“Good thinking,” Smith responded, “when you pass beyond your Master’s, I anticipate competition for your services, unless you’ve already decided on a doctoral advisor.”
“I hadn’t thought about that yet,” Chalmers answered. “I still have to make sense of my other results. Thank you very much for this analysis. It really simplifies explaining what I’m studying.”
“Except, from your tone of voice, there are still several mysteries to be solved, aren’t there?”
“Yes, sir,” Chalmers answered. “I’ve been spending all of my time trying to work this out, and haven’t done it yet.”
“We have a holiday weekend coming up,” Smith said. “Consider taking a day off, going for a long walk, getting enough sleep, whatever and let the facts do in your mind. They may fall together in a new combination.”
“That’s certainly a fine idea,” Chalmers said, “one that Professor Watership is also been urging on me. And thank you for these measurements so quickly.”
“Your samples are from the Blasted Heath,” Smith responded. “There is national interest. Many of my colleagues think it is abnormal to drop a current project just because something really interesting has appeared, but I disagree. You have it right. I hear that in Phoenix there is not a panic, but people are starting to pack and leave town, lest the Heath starts spreading. By the way, Watership casually mentioned that you have another mineral on which you’ve not yet started. I’d be most interested in running it through the machine.”
“Yes, sir,” Chalmers agreed, “though at the moment the violet crystals are large solid objects, not something that can go into your instrument. Watership wanted me to finish this mineral first, which reminds me, I still have to write my source and tell them again that we can confirm that the yellow sand is a new mineral.”
“I will give one more bit of advice,” Smith said firmly. “You have made a major discovery, even if it is incomprehensible. There is a student seminar every week. Announce your results there, even if you can’t explain them completely, very soon. That gives you priority. Start writing a paper, realizing that the abstract, interpetation and conclusions are yet to be found, so you can send it off to JACS as soon as possible…but the seminar clinches your priority claim. And tell Prescott what you told me, and no more. That’s what they asked, so that’s what they are told.”
Chalmers swallowed. He hadn’t expected to hear that. “The paper,” he said, “you helped, Watership gave me the project, Hildebrand advised…whose names go on it?”
“I’ll speak to Watership,” Smith announced. ” ‘A New Mineral from the Blasted Heath’ to one of the rock journals, his name first, maybe whoever in Prescott, and he gets what he wants and deserves. Your name on your work. I’d like an agreement…as you find more of whatever these are, I get to do the mass spectroscopy and my name on the appropriate papers. Shake on it?” They shook hands.
* * * * *
Much of a week later, a well-rested James Chalmers stood at the front of the Chemistry lecture hall. He’d needed a day to rest, a day to realize what he had found, and most of a week to confirm his conclusions, at least as well as he could. A gaggle of his fellow graduate students sat at the front of the room, close to the tea and the cookies. To his surprise, the rear rows were lined with physics and chemistry faculty, people he did not usually see at graduate student seminars. He began with polite thanks to Cooper, Eisenhower, Watership, and the faculty members whose lab facilities he’d used.
