Eventually the tigers flopped down in the morning shade and stared into space. The zoo people made speeches as the crowd dispersed through the rest of the zoo. Some pretty vigorous whooping from the direction of the gibbons enclosure nevertheless did not sound quite like the creatures themselves. After a while Frank rejoined them, shaking his head. Theres only one gibbon couple thats been recovered. The rest are out in the park. Ive seen some of them. Its neat, he told Nick. Youll like it.
Drepung came over. Would you join our little party in the visitors center? he asked Frank.
Sure, thanks. My pleasure.
They walked up the zoo paths together to a building near the entry on Connecticut. Drepung led the Quiblers and Frank to a room in back, and Rudra Cakrin guided them to seats around a round table under a window. He came over and shook Franks hand: Hello, Frank. Welcome. Please to meet you. Please to sit. Eat some food, drink some tea.
Frank looked startled. So you do speak English!
The old man smiled. Oh yes, very good English. Drepung make me take lessons.
Drepung rolled his eyes and shook his head. Padma and Sucandra joined them as they passed out sample cups of Tibetan tea. The cross-eyed expression on Nicks face when he smelled his cup gave Drepung a good laugh. You dont have to try it, he assured the boy.
Its like each ingredient has gone bad in a completely different way, Frank commented after a taste.
Bad to begin with, Drepung said.
Good! Rudra exclaimed. Good stuff.
He hunched forward to slurp at his cup. He did not much resemble the commanding figure who had given the lecture at NSF, Anna thought, which perhaps explained why Frank was regarding him so curiously.
So youve been taking English lessons? Frank said. Or maybe its like Charlie said? That you spoke English all along, but didnt want to tell us?
Charlie say that?
I was just joking, Charlie said.
Charlie very funny.
Yes so you are taking lessons?
I am scientist. Study English like a bug.
A scientist!
I am always scientist.
Me too. But I thought you said, at your lecture, that rationality wasnt enough. That an excess of reason was a form of madness.
Rudra consulted with Drepung, then said, Science is more than reason. More stronger. He elbowed Drepung, who elaborated:
Rudra Cakrin uses a word for science that is something like devotion. A kind of devotion, he says. A way to honor, or worship.
Worship what, though?
Drepung asked Rudra, got a reply. Whatever you find, he said. Devotion is a better word than worship, maybe.
Rudra shook his head, looking frustrated by the limited palette of the English language. You watch, he said in his gravelly voice, fixing Frank with a glare. Look. If you can. Seems like healing.
He appealed again to Drepung. A quick exchange in Tibetan, then he forged on. Look and heal, yes. Make better. Make worse, make better. For example, take a walk. Look in. In, out, around, down, up. Up and down. Over and under. Ha ha ha.
Drepung said, Yes, his English lessons are coming right along.
Sucandra and Padma laughed at this, and Rudra scowled a mock scowl, so unlike his real one.
He seldom sticks with one instructor for long, Padma said.
Goes through them like tissues, Sucandra amplified.
Oh my, Frank said.
The old man returned to his tea, then said to Frank, You come to our home, please?
Thank you, my pleasure. I hear its very close to NSF.
Rudra shook his head, said something in Tibetan.
Drepung said, By home, he means Khembalung. We are planning a short trip there, and the rimpoche thinks you should join us. He thinks it would be a big instruction for you.
Im sure it would, Frank said, looking startled. And Id like to see it. I appreciate him thinking of me. But I dont know how it could work. Im afraid I dont have much time to spare these days.
Drepung nodded. True for all. The upcoming trip is planned to be short for this very reason. That is what makes it possible for the Quibler family also to join us.
Again Frank looked surprised.
Drepung said, Yes, they are all coming. We plan two days to fly there, four days on Khembalung, two days to get back. Eight days away. But a very interesting week, I assure you.
Isnt this monsoon season there?
The Khembalis nodded solemnly. But no monsoon, this year or two previous. Big drought. Another reason to see.
Frank nodded, looked at Anna and Charlie: So youre really going?
Anna said, I thought it would be good for the boys. But I cant be away from work for long.
Or else her head will explode, Charlie said, raising a hand to deflect Annas elbow from his ribs. Just joking! Anyway, addressing her, you can work on the plane and Ill watch Joe. Ill watch him the whole way.
Deal, Anna said swiftly.
Charlie very funny, Rudra said again.
Frank said, Well, Ill think it over. It sounds interesting. And I appreciate the invitation, nodding to Rudra.
Thank you, Rudra said.
Sucandra raised his glass. To Khembalung!
No! Joe cried.
THREE
Back To Khembalung
One Saturday Charlie was out on his own, Joe at home with Anna, Nick out with Frank tracking animals. After running some errands he browsed for a bit in Second Story Books, and he was replacing a volume on its shelf when a woman approached him and said, Excuse me, can you tell me where I can find William Blake?
Surprised to be taken for an employee (they were all twenty-five and wore black), Charlie stared blankly at her.
Hes a poet, the woman explained.
Now Charlie was shocked; not only taken for a Second Story clerk, but for the kind who did not know who William Blake was?
Poetrys back there, he finally got out, gesturing weakly toward the rear of the store.
The woman slipped past him, shaking her head.
Fire fire burning bright! Charlie didnt say.
Dont forget to check the oversized art books for facsimiles of his engravings! he didnt exclaim.
In fact hes a lot better artist than poet I think youll find! Most of his poetry is trippy gibberish, I think youll find! He didnt shout.
His cell phone rang and he snatched it out of his pocket. William Blake was out of his mind!
Hello, Charlie? Charlie is that you?
Oh hi Phil. Listen, do I look to you like a person who doesnt know who William Blake was?
Oh hi Phil. Listen, do I look to you like a person who doesnt know who William Blake was?
I dont know, do you?
Shit. You know, great arias are lost to the world because we do not speak our minds. Most of our best lines we never say.
I dont have that problem.
No, I guess you dont. So whats up?
Im following up on our conversation at the Lincoln Memorial.
Oh yeah, good! Are you going to go for it?
I think I will, yeah.
Great! Youve checked with your money people?
Yes, that looks like it will be okay. There are an awful lot of people who want a change.
Thats for sure. But, you know do you really think you can win?
Yes, I think so. The feedback Ive been getting has been positive. But
But what?
Phil sighed. Im worried about what effect it might have on me. I mean power corrupts, right?
Yes, but youre already powerful.
So its already happened, yes, thank you for that. But its supposed to get worse, right? Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely? Was it William Blake who said that?
That was Lord Acton.
Oh yeah. But he left out the corollary. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and a little bit of power corrupts a little bit.
I suppose that must be so.
And everyone has a little bit of power.
Yes, I suppose.
So were all a little bit corrupt.
Hmm
Come on, how does that not parse? It does parse. Power corrupts, and we all have power, so were all corrupt. A perfect syllogism, if Im not mistaken. And in fact the only people we think of as not being corrupt are usually powerless. Prisoners of conscience, the feeble-minded, some of the elderly, saints, children
My children have power.
Yes, but are they perfectly pure and innocent?
Charlie thought of Joe, faking huge distress when Anna came home from work. No, theyre a little corrupt.
Well there you go.
I guess youre right. And saints have power but arent corrupt, which is why we call them saints. But where does that leave us? That in this world of universal corruption, you might as well be President?
Yes. Thats what I was thinking.
So then its okay.
Yes. But the sad part is that the corruption doesnt just happen to the people with power. It spreads from them. They spread it around. I know this is true because I see it. Every day people come to me because Ive got some power, and I watch them debase themselves or go silly in some way. I see them go corrupt right before my eyes. Its depressing. Its like having the Midas touch in reverse, where everything you touch turns to shit.
The solution is to become saintlike. Do like Lincoln. He had power, but he kept his integrity.
Lincoln could see how limited his power was. Events were out of his control.
Thats true for us too.
Right. Good thought. Ill try not to worry. But, you know. Im going to need you guys. Ill need friends who will tell me the truth.
Well be there. Well call you on everything.
Good. I appreciate that. Because its kind of a bizarre thing to be contemplating.
Im sure it is. But you might as well go for it. In for a penny in for a pound. And we need you.
Youll help me with the environmental issues?
As always. I mean, Ive got to take care of Joe, as you know. But I can always talk on the phone. Im on call any time oh for Gods sake here she comes again. Look Phil Id better get out of here before that lady comes to tell me that Abraham Lincoln was a president.
Tell her he was a saint.
Make him your patron saint and youll be fine bye!
Thats bye Mr President.
Under surveillance.
After he had come down from the euphoria of seeing Caroline, talking to her, kissing her, planning to meet again Frank was faced with the unsettling reality of her news. Some group in Homeland Security had him under surveillance.
A creepy thought. Not that he had done anything he needed to hide except that he had. He had tried to sink a young colleagues grant proposal, in order to secure that work in a private company he had relations with; and the first part of the plan had worked. Not that that was likely to be what they were surveiling him for but on the other hand, maybe it was. The connection to Pierzinski was apparently why they were interested in him in the first place. Evidence of what he had tried to do would there be any in the records? Part of the point of him proceeding had been that nothing in what he had done was in contradiction to NSF panel protocols. However, among other actions he was now reviewing, he had made many calls to Derek Gaspar, CEO of Torrey Pines Generique. In some of these he had perhaps been indiscreet.
Well, nothing to be done about that now. He could only focus on the present, and the future.
Thinking about this in his office, Frank stared at his computer. It was connected to the internet, of course. It had virus protections, firewalls, encryption codes; but for all he knew, there were programs more powerful still, capable of finessing all that and probing directly into his files. At the very least, all his e-mail. And then phone conversations, sure. Credit rating, sure, bank records, all other financial activity all now data for analysis by participants in some kind of virtual futures market, a market trading in newly emerging ideas, technologies, researchers. All speculated on, as with any other commodity. People as commodities well, it wouldnt be the first time.
He went out to a local cyber-cafe and paid cash to get on one of the house machines. Seating himself before it with a triple espresso, he looked around to see what he could find.
The first sites that came up told the story of the case of the Policy Analysis Market proposal, which had blown up in the face of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, some time before. John Poindexter, of Iran-Contra fame, had set up a futures market in which participants could bet on potential events in the Middle East, including possibilities like terrorist attacks and assassinations. Within a week of announcing the project Poindexter had been forced to resign, and DARPA had cut off all funds not just for the PAM project, but for all research into markets as predictive tools. There were protests about this at the time, from various parties convinced that markets could be powerful predictors, distilling as they did the collective information and wisdom of many people, all putting their money where their mouths were. Different people brought different expertise to the table, it was claimed, and the aggregated information was thought to be better able to predict future performance of the given commodity than any individual or single group could.