My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge is to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), will consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. Some 12 chapters are already written so I have a bit of a head start…

Please comment with any opinions good or bad – you have no idea how much I need feedback at this stage…

We looked the other day, at Information and how Data Lakes exist full of unprocessed information – this is not Knowledge! Knowledge implies the interaction or mediation of a human mind – “facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.” This definition suggests that an AI or Artificial Intelligence might be a little erratic in compiling “knowledge” since searching for, selecting, and curating knowledge are very human activities. For example, my spell-checker does an excellent job of checking not only my spelling but my grammar too. Yet in the chapter below, I spotted that it had allowed a reference to Jack lying in a comma for months rather than as it should be, a coma! The spell-checker (which is not quite AI) has the knowledge of both words, but is not able to spot that one was wrong. (Please correct my assertion about AI’s if you know better…).

So then there is wisdom…

Wisdom is to knowledge what Knowledge is to data – a higher order altogether and once more, something uniquely human in its transformation through human experience and mentality. I love knowledge and I love to share it and I have, in my time, been accused, both in a good and a bad way, of being a know-it-all! The people who love my knowledge are those who still come to me for answers, such as my grand-children – though less and less as they grow into their own knowledge and wisdom. People who think it bad, are those who feel lesser and mistake my enthusiasm for knowledge as superiority. For me, it is something to be shared generously and then to see how people transmute it, like alchemists of old, into their own body of knowledge and more valuable, into their own wisdom. I think the worst thing I do is misjudge the level of interest in another and get carried away as they glaze over…

When we read a book, it is not to have knowledge of the story, it is hopefully, to have a psychic interaction, to have our mental being stimulated, our emotions stirred and if the story is a good one, we may have extra knowledge, but the experience has hopefully left us wiser.

When we read history books, it is not for the knowledge they contain – but so that we can learn how to avoid the mistakes of the past or achieve the successes – that is developing wisdom.

There is another meaning of knowledge as in “having (carnal” knowledge of another… This always strikes me as a curious expression since, if we are creatures of mind, body, and spirit, how can an activity of the body, however spiritedly it is carried out, give insight into the mind? Little glimpses perhaps, and vastly more knowledge in total, than before the intimate act, but possibly, for those who really want to know someone else,  the raising of more questions than answers. Which is perhaps why, in the early days of a relationship, we repeat the knowledge gathering on all levels, as often as we can, lots of sex but lots of talking too which I suspect yields far more “knowledge” than the carnal component…

In “Train Wreck”, Anna goes off to Hawaii 1 in search of knowledge about an “improved” means of accessing Hawaii 2 from space, but she does not have the “wisdom” to evaluate whether this would be a good thing for the planet and its people – she just wants to collect the knowledge – to put the last pieces in a jigsaw puzzle for its own sake. The mystery/detective format is a kind of knowledge acquisition process for both the detective and for the reader and I think a good author is one who gives little hints as he unfolds the evidence through his detective, so that the author may put facts together and puzzle it out before the ‘tec. Nothing is worse “in my book” than for the denouement to be deus ex machina – something introduced by the author completely out of the blue and which neither ‘tec nor reader saw coming. An author like that is no “god” “in my book!” If you are following the story, keep looking for clues…

Chapter 11
In the Belly of the Beast

Jack came to slowly aware of strong light shining through his eyelids – sunlight from the warmth of it. He remembered vaguely getting into a car and then nothing. He decided to keep his eyes closed and tr to work out where he might be and what was going on. He could hear seagulls – not Earth seagulls but a bird species native to Hawaii 2 so similar to those of Earth, that the original settlers had felt no need to invent a new name for them. He could hear men talking quietly enough that he wasn’t able to hear what they were saying. He seemed to be lying on something with enough give to be comfortable though not a bed. He lay still for a while before cautiously opening first one eye and then the other. The sun was the full brightness of Hawaii 2’s tropics and involuntarily, Jack tried to raise an arm to shade his eyes only to discover that his arms and then his feet too, he realised, were tied to whatever he was lying on.

“He’s awake!” Jack heard one of the men say and a shadow loomed over him. Whilst Jack could now open his eyes without being blinded, he could not make out the face of the man peering down at him because he was silhouetted against the bright blue of the sky and also, he was wearing dark glasses and a scarf tied across his face. Looking down the length of his body, Jack realised he was tied onto a beach lounger and was on some kind of balcony and as well as the sound of seagulls, he could now make out the soft swish of waves on a sandy shore.

“Don’t worry, we’re not going to hurt you – we just want to ask you some questions” said the man above him “– and maybe make you an offer!” said another voice from somewhere behind Jack’s head.
“Who are you? And where am I?” Jack asked, or rather croaked.
“Get him some water will you!” Jack heard the other man walk away and return with a glass of water which the first man, who seemed to be in charge, held up to Jack’s lips and allowed him to drink his fill. “How’s that Jack, better?”
“You know my name then!” Jack immediately felt foolish for asking something so obvious.
“Hard not to! You’re the most famous man on the planet at the moment Jack!” “Yet you managed to kidnap me and bring me where?” Jack said angrily at the same time straining to sit upright and see over the balcony to whatever lay beyond but his bonds did not give him the scope to.
“Easy Jack! We’ve no wish to harm you but you do have something we need and we are prepared to pay handsomely for it!”

“And what might that be? I suppose that it has something to do with my wife’s research. Does that mean you set the bomb on the train, you bastards!” Jack threw himself upward but whoever had tied him down had known what they were doing and he collapsed back again.
“Whoah there Jack! If we were after information, we would hardly blow up the very person we wanted to talk to, now would we? Come on Jack – think about it!”
“Well I suppose not…” Jack slumped into a defeated silence before exclaiming loudly “But then who did? It doesn’t make any sense!”
“Aw well Jack – that is a very good question and one we can’t help you with – I promise you. But we could help you in other ways – if you help us…”
“Why don’t we start by untying you – you’re not going to try running away are you?” said the man behind him. “Not that you can get far anyway, we are on an island – a private island, and the three of us are the only ones here…” He came around to the other side of Jack from his companion and the two of them undid Jack’s restraints and helped him to stand up. Jack was an average size man but these two both had six inches on him and were well-muscled. Jack might have stood a chance if he had been as he was after completing the building work on the tree-house, but he had lost a lot of muscle-tone lying in a coma for weeks and he was only just starting to feel normal and not wobbly. Right now, whatever these two had used to knock him out, was making him wobbly in a different way and he leaned on the balcony-rail as soon as they released their grip on him. They were right, there was no point in trying to run. He decided to take a few moments to gather his thoughts if not his strength. It didn’t feel like the sun was much hotter than at home so not much further south. He was facing a brilliant azure sea beyond a blindingly white beach with a few groups of trees dotted along the top of it. He could see no boat, no car or even a road on this seaward side of the house, for that was what it seemed to be – a large private house, luxurious in its use of concrete, the builder in Jack noted. Where on Hawaii 2 were they? He knew there were many islands in the Delta of the Euphrates, but they were muddy and not ringed with sparkling white sand – no, they must be further away, further south.

“How do you feel now Jack? I’m sorry we had to grab you the way we did but there was no other way. You’re right of course, we are interested in your wife’s research and we are very sorry for your loss Jack – but I assure you, again, that the bomb on the train had nothing to do with us. What I can tell you, is that it was very hard to get to talk to your wife whilst she was on Hawaii 1 – impossible in fact! And the work she was doing – well – it was equally well shaded. We tried to follow her trail but someone did a great job covering her tracks. Ironically, that is how we are sure she must have been onto something – but who wanted it to stay hidden we don’t know…”

“And just who are ‘we’?” asked Jack. “Representatives of big business on Hawaii 2 I suppose.”
“You don’t need to know who we are right now Jack, though you might come to know – if you consider the offer we want to make you…”
“You want me to sell you access to Hawaii 2 so that you can come and rape the planet for it’s resources – is that what you mean?” Jack said angrily, fists clenched.
“Now Jack, don’t be like that, your wife believed in it and there are plenty of people who…”
“Don’t you dare talk about Anna! She was fascinated by ideas but she didn’t understand what the consequences might be for Hawaii 2.”
“And you do, Jack?”
“It has been explained to me!”
“by whom, the President? He doesn’t want any change of any kind, for Hawaii 2. I mean look at your situation Jack. You face raising a child on your own – wouldn’t you like extra security for Douglas? To give him the best in life?” The man put his hand on Jack’s shoulders in a show of sincerity but Jack shrugged it off furiously.
“What makes you think he won’t have the best, the very best, right here on Hawaii 2 – as it is! You think your money will help him – hell, we can’t even leave this planet to go spend money and we don’t need any more here!”
“You forget, Jack, if this thing came to pass, everything would be different, you could get to Hawaii 1…”
“Yes and hordes more people would come here and our way of life would be changed forever and then I suppose we would need your money because we’d all be wage slaves too! Well no thanks! I am not interested in selling out my people and my planet!” Jack stood with fists clenched in fury and the men tensed but did not step back.   
“I’m sorry you feel like that Jack. You’re right of course, you all have a beautiful life here on the most beautiful planet imaginable – you have no idea how envious people on the other federation planets are, how resentful, I mean it’s hardly fair is it? So much for so few? And I’m sorry you feel like that for your sake too, because it makes things really awkward for you and I. We’ve asked you nicely and you have confirmed to us that there is a secret worth having we need to point out that you are somewhat at a disadvantage here. Nobody knows where you are and even you don’t know where you are…”
“You don’t think there are people looking for me – important people! It will only be a matter of time before they find us…”
“That’s as may be Jack – so all the more reason to sort things out quickly. You think young Douglas is safe because he was whisked away after you saw us at your mother’s place and maybe he is but maybe he isn’t. Maybe we are well enough resourced to know exactly where he is, just as we are well enough resourced to get here without any chance of being detected. So! The question is, Jack, are you going to risk Douglas’s well-being as well as your own or are you going to tell us what we need to know?”

Jack looked stunned at the mention of Douglas and as he thought through the possibility that these men were not bluffing, his shoulders slumped in defeat. “Okay, what do you want to know?”
“Good thinking Jack! We want to know whether Anna found what she was looking for on Hawaii 1 and where is that information now?”
“You’re out of luck!” Jack said wearily “The President and his men have it under lock and key. You’ve got no chance of getting it, and even if you somehow got your hands on it, it’s encoded and you won’t crack it, no matter how much computing power you throw at it – it’s a Beale Cypher and without the key text, it’s impossible to decrypt. And the only person who knows what that text is dead – so yes, I think she found something because she was excited when I met her at the Space Lift, but we had better things to talk about than her work and she didn’t share the work or the key to her code with me. That work is as good as alphabet soup! It’s no good to you or anyone else so you’re wasting your time.”

The two men glanced at each other and then the one who had done all the speaking turned back to Jack and said “Okay Jack, I believe you, it fits what we suspected. We are going to leave now, but just so you know, we are not bad men – we certainly didn’t set the bomb! If you want to know who did, follow the money – or in this case, not money but something else… Ask yourself in whose interests it is, not to have wider access to Hawaii 2 – I can guarantee it is no off-worlder! When we get back to the mainland, we will tell the authorities, if that’s the right word here, where you are and you will be picked up and oh, by the way, Douglas is safe, we were just bluffing, good luck Jack, when you wake up…”
“Wake up! What do you…”

Once again, a cloth with a strange smell was held over Jack’s face and after a moment’s struggle, he was lowered gently onto the sun lounger. When he awoke, the two men were nowhere to be seen.

Jack found food in the house and a quick walk revealed that he was on an exceedingly small island, a couple of acres with a few groups of trees sheltering the house and a path that led down to a small jetty. Jack returned to the house and helped himself to something to eat and pondered what this latest development might reveal about the bomb on the train. The last phrase from his abductors kept going round in his head, and although it might have been referring only to his imminent “sleep”, the tone of voice suggested something more cryptic – “When you wake up…”