Into the New Millennium: Trailblazing Tales From Analog Science Fiction and Fact, 2000 - 2010 (61 page)

"I have not." With Gioioso's pledge in hand, Galileo was on safe ground here—or ground as safe as any in quicksand-laden Rome. "Yesterday, in fact, I briefly alluded to that which may be the most important: the motion of the four Medicean stars around Jupiter."

"Yes, you did mention them yesterday," Gioioso said. "Will you do me the honor of explaining why you find them so significant?"

"Certainly," Galileo said. "First, the Ptolemaic world system is founded on the view that there can be only one center of motion—that is, the Earth. By moving around Jupiter, the Medicean stars contradict this."

"But they cannot be seen without your spyglass," Gioioso said.

"That does not mean they are not there," Galileo replied. "Clerics and laymen have observed them for twenty years now, and unanimously attest that they do exist. And we must presume they existed for all the ages before the spyglass first rendered them visible. Surely God would not have popped them into place the day before I first turned the instrument toward Jupiter."

"Had He so desired, He could have," Cardinal Gioioso said. When Galileo failed to rise to that, the prelate added, "I must admit, it seems unlikely. You said that was your first reason. This means you have more?"

"
Sì
. Here you have these stars, performing their evolutions in periods ranging from forty-two hours to sixteen days, all on the sphere of Jupiter, which in the Ptolemaic world system takes twelve years to revolve around the earth. And beyond that is the sphere of Saturn, which takes thirty years. And beyond that is the sphere of the fixed stars. And it revolves in what? Only a day! Where is the logic in that? Whereas if the Earth rotates, as the Copernican world system postulates—"

"You falsify Holy Scripture," Cardinal Gioioso broke in.

"Not necessarily, as I have tried to show in my writings on the Book of Joshua," Galileo said.

"Those writings have been weighed in the balance and found wanting," Sigismondo Gioioso said. "You are an admirable astronomer, but you make a less than admirable theologian. I have spoken of this before."

"Yes, your Eminence," Galileo said resignedly. "As
I
have said before, I might be less inclined to meddle in theology if the Church were less inclined to meddle in astronomy."

"But astronomy and its truths connect to the Scriptures," Gioioso said. "How can the holy Catholic Church not concern itself with the heavens as well as the Earth?"

"If the Church does, then its learned theologians risk being called less than admirable astronomers," Galileo said.

"How does this follow?" Gioioso asked.

"How?" Galileo yelped. "Surely it must be obvious—"

"No." The cardinal held up a hand. "What is
obvious, Signor
, is that the world stands still and the heavens revolve around it. Otherwise this would not have been believed by everyone since the days of the Old Testament. It would not have been set down in writing in the unerring Holy Scriptures. What your spyglass shows may be there, but it is not
obvious
."

"It is true," Galileo maintained.

"In a sense, perhaps," Gioioso said. "But it is also disruptive of good order all over Europe. Is that not true as well?"

"In a sense, perhaps," Galileo echoed slyly.

He won a small smile from Gioioso. "So the question is, does your loud, aggressive espousal of the truths your spyglass has shown about Venus and the Medicean stars—places to which we can never hope to go, even in dreams—justify the chaos you unleash on this world? Why do you imagine that these magnified images are more important than wars and uprisings and rebellions against longstanding authority?"

"I intend no such thing, your Eminence," Galileo protested.

"Nor do I claim you intend it," the cardinal said. "If I did, the matter would be far more serious. An evil will, a malicious will . . ." He shook his head. "But I claim no such thing. Neither does any other cleric, to my knowledge. Still, do you not see that the result of an unintended act can be as dreadful as that which springs from an intended one?"

"What am I do, then? I truly believed I was but speaking hypothetically when I wrote the
Dialogue
, as the way I ended it shows." That was Galileo's story, and he was sticking to it. If he'd let what he actually believed show through to excess as he wrote . . . well, how surprising was it?

Sigismondo Gioioso's left eyebrow couldn't have risen more than an eighth of an inch. That was all he needed to show he didn't believe a word of it. Had Galileo entered the priesthood, were he now interrogating some enthusiastic Copernican, he wouldn't have believed a word of it, either. Perspective
did
have something to do with deciding what truth was—at least some truths. Gioioso hid all sorts of interesting notions under his crimson cassock.

He didn't come right out and call Galileo a liar, as some of the other inquisitors had done. Instead, he said, "And so, in scandalizing your father, you aim not merely to turn the world upside down but to set it spinning as well?"

"Imagining that it does spin does the best job of explaining the phenomena we observe," Galileo said.

"The phenomena you observe with a fancy spyglass." Cardinal Gioioso's snort was a distillation of scorn. "You say many people have seen these things. How many is
many
? Hundreds? A few thousand at most?"

"Something on that order, yes," Galileo agreed. "For matters of this import, that is a great many."

"It could be. But what is it when set against the number of souls in Christendom?" Gioioso asked. "How many millions dwell in Italy? In Germany? In France? In Spain? In Portugal? In their new lands beyond the sea? In Poland, out of which your precious Copernicus came? Against all those souls, these hundreds have not even the weight of a mustard seed. Is this so, or is it not?"

"It is, your Eminence. But—"

"No,
Signor
. No buts here. When the farmer goes home after a day in the fields, what does he see? When the miller leaves off grinding grain at day's end, what does he see? When the monk finishes his evening prayer, what does he see? The sun going down. Not the earth spinning, but the Sun setting. He sees no hills and valleys on the Moon, no phases on Venus, no new stars attending Jupiter. He sees what the Bible says he sees, what the God-inspired men who wrote the Bible saw, what our Lord saw during the Incarnation, and what Ptolemy saw not long after. Is
this
so, or is it not?"

"They saw incompletely," Galileo said. "They saw inaccurately. They saw, if you will, through a glass, darkly."

"You are the one seeing darkly through your glass, Signor," Gioioso answered. "For you do not see the chaos and confusion you cause here on Earth with your phases of Venus and your Jovian stars. Truly I wonder if it is not Satan's work associating these marvels with the planets named for two of the most licentious pagan gods."

"Sometimes a planet is only a planet, your Eminence!" Galileo exclaimed.

"You think so, do you?" But a twinkle in Cardinal Gioioso's gray eyes betrayed him. "Well, possibly not, not about that. Nevertheless, though, I am altogether in earnest when I say you forget about this Earth when you keep your eyes ever to the heavens. For what is the effect when your hundreds start shouting about what their spyglasses show?"

"They spread the truth?" the astronomer suggested.

"What they spread is doubt," Sigismondo Gioioso said in a voice as hard and cold as stone. "And doubt corrodes faith as surely as salt water corrodes iron. The farmer, the miller, the monk—they hear of these marvels they cannot see. They hear these men who imagine themselves to be clever defaming the Scriptures and the holy Catholic Church. So many people, sadly, are like magpies, like jackdaws: they imitate everything they see, everything they hear. And faith, and faith's community, and peace itself, are torn to bits. Is
this
so, or is it not?"

"It . . . could be," Galileo said. "But you cannot blame me for the rise of Protestantism, which began before I was born, nor for the war now raging in Germany."

"The Protestants sowed the seed of disbelief in the mother Church's authority," Gioioso said. "They have yet to reap the thorny harvest, for disbelief, once sown, will grow and eat them up, too. You mark my words,
Signor
—that day will come. I do not blame you for Luther or Calvin, no, nor for the accursed German war, which seems to go on forever. Still, is it better to spread more disorder through a world that already has too much, or to work toward restoring peace and unity of purpose?"

"Surely working for peace is better," Galileo said. The cardinal's questions took the discussion to a level he had never considered when he grinned and cackled as his pen made Salviati flay Simplicio—made Copernicanism flay Ptolemy's outmoded views. That astronomy could concern the ordinary world as well as the rarefied atmosphere of the heavens and of scholarship hadn't crossed his mind . . . till now.

Gioioso found one more mild-sounding question: "Will you say now from your heart that you were working toward peace and unity when you composed the
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
?"

"Your Eminence, looking into my heart, I find I cannot say that and mean it," Galileo answered. Not for the first time, he wondered if the prelate from Vienna was some sort of he-witch. Gioioso certainly had a knack for making anyone he talked to feel as if his head were as transparent as glass.

"Are you sure of what you tell me?" Sigismondo Gioioso asked.

"Before God, I am. That I am surprises me, but it is so. You have done what I would have thought to be impossible: you have made me look at myself, look within myself, in a whole new way," Galileo said.

"That is the goal of analysis of this kind,
Signor
." Was the smallest hint of smugness in Gioioso's voice? Did he himself exhibit once more, if only for a moment, the sin of pride? If he did, Galileo didn't call him on it.

Proud or not, Cardinal Gioioso was not the man who pronounced sentence on Galileo. Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, with the title of Santa Maria del Popolo, read out the Inquisition's decree on the day after the summer solstice.

Galileo listened to the words wash over him. He was convicted of vehement suspicion of heresy. He had held and promoted a false belief—that the Sun, not the Earth, was at the center of things and that the Earth, not the Sun, moved. The
Dialogue
was to be prohibited. He was sentenced to formal imprisonment at the Inquisition's pleasure, and would be required to recite penitential hymns weekly for the next three years. And he had to abjure all his heretical beliefs, there in public before Cardinal Bentivoglio and his inquisitorial colleagues.

He had to make the abjuration on his knees, which pained him physically as well as spiritually. Still, he said what they required of him, reading from a statement he'd drafted in advance. When he looked up from the words, he tried to look at Cardinal Gioioso rather than any of the others. He would have abjured whether he'd spoken with Gioioso or not. Whether he would have abjured so sincerely and with such authentic faith, as the Inquisition's decree required of him, might have been a different story.

At last, it was done. He struggled back to his feet, which also hurt. Some of the inquisitors came forward to congratulate him. He could have done without that. Gioioso, who had helped shape his thoughts, had the sense to leave him alone with them.

"But it does move," Galileo muttered under his breath. It was one last protest, which he answered with the insight he'd gained from the Viennese cardinal: "But so what?"

Juliette Wade

I scent Human outside the door: our linguist, Parker. He never comes to the Ice Home while I attend Cold Council—he must bring important news! I bow to haunches, then excuse myself from Majesty's presence, quickly as I can without inviting snarls from the others.

Parker stands waiting, his body showing agitated despite its covering
clothes
. I've told him many times that decorative cloth is most appropriately displayed on a wall, not dragged through mud and weather—but I won't chide now. I begin to fear for our project.

"Rulii," Parker says, self-lowering with respectful Warm words, "Are you certain there's no way I can enter audience with Majesty Gur-gurne?"

He
, enter audience? I lean close to his ear, since listeners would take offense that I don't dominate him with Cold words in reply. "What, Parker, have your superiors abandoned you? Do the
Allied Systems
punish you for our previous failure?"

He shakes his short mane. "No, Rulii. They want too badly to place a
spaceport
here. They may blame me for the language error that cast insult on Majesty, but they still need me for my own studies. I came to tell you the
Systems
have granted my request: a replacement negotiator arrives tonight. But if I could speak to Majesty before she arrives . . ."

He must fear indeed, to propose such a risk. "What is it? Still the problem of Cold words? Someone of Rank among your people must grasp the dominator's tongue, Parker, or Majesty will brand you Barbarians!"

Parker's fur-naked brown face shows embarrassed. "This new negotiator is a more gifted speaker than the last," he says. "
Officer
Jasmine Hada will speak Cold words well enough not to Warm Majesty's presence inadvertently."

"Then this is news of triumph. We shall have our
spaceport!
" And all that comes with it—so close is the conclusion of my life's hunt!

"Yes, but Hada is
too
skilled. She even bears the authority to propose terms. Why should the
Allied Systems
grant Aurru
spaceport
such importance, if it's meant only to be a way-stop between star territories?" Parker frowns. "I fear some hidden intent of unfairness to the Aurrel people."