Fermat's Last Stand
The detective, Jake Binneli, sought answers. His partner would officially be on disciplinary leave for two more weeks, so he'd be alone on this one. But, this was Philadelphia and officially didn't mean much, rules were sometimes bent to conform to the demands of circumstance. A good enough rationalization as any.

He'd recently left the crime scene, nothing more to be discovered there that he could see. Later, after he'd gathered more information, he'd return when the hoopla had died; sit quiet and take it all in. That worked for him sometimes. Alone he could focus on the vic's last moments, the immediate atmosphere might reveal something of importance not noticed in the quick run through in the beginning, when the crime scene investigators and police and coroners were tromping all over the place.

The body of a young woman, a coed, had been found early that morning in the school library on the floor near the stacks devoted to science and mathematics, the vicitm of a single gunshot to the back of the head, assasination style. He'd have to wait for the M.E.'s report to know if she'd been raped. No shell casings or signs of a struggle. Except for the blood spatter on the rug and some books, it was neat and clean. And no witnesses.

During vacation break the library was fairly deserted. Apparently she'd been alone far in the back of the top floor, the one reserved for graduate students. Her purse hadn't been taken and money and credit cards were still in a side pocket of her suede jacket. He held one piece of evidence in his hand, an enigma he was sure no one in the precinct would be able to decipher. He'd have to ask her professors; she'd been a graduate student in the mathematics department.

The piece of tablet paper had been curled in her hand. The note read simply: A to a prime power is congruent to A modulo that prime. What the hell? Did it have anything to do with her death or was it simply something she'd been working on at the university? He needed to find out so he arranged a meeting with her advisor, a Doctor Wilkinson.

He rendezvoused with his partner, Mary Ann Foley, at the diner where they usually had breakfast. They were both divorced and living alone, Foley had a cat named Jezebel. He filled her in on the particulars as they drove to the University of Pennsylvania, a sprawling campus located midtown. Traffic was abysmal so Foley had plenty of time to stare blankly at the note found in the vic's hand.

"What the hell is this?" she blurted between bites on a sugar donut.

"That's what I said," shot back Binneli. "It can't have anything to do with her gettin' killed." He leaned on his horn and cursed. "Could it?"

"I don't see how, but, stranger shit has happened." She sipped coffee through a straw, a habit that always irked Binneli, especially in midtown traffic.

"Why don't you drink like a human, for Christ's sake. Aren't you embarrassed?"

"No," she laughed. "At least I don't spill it all over myself like a pig."

"Pig? That only happens when you drive." He blared the horn again as he turned onto 34th street.

"Park there," Foley pointed with her straw. "There, what are you, blind? There."

He pulled in front-first and jammed the brakes; her container of coffee almost flew out of her hand. She gave him one hard disgusted look and opened the door. It was going to be one of those days, she thought.

It was spring break and only the most dedicated of students was on campus. They asked several where the math department was located before finally running into someone who could actually give coherent directions. Just because they couldn't afford to go away, like to Fort Lauderdale or some such, didn't mean party time wasn't going on.

The outer office of Doctor Wilkinson consisted of three desk-sized tables covered with papers in folders, stacks of books precariously arranged and loose sheets containing what appeared to be equations, figures and graphs. A long bulletin board filled one wall; it too was almost covered. Some notifications and announcements were clearly outdated, an audit was needed. Binneli knocked on the inner sanctum door, the opaque glass top-center rattled a bit. After a few seconds the door opened and there stood a short, roundish bespeckled man with a receding hairline, offset by bushy eyebrows, and cropped beard. Somehow he managed to look distinguished. His eyes, thought Jake, sharp enough to bore through lead.

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The Washington Post
by Viktor Dobrozny
May 12, --

The Periodic Table was a mess, he complained to any who would listen. He understood Mendeleyev's rationale underlying the groupings and also appreciated its predictive power; nonetheless, he saw something about the nature of the elements which he believed would not only produce a more cogent, multitiered arrangement but would allow for adjustments to relationships hitherto unrealized. However, none of his colleagues gave it much credence; although, out of respect for his age, reputation and tenure, they pretended to see his point, obscure though it be.

His idea, to him, was simple and his inability to get it across was the source of the utmost frustration. He accused his peers and associates of being mired in the past, trapped by convention, fearfully protective of their precious reputations. It's not mysticism, he'd mutter: To each element associate a sound [note] and its spectroscopic color. To a group, link a chord and to a period, a melody. As each note is played the colors will blend and form compounds on a computer screen. Never before seen or imagined compound complexes could be discovered or created due to the degree of control over the mixing of color-sounds. Imagine a symphony of designer molecules? A Mozart of new materials with never before seen properties?

Instead of only the outer shell of an atom -- its valence -- being affected, deeper shells, ones closer to the nucleus, would enter into the combinations. It was all very simple, he'd say, but he couldn't conjole any algorithmically inclined chemist to work on the project. They were preoccupied with their own research, they would say; shrug, smile sympathetically, and walk away, quickly.

However, serendipity rules -- sometimes. One day in the school cafeteria, Doctor Dinklestein ran into a visitor from another planet. And he hasn't been heard from since. He left a note on the door of his offfice: Gone to Xulcatur -- back soon.

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As it happened: Seventy-five million years after plants first gained terra firma, the self-organization of a primitive brain reached critical mass and the final threshold was about to be crossed. In fact, amongst varying species that collectively formed an ecosystem, a rudimentary language had evolved. The absence of evidence of any structure capable of functioning as vocal chords in the fossil record points to a form of telepathy as the medium of thought transfer. However, evolution hinges on contingency and necessity working in tandem. With the advent of sexuality -- flowering plants -- basic, nascent communication broke down. Consequently, as we see clearly today, they restricted themselves to spreading information through simple chemical means.

It's the general consensus of paleoneurobotanists worldwide that, owing to the exploitation by flying insects (symbiotic though it be), sex curtailed and derailed the incipient emergence of genuine intelligence. It's a curious aside that such preoccupation has the same effect on humans as well.

Plants are essentially opportunists, after all, especially the seed bearers who appeared after the green frontiersmen had secured terrestrial earth. The insects made it easy for these sexually active plants to reproduce and dominate the planet. Overwhelmed by clouds of pheromones in the otherwise unspoiled atmosphere, the original green spore plants -- ferns, mosses, cattails -- lost the will to evolve further along intellectual lines. They were thwarted, in other words, and regressed; instead concentrating their energies towards refinement of purely metabolic and phylogenetic design.

Were it not for sex, paleoneurobotanists contend, plants may have eventually left behind their vegetative existence to achieve an organic sentience beyond mere awareness and gone on to form societies and civilizations and, possibly, become mobile in the process. Imagine an intelligent life-form able to live off the sun? What great philosophers, teachers and statesmen they would have made. God knows they could do no worse.

However, they shouldn't think of themselves as failures for not realizing their ambitious dream. Maintaining the same basic body plan for 475 million years successfully is nothing to sneer at.

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