Alexander: [Alexander Trilogy Book Two]

by Stan I. S. Law

  “The human mind is a strange and complex machine,” Des said the last time they’d met. “Aye, when we fathom the mind, we’ll fathom the universe.”

  What neither of them could figure out was if the mind was the originator of reality or just a means through which this reality manifested itself. In the first case, the mind was the prime cause. In the latter it was a means. Either way its scope appeared limitless.

  During the last few months, Alec was attempting to tackle the reconciliation between gravity and the other three forces. After the quantum theorists got through with the weak force, things didn’t get any easier. The strong and the electromagnetic forces suffered a little less. But the force of gravity was quite a different problem. While we all recognize it’s presence, since it stops us from flying off into space with the rotation of the Earth, at the atomic level it’s effects are so insignificant that most nuclear physicists leave them for the astrophysicists to deal with. This divisive gap remained to Alec’s day.

  And even Alec’s present theory was not new. The ancient Greeks had been toying with the idea that had been resurrected towards the end of the eighteenth century by a fellow called Boscovich. He’d thought of atoms as of particles that had no size, rather like Greek geometric points. Alec picked this notion up, only he defined the points as units of information. The points had specific characteristics. What remained was to show the relationship of how different points affect those characteristics. It was like writing an equation wherein all particles had a common denominator––so that you could express each one in terms of the others.

  Easy, right?

  Easy or not, Dr. McBride rejected the first three drafts Alec produced to explain his theory. They seemed quite clear to Alec but, alas, not to anyone else.

  “You sound like Beethoven explaining his symphonic structures to a man who is deaf. It wouldn’t be too bad, if it weren’t for the fact that Beethoven was deaf himself.”

  Alec was not exactly pleased with Dr. McBride’s comments.

  “I’d better put my nose back to the grind stone and keep honing my ideas,” he said, explaining to Suzy Desmond’s remarks.

  “I like your nose just the way it is,” she threw over her shoulder without taking her eyes off the canvas. She was working on an acrylic for a friend. It was a commission. Her first. “Aren’t you mixing some metaphors there somewhere?”

  According to the Professor he’d been mixing a lot more then metaphors.

  “But that was the whole idea. To put them all together...”

  But Suzy wasn’t listening. As long as his nose remained roughly the same shape and size she was happy with whatever else he did.

  Desmond approved the fourth draft for publication. Not as a theory but a direction in which a solution might be found. It was really a means of protecting Alec’s ideas, his name, in a way. In physics it mattered if you published first. It mattered a lot. Officially, Alec no longer required Dr. McBride’s blessing to publish any of his work. He was now a fully accredited lecturer, with total autonomy over his research. There were two reasons why Alec chose to seek the Professor’s approval. One, it was polite. And two—certainly equally, if not more, important—Alec was still very young. He jumped into the fire before checking if there was any water around to put out the flames. He was impulsive. He needed someone looking over his shoulder. Not to guide him, or push him, or do his thinking for him, but to hold him back. The young stallion needed strong reins. Luckily Alec was mature enough to know that. He didn’t expect his work to send shock waves across the scientific world, but he hoped it would be a step in the right direction.

  When Desmond finally granted his blessing, Alec relaxed. Regrettably, he was not very good at doing nothing. He was fine for a day or two, but his nature was such that even two days of leisure brought him a feeling of restlessness. Probably he was, what is erroneously called, a workaholic. Alec always hated work. He thought that life should be so automated that all his time could be dedicated to pleasure. That’s all he ever sought. And sought actively. It just so happened that what he did at the Institute gave him more pleasure than almost anything else. And now that the period of depression he’d suffered released its grip over his emotions, he needed to slake his thirst for work more than ever.

  “If I want to work, I’ll go sailing,” he once said. “Now, that’s work! If you don’t, you drown.”

  In spite of his self confessed aversion to any form of exertion, sailing, as he mentioned periodically, was still drawing him. He never imagined that his legs, or lack of them, would ever stand in his way––he grinned, or rather groaned, at his pun when he’d first thought of it. He felt that once his eyes had been opened by his venture into the Mu territory, his confidence in his ultimate full recovery was a given, not a vague hope.

  The next time ‘it’ happened, it did so in a simple, most natural way.

  Once again, after publishing his latest paper, Alec spent a few days at home. He used the free time to allow Suzy some time off from looking after Sacha. Most of the time sat in his wheelchair, gazing at his son. He felt comfortable and relaxed knowing that Matt was somewhere around. Later, he recalled feeling guilty about repeatedly taking Matt for granted.

  This time there were no time warps into Atlantis, or some desolate deserts of Mu. Instead, he felt on his face a gentle breeze from the sea.

  “Watch your feet!” he shouted when a wave broke a little too close to Sacha.

  “Don’t worry, Dad, I’ve been here before,” Sacha assured him.

  This was the first indication Alec had that he’d again slipped into an altered reality. In dreams, one usually witnessed some embroidered fragments of one’s past. This was new. By now, Sacha was perfectly capable of enunciating a dozen words or so, but not a complete sentence that not only made sense, but also referred to past events.

  Alec looked around.

  Could this be the Home Planet? He was sitting on a sandbank that fell quite steeply toward a vast ocean. The sun was hot, but the wafting breeze from the water kept him comfortable. He was wearing his shorts and a tee shirt. Sacha was playing in the waves, running in and out of the water in quick succession. He was trying to dodge the bigger breakers—escaping their fury only at the very last moment.

  Alec looked at his son with a mixture of pride and pleasure. Sacha was only eleven months, but he moved like a three-year-old. In fact, here, wherever ‘here’ was, he was a three-year-old. Alec wondered if it had been he or Sacha who’d chosen this particular age.

  “You can’t choose for other people here, dad, remember?”

  In an instant Alec understood it all. Sacha and his Princess were still one. When you’re a little child you don’t break down your personality into disjointed fragments. That comes later. Why? He had no idea. But Sacha and his Princess, or his Superego, or whatever you chose to call it, were still one. That’s why he could read my thoughts, Alec realized. That’s why he could make it here under his own steam, so to speak. That’s why he’d as good as said that he’s been here before. And then, out of the blue, Alec remembered a phrase from a book he’d read as a schoolboy. The phrase said: ‘Be ye like little children.’ The words took on a new meaning. It seemed that, at a certain time in our lives, we all were whole. Complete. Only later we separated, fragmented our essence, and spent the rest of our lives trying to put ourselves together again. To revert to our original ground.

  To return home.

  Alec remembered his attempt at the Unified Field Theory. There was a driving force that fired his imagination, ignited his mind, sated his innermost desires. Making things whole was all that life was about.

  “Papa, look...” Sacha was smiling. He was looking at the shimmering air beside the spot where Alec was sitting. The air seemed undecided what to do, then, gradually solidified into a human form.

  “Gosh, you scared me you two,” Suzy looked more disappointed than angry. “I looked for you everywhere,” she added. She seemed completely at ease.

 
; However beautiful she was on Earth, in physical reality, here she looked like a wizard’s amalgam of herself and Sandra. She was more than a Princess. She was a Queen. This must be Paradise, Alec thought.

  And at this very same moment he heard Sacha’s ditty. If angels could sing...

  ...only Sacha was sitting on the floor at his feet. Suzy had just walked in from the apartment next door.

  “I’ve been calling you,” she looked worried. “Where were you?”

  She didn’t know, Alec thought. Not yet. But she is close. Very close.

  And somehow this idea made him more happy than all the scientific papers he’d ever published.

  Alec found it difficult not to talk about their meeting on the Home Planet. He felt, however, that the very fact that Sacha was more advanced in the reality transfer than Suzy, might set her back. He decided to hold his joy within, knowing that sooner of later the real world would be theirs to share.

  This was the first time that he fully recognized the inner worlds of his childhood as the Real Worlds. Within those realms there were few questions he couldn’t answer. The inner universes seemed created to please anyone who found his or her way into their gentle embrace.

  Yet, the two, the Far Country and the Home Planet couldn’t be more different. Perhaps they, too, would be reconciled one day. He remembered from his younger days that there had been other people who knew of them, other intelligent entities visiting the Home Planet, but no one he’d ever met on Earth. At least he didn’t think so. Like attracts like, he remembered Suzy saying. And if the saying were true, then by now he would have met someone who shared his dreams.

  In the meantime, Alec had to get on with his work.

  Publications were the icing on the cake. The lectures, the scientific journals, the keeping up with the scientific Joneses, remained. It wasn’t always fun, but courtesy demanded that if Alec expected others to read him, he must keep abreast of other people’s efforts himself. A noblesse oblige?

  Yet, truly pathetic some of these efforts were.

  It became more than apparent that every university Professor, or lecturer, felt compelled to publish a certain number of papers per term, or at least per academic year. It was expected of them. Some of the stuff Alec read sounded as though they’d been written to satisfy the prescribed requirements of publication, whether the author had anything to say or not. Noblesse indeed!

  The other day he’d read another attempt, by a well-established physicist, to induce a forced marriage of Quantum Mechanics with Universal Consciousness. It wasn’t just that the author’s conclusions were scientifically unsound and unsubstantiated, but even assuming that some of the wrong assumptions were correct, they still didn’t hold water. Yet, it seemed that there was some underlying need, even a hunger within the younger generation of theoretical physicists, to reach out beyond ‘just numbers’.

  Finally, alone in his office, Alec began wondering, “Could it be that I am wrong?” he mused aloud.

  “Not for as long as you want to call yourself a physicist, lad,” came from a head peeking through the half-open door. Desmond knew instantly what Alec was doing. “I too have my drreams and desirres, but publishing all of them in scientific jourrnals is not one of them.”

  Then the rest of the Professor followed his head into Alec’s office. He leaned over his desk. “Come to the cottage, lad. Bring yourr lassie and the wee lad,” he said. “’Tis the best time of the yearr. We’ll talk some morrre.”

  It was early June. According to the Professor, every time was the best for going to the cottage. Out there, Dr. McBride felt as though he were the head of a family.

  Two weeks later, they were ready to go. Suzy had packed the essentials last night; Matt took them down to the car. They wanted to leave as the moment the rush hour was over. Sacha walked down to the garage ‘on his own’, testing the elevator walls for structural strength with a rubber mallet. He must have inherited this engineering propensity from his grandfather on Alec’s side. Apparently the walls had passed the test, and just to make sure that the passengers were equally as sound, Sacha gave a good whack to a lady in front of him. She smiled, but got off at the next floor. Probably a wise decision. Once in the car, Sacha let out a single prolonged note, commenting in his own inimitable way on the idea of going da-da. Actually Sacha had already acquired a considerable vocabulary but he reverted to the original expressions when he deemed it appropriate.

  As on that first occasion, they got to Solana Beach in well under two hours. Desmond had said that he would be there ahead of time, to get the place fixed up. It turned out that he had another reason for the ‘fixing up’ chore.

  As the door opened, they’d been greeted by… Alicia!

  Alec froze, shook his head, and then propelled his wheels forward almost knocking his mother down. She jumped aside just in time, but returned to embrace him. What happened was that Alec hadn’t used the accelerator button. He’d used his own muscle power. He’d used his arms.

  No one seemed to have noticed. Except for Matt, of course. There was a surreptitious smile hovering at the corners of his mouth. As usual, he made no comment.

  Then it was Suzy’s turn. She placed Sacha on Alec’s lap and gave Alicia a long hug. Both women emerged from the embrace with tears in their eyes. Finally Alicia reached over and took Sacha. He didn’t seem to mind the attention, kissed Baba on her cheek but then demanded to be put down. Baba was Russian for Grandma, as Desmond had once explained to them on hearing that they’d chosen a Russian diminutive for their son.

  “When? How?” Alec and Suzy asked simultaneously.

  “To answer your questions—a week ago, I flew. How else?” Alicia laughed.

  How Alec missed that pearly, cascading laugher. He tried to remember if he’d ever seen his mother angry. Or even unhappy. He couldn’t think of a single time. And only then he remembered his host. All three of them were so overjoyed at seeing each other that they had completely forgotten about Desmond. He was standing back, watching the reunion, a broad grin on his face.

  Alec shook his hand. Suzy followed with a hug. Matt bowed from a distance. The Professor didn’t speak. He continually kept clearing his throat as though getting ready for a welcoming speech. But he didn’t make one. The delight at seeing three of his favourite people so happy was all he needed right now.

  “I thought you might like a li’le surrprrise?” he uttered at last. It was a rhetorical question. “Come in, all of you.” And he led the way.

  Sacha was promptly installed on the terrace, which had been fitted with string netting along its whole length. Alec recalled seeing such nets on boats when people sailed with infants. It reduced the need to fish them out of the water too often. The net was one of the reasons why the Professor got here a week early. The other, the principle reason was equally obvious.

  On the south side of the terrace Maria had already laid out the table for lunch. It was a little early, but no one minded the view and a cool glass of, what else... of Maria’s own Sangria. They talked all at once, interrupting each other, trying to catch up with the intervening months.

  It soon transpired that Desmond had visited Montreal about two months ago and again a fortnight today. He had some business to attend to in Toronto, he said, and had dropped in to Montreal to make sure that Alicia hadn’t come to any harm.

  “You can neverr tell what a lassie will do, when left on herr own,” he affirmed knowingly.

  Alicia just loved being called a lassie. First she thought she was being compared to that graceful dog from the old Hollywood Westerns, but soon accepted the Scottish version.

  “And he calls me that in public, would you believe it? In LA? I have to twirl my skirt and curtsy to live up to my new title.”

  Alicia looked at Desmond with such affection that Suzy began to suspect that there was much more to it all than met the eye.

  Just then Maria brought in the first course. Suzy got up to greet her. Maria was practically a member of the family. This morning
Alicia had insisted on serving her breakfast while Maria had to sit still, eat, and tell her all about the immediate neighbourhood.

  After lunch, when Maria offered to look after Sacha, the ladies took the stairs down to the beach. Not to swim, but to walk barefoot along the shore. Desmond accompanied Alec along the footpath, keeping a keen eye on both ladies below. Matt? Matt, when not needed, was playing his usual role of an invisible man. He must have been somewhere around.

  After some five hundred yards, for no apparent reason, Suzy took Alicia in her arms and hugged her to within an inch of her life.

  “So you’ll be here?” she asked, her arms flapping as though she was about to take off.

  The men looked down at the two women.

  “What’s going on down there?” Alec wanted to know. They were only about ten yards away.

  “Des! Didn’t you tell Ali yet...?” Alicia wagged a finger at the Professor.

  “Didn’t quite get ‘rround to it, lassie. But I’m beginning to suspect the lad alrready knows...” Desmond looked very uncomfortable.

  “Why is it that we, women, must always do all the work?” Alicia flung her arms up in exasperation. “Sue, you tell him.”

  “Why me?” Suzy was laughing with tears in her eyes. “Just look at the Professor. Imagine that this man had given more public lectures than all of us put together!”