by Scott Baker
Copyright
Important note to readers:
Whenever you see this symbol, you
can access additional chapters at
www.ruleofknowledge.com
Published in Australia and New Zealand in 2013
by Hachette Australia
(an imprint of Hachette Australia Pty Limited)
Level 17, 207 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000
www.hachette.com.au
Copyright © Scott Baker 2013
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be stored or reproduced by any process without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the National Library of Australia.
978 0 7336 2979 2
978 0 7336 2994 5 (ebook edition)
Cover design by Luke Causby, Blue Cork
Cover photograph courtesy of Arcangel Images
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Part 1: Another Day in History
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Part 2: Sailing Upwind
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Part 3: Grand Plans
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Part 4: Loops and Walnuts
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Acknowledgements
About the Author
PROLOGUE
Pain.
Searing, unbearable pain.
Nothing.
Light. Brilliant and white.
Nothing.
What’s that sound? Is that my heartbeat? Stop, it hurts.
Nothing.
God, I’m so thirsty.
Pain.
There’s something I have to do …
Nothing.
Something I …
Panic.
Who … Who … am I?
PART 1
ANOTHER DAY IN HISTORY
‘And when they come, they’ll find me here.
I will not run, they will not see my fear.
And I will fight, to the very end.
Before that wind, I will never bend.’
‘Eastern Wind’, Christopher Davison
ROME, 33 AD
The wind whipped the arena sands into a frenzy, stinging his skin and catching in his throat, but the condemned man paid it no heed.
Bronze-tanned and rippling in the sun, Saul the gladiator strode forward. He squinted as perspiration trickled into his eyes, borne not of exertion but rather of fear – the fear that came with knowledge of certain death. Death itself was not the problem, but instead, what it brought with it. In death lay defeat, and in defeat lay failure.
Failure was not an option, and yet there seemed no way he could survive this battle. His gaze curved in a slow arc around the arena. There were a hundred gladiators here, but it felt like a thousand. A lucky blow, a knife in the back, a slip on some slick pool of blood … it could be over in an instant.
Jets of perfumed water blasted into the air, propelled by a miracle of Roman engineering. Drums and trumpets electrified the air until finally, looking down on the whole scene from his place in the crowd, Caesar himself stood. In moments the Royåle would begin, and a hundred gladiators would fight until the red elixir of life was emptied from their limp bodies by last beats of their failing hearts. The sands would be stained, and they would all be dead.
Death. Defeat. Failure.
There was more at stake than anyone here could know. Striding forward once more, Saul thought of his mother …
CHAPTER 1
NORTH CAROLINA, UNITED STATES, 2014
Shaun Strickland was breaking the speed limit, and not just by a little – nearly double – as he navigated his way out of the city. His mind was elsewhere, racing through the growing possibilities. He squinted as perspiration trickled into his eyes, borne not of exertion but rather of anticipation of what was to come. This was it. Finally.
His mind drifted back to an hour ago, to the moment before his phone rang as he made his way to the staff lunch room at Masonville High. The physics class he had been teaching stampeded out of the room like cattle at the sound of their beloved bell. The bell was about the only thing that was always on time in this monotonous, backwater town.
‘Perhaps they should scrap GMT and use the Masonville High school bell to coordinate the rest of the world,’ he had thought as he began to pack up his belongings from the desk.
Perhaps indeed, his brain agreed. It often spoke to him, either to aid in his work or to chastise him for some shortcoming or folly. What it had to say wasn’t always what Shaun wanted to hear, but usually what he needed to.
At just thirty-three, Shaun Strickland was the very manifestation of a human sigh. He had gathered an armful of papers and let his hand drift down to his pocket, his fingers fiddling with his keys and the novelty keyring he had received for his last birthday: a lighter in the shape of a pistol. He didn’t smoke, but he found it useful for lighting Bunsen burners in chemistry class. He had considered taking the pistol to the carelessly completed class quizzes he was now carrying; it would save him a whole lot of time marking them tonight, but he decided against it. Barely.
Despite having the ability to push the boundaries of science, Shaun had made his choice to stay in his hometown long ago. Though he often felt under-appreciated, he tried not to focus on where he would be if he had left town as his brother had. In fact, the high-school science teacher was content to bide his time, because when he left work at the end of the day he went home to the most beautiful and amazing woman he could have ever hoped to meet. No, it really wasn’t so bad. He thought about her at each frustrating tic
k of the clock as the hours stretched away, and inevitably a smile came to his lips. Lauren.
He was walking up the stairs thinking about her as his cell phone rang. Speak of the—
‘Hey!’ he said, instantly smiling. ‘What’s up? Making sure I get the apples? I’m all over it—’
‘Shaun, listen to me,’ she cut him off. ‘You know how you said that if anything arrived in the mail that looked important, I should open it?’
‘Uh, yeah …’
‘Even if it’s addressed to you?’ She sounded unusually excited about the mail.
‘Lauren, what’s going on?’ He pictured her gold-streaked hair framing a mischievous grin. Something was up.
‘Well, a letter came today. It’s from England. From Cambridge University.’
He paused on the steps. ‘What did it say?’
‘Even if it’s addressed to you.’
‘Stop holding out!’
‘They want you to go to England!’
‘What?’ Shaun shouted, oblivious to the sudden stares of students moving past him.
‘Really! They say something about you sending a paper there and they want you to deliver a speech – at some sort of conference.’
The blood drained from Shaun’s face. He was still holding the phone, but he could no longer feel it in his hand. He knew exactly what Lauren was talking about.
Early on, he had found out that trying to describe the beauty and elegance of complex physics theories was challenging; always fraught with misinterpretation. He knew that he needed to show the theory for it to be grasped. Like a painting, words could not do what a cursory glance could; show the painting and instantly the intangible is understood. He longed to have the ability to test his theories, to show the world rather than have to try to explain complex mathematics in a language as inadequate as English.
He took comfort in the fact that most of the great ideas in physics arose long before the means to test them existed. Einstein called it the ‘thought experiment’, and was a huge fan of running a train of thought through to its logical conclusion to prove his ideas. The catch was, of course, that until you tested something for real you never really knew. So it was Shaun’s late-night study sessions that became thought experiments: page upon page of complex theory explained in painstaking detail.
If his days were spent battling teenage lethargy, his nightly work was a complete euphoric escape. When Lauren fell asleep, which she did around nine-thirty most nights, he would retire to his study, click on a Beatles or Pink Floyd CD and start to write. He would write and research and test and calculate and work his brain like an athlete works their muscles. It was a space where his mind could run without restriction, where he could speak a language few others understood.
During the long evenings, revelations flooded his dust-coloured room with light. But they were his alone. His conceptual ability would have been astounding if anyone around him had understood enough to be astounded. No one did. There were two downfalls to this: it made him frustrated, and it made him bitter.
He was bitter that there was no one to share his ideas with, no one who could join him. He was bitter when he heard students talk about the whimsical stories they heard in church on Sunday. The ridiculous superstitions made him want to scream. If they understood anything about the science of the real world, they wouldn’t waste their time.
The other teachers always thought he looked a little sad, prompting concerned questions such as, ‘Everything all right, Shaun?’ or ‘You look a little tired, Shaun, you sleepin’ okay?’ He always smiled and nodded pleasantly.
Lauren would look in on him occasionally, late at night, squinting at the scrawled pages stacked on his desk. She knew that he wouldn’t abandon a half-explained theory, so she would tell him the time and ruffle his hair and trundle back to bed with a concerned frown on her sleep-crinkled face.
Most of his ideas, he knew, were too fanciful to be taken seriously, and far too impractical to ever be tested, at least in his lifetime. He sent the papers out anyway. He had sent them to anywhere he thought there might be minds that could understand them – to universities, research institutions and private companies – but he had never heard back. Not once. Not until now.
‘There’s just one thing,’ Lauren said, still on the phone. ‘They want you there tomorrow.’
‘What?’ Shaun snapped back to reality.
‘It says here. Hang on, let me read it to you:
‘Dear Mr Strickland,
I am writing to formally invite you to present a lecture at our annual Worldwide Developers’ Conference, to be held on 14 June here in Cambridge. The conference is a convergence of the latest advancements and theories in science, and after having received your paper entitled “Holes in Space”, we think you would be an excellent candidate to deliver our keynote presentation.
Should you accept our offer, please contact our office during business hours.
Your expenses will be covered by the university and your flights have been pre-booked pending your confirmation.
We look forward to receiving your acceptance and seeing you in person on 14 June.
Sincerely,
Professor MS Landus, Phd
‘… then there’s some phone numbers and an address,’ Lauren finished.
Silence.
‘Shaun? Shaun, you still there?’
His mind reeled, and although he commanded his mouth to move, it wouldn’t respond.
‘Shaun? This is good, right? This is one of the places you sent your work to?’
‘Ah, yeah, this is good,’ Shaun finally replied. ‘I’ll be home in twenty minutes. I’ve got to …’
But he wasn’t thinking about the phone anymore; he had already hung up. He turned slowly, looking back down the stairs towards the front office. The professor who had sent the letter was someone whose work Shaun admired, listening to hours of his podcasts over the years, but the research paper the letter mentioned had been sent to the university in Cambridge more than seven years ago. Right now he wasn’t able to register how strange that was.
He had to … had to what? Had to, yes, get his classes covered, and something about getting apples … would Lauren still want to bake the pie? Would she be mad at him if he didn’t bring home the apples? The shock of her call caused him to lose all perspective.
Walking through the front office to the car park, he called back to the receptionist.
‘Gladys, I think you might want to find a sub for me for a couple of days.’
A small lady with trifocal glasses looked up from the screen she was staring at.
‘You sleepin’ all right, Shaun? You do look tired. Not feelin’ well?’
‘Uh, yeah, not too well at all.’
CHAPTER 2
Shaun’s Chevron screeched to a halt in the driveway of his home. The drive had given him some time to process the information and let it sink in.
‘Lauren!’ he bellowed as he burst through the door to find Lauren in the lounge room bending over two open suitcases and folding a pair of jeans. He kicked off his shoes and slid dramatically across the wooden floorboards. With arms outstretched he came to a stop, ‘I forgot the apples!’
She looked up and laughed before rushing over to him, throwing her arms around his neck. ‘Oh, baby, I’m so proud of you! We’re gonna have the best time. I’ve never even been out of the state, and now we’re going to England.’
He hugged her tiny frame and kissed her passionately. Then, and only then, he heard what she had just said.
‘We?’ He looked down at her, holding her shoulders and searching her face. She was beaming.
‘Of course we! You didn’t think I was going to miss out on a chance to go to England, did you? Shopping in Soho and Knightsbridge, riding on the red buses and seeing Big Ben, maybe we can visit Buckingham Palace?’
Shaun looked past her and saw the two suitcases open on the couch next to their passports. Sure enough, one was filled with a neat stack of his standard atti
re: plain T-shirts, jeans and a couple of button-down shirts for what she called ‘fancy’ occasions. The second case was nearly empty, but almost all of Lauren’s wardrobe was piled up next to it.
‘Uh …’ He unhooked Lauren’s arms from around his neck. He found it hard to look into her eyes to deliver the news. ‘You know I’d love you to come with me more than anything, but we just can’t afford a plane ticket to England right now. I’m not even sure if I’m going yet. I’ve still got to call and confirm and see if I can get on a flight.’
‘All done! And they’ve booked me a seat next to you. We don’t have to pay for a thing.’
Shaun turned his head a little and looked at her sceptically. ‘You’ve already called the university?’
‘I called them right after I called you. Well, maybe a bit before, but the point is that it’s all done. Though they seemed a bit puzzled because the woman thought we’d already confirmed last week. Anyway, we’ve got tickets on a flight out of Charlotte tonight.’
It was all happening so quickly. His analytical mind ticked through the strangeness of the circumstances, but he didn’t dwell.
‘Tonight? But we only just found out. And Charlotte? I can’t get a flight to Charlotte now; there won’t be any domestic flights out till morning.’
‘That’s why I packed us a bunch of turkey-and-cranberry sandwiches. I’ve been starving lately and we won’t have time to stop for dinner if we’re going to get there by eleven. See, you’re finally going to get the attention you deserve, and the world will see how smart you are.’
‘Eleven tonight?’ Shaun did the math in his head. It was a six-hour drive to the airport in Charlotte, and they were supposed to check-in well ahead of time. He looked at his watch. ‘We’d have to leave now. Right now.’
‘We?’ Lauren looked at him with the girlish glint in her eye he had come to love and mistrust all at the same time.
A broad smile spread across his face. ‘How quickly can you pack?’
The road to Charlotte seemed endless: a mass of greenery and bends that made Shaun motion sick as he thumbed through his manuscript.
‘What did you tell your dad?’ he asked when he finally paused to look up again at the horizon to try to stop the world from swaying.
