The Last Theorem - Arthur Charles Clarke [87]
All the same, this was exactly the offer that Gamini had asked him to accept. Ranjit controlled the impulse to laugh in Bledsoe’s face and said only, “‘Recruit’ me. Does that mean you’re offering me a job?”
“Damn straight it does, Subramanian. You’ll be provided with all the resources you need—and the U.S. government has plenty of resources—and a generous salary. How about—?”
Ranjit could not help blinking at the figure mentioned. It would have supported several generations of Subramanians. “That seems adequate,” he commented drily. “When should I start?”
“Ah, well,” Bledsoe said moodily, “not right away, I’m afraid. It’s a matter of your security clearance. You did, after all, spend a couple of months in the slammer back home, under suspicion of being associated in terrorist activities.”
Then Ranjit did come close to blowing his top. “That’s ridiculous! I wasn’t involved in any—”
Bledsoe raised his hand. “I know. Do you think I’d be offering you this kind of a job if I didn’t know that? But the security clearance people get real antsy when there’s a connection with a certified terrorist bunch like your pirates. Don’t worry. It’s all just about straightened out. We had to go right to the top. It took actual White House intervention, but you’ll get your clearance. Only it will take a bit more time.”
Ranjit sighed and bit the bullet. “How long?”
“Three weeks, maybe. At most a month. So what I suggest is you go ahead and do all those speaking dates you’ve accepted, and when the word comes through, I’ll get in touch with you and arrange for your coming to California.”
There didn’t seem to be much help for it. “All right,” Ranjit said. “I’ll need an address for you so I can keep you posted on where to reach me.”
Bledsoe grinned. He showed a lot of teeth, a lot of sharklike teeth, when he smiled, Ranjit observed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll know where you are.”
Three weeks turned into six, and then into two months. Ranjit was beginning to wonder how long the generosity of the foundation that paid their hotel bills would last, and he still had not heard from Bledsoe again. “It’s just typical government red tape,” Myra said, consoling. “Gamini said to take the job. You took it. Now we just have to live by their timetable.”
“But where the hell is Gamini?” Ranjit said sulkily. He hadn’t appeared again, and when Ranjit e-mailed his father’s office to see if they could supply an address, they had simply replied, “He is in the field and can’t be reached.”
At least Myra had the visits to her old friends at MIT to amuse her. Ranjit didn’t have that much. When she came back to the hotel, puffing and—yes, you’d have to say it—waddling but full of news about the great new accomplishments of some of her old buddies, he greeted her with an unexpected question: “What would you think about catching the next plane back to Lanka?”
She eased herself and her great belly into a chair. “What’s the matter, dear?”
“This is going nowhere,” he announced, not adding that it was also very cold outside. “I’ve been thinking about what Dr. Bandara said. Being a full professor at the university wouldn’t be a bad life. I’d have a chance to do research, too, and you know there are plenty of other big problems that nobody has solved. If you wanted to be rich, I could see if I could work the bugs out of the Black-Scholes equation. Or, if I wanted a real challenge, there’s always P equals NP. If anybody could solve that, it would revolutionize mathematics.”
Myra shifted her weight around in the chair, trying to find a comfortable position. She decided there wasn’t one and leaned over to press her husband’s hand. “What’s P equals NP?” she asked. “Or that other equation?”
It was worse than she’d thought; Ranjit didn’t take the bait. “The thing is,” he said, “we’re just wasting our time here. We might as well give it up and go home.”
“You promised Gamini,” she reminded him. “Just give it a few more days.”
“A very few,” he said stubbornly. “A week at the most, and then we’re out of here.”
It didn