“Did Freddy feel the same about Cindy?” I ask.
Sharp hesitates. “He loved her, sure, intensely. They were very close. Unfortunately, they weren’t compatible. Freddy was a laid-back hippie and Cindy was driven to get ahead. They wanted to be together but it didn’t work out. And so Cindy ended up with Tom, Thomas.”
“Does Cindy love Tom?” I ask, although I already know the answer.
“He loves her but I doubt she ever got over Freddy.”
“Then why did she marry Tom?”
Sharp shook his head. “Tom was rich and handsome. They had more in common than Cindy and Freddy. Tom was clean-cut, well disciplined. He wore a sports coat to campus while most kids his age had on shorts and sandals. I knew that one day he’d be president of a company. And you see, that’s what’s happened.”
“IIC is not a normal company.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that point.”
“Were Noel Brent and Wendy Brent married when they were your students?” I ask.
“They got married shortly after I came up with the array. They had to. Wendy got pregnant and Noel pretty much did what she told him to.”
“It sounds like the women were the real power when it came to your graduate students.”
“That’s true about Cindy and Wendy. But you couldn’t say that about Freddy. No one told that guy what to do. He was a free thinker. I’ve told you that Cindy helped me refine the early arrays, but Freddy was a big help as well. He was the one who figured out how to get them to talk.”
My heart skips. “Talk?”
Sharp suddenly looks as if he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I didn’t mean that literally.”
“How did you mean it?” I ask.
Sharp is distinctly uncomfortable. “Freddy came up with a list of experiments that allowed us to extract information from the kids.”
“What kind of information?”
“Your usual New Age drivel. I didn’t think it was important at the time.”
“But later?” I ask.
Sharp brushes the question away. “Don’t get hung up on that part of our research. There was nothing there we could prove.”
“Professor, I’m afraid you contradict yourself. On one hand you say Freddy was a big help. He had insights into the early arrays and got them to talk. Then you act like the information he came up with wasn’t important.”
“I don’t think it was important.”
“At least tell us how he got the arrays to talk.”
Sharp shrugs. “None of his techniques were scientific. It was more along the lines of spiritualism. The type of people drawn to those cults are always trying to get messages from beyond the grave. They gather people around a table and try to get the table’s legs to tap once for yes and twice for no. Or else they sit with Ouija boards and channel all kinds of bizarre information. Freddy was drawn to that sort of thing. It impressed me that he was able to adapt our arrays so the power of a large group could contribute to what was being channeled. But, once again, the quality of the information was usually poor.”
“Give us an example of the type of information you received.”
“It was no different from the junk you can find in a hundred channeled books at the store. A spirit would arrive with some high-sounding name and profess to have the secrets of the universe. He or she would dictate pages of information on reincarnation or higher dimensions, none of which could be tested. I’m telling you, it was a waste of time.”
“Professor Sharp, do you believe in God?” I ask.
My question catches him off guard. “Why do you ask?”
“With all your experiments, it sounds like you were trying to tap into a kind of collective unconsciousness—if you want to use Carl Jung’s label—or a universal consciousness. Would you say that’s fair?”
“We were trying to tap into a power that had no name. Some people might have called it God. I’m not sure I would have been one of them.”
“Why not?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “How can I answer that question? As a scientist, I could only work with what I could prove.”
I lean forward and take his shriveled hand in mine. “Are you afraid to answer because you think Cindy used the arrays for evil purposes? To give you a stroke?”
“No.”
“When we first arrived, you gave that impression.”
He shakes free of my hand. He acts trapped, restless. “You don’t understand,” he says.
“Then help us understand.”
“The arrays were designed to solicit information. To prove we had hidden senses beyond the five obvious ones. I didn’t create them to hurt people. The idea is preposterous.”
“That’s not true,” I say.
“It is true!” he shouts back.
“But you’ve admitted how dangerous the IIC is. You said it was more dangerous than we could imagine.”
Sharp struggles to answer and I fear I might have pressed him too hard. He’s old and frail. His voice cracks as he answers and I worry he’s going to have another stroke.
“That company is dangerous but not because of the big Array Cindy eventually created. That’s not what stung you and that’s not what put me in bed for a year and destroyed my health.”
“If it wasn’t the Array, then what was it?” I ask.
Sharp hesitates. “The Cradle.”
“What’s that?” I demand.
The man lowers his head and trembles as he speaks. “I can’t talk about it, it’s too dangerous. Find Freddy, talk to him. I’ll put you two in touch. He knows more about it than I do.”
I feel frustrated. I have finally managed to steer him to the secret of secrets and now he refuses to tell us what it is. I try pushing him harder but finally have to accept his fear is genuine. It’s not like he is refusing to talk about what happened next, it’s like he can’t.
However, when we’re about to leave, I ask, “At least tell us why it’s called the Cradle?”
He stares at me closely, as if seeing me for the first time, and his face darkens. “You know,” he says. “It touched you. It’s just begun to grow.”
It’s my turn to clam up. I don’t ask what it is. I already know it’s that horrible thing that attacked me in that crummy motel in London.
EIGHT
It’s not difficult for us to find Fredrick Wild. True to his word, Professor Sharp gives us his address and phone number. It appears the two are still on speaking terms. Freddy lives with his girlfriend, Mary, in Santa Cruz, an hour’s drive from San Mateo. We climb in our car and head for the coast. Seymour drives while I sit in the back with Shanti. She keeps giving me uneasy looks.
“Relax,” I say. “We’re not trying to play a practical joke on you. It really is me.”
“If I had any doubts, you got rid of them at the professor’s house,” Shanti replies.
“Was I too hard on him?” I ask.
Shanti is at pains not to offend me. “You did what you had to do.”
“I think you were too easy on him,” Seymour says.
“What makes you say that?” Paula asks.
Seymour rolls down the window, which means he’s about to light a cigarette. “I worry we didn’t learn anything that will help us defeat Brutran and the IIC.”
“We learned how the Array came to be,” Paula says. “I found his talk fascinating.”
“But it’s like he switched boats on us,” Seymour says. “He talks about the Array for an hour but when push comes to shove he says it’s the Cradle that’s the problem. If you ask me, he’s still trying to protect the idea of the Array. It’s his baby, he invented it. I think he’s still proud of it.”
“He did prove the existence of ESP,” Paula says. “He made a major contribution to science. I think he has a right to be proud.”
Seymour lights his cigarette and blows smoke out the window. He glances over at Paula in the passenger seat. “Then why did you jump on him for using his knowledge to predict stock prices? If it had been me, I would have done the same thing.”
Paula gazes out the window at the lovely scenery. The road between San Mateo and Santa Cruz leads us through a rich forest. Yet the beauty of the countryside doesn’t seem to comfort her.
“You’ve all heard the quote in the Bible, “Knock and the door shall be opened.’ As you know, I’ve had experience when it comes to praying to the universe for guidance. And I can tell you that you have to be extremely careful what doors you decide to knock on.”
“Is that why you brought up the issue of intention?” I ask.
“Yes. Like I told him, at first his research was noble. He was trying to demonstrate the hidden potential we all have. But later, when Brutran wanted to use the Array to make money, the intention became self-serving.”
“And that’s bad?” Seymour asks.
Paula hesitates. “It can be.”