Old Earth
Authors: Gary Grossman
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Spies & Politics, #Espionage, #Suspense, #Thrillers
Old Earth
Gary Grossman
Copyright
Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008
New York, NY 10016
www.DiversionBooks.com
Copyright © 2015 by Gary Grossman
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
For more information, email
[email protected]
First Diversion Books edition March 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62681-633-6
Also by Gary Grossman
Executive Actions
Executive Treason
Executive Command
Superman: Serial to Cereal
Saturday Morning TV
For Vin Di Bona
You have inspired me my entire professional life and defined the meaning of true friendship.
But this is not just a gift you’ve given me.
You’re the author of a never-ending story of caring—for your family, for your friends, for your community, for your personal and professional causes, and for your industry.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
“Whereof what’s past is prologue…”
The Tempest
, Act 2, Scene 1
W
ILLIAM
S
HAKESPEARE
Table of Contents
Principal Contemporary Characters
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty-three
Thirty-four
Thirty-five
Thirty-six
Thirty-seven
Thirty-eight
Thirty-nine
Forty
Forty-one
Forty-two
Forty-three
Forty-four
Forty-five
Forty-six
Forty-seven
Forty-eight
Forty-nine
Fifty
Fifty-one
Fifty-two
Fifty-three
Fifty-four
Fifty-five
Fifty-six
Fifty-seven
Fifty-eight
Fifty-nine
Sixty
Sixty-one
Sixty-two
Sixty-three
Sixty-four
Sixty-five
Sixty-six
Sixty-seven
Sixty-eight
Sixty-nine
Seventy
Seventy-one
Seventy-two
Seventy-three
Seventy-four
Seventy-five
Seventy-six
Seventy-seven
Seventy-eight
Seventy-nine
Eighty
Eighty-one
Eighty-two
Eighty-three
Eighty-four
Eighty-five
Principal Contemporary Characters
L
ONDON
Martin Gruber,
Voyages
magazine publisher
Colin Kavanaugh,
Voyages
magazine editor
Felicia Dunbar,
Voyages
magazine assistant
Marvin, man in the park
Simon Volker, researcher
Leon, Brown’s Hotel waiter
Dr. Renee Kritz, Oxford University professor
N
EW HAVEN
, CT
Dr. Quinn McCauley, Yale University paleontologist
Pete DeMeo, Yale University graduate teaching assistant
S
OUTH
D
AKOTA
Dr. Katrina Alpert, University of Cambridge professor
Anna Chohany, Harvard University graduate student
Rich Tamburro, University of Michigan graduate student
Adam Lobel, Penn State University graduate student
Leslie Cohen, Penn State University graduate student
Al Jaffe, University of California, Berkeley graduate student
Tom Trent, Northwestern University graduate student
Carlos Rodriguez, University of Madrid graduate student
Jim Kaplan, director, Makoshika State Park
Franklin, Winston, and Horst, three experts
C
ALIFORNIA
Robert Greene, researcher
Dr. Marli Bellamy, museum director
I
TALY
Father Jareth Eccleston, priest
Lucia Solera, tourist
Beppe Poppito, Vatican archivist
F
RANCE
Claude Bovard, spelunker
Prologue
LATE JULY 1601
THE COUNTRYSIDE
LE MARCHE, ITALY
If he had turned right, not left, his life would have been different and history would have told another story. But he was left-handed and without thinking, at a fork in an underground cave system, the thirty-seven year old professor veered to his dominant side.
Most of his contemporaries regarded caves with utter dread, seeing them as entrances to hell. Not the mathematician, the professor from the University of Pisa. He had heard that the Le Marche region, located in northeast Italy, might provide the perfect laboratory environment to develop his hypothesis that heat has a discrete nature.
To validate his theories, he needed extremes: the summer heat that baked the Appennini Mountains versus the cooler confines of the caves that were said to lie in the hills.
The townspeople and priests who lived in the area believed that the rumored caverns near the town of Genga were portals to hell. The professor would get no help from them. So he invited two noblemen friends from Pisa to accompany him.
Luigi Pino, Roberto Santori, and the professor traveled together reaching Genga on one of the hottest days of an already sweltering summer. For five days they trudged through the hills; exhausting work in heat that couldn’t be quantified yet. But that’s why the professor, as much a scientist as he was a mathematician, was there.
On the sixth day his friends gave up the quest in favor of eating, and especially drinking, Le Marche’s famed Verdicchio—the luscious floral regional wine renowned for centuries. The professor, now alone, hiked through the beautiful hills and valleys blanketed with white asphodel, cyclamen and orchids.
Three days later, the professor found hints of an opening to the caverns—a slight stream of cool air that escaped from behind a boulder. It certainly didn’t feel like it was coming from hell.
He carefully removed a thin glass tube from his satchel and placed it on the ground. It measured the length from his wrist to his elbow and had a bulbous top no wider than the circumference of a small hen’s egg. At various intervals, he’d drawn hash marks, though they didn’t actually stand for any definitive measurement. Not yet.
Next, he methodically took out a small glass cruet, a cork with a hole bored through the center, and a Verdicchio bottle left over from his first dinner in Le Marche now filled with water. He poured the liquid three fingers high into the cruet and inserted the cork at the top.
Time for the first test. While slowly counting to sixty, he warmed the tube by rolling it between the palms of his hands. He gently pushed the end through the cork and down into the cruet.