Old Earth (15 page)

For a half hour they just drank. The local hangout had a great assortment of craft beer. Then came an hour of potato skins and shrimp appetizers. Compared to their meager cooking around the campfire, it tasted like Wolfgang Puck himself had been in the Glendive kitchen. Over their steak dinner came free-wheeling conversation, made all the looser by the liquor they consumed.

• • •

LONDON

It was late and Kavanaugh was tired, but Gruber was on one of his rants. Kavanaugh wondered if it was the Amaro they were drinking or if the old man was racing against time himself, knowing he was the slower of the two.

“Again. Tell me again.” Martin Gruber demanded.

For weeks on end he believed Gruber was losing control of his faculties. Nonetheless, he responded with the directive drummed into him.

“We have a tremendous responsibility, sir. On one hand, there is chaos. On the other hand, there is order. We help maintain the order.”

“Help? Help?” Gruber shouted.

It was a slip on Kavanaugh’s part.

“We maintain order.”

“Yes! It is never
help.
We do. We simply do. With determination. Unknown to anyone but those we trust. A sworn duty you have accepted and will faithfully abide as if your life depended upon it.”

Gruber paused for barely a moment. “Because it will.”

Gruber never talked about anyone who left
Autem Semita. The Path.
Maybe now was the time to press the issue.

“Mr. Gruber, you’ve spoken of the men who preceded you. They held the job…”

“Not a job. Your job is
Voyages.
Your slips of the tongue are most concerning.”

“You have no need for concern, sir.”

“At this point, I would hope not. Your question?”

Now Kavanaugh was reluctant to ask. He considered another way into the problem, taking himself out of any hypothetical.

“There are, of course, those who must not have lived up to their responsibility. What if that…”

Gruber explained.

• • •

MADDHATTERS
GLENDIVE, MT

“What I don’t get is how the actual record can be denied,” Tom Trent said.

They had returned to one of their first discussions, the age of the earth.

“It’s not like it’s an unsolved mystery for God’s sake.”

“Interesting choice of words,” Katrina Alpert noted.

“Well, yes. For God’s sake…for our sake. We can have our beliefs, but we can’t deny the facts.”

• • •

LONDON

“The relationship is for life,” Gruber said. “Once you are fully committed, you enter a holy marriage.”

“God’s work.” Kavanaugh said.

“Man’s work. We help God stay right where he belongs.”

• • •

MONTANA

“It’s still amazing to me that people come with their own set of facts,” Al Jaffe exclaimed.

“They do,” interjected McCauley. “And successfully. Special interest groups have even blocked the distribution of some publications in national parks that support evolution.”

“You have a troubled country,” offered the befuddled Spanish student.

“Conflicted,” Alpert added.

Lobel jumped in. “Who needs a meteor this time? Ignorance could destroy intelligent life on earth.”

“Again, think about your words,” McCauley implored. “Not ignorance. Faith.”

“Supported by?” Lobel shot back.

“Well, that is the point of delineation,” McCauley concluded. “Considering our argument, two deities. Religion and business. Or, better put, the business of religion.”

McCauley passed the conversation to Katrina. “Dr. Alpert, your thoughts?”

The Cambridge professor wasn’t used to this kind of intellectual free-for-all, but her respect for Quinn was growing.

• • •

LONDON

“The world in balance is a better world,” Gruber continued. “There are those who would prefer that civilization as we know it fall apart. We won’t let that happen. We never have.”

• • •

GLENDIVE, MT

“Okay, take Noah’s Ark. And the flood,” Alpert said.

“The Russell Crowe movie?” Trent offered.

“Ah, more the original text,” she added. “But, for the sake of argument, open it up to the millions of species. How would you say Noah got them all on the ark?”

“Good question, people,” McCauley noted. “Stay with this and try to understand, because you will have to stand up to the positions held by others. And you’ll have to do it reasonably and with reason—in your research, in your departments, and certainly, when you go on the road for speaking engagements. Trust me,” he turned to Katrina Alpert. “You have to develop a thick skin and realize not everyone with a different opinion is out to destroy you.”

“Just your credibility,” Tamburro interjected.

“Maybe,” McCauley continued. “So, to Dr. Alpert’s question?”

“Well, he didn’t take two of each species,” Leslie Cohen volunteered. “He took two of each
genus
. Not every species of dog, but two dogs. Not every kind of ant, but two ants.”

“But creationists claim that man and dinosaurs walked hand in claw,” Lobel said. His reference brought a needed chuckle. “Aside from the fact that they didn’t, how would they have gotten onboard?”

“Can I try this one?” Jaffe asked.

“Go for it,” Katrina replied.

“Well, go to the Bible. There are descriptions of ‘behemoths’ and ‘leviathan” which lived with man from the beginning, and they fit dinosaurs more closely than any other animals.”

“You sound like you support the point of view,” interrupted Lobel.

“Well, in this argument, yes. And if Noah took only one pair of dinosaurs on the ark, it easily explains how and why the others died. They drowned in the flood.”

“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but dinosaurs could be incredibly big,” Tom Trent stated.

“Good point,” Dr. Alpert said. “Dr. McCauley? Care to weigh in?”

She felt confident he’d have the right answer, and he obviously liked the way she had re-framed the discussion.

“Happy to. Actually, as you all know the average dinosaur was no bigger than sheep. That alone makes for an easier boat ride. But even better, what if Noah picked a pair of babies? Their growth spurts were likely to be after they were five or six. So, yes, while some dinosaurs were behemoths, they
grew
to that size. They weren’t born that way.”

Katrina Alpert smiled. “Hey, would you take a fierce man-eating dog or a puppy on your ship?”

“A puppy,” Cohen easily answered.

“And so would Noah. Puppies and baby dinosaurs.”

• • •

LONDON

Gruber’s breathing sounded shallower. The once robust publisher now delivered his thoughts in shorter sentences, all designed to fit into his diminished capacity. But, everything he said still had power. Power because of who he was. Power because of the legacy and power because of the resources at his command, which included the muscle to manipulate thought.

• • •

MONTANA

“Take the measurement of a cubit. How big?” McCauley asked.

“One point five feet. Basically the distance between the fingertips and the elbow. That’s what’s generally accepted,” Jaffe said

“What if you’re wrong, Al? What if translations were imprecise?”

The younger man nodded. He realized he had accepted dogma as truth. But McCauley insisted that his students look beyond simple explanations for answers that would define the position.

“What if a cubit was really more like eight, nine, or ten feet? Wouldn’t Noah’s Ark be bigger? A lot bigger?”

“A lot,” Jaffe agreed.

McCauley extended the hypothesis. “So that would mean that instead of fitting on a boat some four hundred and fifty feet long by seventy-five feet wide by forty-five feet high, as Genesis claims, the ark could have been a great deal larger.”

Jaffe put his hands a foot apart as if holding a small ship. Then he moved them apart creating a space ten times bigger. “Maybe 4,500 feet long,” he exclaimed. “Nearly a mile. You’d sure get a helluva lot of creatures booked on that sailing.”

• • •

LONDON

“Have you ever thought of a cruise, Mr. Gruber? Maybe the ocean air could help.”

“I’ve never found the idea of a burial at sea appealing.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Kavanaugh tried to sound sincere.

“No cruise. I will die at my desk or in my bed. I am prepared to accept my future. I ask the same of you. Are you, my boy? Are you?”

Kavanaugh was amazed how Gruber could so quickly pivot on a word and turn a discussion around. He’d have to do better himself.
There really are things to learn from the old man
, he thought.

“I am, sir.” Kavanaugh framed it as a promise more than a casual reply. He felt that Gruber needed assurance. If he equivocated, then Gruber would somehow find another replacement. Colin Kavanaugh would not let that happen. Not for Martin Gruber, not for his teachers at the seminary years earlier. Not for his own commitment to
The Path.

• • •

MONTANA

Leslie Cohen jumped deeper into history. “Come on, there are unadulterated facts. The Big Bang occurred fourteen-plus billion years ago. The earth is 4.5 to 4.6 billion years old. It took early forms of life a couple of billion years more to emerge. Way before the dinosaurs came and went. Way, way, way before our ancestral hominids yelled ‘fire’ around 100,000 years ago. Hell, dinosaur fossils I uncovered this week could be carbon dated back some sixty-five million years.”

“But believers in a Young Earth claim the planet is only five, six, maybe seven thousand years old,” McCauley countered again. “Same bones, just different conclusions.”

“What about natural selection?” Rodriguez proposed. “The food chain. We look at carnage of natural selection and see it as the process of adaptation. One species survives, another doesn’t.
Speciation
.”

“And?” McCauley challenged.

“And what?”

“And the answer is simply survival, not evolution. The good make it. The bad don’t. In this universe of thought, science and creationism coexist. It’s a powerful argument backed by powerful people.”

• • •

LONDON

“And are you prepared?”

“You have prepared me, Mr. Gruber.”

“I have taught you. But are you prepared? They are two different questions.”

“They are two questions with one answer. You have taught me. I am prepared.”

• • •

MONTANA

Trent slammed his bottle on the table. “People have been trying to reconcile this for ages. And no one will ever succeed!” He was letting emotion get the better of him. “Hell, modern geology goes back to Steno.” He was referring to Nicolas Steno, a Dutch cleric who published a treatise of fossils in 1669. Steno proposed the principles of rock strata formation. He claimed that fossils in the sedimentary rocks were the remains of animals that died in the Noachian Deluge—a flood, not necessarily
the
Flood, but maybe.

Trent summarized the history for the group explaining that the opinion gained traction with support from Englishman Thomas Burnet in his 1691 publication,
A Sacred Theory of the Earth,
in John Woodward’s 1695 book
An Essay Toward a Natural Theory of the Earth
, and William Whiston’s
A New Theory of the Earth
, which was published a year later.

“Very interesting, Mr. Trent. How about Comte Buffon?” Katrina Alpert asked.

No one recognized the name.

“Good person to add to the discussion. In the mid-eighteenth century, Buffon sparked to the notion of evolution. Like Darwin, he was a naturalist. He wrote
Natural History
, maybe the first real argument in favor of variation of the species.”

“And what happened to him?”

“He was slapped down, discredited and belittled by theologians at the Sorbonne in Paris.”

• • •

LONDON

“Though it’s not in any record, our work goes as far back as the debates on evolution. And earlier. You recall the recantation of Comte Buffon, Mr. Kavanaugh?”

“I’m familiar with it,” the younger man replied.

“Become completely conversant with it. Study his denial. It established the fundamental response for years to come.” Gruber now quoted from memory: “‘I declare,’ said Buffon, ‘that I had no intention to contradict the text of Scripture, that I believe most firmly all therein related about creation, both as to order of time and matter of fact. I abandon everything in my book respecting the formation of the earth, and generally all which may be contrary to the narrative of Moses.’”

Kavanaugh was surprised by the retraction, but it reminded him of another, more famous example.

• • •

MONTANA

“Sounds familiar,” Cohen observed.

“Certainly not the first to cave to theological arguments,” Dr. Alpert added. “Perhaps he did so in order to quietly live out his life and continue his work.” She took another sip of the local brew. “Sometimes you do what you have to do.”

“Like Buffon, you will face obstructionists,” McCauley stated. “Religious, political, corporate, academic. They’ll question your hypotheses. They’ll reject your proposals. They’ll dismiss your research. They’ll pull your grants. They’ll shove every ‘saurous up your sore ass and test you to kingdom come. They push paper, but they don’t get their own hands dirty. They stay inside while you’re out baking in the sun. They live in the present. You make the past relevant. They say
no
and don’t even consider
maybe
. But I do have something to hang your hat on. The rejoinder of all rejoinders. Get this fundamental down and you’re set for life.”

Alpert didn’t know where McCauley was going.

“Here’s to the great British paleontologist—well, not really, but he sure said things right. William Shakespeare.”

They laughed.

“Come on raise your glasses. Do it.”

They complied.

“To William Shakespeare who put it best. ‘Past is prologue.’”