“Well, there's an indefinite number of them—or at least one for every principal of physics. Let's see… “Heat and light hid in the smallest pebble. ” Or even “The way of the Earth is as two, but the way of the lodestone is as three. ” I'm trying to suggest that the gravitational force follows an inverse square law, while the magnetic dipole force follows an inverse cube law. Or in biology”—she nodded toward der Heer, who seemed to have taken a vow of silence—”how about “Two strands entwined is the secret of life'?”
“Now that's an interesting one,” said Joss. “You're talking, of course, about DNA. But you know the physician's staff, the symbol of medicine? Army doctors wear it on their lapels. It's called the caduceus.
Shows two serpents intertwined. It's a perfect double helix. From ancient times that's been the symbol of preserving life. Isn't this exactly the kind of connection you're suggesting?”
“Well, I thought it's a spiral, not a helix. But if there are enough symbols and enough prophecies and enough myth and folklore, eventually a few of them are going to fit some current scientific understanding purely by accident. But I can't be sure. Maybe you're right. Maybe the caduceus is a message from God. Of course, it's not a Christian symbol, or a symbol of any of the major religions today. I don't suppose you'd want to argue that the gods talked only to the ancient Greeks. what I'm saying is, if God wanted to send us a message, and ancient writings were the only way he could think of doing it, he could have done a better job. And he hardly had to confine himself to writings. Why isn't there a monster crucifix orbiting the Earth? Why isn't the surface of the Moon covered with the Ten Commandments? Why should God be so clear in the Bible and so obscure in the world?”
Joss had apparently been ready to reply a few sentences back, a look of genuine pleasure unexpectedly on his face, but Ellie's rush of words was gathering momentum, and perhaps he felt it impolite to interrupt.
“Also, why would you think that God has abandoned us? He used to chat with patriarchs and prophets every second Tuesday, you believe. He's omnipotent, you say, and omniscient. So it's no particular effort for him to remind us directly, unambiguously, of his wishes at least a few times in every generation. So how come, fellas? Why don't we see him with crystal clarity?”
“We do.” Rankin put enormous feeling in this phrase. “He is all around us. Our prayers are answered. Tens of millions of people in this country have been born again and have witnessed God's glorious grace. the Bible speaks to us as clearly in this day as it did in the time of Moses and Jesus.”
“Oh, come off it. You know what I mean. Where are the burning bushes, the pillars of fire, the great voice that says “I am that I am” booming down at us out of the sky? Why should God manifest himself in such subtle and debatable ways when he can make his presence completely unambiguous?”
“But a voice from the sky is just what you found.” Joss made this comment casually while Ellie paused for breath. He held her eyes with his own.
Rankin quickly picked up the thought. “Absolutely. Just what I was going to say. Abraham and Moses, they didn't have radios or telescopes. They couldn't have heard the Almighty talking on FM. Maybe today God talks to us in new ways and permits us to have a new understanding. Or maybe it's not God—”
“Yes, Satan. I've heard some talk about that. It sounds crazy. Let's leave that one alone for a moment, if it's okay with you. You think the Message is the Voice of God, your God. Where in your religion does God answer a prayer by repeating the prayer back?”
“I wouldn't call a Nazi newsreel a prayer, myself,” Joss said. “You say it's to attract our attention.”
“Then why do you think God has chosen to talk to scientists? Why not preachers like yourself?”
“God talks to me all the time.” Rankin's index finger audibly thumped his sternum. “and the Reverend Joss here. God has told me that a revelation is at hand. When the end of the world is nigh, the Rapture will be upon us, the judgment of sinners, the ascension to heaven of the elect—”
“Did he tell you he was going to make that announcement in the radio spectrum? Is your conversation with God recorded somewhere, so we can verify that it really happened? Or do we have only your say-so? Why would God choose to announce it to radio astronomers and not to men and women of the cloth? Don't you think it's a little strange that the first message from God in two thousand years or more is prime numbers… and Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Olympics? Your God must have quite a sense of humor.”
“My God can have any sense He wants to have.”
Der Heer was clearly alarmed at the first appearance of real rancor. “Uh, maybe I could remind us all about what we hope to accomplish at this meeting,” he began.
Here's Ken in his mollifying mode, Ellie thought. On some issues he's courageous, but chiefly when he has not responsibility for action. He's a brave talker… in private. But on scientific politics, and especially when representing the President, he becomes very accommodating, ready to compromise with the Devil himself. She caught herself. The theological language was getting to her.
“That's another thing.” She interrupted her own train of though as well as der Heer's. “If that signal is from God, why does it come from just one place in the sky—in the vicinity of a particularly bright nearby star? Why doesn't it come from all over the sky at once, like the cosmic black-body background radiation? Coming from one star, it looks like a signal from another civilization. Coming from everywhere, it would look much more like a signal from your God.”
“God can make a signal come from the bunghole of the Little Bear if He wants.” Rankin's face was becoming bright red. “Excuse me, but you've gotten me riled up. God can do anything.”
“Anything you don't understand, Mr. Rankin, you attribute to God. God for you is where you sweep away all the mysteries of the world, all the challenges t our intelligence. You simply turn you mind off and say God did it.”
“Ma'am I didn't come here to be insulted…”
“Come here'? I thought this was where you lived.”
“Ma'am—” Rankin was about to say something, but then thought better of it. He took a deep breath and continued. “This is a Christian country and Christians have true knowledge on this issue, a sacred responsibility to make sure that God's sacred word is understood…”
“I'm a Christian and you don't speak for me. You've tapped yourself in some sort of fifth-century religious mania. Since then the Renaissance has happened, the Enlightenment has happened. Where've you been?”
Both Joss and der Heer were half out of their chairs. “Please,” Ken implored, looking directly at Ellie. “If we don't keep more to the agenda, I don't see how we can accomplish what the President asked us to do.”
“Well, you wanted “a frank exchange of views. ”
“It's nearly noon,” Joss observed. “Why don't we take a little break for lunch?”
Outside the library conference room, leaning on the railing surrounding the Foucault pendulum, Ellie began a brief whispered exchange with der Heer.
“I'd like to punch out that cocksure, know-it-all, holier-than-thou…”
“Why, exactly, Ellie? Aren't ignorance and error painful enough?”
“Yes, if he'd shut up. But he's corrupting millions.”
“Sweetheart, he thinks the same about you.”
When she and der Heer came back from lunch, Ellie noticed immediately that Rankin appeared subdued, while Joss, who was first to speak, seemed cheerful, certainly beyond the requirements of mere cordiality.
“Dr. Arroway,” he began, “I can understand that you're impatient to show us your findings, and that you didn't come here for theological disputation. But please bear with us just a bit longer. You have a sharp tongue. I can't recall the last time Brother Rankin here got so stirred up on matters of the faith. It must be years.”