Next came a small, awkward lull as they both sat there remembering Kyoto and not sure how to get around that memory. She wondered if it was happening all over again.
Maybe it hadn't been just a fluke, a crazy one-night diversion. She was about to switch to Japanese, thinking that might provide the jolt needed to break the ice, but just as the silence swelled between them, there came a knock on the door and tea.
She was half annoyed, half relieved.
He rose to walk over and began chatting as though they'd been interrupted in the midst of some intense technical exchange.
"Are you scheduled to present a paper at that Kyoto conference coming up?" He pushed a button beside the door, and it swung wide. "There's sure to be quite a crowd. Everybody here's excited about supercomputers these days."
"No, this is strictly a pleasure trip. With maybe a few interviews thrown in to make it a tax write-off for a book I'm planning on robots." She hesitated. "Though I actually might go down and try to see a few people."
"Then this could turn out to be a pleasant coincidence." He took the tea, and the bowing girl vanished. Again the door clicked shut. "I have to go too, but I'm hoping to steal a few moments of freedom."
"You're chairing a session this year?"
"Absolutely not." He turned serious. "I'm not allowed time for anything like that anymore, Tam. This new project is top priority." He poured her a cup of the pale green liquid and passed it over, seemingly relieved that the tension had abated. "There's a lot of work here at the Fifth Generation lab now that we're coordinating this program with the supercomputer effort."
"You mean with MlTl's supercomputer project?" Caught your little slip, she told herself. You are still with MITI. Which means they have taken over this lab.