“Cruel youth,” he moaned. “To bring these spotted hands and time-wracked limbs before the searching gaze of day.”

“Aw, come on, Sam. You and I both know there’s no such quotation. Why do you keep making up fake Shakespeare?”

“Perhaps I’m a poet at heart?”

“You’re a scoundrel and a rogue at heart. That’s why I’m so incredibly pleased with myself for latching onto you as a research advisor. Everybody else may be losing their grants as the military budget increases, but you know how to finagle enough funding to keep the radio astronomy program here going. My biggest hope is that I can learn your techniques.”

“You’ll never learn them as long as you fail to understand why I make up Bard-isms.” Federman smiled.

Liz pointed a finger at him, then thought better of it.

“Touché,” she said. “I’ll enroll in Lit. 106 next term. Okay? That is, if there’s still a world then.”

“Are we in a pessimistic mood today?”

Liz shrugged. “I shouldn’t be, I suppose. Every spring is seems there’s less smog and other pollution. Remember that eyesore wrecking yard on Highway Eight? Well, it’s gone now. They’ve put in a park.”

“So nu? Then what’s wrong?”

She threw the morning paper over to his side of the desk. “That’s what’s wrong! Just when we seem about to make peace with nature, they’re stepping along the edge of war! There were demonstrations on campus yesterday… neither side listening to the other, and neither side willing to concede a single point. I tell you, Sam, it’s all I can do to keep from hiding in my work and letting the world just go to hell on its own!”

Federman glanced at the paper, then looked up at his assistant. His expression was ironic.