The Sensory Deception (54 page)

“What would I do if he showed up tomorrow morning? Gloria, I’m a scientist. I understand how things work. I don’t believe in good and evil, I believe in motivation and incentive and I believe in sickness and health. Mental illness is the worst of any kind of illness because it’s so hard to find empathy for someone whose illness makes them do rotten, horrible things. When someone has cancer, no one blames them for being sick. Same with Alzheimer’s and dementia; punishing them won’t help. Blaming them is stupid. What makes schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder or whatever Chopper suffered different? He needed treatment.”

Farley furrows his brow and he looks at Iara. He reaches across and cups the child’s chin. She pulls away, still concentrating on tuning the jib. He says, “If I could go back in time, I’d get him help. I’d get him the best team of psychologists and neurologists on earth. I’d save him.” Now he speaks quietly, just over the sound of the wind. “So I guess that’s what I’d do if I saw him tomorrow.”

Gloria said, “Farley Rutherford, you’re a good man.”

“What would you do?”

“I don’t know either.” Then she laughs and the tinkling sound of her laughter, half giggle and half belly laugh, blows the gloom away from them, away from that boat in that water, away into the wind and the wake behind them. “But I know one thing for sure. I wouldn’t go down on the bluff and sit next to him.”

They’re silent again. Since returning from the Amazon, Gloria doesn’t talk as much. They like being silent together. There is contentment in their silence.

As the boat passes Opal Cliffs, the wind shifts. The jib ruffles and Iara yanks on the rope when she should give it slack. Her
English is getting better every day, and she’s learned it all from Farley. As the jib ruffles louder and the boat leans farther, she says, “Oh, shit!”

Gloria laughs like she hasn’t laughed in a very long time.

Farley shrugs but doesn’t say anything. After all, the best way to learn how to sail, which is the best way to learn how to live, is by sailing. Iara recovers and the boat is righted.

Farley takes an orange from the ice chest, peels it, splits it in three, and hands the pieces out. Then he reaches into the ice chest again and takes out a small box.

He sets the box on Gloria’s thigh. It’s covered in navy-blue velvet. The wind blows it off and she has to reach down to retrieve it. The box is wet now and Farley’s laughing. She opens it. It’s a ring, of course. It’s gold and it’s the shape of a sperm whale curled in a circle. There’s a tiny sapphire in the whale’s eye and a diamond set like a spout from the whale’s blowhole.

Gloria stares at the ring without saying anything.

Farley feels uncertainty invade his heart. It hadn’t occurred to him that she might say no. He says, “We already have the kid, I just figured, you know…”

Please indulge me as I express my appreciation for the help and support of a few people.

Yanina Gotsulsky, Ann Clark, and Tamim Ansary made me a novelist: Yanina (author of
The Speed of Life
and editor-in-chief of Numina Press, LLC), by providing opportunity; Ann by helping me believe it was possible; and Tamim (author of
Games without Rules
) by teaching me where to find “the juice” in suspense fiction.

I got terrific feedback on early drafts from the authors: Barry Willdorf (
Burning Questions
), James Warner (
All Her Father’s Guns
), Steve Meloan (
The Shroud
), Evan Karp (Litseen.org), Chris Cole (
The Speed at Which I Travel
), Robert A. Burton (
A Skeptic’s Guide to the Mind
), and my friend Michael Vinson. My agent, Laurie McLean, recognized early on what I’m trying to do and started helping me do it long before I became her client.

The publication of this book by 47North can be traced to Rob Kroese, who so liked my first novel,
The God Patent
, that he recommended it to his editors. Then, one summer day I got an e-mail from David Pomerico at 47North asking if I had anything else in the tank. David showed tremendous faith in my work by acquiring
The Sensory Deception
. My editor at 47North, Christopher Cerasi, did a terrific job guiding me through a major
revision, and the copy editor Katie Parker rescued me from my own incompetence.

And, of course, I’d like to thank Karen and Professor Buckley, because nothing happens without the support of your mate and your dog.

Thank you for reading
The Sensory Deception
.

Please don’t blame me for the acts, politics, or religions of my characters. If I had better control of them, none of this would have happened.

I built Farley Rutherford from a combination of people. In my mind, he looks like the great Canadian naturalist Farley Mowat: tall, unkempt, and packed with mirth and genius. My Farley got his leadership voice from Paul Grannis, the physicist who led the D0 experiment at Fermilab back in the 1990s when I was a collaborator. I got the visceral feel of Romeo (Chopper) Vittori from who I was at ten years old: a militant environmentalist, migraine sufferer, and loner who spent lots of time wandering the hills of Mount Diablo. Golie (Gloria) Baradaran is loosely based on my friend Dorinda. Gloria and Dorinda look the same—drop-dead gorgeous—are generous women of strong character, and are both Iranian Jews. Gloria’s politics, on the other hand, follows the idealistic, free market patriotism of some Silicon Valley business, types with whom I’ve worked. Reginald (Ringo) Hayes is based on a guy I went to college with whose name I forget; the skinny geek from a tough neighborhood who knew everything. Everything. He also ended up being my favorite character. By the way, here’s how he got his nickname: Prior to giving birth to Reginald (named after Reggie Jackson), Ringo’s mom had a
miscarriage. His dad had a tacky sense of humor, and since he thought of his son as the replacement for the miscarried child, he called him Ringo after the Beatles’ replacement drummer, Ringo Starr. I know, hella bad taste.

Reading a novel is telepathy. Since you’ve spent hours in my head, please share your thoughts with me:
[email protected]
. There’s also a bunch of stuff at
www.RansomStephens.com
like a book club guide, my science articles, notes on the craft, and so on.

If it’s ever relevant (and I hope it will be): beer not wine, tea not coffee, rock not jazz. See you in the Black Hole!

With gratitude and affection,

Ransom

Petaluma, California, March 2013

Photo © 2012 by Mark Bennington

Ransom Stephens is a former physics professor and fifth-generation Californian. After earning his PhD from the University of California–Santa Barbara, he conducted cutting-edge particle physics research and taught at the University of Texas at Arlington. He then moved into the high-tech arena, leaving academia to work for a wireless web start-up. Drawing on his scientific work, Stephens penned the techno-thriller
The God Patent
. He lives in Petaluma, California.