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Chapter 7

At lunch on Thursday, this time held at the University of Maryland, one of the faculty members dining with us asked a question about my experience in getting a doctorate so quickly, almost before taking a bachelor’s degree, let alone finishing high school. “Wasn’t it difficult to convince the administrators?” he asked.

I laughed. “Yep, it was. I kinda backed into getting the degree. The uni president even had to check with the trustees since they have this ‘residency’ requirement—lots of schools do—where you have to be enrolled for so long and have earned so many credits to be eligible. So I got a waiver. But you know that the doctorate isn’t granted for simply checking off items on a bucket list. It’s awarded as an acknowledgment that you’ve demonstrated enough academic independence that you can create new knowledge. You know that. So if someone has demonstrated complete mastery of a subject, plus mastery of the areas which relate to that subject, and then uses that mastery to create new knowledge, by definition he should be eligible for a doctorate. Isn’t that right?”

There were general nods of agreement.

“That’s what I had to tell the president to convince him. I also used one of my favorite dissertation stories, one I had heard from my mum, who had a master’s in biology before she took her medical degree. She had told me about this Scot bloke in the 1880s, erm, name of Caldwell, I think, who had written the shortest dissertation ever. Four words and sent by telegram. It got him the equivalent of a doctor’s degree... from Royal Society or Cambridge University. Something like that. Anyway, I can recite the whole dissertation. It’s ‘Monotremes oviparous, ovum meroblastic.’ It’s a hoot.”

“What’s that mean?” my host asked.

“I need to explain. So Caldwell went to Australia to study the platypus and other monotremes, being sent by his advisor. There were all kinds of arguments up to that point about whether platypuses were mammals, reptiles, or birds, but naturalists had finally settled on them being mammals. But it was insisted that they couldn’t lay eggs, ‘cause no mammal did that. Caldwell went to investigate. So his telegram meant that platypuses do indeed lay eggs which are similar to those of reptiles. ‘Meroblastic’ means that only part of the egg divides as it develops, like those of reptiles do. So that telegram got him a doctorate. It’s a good example of an independent discovery of new knowledge. Also it didn’t hurt that my own discovery really boosted the uni’s reputation and started to attract some student interest to come study there. Money does talk.”

They all laughed.

“Emma, you’re a fount of knowledge,” my host complimented. “Not only in physics. I also can see how convincing you can be. You have a unique way of explaining yourself so that the person goes away satisfied, and you’ve made him feel that you thought his point of view was important too.”

The beginning of today’s seminar went much more smoothly than yesterday’s, in that by now everyone knew that I was not quite 14 years old. And since this talk was about solid-state physics and not primarily about maths, the audience was a little different. But this was a well received session too.

I was tired when I returned to the embassy that night; it had been a long day. They had a scheduled a formal dinner at Johns Hopkins for me and the university bigwigs were in attendance. Yes, I did get some questions about whether I’d be open to an offer of a professorship. I told them that I was exploring my options. It’s a good way to say ‘no’ while not saying no.

I would be flying home on Saturday, so the Friday was open. I had thought of using the day to see a little of Washington. When Gerry had heard that I was staying over, she offered to give me a little tour, and since the kids were just out of school now, they would come along. I had a wonderful time. I realized that there was a huge missing part in my life; even when I was living with Mum and Grandma, I had never experienced this kind of emotional closeness before. It helped that the siblings were all extremely bright kids, but it was their maturity, despite the girls’ impulsiveness and irrepressibility, that really called to me. Spending time with Andrew, just chatting about random things, was also amazing. So was his London accent. Is that how I sound too? It seemed it was. I guess I miss London.

Much of my tour was just drive bys of some attractions and monuments, but we also went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, where we stopped for lunch. Parking was a non-issue as Gerry’s car had diplomatic plates. When we got back to the residence, we kids had some time to talk before dinner. Earlier Uncle George had left some papers for me to sign—not that they had “legal” validity; they just showed that I was the person making the emancipation request, and they had been set out for me to sign.

Then the girls dragged Andrew and me to the sitting room; this was the first time we kids were alone all together.

“Gramps told us that you had that awful naked pupil rot in your school,” Sam said. “I wanted to ask about it because it’s supposed to start here in the autumn. That’s when I start high school and Dad’ll be posted here for the next few years.”

Andrew spoke. He was sat next to me, holding my hand, whilst the girls were sat on the floor at our feet.

“Sam’s been bugging me to find out more about it, Emma,” Andrew said. “One of my mates in school has a cousin over in Reston and the Program had started in her school in the spring. But she’s been too embarrassed to talk to him about what she saw there and none of my mates know much about it either.”

I sighed. “Well, I can’t give you much help about what goes on in a school with the Program either, I’m afraid. I only know what I read in the booklet they gave out. Yes, they tried to start the Program in my school, and in fact I was picked to do it along with fifteen other blokes in the first group, but nothing came of it. We got it stopped—cold,” I giggled.

“Yeah, Gramps told us!” ... “How did you do that?” ... “What you did was brill!” they chorused.

So I told them the funniest parts. Only in retrospect were they funny. Not while it was happening, though. They laughed at the appropriate spots in my tale, too. No, I’m not good enough to do stand-up comedy, though. Even so, this was almost more fun than those two seminars.

“I don’t know how I’d deal with being forced to be in the Program,” Sam said. “I wig out just at the thought of being forced to do that rot.”

“I do too, Sam,” I told her. “The idea that I’d be forced to be all starkers in school completely terrified me, not to mention how I felt when I saw all the horrid scenes in the video they played for us, as well as the other nasty tosh that they made kids do that I read about in that Program booklet. But when they were going to strip me, I managed to get out of it, tricking them like I told you. But I did learn that physically forcing you isn’t legal, and neither is making threats. After I was able to fool them about my fainting and get away, I found out from my solicitor that if an adult touches a kid with the intent of injuring him, it’s a felony called battery ‘cause stripping someone by force is actually a legal kind injury. He said the punishment can be as much as twenty years in jail. If an adult even just tells another to strip you, then that’s assault—it’s deliberately making you believe that you’ll be harmed somehow. You don’t have to be touched to be assaulted.

“So if you get in that situation when the Program starts in your school, you all can resist and they can’t forcibly strip anyone without risking a long prison sentence. But I did learn that to keep out of trouble, you mustn’t become known as the resistance leader. At least don’t do it the way I did and recruit a gang of militant rebels. You must never tell anyone that they shouldn’t participate. You must only tell them that they have the right not to participate when they’re told to do it. They have the right to resist, not that you told them that they should resist.” The memory of that time resurfaced and I shivered. “Yeah, that was a scary time, innit. When they were gonna strip me, I was sheet-fill-me-boots scared... the idea of being starkers by myself together with only a few others... that idea alone was just horrid.”

“That’s brilliant advice, Emma,” Andrew said as Sam nodded her agreement.

Then Sam heaved a sigh. “Okay. I get it. I think that when they start the Program, I’m definitely gonna tell everyone that they can resist if they want and they can’t be forced to do it. The idea of being forced makes me furious, not only for me, but for everyone else too. But, well, I suppose I have a different feeling about the nudity to you, Emma. I don’t feel the same as you do about public nudity itself.”

“Really? In what way?” I asked.

“Okay, I’ll try to explain. In our middle school health class this past spring, the school gave us an introduction to what will happen when we started high school with the Program being there. They told us about all the sex things that Program kids have to do. Some of the girls almost got sick hearing that rot. They were whinging, ‘We’ll have to suck on a boy’s willie? They pee from there!’ And ‘I have to let just anyone in the whole school put their fingers up my vag?’ Actually the whole idea of the Program sounded totally horrid to me, too, just like it did to the other girls. Doing any of that sex cack—that would be a nightmare. Not the nudity part by itself, except that being nude where almost everyone else is dressed would be so strange. Otherwise, being nude with other people isn’t a problem at all for our family because at the park, everyone... oops...”

She flashed a panicked look at Andrew, who told her, “Hey, Sam. Go talk to Mum and ask.”

What? Sam? Nude with other people? Now I was confused.

“Andrew, what’s...” I started as Sam got up and ran out.

“Hey, it’s nothing. I reminded her that she needed to ask Mum something, is all. Look, I’ve been meaning to ask you what all the fuss is about the maths you use.”

Abi made an “oh, really?” face at Andrew.

“Well, Andrew,” I replied, “the maths are kinda advanced, but let’s see... you’ve dealt with quadratic equations, binomials, and multiorder polynomials, I assume? That’s in tenth grade maths, I think.”

Abi interrupted, “Ooohh, binomials and polynomials—what about homo nomials? Lezzie nomials?” she chortled. “That’s way sexier than maths!”

“Bugger off, you little imp!” I laughed at her.

“Ugh. Maths. You guys’ll be soooo boring. I’m gonna see where Sam is.” Abi ran off, shrieking with laughter as she skipped out.

I shrugged. I figured that if what Andrew told Sam was important, the girls will tell me; else they’ll burst. I turned to Andrew.

“How much maths have you taken so far?”

“Actually, Emma, I was in twelfth grade maths last year,” Andrew commented. “I’m taking AP maths this autumn.”

“Nice. Do you know what calculus is, Andrew?”

“Sure. My teacher has extra sessions for advanced kids.”

“Okay, differential equations?”

“Yeah. I know a little about that.”

“That’s ace. How about partial differentials and multiple integrals—that is, surface and volume integration?”

“I won’t do that before college.”

“Look at this, then.” I pulled out my mobile and brought up a copy of my last paper; then scrolled to one of the generalized Fourier series equations. “Can you see what this equation is describing?”

I pointed to a second-order linear partial differential equation and told him the values of the variables.

“You work with this? Wow.” He looked at it for a minute. “It looks like it could be something that repeats, doing it over and over.”

“You saw that? I was trying to do something that wasn’t very nice, to show you that you wouldn’t understand the maths that I work with. I think you really do understand. Actually that equation describes a wave, and yes, it repeats over and over. If you saw that from what you learnt in high school maths, that’s really impressive, Andrew. I know it’s early still, but do you have any idea what you’d like to study?”

“I like maths. That’s why I asked you. We did some statistics in maths earlier this year and that was brill, and I like calculus too. I’d like some kind of job that uses maths a lot, I guess, and...”

Just then the sisters came roaring in, jabbering with excitement. And began speaking all at once.

“Mum told us...” Abi.

“This is brill...” Sam.

“...she said that...” Abi.

“...we won’t have...” Sam.

“... they won’t let...” Abi.

“...to do that...” Sam.

“Wait. Wait. Wait!” Andrew shouted. I had to giggle at the girls’ sheer enthusiasm.

“Now then. Slowly. What happened?”

Clearly he was used to this.

They looked at each other and Abi nodded to Sam. “It’s more for you, sis,” she said.

Sam took a deep breath and this is what emerged, all on that one breath. “I went to ask Mum about our resort trips but she sat me down to tell me that I shouldn’t get all worried about the high school’s naked rubbish ‘cause Gramps called Mum just a few minutes ago and told her that the Foreign Office decided that they won’t allow British kids to be in that bloody Program and then Abi came in whilst Mum was telling me that and then we talked about the resort we go to and why being naked isn’t a problem for me so she said we could tell you but you won’t let anyone else know, you won’t, will you.”

“I’m really confused now,” I said, trying to make sense of what Sam said. Was she talking about two different subjects, or just one? Or more? “Help?” I pleaded.

Andrew chuckled. “When Sam gets excited, her words come out like a stream of consciousness. What I think she means is first, none of us will have to be in the Program. Second, public nudity doesn’t bother her—or any of us—because we go to a nudist resort and we’re actually nudists.”

Well, blow me down. What does that mean, to be “nudists,” exactly? I thought. Well, I thought I thought it. I must have thought it aloud.

Abi laughed and said, “What ‘nudists’ means is that we go to this brilliant resort where nobody wears any clothes and we all go swimming whilst nude and hot tubbing and playing sports like water volleyball and frisbee and badminton and hiking on the trails and dancing and picnics and stuff and have bands with live music and contests and cookouts and live in a camper and play with lots of other kids and... and...”

She did it too; but ran out of breath before she ran out of words, apparently.

“Abi’s talking about a nudist resort we go to near Annapolis. It’s not far,” Andrew said. “And it’s blindin’ ace, being outside and also going swimming whilst starkers. So the being naked whilst in school rubbish wouldn’t be so bad for Sam and me, but if you’re the only one being naked and no one else is, and they can touch your dangling bits or put their fingers in girls’ fannies, then that’s bloody nasty. It’s dead wrong too. Now, about going to our nudist resort, we don’t tell anyone about our lifestyle and people who go there like their privacy, so you’ll keep this quiet, won’t you.”

“Absolutely. I’m fascinated by this, Andrew. You need to tell me more. How do...”

Just then Gerry came in with Stuart.

“Evening, Emma,” Stuart said. “We just heard the kids revealing our great secret to you...”

“I’ll keep it quiet, no worries,” I said.

“Good. Well, something else’s come up. It’s wonderful news for you, Emma. Dad just rang us a minute ago. They found your Uncle Scott and he’s alive, but very much worse for wear.”

“What! Ohmygod. What... how...” I jumped up.

“Okay, sit, sit down. It’s a long story but I’ll summarize because the details aren’t important just now. He’s in a Seattle hospital now, moved there last week from Anchorage. He has an almost complete amnesia about what happened to him but the Aleuts who found him figured out something of what likely happened.” He consulted a pad. “You know he was flying to the Aleutians for some kind of field project.”

“Yeah. And there was an unexpected early winter storm in the area.”

“Indeed. He was found drifting in the ocean by a fishing boat by some Aleuts out of St George Island.” He laughed. “Very appropriate name too. It’s in the Bering Sea, not near the Aleutians. He was blown off course and crashed, I assume. He was found with no life raft, only a survival suit.”

“His plane had floats; maybe he was able to land in the water and then something happened.”

“Yes, probably, since he survived. Now he has a partially healed skull fracture and some brain swelling still and it needs surgery soon.”

“Oh god, will he live?”

“The hospital report was that he’s stable, but unless he gets some highly specialized surgery and a lot of rehab, he won’t recover. Even then his ability to walk might be affected.”

I was crying now and Andrew put an arm around me.

I sniffled. “What took it so long to get him help?”

“There was that early winter storm and the ice had formed very early too. The Aleuts out there are self-sufficient. Maybe their radios can’t reach the mainland and if there’s electrical interference, even stronger radios can be iffy. They don’t take the boats far in the winter because of the ice. Your uncle was wearing a Royal Navy survival suit...”

“Yeah, I remember that suit. He told me that he had got it as surplus, said it was the best.”

“...so the islanders assumed he was from a British trawler. They were trying to reach any nearby trawler, thinking Scott was from one of them. Your uncle couldn’t say much, but had a Brit accent and said ‘Elizabeth’ a lot.”

“Oh. I’m gonna lose it. That was his pet name for me. My middle name.” I was really crying now.

“Well, the Aleuts thought he was referring to the Queen. Anyway, they finally had made contact with a trawler who relayed a distress call to a British ship in the region and they got him off the island in mid-May and got him to Nome. That’s where they first brought him in, and got him into a hospital there. No one knew who he was, so they assumed, from his accent, that he was a Brit, so after trying to locate any British vessels in the area, they finally contacted the British consulate to see if any knew of any British citizens that were missing. The consul recalled that Dad had been there to deal with a question involving one of our citizens, you, Emma, so he checked and discovered your Uncle Scott was on a company exchange visa and had gone lost. So now he was found. They moved him to Anchorage but the hospitals there weren’t equipped to handle his case. They contacted his company and they had him transferred to Seattle where the hospitals are better equipped.”

I got up. “We need to get him some top care! I assume Seattle has good hospitals but... but... the U.S. president goes to the... erm... Walter Reed Hospital, right? They operate on all those IED injuries from the Iraq wars and Afghanistan, don’t they.”

“Yes, but...”

“I can pay for his treatment. He’ll be close to the embassy here too, won’t he. I can’t do anything for him in Alaska. And...”

Uncle George came in then. “I heard, Emma. That sounds like a good plan to me. He’d get excellent care here, too. That’s a military hospital, you know, so I might need to pull some strings. You should know that your uncle turned up with... erm... an associate? When he was rescued from the sea, an Aleut woman took on his care. She must be an angel because she did everything right to stabilize him; she saved his life. And now she won’t leave his side. As well, he’s become attached to her, from what we’ve been told.”

“Can we do it? Bring him here?”

“Certainly. If I need to, I’ll organize an emergency visa of some kind.”

We put the plans in motion. I flew back home on Saturday, but changed my flight so I could stop in Seattle to see Uncle Scott. I got in too late to visit him, so I went straight to my hotel.

The issue about a minor reserving a hotel room problem was solved by having the U.K. consulate in San Francisco reserve and prepay for a room in my name. The “doctor” title caused a few raised eyebrows at the hotel reception. I got my room key card and was all set.

Early next morning, I went to the hospital. He recognized me! We both cried as he held me, then he whispered to the woman with him (her name was Mary Ayek), “This is my Elizabeth.”

She hugged me.

“Uncle Scott, Mary, they’re gonna move you to Washington—D.C. that is, to one of the big specialist hospitals there. Mary, is it okay for you to leave your people to be with Uncle Scott?”

“Yes, I will miss them but I have no one to keep me there anymore. I lost my husband and son in a fishing accident years ago. Your uncle now holds my soul.”

“You must hold his. You saved his life.”

“I have had many accidents to treat in my life. I learned to heal many.”

“Are you okay for money? Do you need anything?”

“No, your uncle’s company has been helping with a lot of things and the British people in San Francisco have someone working near here coming in to check on Scott every few days.”

“Good. I’m going home to Fairbanks but I’ll be back very soon. I’ll let you know how to reach me in the meantime. If they move Uncle Scott next week, then I’ll need to go to D.C. to set you both up. Meanwhile, it was wonderful to meet you.”

We hugged and then I went to Uncle Scott’s bed. I leaned over.

“It’s so good to have you back again. Now it’ll be my turn to take care of you.” He smiled. “You’re gonna get the best care, but I doubt that it’ll be better than Mary’s care.”

Uncle Scott really grinned then and I kissed him.

“Bye!” I hugged Mary and left.

I had to catch my flight to Fairbanks. I arrived home about 3 p.m. and got caught up with Mrs F. She was so happy that my uncle was alive but was sad that I was moving away. She was touched when I told her that our house was my gift to her; she insisted that it was too much, but acquiesced when I told her how much her friendship and support meant to me. I had looked up to her as my all-but-de-facto mother during those two years. I told her that I was going to have my uncle’s stuff packed up and moved to D.C.; I didn’t have many things of my own to move. A bit later, my housemates showed up and I told them what was going on and that I was moving away. Some tears were shed.

On Monday morning, I had a lot of work to do to get ready to leave Fairbanks. My first stop was to meet with Mr Jameson. I asked him to transfer the title of the house to Mrs F; to organize a bank card and mobile phone to be sent to Mary Ayek as soon as possible, and to contact Uncle Scott’s company to let them know of his hospital transfer. I asked Mr Jameson to smooth over any remaining worker’s comp and medical insurance issues for my uncle and see about any early or medical retirement possibilities. Scott had worked for them for quite a few years and they were a multinational outfit.

Then I stopped by my high school, met with Mr Smith, and told him the news. He had gotten the tutoring program set up to include some uni students and was happy with his fall plans. He had some really weird news: While I was away, a writer from a national tabloid (he wouldn’t give the woman the honor of calling her a “reporter”) showed up at the high school demanding to be given copies of all photographs of pupils in the Program.

I was incredulous. “What? What photos?”

“Other schools which run it take photos, usually of class demos, and put them on the school’s website,” he answered. “I don’t know what Hayword was planning about doing that. Anyway, the woman wanted the photos and claimed that we must have removed them from our site.”

“What was that all about?”

“I told her we had no Program and no pictures, so she went to the District office and told them that she was making a freedom of information request and that we would have to prove that we had no photos.”

I laughed. “She’s asking for evidence of absence, believing that any such photos are missing. Instead, she should be made to show that she has evidence which proves that photos indeed exist.”

“Exactly. I’m mentioning this to you because you’re involved and I wanted to alert you. When she finally realized that she was getting nowhere with Program pictures, she specifically asked for ones of you and the District office people told her we had none; besides, as you’re a minor, your privacy is required by law. Then she asked to see copies of our yearbooks and since you weren’t in any, she got abusive and let slip that she wanted to write an article about you; that you were a fraud and your accomplishments were all fiction; and she wanted naked pictures of you for the article.”

I was speechless.

“Emma, you need to understand that there are people like that out there. Some of them make a living by trying to discredit others. If she got a photo, I wouldn’t put it past her to Photoshop it into a naked photo. So my advice, now that you’ve got some notoriety, is to be careful of any privacy you can maintain.”

Blimey. This was disturbing news. We finished our discussion then and I left after wishing each other well.

My final stop was at the Physics Department. I had an absolute ton of posts waiting for me; take me weeks to go through them all. Most seemed to be about my giving talks. I met with my professor and told him that I’d have to move to be with my uncle. I was sorry that I couldn’t remain at UAF, but he said that it was clear that I was destined for greater things than teaching at a remote university in the frozen north. He would miss me and the excitement that I brought to the department. We went over the work he had been doing; as well, we discussed the work in the Engineering Department on my project. We mapped out some ideas that I had been considering about refining the chip structure, so we visited the EE people who could try out my suggestions. My trust was funding this work and it wouldn’t stop because I was moving away. I planned to keep in close touch with these people; they were really talented.

The uni also had a gift for me; they had given up any further resistance about my degree programs and the provost and president had agreed that all of the independent study papers I had written for the required courses in my bachelor’s programs had met the uni’s standards. I heard (through unofficial but reliable sources) that the trustees feared that the uni would get some bad publicity if it turned out that the bachelor’s degree was being withheld from one of their star students who had already been awarded the doctorate. My prof gave me a letter from the uni registrar which confirmed that I had completed the requirements for my bachelor’s degrees in physics and maths.

Well, the next regular graduation ceremony is in May, in a year. But the diplomas would read that the degrees were awarded this June. Including the diploma for my doctorate.

Then I returned home and began packing my stuff and Uncle Scott’s. Mrs F came in with Joyce to help me. She was still stunned by the gift of the house but was very thankful at my generosity. I reminded her again how she was a surrogate mum for me. More tears were shed. By Joyce, too; she had begun to view me as her older sister—even though she was much the older one. Strange how that works.

By Thursday, everything was ready to go. I had engaged a removal company to box up all our possessions and ship them to D.C. and packed myself—two bags for me this time—and then got a ride to the airport with my professor. It was a late night departure, an overnight flight with a change in Seattle that left in the early morning. He wanted to get me there early, he said, because he heard that there were going to be a lot of people going to the airport that evening. I assumed he meant to fly, so the surprise was on me! About half of the department was there to wish me a bon voyage! The TSA people were clearly fascinated with our little event ‘cause they kept stopping by our group to ask if everything was okay. Or maybe they just needed to check to see if the refreshments that our group had put out were safe for an airport. Yeah, maybe that’s why.

My time living in Alaska was over. A new chapter was about to begin.

~~~~

The fourth of July in the U.S. capitol was an experience. And a little bit surreal too. It’s Independence Day, you know. Independence from whom? That’s right. So excuse me if the response from the British embassy wasn’t overly joyous. Yes.

Uncle Scott and Mary had arrived in Washington about three days after I did and they set him up in Walter Reed Medical Center. Uncle Scott was actually a veteran—before he took his PhD, he was a member of the Royal Navy’s Commando Helicopter Force and had served in the Gulf War supporting a joint British-U.S. unit. Who knew? That helped Uncle George with a bunch of strings that he needed to pull. Scott would have to pay for his care, but he was entitled to some compensation from his employer’s disability plan, some from his health plan, and some from the U.K. government. My trust could cover any shortfall.

Gerry helped me find a small apartment that Mary could live in because they wouldn’t let her stay at Scott’s side all the time. I stayed at the embassy residence for the first few days I was back in D.C. and on the following weekend, Stuart and the family came for lunch. That’s when Stuart asked if I’d like to stay at their house for as long as I needed to and when I accepted, I thought the girls’ squeals would split my head. I think when the sound wave hit 10 Downing Street, they must have thought that the Yanks had rebelled again.

~~~~

July kinda flew by. During the month, Uncle George and Isabella (she had told me to use her Christian name) came by the Marshalls’ home fairly frequently and we were regular visitors at the embassy residence. On one of those visits, I mentioned to Uncle George the disturbing news about the tabloid writer that Mr Smith had told me about when we said our farewells.

“Uncle George, this has been bothering me,” I told him. “When I stopped at my old high school to say good bye, the principal told me about someone who stopped by the school looking for naked pictures of me.”

“What?” he exclaimed. “Tell me what happened, please.”

I related everything Smith had told me.

“Well, Emma, you’re perfectly justified in being concerned. This isn’t any ordinary smear campaign. Someone had to pay for her flight to Fairbanks, and somehow that woman found out about the Program there and with you being her target...” he trailed off. “Someone is trying to damage your reputation, it would seem.”

I had a thought. “Hmm. Is it possible that this is some kind of retaliation from the Program office? Maybe they...”

“Yes, Emma, that must be it!” Uncle George interrupted. “They couldn’t do anything official or make a contact that could be traced back to them... but... yes... perhaps a ‘leak’ to an unsavory writer, with just enough information to imply that the leak could lead to a possible exposure of a scandal, was the intent here. Or possibly this was personal, a retaliation by the enforcers you got arrested. Whatever it was, your principal was correct; you’ll have to carefully guard your reputation.”

“Blimey,” I moaned. “Just when I thought I was shot of the Program. I hope they don’t realize I’m not in Alaska anymore.”

The next time I saw Uncle George, he brought up the issue of my emancipation petition. He had learnt that making the arrangements remotely was just too difficult, and a simple trip back to the U.K. wouldn’t work either. That’s when I realized—I should have thought of this sooner—that if I really had joint citizenship through my mum, perhaps a U.S. court would emancipate me. So I asked.

“Uncle George, if my mum was born in the U.S. and I had records in her name to show that...”

“Oh blimey! Emma! That’s right, she must have been a citizen—I believe your grandmum was too. Yes, when I met your grandpa, they were expecting a daughter and I do remember when she was born.”

“But the papers are in a safe deposit with my London trustee.”

“I’m sure the U.S. State Department has a copy or a record. I’ll check on it on Monday.”

“Does that mean I’m a citizen here too?”

“I’m fairly sure. The citizenship rules have been changed somewhat over the years, but if she was a citizen, you as her child should be, even if you weren’t born here.”

So by mid-week, we had all the answers plus the needed documents, including faxed copies of my mum’s citizenship records, and an emancipation petition was being prepared. It would even have the support of my current legal guardian, Uncle Scott. And I was living in Stuart and Gerry’s house now. I had insisted that my acceptance of their offer to have me live with them was conditioned on my contributing to their household expenses. They had a lower level in it that had an area which was almost like a little bedsit with a combination sitting area-bedroom and a loo. No kitchen though.

Having my own almost-family now was an indescribable pleasure and joy and I spent a lot of time with the girls. And Andrew. No, nothing you’d be interested in happened between us. He and I spent a lot of time working on maths. It was so much fun showing him some new techniques and he soaked it up. The girls were annoyed, but tolerant, about how much time I spent with him, but I gave them lots of time too. And they taught me all about shopping. No, not shopping as you know it, where you go to a shop, select what you need, and hand over some money. They did shopping as a competitive sport where scoring the best bargains earned you the highest marks.

I tried to continue my work but missed the computer facilities I had at UAF. I had a really fast tower computer, built for gamers, so it had a lot of graphical processing power which I could employ to visualize my computations, but it wasn’t enough. Where could I continue my research? My mind was bubbling with things I wanted to try out. I did an on-line search for nearby colleges that I could approach and saw that the main campus of the University of Maryland was right here, practically in my back yard—the Marshalls’ home is in Langley Park. I hadn’t realized the UMD main campus was so close, since my seminar had been at their Baltimore campus. But Johns Hopkins actually had a major advanced physics research facility not that far away! The university’s Applied Physics Laboratory is in Laurel, only about 12 miles from here.

I looked over their site. It would be a perfect fit to support my work and had superb engineering facilities as well. So I rang up my JHU host from the June seminars and asked him about getting guest researcher privileges at their lab and he almost dropped the phone in his excitement. It appears that a fair number of the people at my second seminar worked at the APL and were mightily impressed with my work. There would be, he assured me, no problem at all in making whatever arrangements I needed. I gave him my current address and confirmed my other contact information was still current. He said that he still had a copy of my c.v. (add a BS in maths and a BS in physics to it, I mentioned) and publications list (oh, I’ve had another paper accepted, I told him, and gave him the details), so he now had the latest version.

I was also able to get back to my running—and now I had company too! At least part of the way. Early most mornings I got out and ran. The Anacostia Trail System passes close to our house and I had mapped out three five-mile courses using parts of the trail. Andrew ran with me, part of the way, since he couldn’t keep up with my pace for the whole distance. He was improving, though!

Several times a week I visited Uncle Scott and Mary. Scott had brain surgery (sounds awful, right?) but it was “only” to remove some scar tissue on his meninges where it extended into the arachnoid in the area where he had the depressed skull fracture. The compression caused by the scarred area was the most urgent problem to treat. Some surface blood vessels in the pia mater needed resection too; the pressure there was limiting blood supply to the underlying areas. Fortunately those vessels weren’t completely blocked or broken; that would have caused a stroke with a very uncertain prognosis. In Scott’s case, the docs felt that relieving the subcranial pressure, fixing the blood supply, and repairing the fracture properly, would be the only surgical intervention indicated. The rest of his recovery would involve physical therapy because scans of the rest of his brain showed no other significant pathology.

Uncle Scott’s memory was still patchy but he was beginning to recall things. When I told him about my past year (heavily edited, very heavily—nothing about the naked cobblers), he was delighted and proud of what I had accomplished. I told him about how well Mrs F had taken care of me and my gift of the house to her. He approved and said that was the absolutely perfect thing to do. He had already heard about how his company was going to deal with his medical retirement and was satisfied with the arrangements. Mostly he talked to me about Mary and how she had nursed him and tried to communicate with him when he was conscious and lucid.

“I was in a near coma for a month and they were afraid to move me. Then the ice came in. They had radios. But the f’ing electrical storm that fried my plane’s electronics and threw me off course damaged the only long-range radio on the island too, so they couldn’t reach anyone till spring began and the ice began to clear,” he told me at one point. “And you’ve heard the rest.”

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Next: Emma learns more about nudism; she’s really undecided about whether it’s for her and she’s, well, read and see. Emma will meet new people and will need to react to a whole different culture.

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