Gravity's Chain

by Alan Goodwin

  In the hundreds of years following the book we took to heart the power of technology to control nature and improve our lives, but we left out the moral part. We’ve separated everything, so I come back to our boxes. But if we really want better lives we shouldn’t forget the moral aspect, in other words the moral effect of what scientists do.

  I think that’s where Mitchell has gone wrong with what he does. It’s too loud, too brash; there’s no ethical substance to what he is saying. It’s just a kind of pop science and that isn’t enough.

  How close do you think we are to the kind of scientific society Bacon wrote about?

  Closer than people imagine. I look at the world today and I see a real turning point. For the past two hundred years the big debate has been about economics. A country has been defined by whether it’s capitalist or socialist; a person has been defined by whether they’re left or right. It really has been the age of economic man. However, I see that kind of argument ending now. Look at the political parties in most Western countries and you see so little dividing them. The economic argument between the Conservative and Labour parties in England is really minimal in comparison to what it was even twenty years ago and that’s the same in most countries between the old parties of the left and right. There seems to be broad agreement on the way an economy is now run.

  I see the real debate in the future about how we use and control science. We’re already seeing argument about genetics and the environment, and the debate surrounding GE is a prototype of debate in the future about how far we’re prepared to proceed along the scientific route. I see a time in the not too distant future when a person will be defined by whether they’re for or against scientific advancement, whether they agree or disagree with the technology stemming from a scientific breakthrough. I see a time when politics will be about science and not economics. And, of course, for people to debate they have to understand.

  Do you think your patterns and rules will help the debate?

  I think they will actually, because as I tried to set out at the beginning of this interview, what I’m talking about is changing the way science is done so people can more readily understand it. I hope that in fewer than ten years the entire way in which science is taught in schools and universities will have been revolutionised by this kind of thinking. So yes, I think the future debate will be helped enormously by what I’m saying. In fact I think it will be at the heart of the coming argument because it will be the language by which people articulate what they say.

  If there’s one thing you would like people to remember about your theory, what would that be?

  Remember, rules not maths instead of maths rules.

  I let the magazine drop to my lap. ‘What a crock of shit,’ I said to no one in particular.

  THIRTEEN

  Las Vegas has to be one of the strangest cities on the planet. It reminds me of a film set—all façade and no substance. Everything is artificial, even the grass. When driving to the city there are no suburbs to signal its approach: you simply round a hill in the desert and there it is, like a huge spaceship dumped from the sky. During the day the place lazes in the burning sun, subdued and half asleep. Come the night, though, and the place erupts in a symphony of light, water and sound. The people come alive as though injected with a serum to tickle their pleasure zones. At night Las Vegas is a modern Pompeii where the threat of being buried by burning decadent lava is very much alive.

  Even I had balked at bringing the show to Las Vegas. I might have set out to blur the boundaries between serious science and the real world, but the home of Elvis Presley’s sequinned jumpsuits, chorus girls wearing barely enough to make dresses for dolls, and the legitimised front for mafia money hardly seemed the right place for relativity and quantum—even with a laser show. Perhaps Driesler was right: I was just an entertainer. However, the United States division of Taikon insisted on three Vegas dates where the returns were forecast to be the best throughout the American tour. So money spoke, as always, and here I was in Casino City. Two shows down, one to go and then on to the east coast for shows in New York and Philadelphia before a return to England. Already there were negotiations for more dates in the States and Europe, but nothing was decided. The company was now projecting that the tour might be extended by a further four months, but I was making plans of my own. After the States and during the interlude, I had no intention of returning to England; I was going back to New Zealand, alone. All I had to do was break the news to Bebe and convince him to help.

  The executives were right about the money to be made in Vegas. The shows were grossing telephone numbers and those profit share clauses in my royal contract with the company were lighting up like the rows of pokie machines in the casinos. And then there were the women. In Las Vegas there are more women on the make per square metre than anywhere I’ve ever been. The female body adorns every nook and cranny of the city. Sex doesn’t just sell in Vegas, it drips from the walls. This should have been the ultimate for me, a place to rut until I could rut no more, a place to choose my mates as though concocting a pizza (‘I’ll have a blonde with a Hispanic topping, please’) and exhaust myself on their silicon bodies and moulded faces. So why wasn’t I happy? Why wasn’t I out there gambling, drinking, snorting and fucking like every other sad bastard in the city? Jo was dead, that’s why.

  The news reached us on our arrival in Vegas. Detective Ryan, true to his word, had kept Bebe informed: the life support machine had been turned off that morning. I wonder in what tone he had passed on the information. I couldn’t help but feel that the man was out to get me and now he really had something to get me for.

  In absence of sampling the women of Las Vegas I’d taken heavily to the booze, especially whisky—I nursed the bottle from before breakfast until bed. In my hotel room, fit for a Roman emperor, I sprawled on silk pillows drinking and talking to Bebe. The Driesler interview and subsequent articles were the main sources of our conversation. The man had become an irritant for which I could find no cure. Bebe had warmed to the Driesler sermon about morals with some zeal. I think he saw an opportunity to save me and took my temporary abstinence from the flesh as a sign that perhaps, at last, I wanted to change. However, he was careful enough to arrange the parties as of old in case I slipped from what he assumed was some new moral high ground. Stubbornly choosing to ignore my drastically increased alcohol intake, he lectured me about the historical fall of elites, first the priesthood and then the politicians—once admired, they were now lampooned and despised. He insisted Driesler was right to foresee the importance of the scientists and to warn about their downfall. Neither Bebe nor Driesler quite came out and said it, but the implication was that there was more to the warnings about my morals than my creation of a pop show for science. Bebe thought it time for the moral leadership to come from science. ‘Let the writers booze and copulate,’ he said at one point before falling silent. His message was loud and clear, but was the company listening? Surely their squeaky clean, Mr Nice Guy image would fit with this just swell.

  On the afternoon before the last show a shrill blast interrupted us. Bebe nodded into his mobile phone without speaking, then replaced it on the table between us. ‘George is on his way up.’

  I hadn’t spoken to George Mason since the Dorchester party when I’d thankfully spurned the young woman on his arm. Now, despite the fact I was due back in England in less than two weeks, he’d flown to me for a meeting. Since learning of the visit the day before, I had chosen to ignore its implications. I sat in my hotel room, whisky in hand, unusually calm and quite drunk.

  Bebe checked himself in the mirror, quickly wiping the corner of his mouth with a wet finger to remove a fleck of toothpaste. Once the knock came he moved fluidly to open the door. Four men entered, led by George. He was in his mid-thirties with a pencil-thin face and high cheekbones. His hair was greased and swept back and he wore small frameless glasses. A strong smell of expensive aftershave liberally applied trailed him as he entered the room. Briefl
y he introduced me to the three men with him, whose names I instantly forgot. It didn’t matter, they were surplus to requirements, simply there to watch and learn.

  Bebe fussed around Mason as though he was a royal. For the most part Mason ignored the attention, but he at least acknowledged the orange juice Bebe poured him with a slight incline of the head. ‘How are you, Jack?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I hear the show is going well, very well indeed.’ He pulled a briefing paper from a case carried by one of his minions and laid it flat on his knees.

  ‘Yes it is, George,’ answered Bebe on my behalf before sitting on the sofa edge like a lady in an Austen novel being introduced to her future husband.

  ‘Good, as you know I saw it in London. It’s extremely impressive, Jack, everything the company hoped for when they invested so heavily in you. You’re aware, aren’t you, Jack, that the company has put a huge amount of time and money into you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m aware, George. Rarely does a day go by when I’m not reminded of the fact.’

  ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘But,’ I continued, ‘it’s all right, I say to myself, because just look at the money I’m making for you all and just look what I’m doing for the good name of Taikon.’

  Bebe laughed nervously, but he was the only one to respond and the four Taikon boys sat in company-ordered silence.

  ‘Interesting to see what our friend Mr Driesler has been saying recently. You’ve been keeping up with that, Jack?’

  ‘Every word, George.’

  ‘This thing with the girl in New Zealand…’

  ‘Jo, she has a name and it’s Jo.’

  ‘…this is worrying us. What you got up to before was hardly acceptable, but we turned a blind eye, because we all have our weaknesses. I think we’ve been more than fair in letting you lead the kind of life you wanted, but you must accept there were risks for us. You know how much reputation is important for the company, you know how damaging it would be if too much of what you do got out into the media. We took the risk because you’re important and what you have to say is important and it was all part of a bargain. But this thing with the girl, this is a different league, Jack. I mean, for Christ’s sake, she’s dead, and she effectively died in your bloody hotel room. The hospital was just an unfortunate intermediary.’

  ‘Did you rehearse this speech, George, or are you ad-libbing? Because if you are, you’re doing really rather well.’

  ‘This isn’t funny, Jack. In fact it’s very serious and I think you’d better start treating it that way. Your little vices have killed a girl.’

  ‘Not looking very good for the company image, is it?’

  ‘No, and as I’m sure you know, if it’s looking bad for the company it’s looking bad for you. If we pull the plug on you, you’re finished. If we drop you, no one else will touch you because there’ll be a legal blanket round you so tight that not even the light of day will get through without our say-so. You’d be finished, Jack, finished, so shall we start to take this a bit more seriously?’

  All three of the company gnomes nodded in agreement at George’s wise words. I even saw Bebe joining in.

  ‘What have you come to say, George?’

  ‘This Driesler article is getting a lot of press. For some strange puritan streak in society what he’s saying about morals is hitting a nerve. The great unwashed, it seems, want some morals. The papers are giving it coverage, as is TV. No one seems to give a stuff about the science, but they have picked up on the other. So we have a problem, Jack. Just at the time that the spotlight might fall on you as the world’s highest profile scientist you’re snorting enough cocaine in hotel rooms with Russian hookers to blow a young girl’s brain apart. Not to mention lying to the police. How’s that going to look?’

  ‘The lying wasn’t my idea, George. Bebe told me to do that.’

  ‘On my orders, but we’re left with some big problems to sort out.’

  ‘Ones I assume that, by your royal presence, you have answers for.’

  ‘A solution has been suggested and we’ve come to discuss it with you.’

  ‘George, cut the crap. There’s no discussion to be had—you’ve made a decision. I have no choice other than to accept it otherwise you’ll dump me. You’ve made it clear that I’ll be professionally decapitated if that happens. I’d rather you just told me so we can get on with the tour.’

  Except for me, everyone in the room, including Bebe, shifted their bottoms. Oh yes, the mighty corporation arse cover was in full swing.

  ‘We think it would be good for you to get some help with the drink and drugs.’

  ‘Rehab?’

  ‘Very low-key stuff, Jack—a chance for you to take some time out, rest up and recharge the batteries. We simply can’t take the chance of something like this happening again. We have to protect you and the company when the scrutiny is going to be intense. I daresay the thing will pass and the pack will be onto something else. For the moment, though, they’re going to be after you, after a story that fits with what Driesler is preaching. And we know where that can lead, don’t we?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘We’re going to rearrange the rest of the American tour. We want you to return to England tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re cancelling the tour?’

  ‘Not cancelling, Jack, we’re altering the dates and that gives us the chance to add more dates. The tour is a huge success here and we want to make it bigger, so it gives us the chance to take stock.’

  ‘So tomorrow I go back to England and go into rehab?’

  For the first time Bebe entered the debate. ‘It will be a chance for you to sort things out, Jack. Who knows, you might start working again. You need to take Driesler’s science on and you need to be rested and in shape.’

  ‘We can’t let Driesler take you down, Jack,’ said George with what nearly sounded like some earnest passion. ‘The company has too much at stake.’ Yes, of course, that was his passion. ‘So we need you to burst his bubble, but you can’t show any weakness. We think he may know about some of your…habits and that’s what he’s driving at with some of what he’s saying. It’s personal, Jack, whatever he claims. He doesn’t like you and he wants to bring you down. So the company needs to protect its investment—you—and the best way of doing that is to get you sorted and make you strong again.’

  I’m not sure how the meeting ended. The rest of the afternoon retreated behind a haze as I sank into my own thoughts. Bebe poured a drink, fussed around me and, when he knew I’d disappeared to a place of my own, left me alone. Only when it was time for the show did he reappear and slowly coax me to return to the present. How lucky I was to have done the show over forty times: when I needed something deep inside to switch to automatic I was rewarded by a near-perfect performance.

  As on the previous night, Bebe took the precaution of organising appropriate post-show entertainment. Given the Vegas location it was suitably lurid, complete with Egyptian theme. There were more available women in the room than most men get to meet in a lifetime. When I entered, Bebe bowed slightly and waved in the direction of the party as though I was an offering to the gods, as though he was inviting me to say farewell to a previous life.

  ‘You knew about what George was going to say, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Had you discussed it with him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was it your idea?’

  ‘No Jack, this is the company—it’s about them now, not you. If they can protect themselves as well as you then they’ll do that, but if they have to sacrifice you, they will. They won’t and can’t let Jo’s death touch them. You know that.’

  ‘Do you agree with what they’re asking me to do?’

  ‘Oh God yes, Jack. It’s a chance for you to give up all this shit.’ He waved at the crowded room.

  Two women dressed as slave girls came to where we stood. In the distance there were women in full Cleopatra costume. In a room to on
e side I heard music and laughter, from a room on the other side, the splashing of guests already in a swimming pool. Several of the slave girls bared their breasts, their nipples covered with glitter. On their trays they had drinks and little gold caskets of coke as they slipped discreetly among the guests. George was absent, but two of his cohorts were there. One of them took coke from a black slave girl and retreated to a corner. What hypocrites they all were. Just hours before they sat blandly whilst their boss chastised me for the very excess in which they now indulged. But, of course, none of them inhabited planet fame, so they were all safe.

  The pool room was humid and steamy. There were several naked people in the water already and others on the side were close to stripping and joining them. When I entered, at least five girls looked at me with a professional eye, willing and able to offer themselves completely and obey my every command, however outlandish. I could feel Bebe behind me, ready as always to ensure that my wishes were carried out. Usually I would lose myself in a situation like this by taking everything on offer. Not tonight, though. I turned, walked past Bebe, quickened my pace and, with head bowed, glided through the first room we had entered and left the hotel.

  The night was warm and alive with the electric buzz of neon and the treats of the city. Everyone seemed to be smiling and laughing and I hated all of them. As I walked toward coloured fountains, the noise of the water drowning out the babble of the crowds, I felt people mass around me. I wished they would just dissolve into the pavement. I hated them all.

  ‘Are you all right, Jack?’

  For the first time I noticed the two bodyguards who had left the party with me. They looked at Bebe for instruction; he inclined his head gently and they receded two steps.