Galileo's Dream (58 page)

Meaning if they had to torture him to obtain a confession, not only would it be bad for him, but as he was one of the most famous people in Europe, and had been so for twenty years, it would be bad for the Church. More important still, it would be bad for Urban. Urban had favored Galileo as something like his personal scientist for many years. If Galileo's punishment was harsh, it would be obvious to all that Urban had been made to sacrifice one of his people to satisfy the Borgia, and this would weaken him further in his struggle against the Spanish. So in his own interest, Urban could not be forced into harming Galileo too much—not even by Galileo himself, in the form of his most egregious lie under oath before the Holy Office.

Was this Galileo's point? Could he have risked so much to force the realization of this truth on Urban? Was this what he had been hoping for? If so, it was one hell of a gambit.

Finally I proposed a plan
, Maculano continued
, namely that the Holy Congregation grant me the authority to deal extrajudicially with Galileo, in order to make him understand his error and, once having recognized it, to bring him to confess it. The proposal seemed at first too bold, and there did not seem to be much hope of accomplishing this goal as long as one followed the road of trying to convince him with reasons; however, after I mentioned the basis on which I proposed this
,

—a basis which Maculano did not identify in the letter, although it was easy to assume that he meant the threat of torture; but he might have had something else in mind. In any case, as he wrote to conclude his letter to Cardinal Barberini—
they gave me the authority
.

T
HIS TIME IT WAS TRULY A PRIVATE INTERVIEW
. No scribe was on hand, no transcript recorded, no witnesses of any kind. Only Maculano and Galileo, in a small office of the dormitory next to the Holy Office; though if one were at hand in the servant's closet, waiting for Galileo if he called, the ability to hear what was going on in the little inner room had long since been established.

Galileo was eager to talk. His voice was louder than Maculano's, his tone animated, inquisitive, intense. He wanted to know what had been going on, he wanted to know where he stood, he wanted to know why Maculano was visiting him—and all at once.

Maculano sounded conciliatory. He told Galileo that he was there to discuss the next stage of the trial with him, to make sure that Galileo knew where he stood, so that no further problems would accidentally arise as a result of any misunderstandings.

“I appreciate your courtesy,” Galileo said. After a pause, he said, “My student and friend, Fra Benedetto Castelli, conveyed to me that he earlier met and spoke with you about these matters.”

“Yes.”

“He said that you were a good and devout man.”

“I am glad he thought so. I hope it is true.”

“He also wrote that he had spoken to you about my book, and that he had spoken as vehemently as he knew how against any persecution of my book, and in favor of the Copernican view, and that you had said to him that you agreed with him—that you too believed the Copernican explanation.”

“That is neither here nor there,” Maculano said calmly. “I am not before you as Father Vincenzo Maculano di Firenzuola, Dominican. I am before you as Commissary General of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. As such, I need you to understand what is required of you for a successful completion of your trial.”

After a pause, Galileo said, “Tell me then.”

“Privately, then—just between you and me, as men talking over a matter of mutual interest—you made a mistake at the end of your first deposition, by speaking of what you did or did not intend to say with your book. Understand me. If you focus your answers on your intentions, you put yourself more and more in the hands of your enemies.
I
am not your enemy, but you have enemies. And for reasons of state, they must be satisfied—or better, they must be put off in a way that is not too unsatisfactory to them. A judgment of some kind is going to be rendered against you. If it is a matter of the intention of your book, it will be very easy to convict you of heresy.”

He let that statement hang there for a while.

“If, on the other hand, it is merely a matter of you forgetting to obey in every respect the injunction levied against you in 1616—if you confess to that error, then this is not such a serious thing.”

“But I have the certificate from Bellarmino himself!” Galileo protested.

“There is the other injunction.”

“Nothing of that was ever said to me at the time!”

“That's not what the other injunction says.”

“I never saw that injunction! It isn't signed by me or by Cardinal Bellarmino!”

“Nevertheless, it exists.”

A long silence.

“Remember,” Maculano said unctuously, “there has to be something. If the trial moves to the matter of your intentions concerning your book, the decision of the special commission that investigated it is unanimous and overwhelming. You advocated for the Copernican view, not just
ex suppositione
, but factually and in earnest. You don't want to try to contest that.”

No reply from Galileo.

“And listen further,” Maculano said with a sharper tone. “Listen closely. Even if the license you received to publish your book, and the disclaiming sentences you added to the first and last pages, were to prevail in our judgment, this might not save you. It might only shift the inquiry into even more dangerous areas.”

“What do you mean?” Galileo exclaimed. “How so?”

“Remember what I said; something must be found. You say there was no second injunction, you say your book was licensed and included the proper disclaimer. Maybe so. But what then? For something must be found.”

No reply from Galileo.

“Well, then,” Maculano said, “something will be found. For there are other problematic areas in your work. There are some, for instance, who insist that the theory of atomism that you advocated in your book
Il Saggiatore
constitutes a direct contradiction of the doctrine of the transubstantiation as defined by the Council of Trent. This is a very serious heresy, as of course you know.”

“But that has nothing to do with this!”

Maculano let the silence go on for a while. “Something must be found,” he repeated gently, “so you cannot say that. Everything is germane to this case. It is a question of your beliefs, your intentions, your promises, your actions. Your whole life.”

Silence.

“That being the case, the best possible outcome is to stay focused on the procedural issue that you seem to have tripped over, having to do with the injunction of 1616. That you may have inadvertently forgotten an order, and created a misunderstanding concerning the theory of Copernicanism, is, in other words, the least bad of your alternatives.”

“I obeyed the injunction given to me.”

“No. Don't keep saying that. Recall that if you continue to insist on that point, things get worse. The examinations of the Holy Office include rigorous questioning, as you know, including methods that I would not want to see used in your case. These examinations always yield the answers they desire, and then it is a matter of throwing yourself on the mercy of the Holy Office. That could be lifetime imprisonment in the Castel Sant'Angelo. It has often happened. Or, it could be worse yet. That would be a disaster for all concerned, wouldn't it.”

“Yes.”

“So, if you were to plead forgetfulness, and perhaps a lapse of judgment—too much pride, or complacency, or carelessness; whatever venial sin you choose—then this would be a basis to go forward. Your punishment could be to recite the seven penitential Psalms weekly for some years, or something like that.”

“But I got the license to publish! I discussed the situation with His Holiness himself!”

It was getting repetitive now, as in one of those endgames in chess where the stronger side has to slowly and patiently grind the opponent's king into a spot where it has no more options.

“I need to keep reminding you, this is not a good avenue for you to pursue. The book has been read with the closest attention to logic, reason, rhetoric, mathematics, and incidentals, by learned scholars and judges, and their reports have been unanimous in asserting you made a case for the Copernican view. You cannot add a few words to the end of such an argument and hope to change the effect of the whole. Especially not since most of your ameliorative equivocations are put in the mouth of a character named Simplicio, an Aristotelian who has been shown to be foolishly wrong everywhere else in the book. Indeed a kind of dunderhead, a simpleton in fact as well as name! Urban's words, his doctrine, put into this person's mouth! It will not do. Your own book, as written, makes things so very clear. You are a good Catholic, and yet you have disobeyed an injunction from the Holy Office, as judged by officials of that Holy Office. This could lead to a disastrous consequence. As I hope you know.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Do you understand me?”

“I understand.”

“And so? What then do you intend to do about it?”

“I don't know! I don't know! You tell me what I should do!”

There was a long silence. Who sighed it was hard to tell. Both men were breathing heavily, as if they had been tossing each other around like wrestlers.

“Tell me, then. Tell me what I should do.”

Checkmate.

Confession of sin; examination concerning intentions; the guilty party's defense of his actions; the pronouncement of punishment. These were the formalized steps taken in heresy trials. They all had to be taken.

That night in the empty dormitory, Galileo groaned, shouted, whimpered, cursed. When Cartophilus went to his little room and asked if there was anything he could do, Galileo threw a cup at him.

Later in the night, however, the moans grew to shrieks, and Cartophilus hustled to the old man's room, alarmed. The maestro did not answer either calls or knocks on his door, but instead went suddenly silent.

Cartophilus forced the door open, and entered into the dark room holding a candle before him.

Galileo pounced on him, held him fast. The candle fell and went out. In the dark the old astronomer growled, “Send me to Hera.”

Cartophilus did it. He made the entanglement, then got the old man slumped onto his bed, half on the floor, almost as if praying. A foam of spittle drooled from Galileo's open mouth, and his open eyes stared fixed at nothingness. Another syncope to be endured; Cartophilus shook his head, muttered under his breath.

He pulled a blanket over the inert body. He closed the door, went back and sat on the bed by Galileo's side, checking the old man's pulse, which was slow and steady. He gazed into the little screen on the side of the box. There was no way to know how long he would be gone.

“I
KNOW WHAT HIS PUNISHMENT SHOULD BE
,” Galileo said to Hera again.

Ganymede appeared to have been struck dumb by the encounter with Jupiter. He stared out of his face mask and would not speak—would not or could not. Possibly the Jovian mind had inflicted some damage on him. The look in his eye suggested to Galileo that he was angry or shocked, or perhaps furiously insane. Something bad. And he would not give them the satisfaction of his thoughts—although it was not clear what satisfaction they could have. Galileo himself was baffled, and Hera appeared unhappy with the experience she had forced Ganymede to submit to.

But now Galileo thought he knew.

That there was a mind in Jupiter greater than the mind in Europa, and connected to vast minds elsewhere, was what Ganymede had been claiming all along, though somewhat discreetly, as he had not wanted the fact widely known. He had learned of it somehow—possibly in his early incursions into the oceans of Ganymede, possibly during his existence in some future time; there was no way to tell—although
Galileo wanted Hera to look into his past using her memory celatone, if she could. But however he learned it, he had been aware of the Jovian mind, and so his mad look could now be saying
I told you so
. Or perhaps he was simply overwhelmed. Galileo did not fully understand himself what he had seen in Jupiter. The cosmos, alive with thought, yes. But he could not recapture the huge feelings he had felt on experiencing this reality. Something big had happened in him, but it was all confused now, obscured by the merging with Hera afterward, by his return to Italy. It was not something he was going to be able to understand.

Ganymede stared at them.

Galileo said, “You wounded Europa, the child of Jupiter, deliberately. You tried to kill it. To think that the first otherwordly creature encountered by humanity should be attacked and injured by us is beyond deplorable.” Suddenly he thought of all the bad faith, the back-stabbing, the hatred of the ignorant for all that was new, and he stuck his face nearly onto the prisoner's faceplate and bellowed, “It's a crime forever!”

Ganymede's eyes flinched. Possibly it was just a reflex, for no sign of remorse appeared in his stony expression. To emphasize his point Galileo struck the side of the man's helmet, sending him flying. From the floor Ganymede looked up at an angle to see Galileo. Galileo took a step toward him, suddenly furious. “You lie and you cheat and you stab in the back! All you cowards are alike. You try to kill anything you find different, because it frightens you!”

Suddenly Ganymede spoke. “I raised you up from nothing,” he said, his voice like bronze. “You were a second-rate math teacher in a second-rate life. I made you Galileo.”

“I
made me Galileo,” Galileo said. “You only fucked me up. You're trying to get me killed. You should have left me alone.”

“I wish I had.”

“Jupiter has spoken to us. …” Hera said.

Galileo nodded, returned to the point. “The Jovian mind looked into us, and so knows now who the criminal is. It knows we are not as depraved and murderous a species as it might have suspected. It might even know that some of us tried to prevent your rash act.”

Ganymede glowered from the floor. Hera saw this expression, so full of hate, and said to him, “You attacked the alien because of what we
might have learned from it. You judged humanity to be cowardly, and so you acted like a coward.”

The prisoner only grimaced.

Hera said, “We'll take you back to Europa, and turn you over to the people there. They can decide how to deal with you. Although I don't know what they can do that would be appropriate.”

“Restitution,” Galileo said.

They all looked at him.

“He wanted restitution, and now he will get it.” He looked to Aurora. “You told me what you can do across the temporal manifolds, and what you can't do. You described the energy costs. If you had enough energy at your disposal, and used it, could you not effect changes nearer than the resonance entanglement with my time?”

“What do you mean?”

“Some of you have gone back and interfered with me, so that what happens to me is different than what would have happened if you hadn't visited me. So why couldn't you change this awful deed your Ganymede has committed? Why couldn't you send him back to a time before he did it, and then prevent him from doing it?”

Aurora said, “Entanglement is easiest at the triple interferences in the wave patterns in the temporal manifold. Inside the first positive interference, it takes much more energy to establish an entanglement. It would take a truly stupendous amount of energy to move an entangler to a time so close to ours.”

Galileo pondered the math she had taught him, swimming hazily in his memory. Overlapping concentric waves on a pond … “But it's not impossible,” he concluded. “Send him back even to before he entered Ganymede's ocean, before his exile, and stop him there. That you could do, yes? It would only be a matter of the amount of energy brought to bear?”

She considered it, perhaps venturing into her machine augmentations to do so. “Yes, but the energy might be impossible to marshal.”

“Use the gas of an outer gas giant, as you did when you sent back the first teletrasportas.”

“What if those gas giants are all alive, like Jupiter?”

“The vision it just gave us indicated they are not. There are three giants left outside Saturn, didn't you say?”

“Yes. Uranus, Neptune, and Hades.”

“Any one of which would provide enough potential energy to power a short analepsis into Ganymede's past,” Galileo said.

“Possibly.”

Galileo turned to Hera. He pointed at Ganymede. “Send him back,” he said. “Send him back, and make him change what he did before.”

“It might kill him.”

“Even so.”

“It might change things such that all this voyage goes away,” she said, looking at Aurora. “All that we have done since his attack could be lost.”

“It's lost anyway,” Galileo pointed out. “Everything is always changing.”

She shook her head. “In the
e
time—”

“But even there. Alas.”

They shared a gaze.

“Remember for me,” Galileo said.

“And you for me,” she replied. She gave him the smallest of smiles, looking him in the eye. Galileo saw it and said to himself:
remember
.

He glanced at Ganymede, but Ganymede was staring up at the ceiling of the ship's cabin, or through it to infinity. Whether he was looking for atonement or just another chance to do the job, Galileo couldn't tell. Real hopes are one of the seven secret lives.