Nemesis (17 page)

“What are the arrows?” Wallis again.

“The one in the middle is the Cosmonaut Hotel. We’ve a first class source there, a lady who’s been with us since the old days.” Heilbron’s pipe gurgled and he poked at it. “Now look at the next few pictures, Sam, and despair.”

There was a rustle and Sacheverell found himself looking
at a large black and white photograph with a “classified” stamp on its border. Heilbron continued: “You can just see the railway line and the highway next to it coming in from the bottom. It’s a busy line, all the way up from Leninsk. The big grey squares you see in the middle are the Soyuz assembly buildings. We think the ones on the left are for type G and Energia assembly—the brute force boosters. Now the tracks go further north and the railway line carries on. The next photo”—more rustle—“shows the launch complex. The little arrows show what used to be their ICBM silos before Salt Two. Mostly the old SS-X series. Forget them. It’s the Energia facility that’s got me running to the john. You see it in the next picture. We’d taken routine high-level reconnaissance pictures of the launch, and this was taken by a big Bird on a perigee passage. The thing that’s circled”—there was something like a full stop with a white circle round it—“is a military transport. You see the launch vehicle just to the right. On the next photo you see them putting up netting over everything. They’ve got something to hide.”

A cluster of tiny dots, each one a man, was scattered around between the vehicles. They seemed to be pulling something over the ground. “The netting’s up in the next picture. Perspective has changed a bit; we’re using a different satellite.” The same pattern of buildings was there, but now they were throwing long evening shadows. Cloud had edged in and some of the ground was obscured. A solitary dot threw a long shadow on the ground, arms and legs clearly visible. Sacheverell thought he could detect a moustache.

“They screwed up. Look at the next one.” The next one showed the netting in place, hiding truck, rocket and launch pad from prying satellite eyes. The sun had almost set.

“What am I supposed to see?” asked Hooper.

“Look at the shadows,” said Heilbron. “The sun was shining under the netting. My geniuses used the outline of the shadows and the angle of the sun and they got the next picture.” They stared uncomprehendingly at a large Rorschach
ink blot; Sacheverell thought he saw a squid with a huge quill pen.

“Now to me this looks like an ink blot,” said Heilbron, to Hooper’s evident relief. “But my genuises tell me these are the shadows of four men, the rocket, launch gantry, and a lifting crane. Use the computer to deproject and subtract out everything but the thing they’re lifting and
Voila
!”

“A carrot!” exclaimed Hooper, staring in bewilderment at the final, blurred computer picture.

“That’s right, Sam, it’s a carrot,” said Heilbron triumphantly. “It’s two metres long; they’re loading it under netting and they’re taking it to Mars.”

Wallis said, “I have it.” He pushed back his chair, stood up and paced up and down, staring into the middle distance. Then he came back, staring at Heilbron, and nodding his head in agreement.

“Well?” Hooper snapped.

“Some carrot, sir,” said Wallis.

Heilbron half-smiled. “Got it in one. Let me tell you about the carrot, Sam. Look at the last picture. It’s a nice present from our lady in the Cosmonaut Hotel.”

It was a black and white photograph. It had been taken through a door slightly ajar, the camera had been held about two feet back from the crack. Three men, dressed for a Russian winter, their fur hats and coats fringed with snow, stood at the reception desk.

“The little guy with specs is local, just reception for the other two. The guy with the Astrakhan hat we haven’t yet identified. But the other guy we do recognize. His name is Boris Voroshilov, former lecturer in physics from Tbilisi, now employed at Chelyabinsk-7. He designs nukes.”

“Richard . . .”

Heilbron raised his hand and continued. “Phobos Five is a cover. Somewhere out there the cosmonauts have sent an automated probe with a tape recorder on to Mars on the old orbit. Meanwhile our heroes have slipped their moorings
and set out into the blue yonder on a new orbit, complete with carrot. Only it isn’t a carrot, Sam, it’s a ten megaton hydrogen bomb.”

Sacheverell said, “I know of only one application for a hydrogen bomb in deep space. Deflecting an asteroid.”

Heilbron pointed the end of his pipe at the JCJS. “Tell me something. Why would Zhirinovsky want to do a thing like that?”

Hooper’s face was like an executioner’s.

The CIA chief hammered it home: “Sam, we’re going to get it right in the Kansas breadbasket.”

The priest settled into the witness’s chair. The notary said: “Identify yourself to this Congregation.”

“I am Jacques Grandami, of the Jesuit Order. I teach theology and natural philosophy at a number of colleges in France.”

Terremoto began the questioning: “You are acquainted with Vincenzo Vincenzi?”

Reptilian eyes flickered briefly in Vincenzo’s direction. “I know him from the school of theology in Paris, and later in Bologna.”

“What is your opinion of the man?”

“He claims to be devout.”

“Claims to be?”

“I cannot say that he is not. He has the outward appearance of piety. In Bologna he took part in the choral recitation of the divine office, and in the daily recitation of faults.”

“Why then do you seem to hesitate over his piety?”

“He is extremely disputatious, lacking the spirit of humility. He scorns reasoned argument which does not fit his opinion. He thus shows manifest contempt for the arguments of Scheiner, Ciermans, Malapert and other Jesuits against the Copernican system, which he advocates even though, as this Congregation knows, it has been condemned as false. Komensky of Prague, in his
Refutatio Astronomiae Copernicianae
, has written a brilliant refutation of the heliocentric doctrine. But Vincenzo refuses to acknowledge its intellectual
force. Instead he has spoken to me, with approval, of the Bruno heresy that the Universe is infinite and that the stars are suns, with planets and living creatures on them. In addition to his false advocacy, he is not, I regret to say, true to his order. He belongs to the Order of Preachers but does not preach. He has taken a vow of poverty and yet lives in a villa provided by the Duke of Tuscany. He has taken a vow of celibacy but shares a bed with a woman.”

Terremoto made to dismiss Grandami but one of the cardinals, a man with a light freckled skin and an accent which seemed to place him in the far north of the country, stopped him. “One moment! You have said that you are a theologian.”

“I am, Your Eminence.”

“Then perhaps you can answer this question. What is the basis, in the Holy Scriptures, for belief in a stationary Earth?”

Grandami smiled unpleasantly. “How could Joshua have commanded the Sun to be still if it was not moving in the first place? Does the Psalmist not describe the Sun as going forth in a circuit to the ends of heaven? Does Job not write of the pillars of the Earth trembling?”

The cardinal bowed. “Thank you, Jacques Grandami. The Peace of Our Lord go with you.”

The interrogation began on the second day, without preliminaries. A row of grim faces met Vincenzo as he was guided to his bench. Cardinal Terremoto opened the proceedings. His piercing eyes were fixed on Vincenzo, and the corners of his mouth were turned down in an unconcealed scowl. Vincenzo felt his legs shaking and his stomach in queasy knots.

Terremoto looked right and left. “This Holy Congregation is now prepared to question the prisoner. Before we proceed, does the advocate have anything to say on the prisoner’s behalf?”

Marcello turned to his client. He whispered, “Recant, Vincenzo.”

The monk shook his head.

“Recant and throw yourself on the mercy of the court. All these people want is a public abjuration.”

Vincenzo’s head was lowered. Almost imperceptibly, he shook it again.

Marcello stood up. Terremoto’s small eyes were glaring into his own; the hostility was undisguised, bearing down on the young man like a physical force. The lawyer, fear gnawing at his heart, took an instant decision which he knew would affect his future career and forever change the life of his client. “Your Eminences, I regard the guilt of my client as sufficiently well established by these proceedings. As he persists in denying his guilt, and shows no sign of contrition for his erroneous beliefs, I must ask to be relieved of the duty to defend him.”

The cardinals murmured between themselves. There was some nodding of heads. Then Terremoto said, “Your duty to the prisoner is discharged. Leave us with good conscience.”

“Marcello!” Vincenzo cried out in shock. But the lawyer avoided the astronomer’s gaze, and Vincenzo could only watch as his former advocate picked up a sheaf of papers and scurried out of the courtroom, eyes to the ground and bent almost double. He momentarily buried his face in his hands.

The lawyer had hardly left the room when Terremoto began the questioning. “On whose authority do you state that the Earth rotates?”

“My lawyer has sold his soul.”

“Answer the question.”

“Authority? That of my eyes and brain, Eminence.” Vincenzo’s voice was shaking.

“I ask of written authority.”

“Your Eminence, the English monk Bede stated that the Earth is a ball floating in space a thousand years ago. Nicolas Oresme, over three hundred years ago, stated that the Earth is round and rotates about an axis. And the same was
said by Cardinal Nicholas Cusanus over two centuries ago. They even say that Aristarchus and Eratosthenes . . .”

“Do you read Greek?”

“No, Eminence.”

“You therefore rely on hearsay, do you not?”

“I rely on generations of scholars produced by the Mother Church, from Reginbald of Cologne to the Jesuit writers of today and even such as Fra Paolo Foscarini of the Carmelites.”

“But amongst the heathen scholars of ancient times, does Aristotle not stand head and shoulders above the rest?”

“Eminence, you know that is so.”

“And have you studied his
Physics and Metaphysics
?”

“I have, in translation, and there he commits himself to a belief in an Earth around which the universe rotates. But I believe that view to be in error.”

“But did not Thomas Aquinas, four centuries ago, show that Aristotle’s system is compatible with the Christian doctrine? And is not Aristotle the foundation of natural science throughout the Christian domain? Is it not then possible that the error is yours?”

“Aristotle did not have the benefit of the telescope. Nor the record of centuries of planetary motions which we have.”

The Inquisitor looked down at some notes. The room was silent. The sound of a chirping cricket drifted in from the garden. And then Terremoto suddenly sprang a trap: “Do you deny that the Bible is the supreme authority in the affairs of philosophy?”

“I believe that the Bible is intended to teach men to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”

“
Ebbene!
What presumptions are hidden in that neat phrase! Are you also qualified as a theologian?”

“I did not say that, Eminence.”

“You have, however, just seen fit to make a theological pronouncement. The Council of Trent, in its Fourth Session, was explicit about where authority lies: the Word of God is to be interpreted strictly according to the unanimous consent
of the Fathers. I repeat my question.” Terremoto looked across at the notary, who read out in a high-pitched voice: “Do you deny that the Bible is the supreme authority in the affairs of philosophy?”

Vincenzo, colour drained from his face, said, “Eminence, I do.”

There was an audible gasp from one of the younger cardinals. Terremoto continued: “Is it also your opinion that the Holy Spirit has allowed the Holy Mother Church to be misled for the nineteen hundred years since Aristotle?”

Another trap, this one with steel teeth.

If Vincenzo replied yes, that the Church had received no guidance from above, then this was akin to denying the Virgin Birth or even the existence of God. If he said no, that the Holy Spirit could not have allowed such an error, then he was admitting to a wilful disregard of the teachings of the Church. Either answer would surely lead to the same fiery end. The notary leaned forward, his face screwed up in anticipation of recording the reply. The cardinals waited. The cricket outside the window chirruped on.

Vincenzo’s voice was little more than a murmur: “Your Grace, that is a theological question. I am incompetent to answer.”

Terremoto was relentless. “And yet you claim to be a devout Catholic. Did you not consider it your pious duty, even before meddling in hypotheses which attempt to revise the received wisdom of the Church, to ask such a question?”

“I believe with Doctor Paolicci of Padua that the mind of the Creator can be read in His Creation.”

“Do you accept that man was created in God’s image?”

There was an expectant silence. After the heresies they had heard, the cardinals did not know what to expect of the wretched old man who faced them. But Vincenzo simply said, quietly, “Of course, your Eminence.”

“Then how can he be otherwise than at the centre of the Universe?”

Vincenzo murmured something, wringing his hands as he did. The notary asked him to speak up, but the monk remained silent.

“The alternative diminishes mankind, does it not? And opens the door to unthinkable heresies?”

“God has two books, that of Nature and that of Scripture. They cannot contradict each other. I read the book of Nature. It says what it says.”

The remainder of the morning was taken up with a close interrogation on technical matters, on the precision of the Alfonsine Tables, the precession of the equinoxes, the motion of the eighth sphere, the angular sizes of the fixed stars, their lack of parallax and the fantastic stellar distances then implied in the Copernican system, and on the meaning of Christ’s sacrifice to creatures on the supposed other worlds of Giordano Bruno. Terremoto dominated the questioning throughout, his deep-chested voice booming through the courtroom. He showed himself to have a remarkable grasp of the scientific issues. Only the cricket outside the window seemed uncowed: unimpressed by the Cardinal’s powerful voice, it chirruped incessantly. By the time the court recessed, it was early afternoon and Vincenzo was drenched with sweat.