Red Moon

by Kim Stanley Robinson

be off the hook. Not this time. “I didn’t fit in,” Fred finally said, surprising himself. “I never could quite get why people did what they did. I didn’t understand them. Or, I just couldn’t think fast enough. So everything was kind of mysterious. And, and, and … disturbing. So then, in my math classes, I could understand things. Things were clear. Like algebra. I liked algebra. Everything balanced out. And I could see things in geometry. Trig was geometry as processed by algebra, so I liked that too. Calculus was easy.” She laughed. “That’s not a sentence you hear very often.” “No, it’s easy. And then there was a little introductory unit on quantum mechanics, kind of to dispense with it and move on. And what the professor said about it was so weird and, and—and unlikely, that I got into it. It was interesting.” “So that’s your biography? A list of your math classes?” “I guess so.” “What else did you do?” “What do you mean?” “I mean, what else did you do! In your life! Sports? Music? Theater? Dance? Travel? Friends? Romances?” “No,” Fred said. That sounded a little extreme, all by itself, and so he added: “I mean, I had some friends.” “Okay, good. That’s a start. Are you still in touch with them?” “No.” “Wow.” She stared at him. “You were a real geek.” Fred sighed. “That’s one name people use.” “What, there are others?” Fred glanced at her, looked back at the floor. “You know there are.” “What, like what?” “Just saying it repeats it,” he said, swallowing hard. “Really? Tha...