Since there were no monasteries for free-thinkers, Ward entered the academic world and found even there, on administrative levels, competition and conflict. So he concentrated on teaching and research in molecular biology until the Student Rebellion reached Stanford. Then he retreated to the innermost cloister of scholarship, pure research. Now, on a Friday afternoon in late May, he walked up the steps of his Palo Alto home feeling uneasily triumphant over a discovery that would probably earn him a Nobel Prize and bring the world into his cloister, unless he were ejected from the cell beforehand for non-payment of his academic fief. Ward had not published in a learned journal in three years. Ester was approaching from the stepped-down dining room as he entered. As always, she walked in beauty, but there was petulance in her voice. “Alex, you’re late. The caterers are here, Doctor Carrick’s on his way, and you haven’t shaved.” It was also the day of the last faculty cocktail party of the semester, he remembered.
