The Last Theorem - Arthur Charles Clarke [27]
It was, Ranjit realized as he reached for the letter on university stationery, the third, maybe the fourth, time Gamini had mentioned this Madge person. He was contemplating the possible implications of this fact while extracting a letter on the same creamy paper as the envelope, and then Gamini’s possible failing went right out of his mind. The stationery was engraved with the name of the dean of students, and the letter said:
Please present yourself at the office of the Dean at 2:00 P.M. on Tuesday next. It is alleged that during the school year just past you made unlawful use of the computer password of a faculty member. You are urged to bring with you any documents or other material that you consider relevant to this charge.
And it was signed by the dean of students.
According to her nameplate the woman at the dean’s reception desk was a Tamil, which was encouraging, but she was also as old as Ranjit’s father. Her look was cold. “You are expected,” she informed him. “You may go right into the dean’s private office.”
Never before had Ranjit had occasion to visit the dean of students. He knew what the man looked like, though—the faculty file on the university’s home page supplied photos—and the elderly man reading a newspaper at the huge mahogany desk definitely was not him. But he put down his paper and rose, not exactly with a smile but certainly without the hanging-judge look Ranjit had expected. “Come in, Mr. Subramanian,” he called. “Sit down. I’m Dr. Denzel Davoodbhoy, chairman of the mathematics department, and as mathematical matters seem to play a significant role here, the dean asked me to conduct this interview for him.”
That hadn’t been a question, and Ranjit had no idea what response would have been appropriate. He simply went on gazing at the mathematician with an expression that, he hoped, conveyed attentive concern but no admission of guilt.
Dr. Davoodbhoy didn’t seem to mind. “First,” he said, “there are a couple of formal questions I must put to you. Did you use Dr. Dabare’s password to earn money you were not otherwise entitled to?”
“Certainly not, sir!”
“Or to alter your math grades?”
This time Ranjit was offended. “No! I mean, no, sir, I wouldn’t have done that!”
Dr. Davoodbhoy nodded as though he had expected both answers. “I think I can tell you that no evidence has been presented to suggest either charge. Finally, how, exactly, did you obtain his password?”
As far as Ranjit could see, there did not appear to be any reason to try to conceal anything. Hoping that this was so, he began with his discovery that the teacher would be out of the country for a prolonged visit and ended with that return to the library computer when he found the solution waiting on the screen.
When he finished, Davoodbhoy gazed at him in silence for a moment. Then he said, “You know, Subramanian, you might have a future in cryptography. It would be a better chance than continuing to spend your life trying to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem.”
He looked at Ranjit as though expecting a response. Ranjit didn’t choose to give him one, so Davoodbhoy added, “You’re not alone, you know. When I was your age, like every other math major in the world, I got interested in the final theorem myself. It is compelling, isn’t it? But then, when I was a little older, I gave up on it because—you know this, don’t you? Because the odds are pretty great that Fermat never did have the proof he was claiming.”
Unwilling to be baited, Ranjit kept his attention set at politely attentive and his mouth closed. “I mean,” Davoodbhoy added, “look at it this way. You do know, I suppose, that Fermat spent a lot of his time, right up to the day he died, trying