'I could not, I am sure,' said Raymond.

Well, how do you play, then?' she asked.

'Just like all the rest do, I suppose. Surely the interest of the whole thing lies in finding out how they managed with the instruments at their disposal?'

But what were the instruments? How do you define them?' Christopher saw the trend of Raymond's argument and was ready with his challenge. Surely the chief reason why they did not see what we do was not that their telescopes were toys compared to ours?'

Well, of course they were not trained observers like we are.'

'Oh yes, they were. They were highly trained to fit their observations to their interpretations. Remember we are reconstructing a period. It would be a sheer waste of time to look through a Galilean telescope and note down what it revealed of the stars. What it reveals of those observers is what we are after.'

'I mean their religion, their politics, and therefore their hopes, their anxieties. Every time they sat down to observe the stars they looked at them through all those things-through prejudice and conviction, as well as through their toys.'

'But that did not make any difference to what they saw. I am after that.'

'It made all the difference between their century and ours.'

Surely, Christopher, progress depends on the methods and instruments available?'

Progress?' Christopher paused to savour the full implications of the word, which he detested. 'I don't know what you mean by it, but if you mean what we learn by discovery, I say that is entirely a question of interpretation.'

'But science or learning is a question of measurement. We, for example, can only learn certain things by measuring them with instruments which our ancestors did not have. That is why the instruments they did have and use are so interesting.'

'You will see how happily they got on in spite of them. As far as your "progress "goes, we have probably lost far more than we have gained. We have almost lost the desire, for instance, of seeking the immeasurable. You people, who go on noting and measuring, measuring and noting, how often do you dare try to interpret? When it comes to that, you are more than medieval. They at least had a system of interpretation, into which they endeavoured to fit their facts. They sought to exalt the glory of God, and everything they found they proclaimed to be a part of that glory.' Medieval nonsense,' said Raymond briefly. 'If you like, but well-sustained nonsense, all the same. It achieved Christendom. It made us. What are you achieving?'

'We are getting to know how things work. That is worth all Christendom put together.'

The only thing that matters is the Why, not the How. Tell us that.'

'My dear boy, you talk like a poet or a mystic or a priest. Nobody cares about that but you. One might find out or one might not, but in the meantime let us look through our telescopes.'

'Well, Candide, go on looking and I will go on hoping.'

'Well, Pangloss, go on yourself. Perhaps one day you will tell us all about it.'

They smiled at one another; Raymond frankly and prosaically, as he thought; Christopher, passionately and maliciously, as he felt. The pessimist and the optimist, the man of measurement and the man of vision.

Raymond now saw Nicolette, who had come towards them during the conversation and was standing close to Christopher. She was looking at him, and her eyes were filled with pity, wonder, and alarm. If he had paused to interpret their expression, he would have thought the pity love, and the wonder shyness, and the alarm anticipation. But Raymond was no interpreter.

'Oh, well,' said Raymond, grasping his telescope, 'I am going to have a look through this.'

Christopher and Nicolette then looked at one another, and both knew that the episode was

definitely at an end. He could not-and could never-play their game.

After all, a mating was not a marriage.

'Oh, well had said Raymond, and had been charming about the whole thing. He was disappointed, or thought he was, but it was clear to him that Nicolette was surprisingly childish and immature for her age. He wondered afterwards what had been the quality in her that had attracted him (for he had been sincerely attracted by her), and concluded that it was a certain intensity, a look of the eyes, a wistfulness about the mouth, an atmosphere of spiritual stretching out, a keenness that he could not well define in words. However ...

His period of enforced chastity having thus abruptly terminated, he formed a liaison with Karen Glaum, a well-known broadcaster of stories and poems, and also gave a child to Ruth, at her own request. He remained only a few months longer in Nucleus, and in later years attained a certain limited eminence as a physicist, owing to his discovery of two important minor facts about the behaviour of polyphenols under very high pressure.

Chapter 9

CATALYSIS

One word, which he seemed to worship, often entered into his conversation: Intelligence.' And he pronounced it with such force of feeling that a little bubble of froth could be seen on his lips. JAQUES DE LACRETELLE—' SILBERMANN.'

I

WHEN Christopher, all penitent, begged Nicolette's forgiveness for his temporary desertion, she remembered her prediction with silent joy. 'In the end you will come back to me and I to you,' she had said at their parting, and already it was so. Within a week or two of its ending she could look on the Raymond episode as a joke. St. John was absent from Nucleus at this time, and as she had merely had to soothe Antonia's disappointment and listen to a short disapproving homily from Adrian, she could only see its comical aspect. Nevertheless, having taken pleasure in Raymond's caresses at least, she felt now confirmed in her reaction against the physical preliminaries to motherhood. Christopher could give all the love she needed, and her inward discomfort at certain recollections (innocent kisses though they had been) appeared to her as a sign that she did not choose to penetrate the dark avenue of sex.

'The point is,' said Christopher,' what do you want to do now?'