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By Root 1111 0

head. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have women like this in his gravitational field. To be in Norval’s position, just for one day. Sometimes he thought he’d do almost anything to trade places: light a fire in an orphanage, push the Pope off a cliff … But the feeling would pass. Because he was looking for something more romantic, longer-lived, something found in fairy and technicolor tales. Does this sort of thing exist in the real world? It would certainly never exist for him. With the curse of his memory, and now his mother’s memory, it was pointless to pursue love or marriage. These things were about as possible as making a wedding ring out of mercury, or honeymooning in Atlantis. He stared at Norval, in simmering silence. “How exactly did we become friends, Nor? It seems that in every single way we—”

“As soon as you told me your name. You had Byron’s adopted first name, and Bonaparte’s initials. And mine.”

The flip answer, despite Noel’s resistance, pulled him headlong into the past, into his childhood lab with its laminated Periodic Table. Memory particles fell on him like snow.

Norval recognised his friend’s dead-eyed stare. “What are you seeing, Noel? Noel?”

“Just … memory flakes, nothing important.”

“Tell me.”

“Not this time, Norval, I don’t want to play, I’m not in the mood.”

“Come on, lighten up for Christ’s sake.”

“No. I don’t feel like it.”

“One more time. Play the bloody game.”

Noel sighed. All right, for the last time. “I was thinking of Nb. Niobium. Group Vb of the Periodic Table.”

“Physical appearance?”

Noel closed his eyes. “Like steel, except it’s soft and ductile. When polished, it looks like platinum.”

“Rare?”

The servant entered, carrying a large mahogany chest of chemicals, with a coil of platinum and two lead clamps … Noel opened his eyes, bleaching lurid images from Dorian Gray. “No, it’s more plentiful than lead.”

“Principal uses?”

Noel reclosed his eyes, waited for the right map to sharpen, like a print under emulsion. “Tools and dies, superconductive magnets. Claddings for nuclear reactor cores—either alone or alloyed with zirconium—since it’s compatible with uranium and resistant to corrosion by molten alkali-metal coolants …”

Norval erupted into laughter.

“… and has a low thermal-neutron cross section.”

“Of course, mustn’t forget the thermal-neutron cross section. Atomic number and weight?”

“Forty-one and 92.906.”

“Proceed.”

“Melting point 2,468 degrees C, boiling point 4,927.”

“In Fahrenheit?”

“4,474 and 8,901.”

“In Kelvin?”

“I don’t know, you idiot.”

“Go on.”

“Specific gravity 8.57, electronic configuration (Kr)4d45s1.”

“Derivation of name?”

“After Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus.”

“The mythical king? Who was condemned to stand in water that receded when he tried to drink? Or was it with fruit that receded when he tried to grab it?”

“Both.”

“But what’s that got to do with Niobium?”

“Because the two elements, Tantalum and Niobium, are always found together.”51

“Noel, do you see now why I hang with you? Because you’re a fucking marvel—with possibly the largest cranial junkyard in the world. But maybe I should write this all down, make sure you’re not making it up.”

“I wish I was, believe me.”

“So what were we talking about? I’ve completely forgotten.”

“So have I.”

“Liar.”

“We were talking about …” Noel let out a sigh, not his first of the day. “… the psychology of love. We then moved on to all the women you’ve loved and lost.”

“Right, the null set.” Norval looked at his chained watch. “I vote we change the subject.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Noel rose and walked quickly to the men’s room, where a tottering man was using both urinals, and the wall between them. So he stepped inside the only stall. I’ll try one last approach, he thought, I’ll ask him about Cynara. After another drink. He zipped up his fly but did not flush, as the bowl was blocked by a light bulb and a waterlogged roll of paper towels.

At the bar he had to shout to be heard, something he never liked doing. “The toilet! It should not be flushed under any circumstances! And there