A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [105]
“ ‘Cause if you don’t,” she said with a big grin, “then I’ll tell you mine.” When he let out a heavy sigh, she encouraged him. “What have you got to lose? It’s not like I’m going to write an unauthorized biography!”
Lotze spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. “All right. I ran away from home when I was fourteen. I had an abusive mother and an apathetic father. I decided it couldn’t be any harder to live on my own…and I was right. I’m just glad I didn’t have any brothers and sisters for my parents to pick on, so they probably turned on each other. I can’t tell you if they’re still married, or even still alive.”
“How sad,” Rlinda said.
“I’m happy enough with how I turned out.” He gave the slightest smile—the only smile Rlinda had ever seen from him—then turned back to study the results of his blood analysis. “Traces of endorphins, as well as adrenaline residue. So this attack wasn’t a surprise, and it wasn’t quick. Louis Colicos was frightened for some time before his death, and he experienced a considerable amount of pain.”
Rlinda swallowed a lump in her throat, trying to imagine what had happened in the old man’s last moments. “I take it you’ve studied biochemistry and forensic science, then?”
He looked at her, and again she noticed how the scars on his cheek looked like claw marks. “I studied everything. I had no money, but I managed to doctor my records. I changed my identity. I applied for and received small grants and student loans. If you don’t ask for too much money, they don’t dig deeply—especially if you fall within certain categories so universities can add you to their politically correct statistics. I masqueraded as a persecuted religious minority, sometimes as a hardship case. And if you upload medical documentation that you’re suffering from a terminal condition, scholarship funds fall all over themselves to give you tuition money.”
“You little scam artist,” Rlinda said.
“It was necessary. I stayed in school for six years studying course after course of my choosing. I changed my identity five times.”
Rlinda was puzzled. “Then how’d you get a degree?”
“I had the knowledge. Why would I need a degree?”
“That’s one way to look at it, I suppose. So, you learned…uh, espionage and cryptography?”
“Along with politics, world history, astronomy, starship engineering. I believe in the philosophy of diminishing returns when it comes to education.”
“What’s that?”
“Beyond a certain point of studying a subject, additional hours don’t provide much added depth or understanding. You’re better off learning something completely new.” He set down his analysis pad and turned to her. “For example, say you know nothing about meteorology. If you spend a hundred hours studying the subject, you’ll gain most of the knowledge you’d ever need, and you’ll learn how to find more detailed answers should you ever require a more sophisticated answer.
“However, if you study meteorology for another hundred hours, the incremental understanding decreases dramatically. On the other hand, if you spent those same hundred hours on a new subject—say, economics—you gain another solid foothold. I decided it was best to acquire a comfortable working knowledge of a great many subjects, rather than try to become an expert in only one. Ironically, the more basic pieces of the puzzle I learned, the more odd connections I discovered. Who would ever have thought to find linkages between art history, music theory, and business economics, for example?”
“Is there a connection?”
“Absolutely. But it would take me a week to explain.”
“Let’s finish our investigation here first.”
Davlin paced around the room. “We know the Colicos team scattered their equipment throughout the abandoned structures. Maybe they left something else that we’ve overlooked.” He turned away from the chamber where Louis had died, taking a portable light panel so that he could pour illumination into shadowed cracks and corners.
Rlinda followed him. “So, you’re quite the Renaissance man. Did the