Old Earth (38 page)

They were humbled by the contents; collections of letters assembled in oversized scrapbooks. The documents were not glued or taped. Rice paper separated historic parchment letters and essays.

They were required to wear gloves to prevent them from getting oil on the documents. However, upon seeing Galileo’s actual signature, Katrina was compelled to run her finger over his name. McCauley, too felt the impact of the moment. He gave Katrina a knowing glance. The powerful experience and the sense of bonding with the great scientist, removed them from the surroundings and transported them more than four hundred years into a cruel past.

Katrina tried to read the Italian as best she could. McCauley scanned for the recommended words and any others that might jump out.

“Sorry, no blanket,” Eccleston said.

“I’m doing fine now. But sit with us. We need help.”

The priest definitely speeded up the process, describing Galileo’s friendly correspondence to university colleagues in Pisa, formal letters to cardinals and bishops in Rome, and simple but heartfelt notes to his wife.

Through the next hour, Quinn and Katrina swapped volumes. When finished, they made sure Eccleston always had a pass at each.

“We’re in the right time period, but nothing relevant in these. I’ll get more.”

Eccleston returned the first volumes to the Secret Vatican archives and brought three more to the table. Like the others, they were bound in dark brown leather with the official papal seal on the cover. Again, they found nothing.

At two hours, even the excitement of seeing Galileo’s signature had faded. Two-and-a-half hours in, McCauley called Father Eccleston and Katrina to his side. “Look at this.” He slowly turned the pages, all in chronological order, many day-by-day; others week-by-week through May and June, 1601. McCauley pointed to the dates on each document with his gloved hand.

“All chronological. Right?”

“Right,” Fr. Eccleston replied. “One after another.”

“Well, look at July 1601. The first week is here. More for the second. Then eleven pieces of rice paper, but nothing between them. The next dated page isn’t until the beginning of August. Three weeks are missing.”

“Do you think someone pulled them out?” Katrina asked.

“Clean, empty pages where there should have been letters?” Eccleston responded. “Yes.”

He leafed through the last entries. Then forward, then back again. He read the final documents before the lapse, two enthusiastic letters to men named Luigi Pino and Roberto Santori. “Here! Right here!” the priest said excitedly. “Galileo is talking to friends, inviting them to meet him in Le Marche. There were….”

Katrina saw the phrase,
montagne con climi variabili
. “Mountains with variable climates, right?”

“Yes,” the priest replied. “A perfect place to conduct experiments on a thermometer, especially if you believe you might find locations to chart extremes.”

“Like a cave.” Eccleston concluded.

“Which Galileo likely found and wrote about.” He tapped the blank pages.

They were suppositions. Only suppositions, but logical ones to make.

“What kind of man was Galileo, Father?” McCauley asked.

“I don’t understand.”

“Paint a picture for me. Methodical?”

“To a fault.”

“Thorough?”

“He was a scientist in an unscientific period. So, yes.”

“Guarded?”

“That’s a very good question. At that point in his life, I’d say no. He had the support of the university and the Vatican. Later, well, that’s where it gets interesting. I mentioned chief inquisitor Father Vincenzo Maculano last night. He was a skilled military architect and a shrewd, severe man. If anyone could bring Galileo to recant, with torture one of the means available, it was Maculano. But after conducting the first interview on April 12, 1633, Maculano concluded that Galileo was too old and frail to be subjected to such means.”

“That didn’t stop his trial,” Katrina offered.

“No, but it did establish a tone. They sought to manipulate Galileo; beat him psychologically, if such a thing existed then, rather than physically. They succeeded, but ultimately Cardinal Francesco Barberini, the Grand Inquisitor of the Roman Inquisition and nephew of Pope Urban VIII, was one of three who
refused
to condemn Galileo.”

“The Grand Inquisitor did not vote to convict?” Katrina was dismayed.

“That’s right. Seven still found him guilty for the reasons described,” Eccleston stated. “But most still quietly believed him.”

McCauley was surprised. “I had no idea.”

“Most people don’t. But I’ve often felt there was something that got in the way of a more public review of the accusations and Galileo’s defense.” Eccleston rubbed his hands together, then grasped them, almost in prayer. “Maybe we’ll still find that
something
.”

“Not if it’s in the missing pages,” Katrina said with discouragement.

“Then let’s see if we’re smarter than Galileo’s censors. Back to work. I’m going to order up more.”

Katrina and Quinn sat side by side scouring for more words, phrases, or hints of Galileo’s trip to Le Marche.

Katrina was the first to spot something in a November entry, a letter to a man named Alfonso Garaldi at The University of Padua. Padua was where Galileo had been appointed professor of mathematics in 1592 and chair of the department. There, Galileo taught Euclid’s geometry and astronomy to medical students who needed a basic understanding of the field. Katrina was aware of the university, mostly through its highly regarded Museum of Geology and Palaeontology. She wondered if the university also had papers they should examine. That idea evaporated when she noticed a reference to Genga, the town in Le Marche where she surmised Galileo must have stayed when he conducted his temperature experiments.

“I’ll need Jareth’s read on this,” she told Quinn. “ I think Galileo is describing the mountain. He’s writing about
la mia esplorazione. My exploration
. Whoever was going through the letters may have missed this.”

A few minutes later, Father Eccleston walked in empty-handed. “Sorry. There are more volumes like this, but I was looking for specific diaries. Nothing relevant.”

“Well, Katrina may have found something.”

“
May
?” she objected.

“Pardon me. This amazing woman, schooled in Italian, has stumbled…”

“
Stumbled
?”

“I stand corrected. She’s made a tremendous observation.”

“Much better, Dr. McCauley.”

“Let me see,” the priest said. She showed Eccleston Galileo’s correspondence to Garaldi.

“When did Galileo begin most of his astronomical research?” she quietly asked.

The priest knew the history. “In 1609 he made a telescope with 20x magnification modeled after a European version that had 3x power. Then he worked up to 30x power. Over time he was able to observe the moon, discover four satellites of Jupiter, confirm the phases of Venus, see a supernova, and discover sunspots. He conducted a demonstration for Venetian lawmakers in August, 1609. Oh, you’ll love this. He sold them telescopes on the side.”

“I had no idea,” Katrina replied. “But why do you think he was writing about specific points in space eight years earlier?”

“What do you mean?” McCauley was unsure where she was going with the train of thought.

“Look. Here. In the fall of 1601, Galileo referenced it to Alfonso Garaldi, in which he discussed the Greek’s fascination with Ursa Major and Ursa Minor and how a single star had pointed travelers north for ages.”

“So?” McCauley asked not seeing anything particularly significant.

“He also uses the Italian word
key
in his correspondence.” She pointed to the passage and read, “‘
la chiave per sbloccare i misteri della paura.
’”

“I’m sorry, you have to help me,” McCauley implored.

Eccleston re-read the phrases with bewilderment. There were also descriptions of terrain, wild flowers and brush.

“A translation, please?”

Katrina ignored Quinn and asked Eccleston a direct question. “He doesn’t mention the trip to Le Marche specifically, but do you think it’s what he’s writing about?”

Eccleston looked up from Galileo’s letters that few in modern history had likely seen, or at the very least, applied any real meaning. “
‘La chiave per sbloccare i misteri della paura
,’ now that’s extremely interesting.”

“Someone, please!” McCauley said louder than he should have. It immediately brought footsteps from the library archivist. “Please,” he whispered.

“
La chiave
is the key, as Dr. Alpert noted. The whole thought:
‘la chiave per sbloccare i misteri della paura
.’ The key to unlock the mysteries of time.”

A profound thought came over McCauley. He smiled. “Father, if there’s a key, wouldn’t that suggest there’s a lock?”

“Well, arguably yes it could, but I can’t say for certain,” the priest replied.

“I would. And I believe I touched it.”

• • •

“What if Galileo figured it all out?” McCauley continued. “What if he discovered the same thing in Le Marche that we did in Montana and the old hermit had in Russia?”

Katrina took the possibility further. “He was a mathematician, right?”

“Right,” Eccleston said.

“A mathematician who would have recognized prime numbers and been intrigued enough to look for a solution to a mathematical problem.”

“Well, absolutely.”

“Then we need to figure out what’s the problem and what’s the solution. The lock and the key.”

Eccleston nodded and rose. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” McCauley asked.

“You just reminded me of something.”

“What?”

“To see if there’s any correspondence between Galileo and a Frenchman named Mersenne.”

• • •

A half hour later, Beppe and Eccleston returned with more loosely bound volumes.

“How’s your French?” the priest asked.

“Restaurant good,” McCauley shyly admitted.

“I’m fluent,” Katrina said. Then to McCauley she added, “Aren’t you glad I’m here?”

“Ever more.”

She smiled. “Okay, now who’s Mersenne?”

“A mathematician, a writer, a philosopher, a priest. And he translated some of Galileo’s writings into French. Mersenne also had a real interest in prime numbers and created a formula for determining them. They became known as Mersenne primes. The search continues to this day through an organization named GIMPS—the Great Internet Mersenne Primes Search.”

“And his connection with Galileo?” Katrina wondered.

“Translating his works, but also he was a friend of Christian Huygens, who expanded on yet another principle that Galileo discovered—how the sweep of a pendulum could be used to calculate time. It was his breakthrough that led to the clock.”

“The thermometer, the clock, and the telescope.”

“Temperature, time, the universe, all part of Galileo’s sphere of influence, with prime numbers perhaps the unifying quantifier.”

“DaVinci gets all the glory,” McCauley observed.

“Not in my book,” the priest responded. “Now let’s see if Mersenne has anything to tell us from the past.”

Seventy-five

ANN ARBOR, MI
THE SAME TIME

“You have no idea how worried I was. You left without a word. You could have been…” Rich Tamburro didn’t finish the sentence. But, he was furious with his girlfriend. He had started on her the moment she opened the door to her one bedroom apartment. So far Anna Chohany hadn’t given him any reason to back off.

“Why?”

Chohany, still bandaged, walked slowly to her hand-me-down recliner. She adjusted the pitch and tried her best to ignore him.

“Why?” Tamburro demanded. He stood directly in front of her, though keeping his distance. “You owe me.”

“I was mad at you,” she finally answered.

“At me? I didn’t give you any reason. What are you talking about?”

She strained to turn around.

“No?”

“No!” he replied. “No.” He walked closer.

“What about that text you sent from my phone when you thought I was sleeping?”

Tamburro’s eyes widened.

“You didn’t trust me.”

“I’m sorry. You don’t know everything that happened after your accident. We needed to find out if…”

“You didn’t trust me!”

“It’s only because…”

“You didn’t trust me,” she said again, this time quietly. “And you were right not to.”

• • •

THE VATICAN

“Listen to this,” Katrina said. She was translating one of Mersenne’s diary entries which quoted a 1629 correspondence from Galileo. “There’s something to this. I won’t have it completely right, but this is the essence: ‘
My friend gives me great pause. He wrote that I have come to realize the significance of our lives on earth is insignificant against the indeterminate nature of the universe. But, as we’ve discussed, we don’t have to gaze upon the heavens through a glass pressed against our eyes to come to this profound realization. Answers are to be found in our midst. Answers that only raise more questions.’
”

“Feels philosophical,” McCauley said.

“Yes, but then there’s this word:
Premier.
”

“And?” he asked
.
“Premier, like leader dictator or leader?”

“Actually no. Marsenne quotes Galileo. ‘
La langue qui explique tout; la langue qui s'étend sur le nombre d'années, est premier.
’”

“The language, is explicit… ?” McCauley started.

Eccleston straightened in his chair. “Close. Galileo says, ‘The language that explains it all; the language that spans the numbers in years, is prime.”

McCauley broke down the translation in his head. Language, explains, numbers and prime. “Galileo
is
talking about prime numbers.”

“Precisely,” Fr. Eccleston said. “Very precisely.”

• • •

Rich Tamburro texted a simple message to the phone number McCauley had given him. It was also precise.

However, McCauley’s cellphone was in the locker at the Vatican; except when it wasn’t for the few minutes that Beppe took it out and checked McCauley and Alpert’s texts and the voicemail.