The Speculist

Chapter 27

Part IV

Chapter Twenty-Seven

 

The train to St. Petersburg was delayed. How long it would be, no one seemed to know.

The train station was cold and noisy. Reuben sat on the floor — the benches were all full — and leafed through the bulky file the old man had given him the previous night. The noise and press of the crowd made it difficult to concentrate. He looked up from his reading. The place was thick with cigarette smoke, which was giving him a sore throat. The people were rendered shapeless by layers of gray-black coats and wraps. To his right sat a mother traveling alone with her five children — all boys unless the baby she held in her arms was girl, and none of them older than eight. The two oldest boys were running up and down the line, asking everyone something in Russian that Reuben couldn’t make out. From time to time, the mother would call out their names in a desultory fashion; she was too constrained by her younger children to go get them herself.

To Reuben’s left sat an ancient couple who methodically peeled and sliced potatoes and onions, collecting their work in a good-sized iron pot. Reuben wondered whether they were going to build a fire and start cooking right there on the train station floor. He didn’t think it would surprise him if they did.

Unexpectedly, as though he had just heard her, the larger of the two boys heeded his mother’s call and dashed back to where she sat. Along the way he nearly tripped over the pot of potatoes. The old couple were quicker and more agile than Reuben would have expected. The man grabbed the pot before it could tip and pulled it back to himself. The woman clawed at the boy as he passed, apparently not really wanting to catch him, grunting some dire warning. The mother took hold of the boy by his coat collar and yanked him to a sitting position on the floor. She glared at the old woman, but said nothing.

It was now two days since the Christmas party, and Reuben had begun his journey later than he had wanted. He was following a course that the old man had laid out for him. Or at least, he had mapped out the first two steps. Reuben was to take the train to St. Petersburg, where he would meet a man who might have some more information for him. From there, he would fly to London, where he would await the arrival of someone else, who might be able to tell him something. It was as tenuous a start as Reuben could imagine, but it was a start. Along the way, he would study the file and — between what it contained and what he learned (if anything) from these initial contacts — he would begin his journey in earnest.

There was no good reason to take the train to St. Petersburg rather than fly there, but the old man insisted on doing it this way. Reuben didn’t argue; going by train allowed him to cover up his somewhat embarrassing skittishness where it came to flying Aeroflot. He knew that the real old hands in Russia — the old man, for example — never thought twice about jumping on a Russian flight. But Reuben found the whole Aeroflot experience unsettling: the food, the service, and (above all) the rather rough way the Russian pilots had of handling their aircraft.

It was a strange sensibility to have, considering some of the aeronautical situations Reuben had found himself in over the years. At least on Aeroflot, he reminded himself, you could usually count on all of the airplane’s engines working. Or one of them, anyway. And there was rarely anyone on the ground firing a rocket-propelled grenade at you. The airline wasn’t so bad when you thought about it that way.

Nonetheless, he avoided it.

Moreover the train, he rationalized, would provide him with more time to study the file and prepare himself mentally for the road ahead. He knew from the moment he had decided to go that the best thing to do was simply to go. But there had been preparations to make; the old man was still waiting for pieces of the file to arrive.

In any case, it had not been an easy parting; the good-byes were difficult with Ksenia and with Betty and with the old man. Even saying dos vidanya to Sergei a few moments before had been unexpectedly difficult.

Reuben had had to fight an impulse to invite Sergei to join him on the trip. That was out of the question, of course. Sergei had a family to take care of and a job to do at WorldConneX (Reuben’s own employment contract having been graciously set aside at the old man’s request.) It was an odd notion for Reuben anyway; he usually wasn’t fond of traveling with other people. But there was something about this particular journey that made the idea of companionship seem right. Somehow, it felt like a two-man job.

Or maybe more.

---

Reuben sat in his compartment, reading, vaguely waiting for that familiar lurching sensation to mark the beginning of a train trip. He didn’t think much of it when there was a knock at the door. They had already checked his ticket (twice), but he knew from the time he had already spent in Russia that they were good at doing things like that any number of times, for no apparent reason. When he opened the door, he was surprised to see not a uniformed conductor, but a fat man of about his own age or a little younger. He sported a long green parka and blue jeans, and was wearing white sneakers and a black baseball cap.

Reuben thought: Hell, why not just stamp “American” on your forehead?

“Reuben Stone?” said the American guy.

This wasn’t in the cards. Reuben didn’t see how anybody could be looking for him.

“Who are you?”

“David Coffey. I have a message for you.”

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a note. It was written in the old man’s handwriting on a sheet of paper torn from one of Reuben’s notebooks. Reuben relaxed. Of course, it made sense that this guy worked for Keyes. He glanced at Coffey again. It was hard to imagine him being hired by someone like Kolkhi.

He read the note:

Reuben-

It’s okay, Dave is on the level. He’s the guy I was sending you to see in St. Pete. Didn’t realize he was in Moscow until this morning. Proceed as we discussed. Call me when you get there.

OM

Reuben extended his hand.

“Glad to meet you, David,” he said.

“Likewise,” Coffey said, shaking his hand firmly.

“Come on in,” Reuben said, realizing that sharing his berth was going to cut seriously into the already limited space. On the other hand, hadn’t he just been thinking something about a two-man job? Coffey managed to shove his oversized duffel bag into the luggage compartment already occupied by Reuben’s two modest black bags. He then took off his enormous coat and squeezed it in there as well.

He sat down on the bench opposite Reuben.

“Well, I see that you got our latest research,” he said, gesturing at the file in front of Reuben on the tray table. “What are your impressions so far?”

“I don’t really have any.”

Coffey nodded.

“Yeah, it takes a while to sink in.”

Reuben flipped through a few pages, then looked back up at Coffey.

“So you did all this research?”

“A little of it. My job was to compile it all. Actually, there were a half dozen or so contributors to that book.”

Reuben studied his new traveling companion for a moment. He wasn’t quite as heavy as Reuben thought; the enormous coat had added a few pounds. And he was definitely younger than Reuben.

“So who are you?” he asked.

“Who am I…” said Coffey. He scratched his head.

“Is that too hard a question?”

Coffey laughed.

“No, I just want to give you the answer you’re getting at.”

He crossed his legs, one foot perched on the other knee, and began unlacing his sneaker.

“I used to teach English at an international school in the Netherlands before I got involved in the work. I’m a detective of sorts, I guess. A sleuth. A professional sleuth. I like the sound of that.”

With a grunt, he pulled the shoe off his foot.

“To put it less glamorously, I’m a researcher. I’m part of a small organization committed to locating the Philosopher’s Stone.”

“So I gathered from your book. I’m wondering if maybe you know my roommate from college?”

Coffey shrugged.

“What’s his name?”

“Actually, he changed it a while back. When I knew him, his name was Tony Sullivan. He hung one of those ‘Frodo Lives’ posters on the wall of our dorm room. Tony and I never spent too much time together in college. He was always hanging out with this kind of quiet, pasty-faced gang. They went around wearing cloaks and carrying swords. Played Dungeons and Dragons all the time.”

Coffey smiled at this.

“Go on,” he said.

“So anyway a couple of years ago I heard that he’s changed his name to Duil Kendor and that he now lives with a colony of elves somewhere up in Marin County, California.”

Coffey laughed. If he was offended, he didn’t show it.

“That’s a good one,” he said after a moment. “And you would expect my path to cross with somebody like that?”

“Look, no offense,” said Reuben. “But you strike me as a normal and level-headed guy. Do you really believe that there’s a magic rock that changes lead to gold and bestows immortality?"

Coffey smiled again.

“Well, when you put it like that… You seem pretty sane and normal yourself. What do you think?”

Reuben shrugged.

“I don’t know what I think. The old…Mr. Keyes doesn’t seem to believe in it. He told me he thought the Philosopher’s Stone was a red herring.”

Coffey re-crossed his legs and began to unlace the other shoe.

“I can see that,” he said.

Reuben hefted the book from the tray table and waved it at Coffey.

“Well from reading this, it sounds to me like you’re convinced that it does exist.”

Coffey sighed. The other shoe came off.

“I suppose I am. I mean, I believe that there is a true re-contextualizing agent, what has traditionally been referred to as the Philosopher’s Stone. But I also doubt that it’s an actual stone. I don’t see how a physical substance could have the properties that the Philosopher’s Stone is supposed to. But there are other kinds of agents.”

“Like what?”

“Well, it could be a physical process, as opposed to a substance. It could be a technique for re-contextualizing—”

“Okay, that’s twice,” said Reuben. “Do you mind if I stop you? I’ve been reading that word all afternoon. What does it mean? Is it the same a transmuting?”

Coffey winced at the use of that word.

“Pretty much,” he said. He slid his shoes under the bench and leaned back into the corner.

“Transmute is the archaic term. It fell out of use along with the idea that things can actually be changed from one thing to another. We no longer believe that that’s the case. Now we believe that the same thing experienced in two completely different contexts will have different properties and will effectively be two different things.”

Reuben considered this.

“So when you say you change contexts, do you mean points of reference? All you do is change how you look at something?”

“That’s pretty much it,” said Coffey.

“And that changes the thing itself?”

Coffey nodded.

Reuben looked out the window for a moment. Lights were flickering in the distance, interrupted by patches of darkness — buildings and stands of trees. The train was moving. He hadn’t even noticed.

“Doesn’t that sound kind of…subjective? Solipsistic, even?”

“Absolutely. Is that a problem for you?”

Reuben nodded.

“Definitely. If something happens, I want it to really happen. I don’t want to just think it happened.”

Coffey shrugged.

“Maybe there’s a difference, maybe not. How would you ever know?”

Reuben leaned back. He sighed heavily.

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about this kind of stuff for a long time.”

He laughed.

“Not since I was living with the elf, come to think of it. Hey, did you ever hear this one? What if the earth is just an electron spinning around an atom that’s part of the fingernail of some cosmic giant? That’s a good one, too.”

“Sure,” said Coffey. He studied Reuben for a moment. “I think it’s going to be good for us having you on the team. I’ve always thought skeptics were a good influence. They keep us on our toes. But they usually burn out pretty fast.”

“Anyway, go ahead,” said Reuben. “You were saying that the Philosopher’s Stone might be a process or a technique?”

“That’s right. By extension, it could also be a device. Maybe there’s this machine that would enable a person to re-contextualize reality.”

Coffey got up suddenly and began rummaging through his things. He produced a bottle from one of the pockets of his enormous coat.

“But if it’s all subjective…” he thought about this for a moment. “What kind of technology would make that possible?” asked Reuben.

“Presumably, it would be extremely high technology. Past anything that exists on Earth today.” Coffey stuffed his coat back into place and sat back down.

“Brandy?” he said, offering the bottle to Reuben.

Reuben shook his head. Coffey shrugged, unscrewed the cap, and took a long draw from the bottle. He sat back and closed his eyes.

Reuben wondered why these discussions always seemed to involve the flow of liquor.

“Man, that’s good,” Coffey said after a while. “Anyhow, that’s one of the big problems with the device theory. The whole reason we’re looking for the Philosopher’s Stone is that we have reason to believe it already exists. In fact, that it existed a long time ago. It’s hard to imagine how people in the past could have developed a technology surpassing what we have today.”

“Maybe they used that same technology to cover their tracks,” said Reuben.

Coffey looked puzzled.

“Did Mr. Keyes give you some of our research besides what’s here?”

“No,” said Reuben. “and believe me, this is plenty.”

“That’s interesting. I just read a draft of a paper last week that proposes that very theory.”

Reuben smiled.

“Well, I was just throwing it out there. Not that big a leap, really. Once you give the ancient citizens of Atlantis — or whoever — magical powers, you can use those powers to smooth out any inconsistency in the theory. ”

Coffey nodded.

“I guess that’s true.” He paused and took another sip of brandy. “Which doesn’t prove that it’s wrong. Anyhow, the idea is gaining some ground in the movement. It’s a variation on the Devicist theory, which states that the Stone is a machine invented in a time of incredible technological achievement which occurred before recorded history. The variation is that the civilization that created the Stone used it to re-contextualize away all traces of their ever having been here. ”

“Not all traces, apparently. Or you wouldn’t have your little club.”

Reuben held out his hand for the bottle. If he was going to start thinking like these people, he might as well go all the way.

“But why would they do that?”

“Beats me,” said Coffey, passing him the bottle. “Of course, a lost ancient civilization is mysterious pretty much by definition. But I can’t see any reason why they would disappear. That’s my major problem with the Devicist approach.”

Reuben uncapped the bottle and took a sip. The brandy was harsh.

Really harsh.

“Okay,” he sputtered, “you said there were other things it could be?”

“Well, getting back to the idea of a process or technique, the Stone could be nothing more than way of thinking. Some of us believe that all thinking is re-contextualizing anyway. Perhaps there is a way to make this overt rather than latent.”

Reuben considered at the bottle he was holding and decided to take another drink. Maybe it would grow on him. He took a longer draw this time.

It did not grow on him.

“What the hell is this stuff, anyway?” he managed to ask, handing the bottle back to Coffey.

Coffey smiled.

“Plum brandy. From Siberia. Kicks ass, doesn’t it?”

Reuben nodded.

“So what are you saying, I can turn lead into gold just by thinking about it?”

“Why not? Ever heard of the anthropic principle?”

Reuben shook his head.

“It’s a scientific theory. I mean real science, you know? It has to do with our place in the universe. As observers. One version of the theory contains the idea that consciousness is a necessary prerequisite to the existence of the universe.”

Reuben considered this.

“And?” he said.

“So if that’s true, how big a leap is it? To go from the idea that consciousness in general is required to bring the universe in being to the idea that the conscious thought of an individual can change the universe?”

“My guess is that it’s a pretty damn big leap. Especially since it’s an extrapolation of one version of a theory that I doubt anybody has proved yet.”

Coffey laughed.

“You’re a tough customer, Reuben. I like that.”

He got up and returned the bottle to his coat pocket. He rummaged through his things for a moment before returning to his seat holding a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“Anyway,” said Reuben, “where does all this put the old man’s secret society? The society of the great magic?”

“Good question,” said Coffey. “They’re kind of a separate issue. Not everyone is convinced that they’re connected with alchemy at all. And even if they are, they might not actually hold the key to the Stone.”

“What do you think?”

Coffey shrugged.

“It’s hard to say.”

“Could they be that remnant of the lost civilization, keeping their super-technology alive?”

Coffey looked at his pack of cigarettes for a moment.

“Could be,” he said. “Some Devicists believe that. Or maybe they’re just a more secretive version of the Freemasons or the Rosicrucians.”

“Is that what you think?”

“That’s what seems most likely. But here’s an oddity.”

He picked up the book again and thumbed to the end. He handed it to Reuben, open to a page that contained an intricate diagram.

“You’ve seen this before, right?”

Reuben looked at the page. He nodded.

“It’s an astrological symbol from the manuscript the old man had.”

Coffey grinned.

“Uh huh, “ he said. “Now turn the page.”

Reuben turned the page and found the same diagram, rotated slightly.

“There it is again,” he said.

“Not really,” said Coffey. “The first diagram is a pattern from the ceiling of a Sufi mosque in Turkey. The second is a mandala from a Buddhist temple in Nepal.”

Reuben looked at both pictures again.

“But they’re the same as the picture in the manuscript.”

“Right. Whatever you want to think about the society of the Magus Majorum, they apparently are connected with the manuscript you saw. And the manuscript seems to be linked with some pretty interesting stuff. Including Al Razi himself.”

Reuben looked at Coffey.

“I don’t see how this explains anything.”

Coffey smiled.

“Who said it would? Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to provide all the explanations?”

Reuben shook his head, laughing with resignation.

“How did I get signed up for this job?” he asked.

“Say, Reuben, is it okay if I smoke?”

Reuben considered this. His throat was still smarting from the train station, not to mention the brandy.

“Well, to tell you the truth, Dave…”

Coffey raised his hand to cut him off.

“Say no more,” he said good-naturedly. “I’ll find a spot.”

With that, he was up and out of the compartment, sliding the door closed behind him.

Posted by Phil at March 1, 2004 12:00 AM | TrackBack