex visit and looked at the broken window and the electrocuted man on the floor, but apparently the Terrorists had cleaned up any blood or other evidence of conflict; in short, they made it all look like a completely deranged drunken fuck-up, an archetype familiar to the City cops.
The Terrorists wanted their own revenge. None of them had a coherent idea of what had happened. Even the two surviving witnesses had dim, traumatized memories of the event and could only say it had something to do with a woman dressed as a clown. As soon as I heard that the Tetrorists were looking for someone called Clown Woman, I invited her over and we had a chat. I knew what her costume had been. Though she understood why I was curious, she suddenly adopted a sad, cold reserve I had never seen in her before.
"Som ~. really terrible things happened that night. But I'm I Hyacinth is safe-- okay? And we've been making plans to stay that way."
"Fine. I just-- "
"I know. I'd love to tell you more. I'm dying to. But I won't, because you have some official responsibilities and you're the kind of person who carries them out, and knowing anything would be a burden for you. You'd try to help-- but that's something you can't do. Can you understand that?"
I was a little scared by her lone strength. More, I was stunned that she was protecting me. Finally I shrugged and said, "Sounds as though you know what you're doing," because that was how it sounded.
"This has a lot to do with your resigning the Presidency?" I continued. Sarah was a little annoyed by my diplomacy, for the same reason S. S. Krupp would have been.
"Bud, I don't need some terrific reason for resigning. If I'm spending time on a useless job I don't like, and I find there are better things to do with that time, then I ought to resign." I nodded contritely, and for the first time she was relaxed enough to laugh. On her way out she gave me a long platonic hug, and I still remember it when I feel in need of warmth.