Gravity's Chain (17 page)

If I could have turned the plane around I would have done so, taken a taxi and settled my disquiet by meeting this person. I was no longer afraid of her; it was my curiosity that needed calming. Now I wanted to keep my appointment, now I wanted to talk to her. But it was too late and there was nothing I could do. We landed in Wellington that night, took in some interviews the following morning, a sound check in the afternoon and my show in the evening. After a brief reception I was to leave that night for America.

I thought when I arrived in New Zealand that I would be anxious to leave and in some ways I was—sour thoughts of my past and the interview with Ryan had done little to make the stay enjoyable—but a part of me was now screaming to stay.

You'd think I had enough on my plate as I set out across the Pacific. However, life sometimes just keeps digging the shit. Bebe casually passed me the latest copy of
New Scientist
, picked up in Wellington Airport. Perhaps he hoped that the casualness of the moment might somehow take away the bite of the contents. It didn't. The front cover boasted a multicoloured pattern revolving around a diagonal axis. Above the graphic was the headline, ‘The Patterns of Life', and below it the promise of an article and interview with Frank Driesler. Oh, I could hardly wait.

The Patterns of Life

We live in fascinating times. First came Jack Mitchell and Superforce, now comes Frank Driesler and his Life Patterns. Science is on a rollercoaster and for most of us it's becoming harder to predict where the ride will end. However, Driesler thinks he has all the answers and in his new self-published book sensation,
The Patterns of Life
, he sets out to answer them. He makes bold claims about changing the face not only of physics, but of biology, economics and even psychology. He doesn't just want to change the way we do science; he wants to change its very nature. He tells Barbara Clay how he's doing it and shares his thoughts about the future for the sometimes uneasy relationship between society and science.

What is so wrong with the old way of doing science?

I'm not saying everything that has been done should be thrown
out. I just believe we have taken a wrong path and it's time to put that right. The line from Galileo, through Newton to Einstein and now Mitchell is mathematical. However, although great technological advances have been built on this maths it doesn't take us any closer to really understanding why things are the way they are. We have slaved for three centuries over equations that we hope will explain how everything works, but they don't, not really. An equation might describe the orbit of the earth around the sun, but it can't explain the simplest organism. It is time to find out what lies behind nature's mask, to find out how things really work, not just an abstract mathematical description.

And you think you have the answer. Can you explain how it works?

The idea is rather simple. Instead of equations I use rules. For example, take spots on a cheetah. Our conventional teaching tells us that the array of patterns is the result of genetic mechanisms, but I really don't think that's right—nature is working to rules that create those patterns. On a computer I can generate a program that mimics the cheetah's markings and the rules behind the program are really simple and quite basic. It's the same with the solar system: if I draw the orbits of the planets I make a pattern, one that I can recreate on a computer with a program based on simple rules. Therefore one does not need a crafted mathematical formula to explain the orbits, all you need are the rules to make the pattern.

The beautiful thing is that you can reverse the process. I've written programs from which I find the resulting pattern mimics something found in the real world, for example a butterfly wing. From these simple rules grows complexity.

Who makes the rules?

I'm not sure anyone ‘makes' them. The question is a philosophical or religious one and is no different from asking who or what made the equations that currently underpin physics. What I'm saying is that nature conforms to basic rules that are not mathematically based and to understand them we have to look beyond the maths because maths as a tool doesn't help us here.

All those out there who struggle with maths should rejoice, because they will no longer be excluded from the scientific elite. Physics will no longer be a club where the price of admission is the cult of higher maths. It will also help people from all fields to contribute across the various disciplines.

This leads on to comments you've made about these rules crossing the boundaries of our science disciplines. Why is that important?

Specialisation is a curse on modern society. We cram ourselves into ever tighter compartments and we lose so much in the process. We fail to see the wider picture, fail to appreciate how everything is connected. This doesn't just happen in science, it happens everywhere. We only have to look at law or medicine to see how specialisation forces people into increasingly small boxes. You can't see the whole sky if you're looking at a small patch out of the top of your box; just think about what you might be missing, what wonders might be out of sight. There might be this solitary grey cloud over your piece, but the rest is a beautiful blue.

What I like about the rule-based understanding of nature is that it breaks the walls down. If basic rules explain, for example, economics, which I think they do, then the physicist
can do economics and vice versa. At the moment everything is disconnected and so people just don't communicate with each other any more, they shout because there are all these box walls around. Who listens to the shouting man?

Do you think science and society communicate?

On the whole I don't think they do communicate and that is a real loss. Part of the reason is that the deeper science becomes, the less the ordinary person understands.

Are we back to the maths thing?

That's right. I mean, apart from a handful of physicists, who understands spiral field maths? Yet to truly understand Mitchell's Superforce, one must know how the maths works. Those who don't are excluded and rely on what others tell them. That robs almost everyone of true understanding. And if you don't understand you can never truly appreciate.

It seems you've done a lot of talking about Mitchell over the past few months.

I think a lot of it has been exaggerated by the media, but there is a very basic difference between us. Don't get me wrong: I think Mitchell has done some good things. Some of the work he has put into his show helps to explain the impact science has on our society and that's a good thing. For example, helping people understand how Einstein has contributed to the laser and so to modern mass communications really does help to break open those boxes I've been talking about and it's good for improving the communication between science and society. Yet, Mitchell himself is still in his own mathematical box, however smart and
special that box might be. His theory doesn't explain everything. I think it's a really basic mistake to think that just because you can unite relativity and quantum you can explain the universe. In fact I think it's arrogance beyond measure. In the past, physicists said that once we united these grand theories we would have an understanding of everything. Well, we have believed our own press, but, of course, it doesn't explain very much of nature; it doesn't explain why the butterfly has a patterned wing.

The other thing I'm unsure of about Mitchell is the way he goes about informing. He seems to live this lavish life of the rock star. Where is the humility? Where is the humanity for that matter? I think there's a moral and ethical standard for a scientist and he's eroding that standard by the way he conducts himself.

You seem to be questioning his ethics. Why?

In a way I am, yes. Let me explain. I think in many respects Francis Bacon has proved to be the greatest prophet in history. In 1627 he published
The New Atlantis
, which told the story of a traveller shipwrecked on the shores of a fabulous land where man has discovered that science can serve faith and restore him to the state of grace before the Fall. Man achieves this goal by controlling nature through the technologies that flow from science. This improves the people's material lives and thus leads them to happiness. The land is ruled by Solomon's House, a group of scientist priests who improve lives morally, not just materially.

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.

L
as 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. Briefly 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 one 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.