Page 127 of Everything That Kills Me
“Yes.” The light came on automatically as they climbed. “This is an old house. The staff would have used this route to move between floors. The lower section of stairs was incorporated into a utility room.”
The top floor was a large, empty, windowless space with storage areas in the eaves behind a series of three-foot square doors.
“I’d have loved this as a kid,” Zeph said. “A place to play, build forts and dens, hide away with a book.”
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Django joined them, staying close to Zeph.
“He likes you.”
“I like him too.” Zeph stroked him. “His coat is so soft.”
Thomas pointed to the wine. “Pour everyone a drink, Jack.”
“Not for me, thank you,” Zeph said. “I’ll just have water.”
“Zeph’s doing work on facial recognition.” Jack could almost see Thomas’s antennae twitching. “Tell him about it, Zeph.”
Jack poured two glasses of wine, and water for Zeph. He briefly wondered why Zeph hadn’t wanted a drink last night, nor tonight. Antibiotics? He didn’t appear to be ill. Zeph settled on the couch in the kitchen. Django jumped up beside him and rested his head on Zeph’s thigh.
Thomas asked questions about eigenvectors.
“I’d never heard of those until you mentioned them.” Jack sprinkled more mozzarella on his pizza.
“An eigenvector is associated with linear equations,” Zeph said. “The eigenvector of a matrix is also called a latent vector, proper vector, or characteristic vector.”
“And for dummies?” Jack asked.
“Just tools used to find a problem’s natural bases. You use them to change the form of the problem.”
“And for even dumber dummies?” Jack raised his eyebrows.
“I give in,” Zeph said.
Thomas laughed.
Jack was glad Zeph had amused Thomas. “Thomas is a weather fiend.”
“Weather is fascinating,” Zeph said. “I remember a conversation with a physicist after I’d said how windy it was. I ended up being lectured to about the difference between rotating and inertial reference frames as the cause of geostrophic wind. That served me right, so please tell me to shut up if I bore you with maths.”
“What’s geostrophic wind, Jack?” Thomas asked.
“Not a clue.”
Zeph gaped at him. “You don’t know? As an air mass starts to move, it’s deflected to the right by the Coriolis force. The deflection increases until the Coriolis force is balanced by the pressure gradient force. Thenthe wind will be blowing parallel to the isobars. Result, geostrophic wind.”
Jack yawned and Thomas chuckled. But Jack’s ploy had worked and the two of them had a long conversation about clouds and wind that Jack understood more of than he let on.
They sat at the kitchen table to eat the pizzas. Thomas seemed to be warming to Zeph. It was interesting that Django hardly stirred from Zeph’s side. He’d even got up and followed when Zeph helped clear the table.
“What do you plan to do when you’ve graduated?” Thomas asked.
“I might do a PhD.”
“Maths or computer science?” Jack asked.
“Not sure. I’ve not really thought too much about it.”
Jack didn’t believe that. Zeph was a planner. He remembered where he’d wanted to work. So would Thomas.
