“Nor did I.”
“Indeed. But what did Your Grace do instead? Buried the heretic’s remains in the Novice’s Chapel at Santa Croce. It is dangerous to provoke a wounded animal.”
“The man who discovered the small bodies which orbit Jupiter, and named them the Medicean planets, deserves honour in return. And the Pope is the lawbreaker here,” the Grand Duke pointed out. “In any case, what can he do?”
“He could induce his unruly relatives to go to war with you…”
“—God preserve me from these Barberinis…”
“… and he could excommunicate you. In that eventuality the citizens of Florence are also bound to be excommunicated unless they remove you from office. Without pardon for their sins, they risk an eternity of damnation. It could create a dangerous situation for the House of Medici.”
The secretary concurred. “Some day this city will sink under the weight of its sin.”
“So. I allow Barberini to tweak my nose? My legal authority to be flouted?”
Aldo said, “Better than blood in the streets, Altezza.” He added slyly: “And His Holiness will not live forever.”
“Aldo, you have the mind of a poisoner. I do not wish to hear more.” The Grand Duke paced up and down in thought. Then he turned to his secretary. “Go to Rome. Ask His Holiness to bless me. Wish him a long and happy life. Aldo is right, as always. I do not seek trouble with the Holy Office. But do what you can for Vincenzo. I do not want him to burn.”
The secretary bowed and turned to leave. The Grand Duke called after him. “Enzo, I do want the return of Vincenzo’s works. Some day they must take their place in the Palatina.”
“And if the cost of saving Vincenzo is a quarrel with the Holy Office?”
The Duke sighed. “Do not bring me back a quarrel, Enzo.”
Piñon Mesa
Noordhof, sensing an atmosphere, said, “Okay you people, take a short breather. Then break into our agreed teams. Reconvene here at sixteen hundred.”
Webb and Whaler noisily transferred dishes to a dishwasher. Sacheverell came back from the toilet. He jacked up a radiant smile. “Hey, Miss Nukey, how about some ping-pong?”
Webb experienced a moment of pure distilled hatred. Judy, however, just shook her head politely. Sacheverell shrugged, and shortly he and McNally were thrashing a ping-pong ball in the common room. Shafer had put some frozen packet into the microwave oven and was watching it intently. Noordhof and Kowalski went into an intense discussion over more coffee.
Webb interrupted them. “Colonel, I have a friend, Scott McDonald, with a robotic Schmidt on Tenerife. I could operate it from here.”
Noordhof’s eyes showed surprise. “You don’t say?”
“I didn’t know it was operational,” Kowalski said.
“It isn’t. It’s still being commissioned, which means there’s no pressure of time on it. It should be free over Christmas. I can link in to Scott’s Oxford terminal, with his permission, and control it from here.”
“I’ll think about it, Oliver.”
It was Webb’s turn to show surprise. “What’s to think about? We need all the eyes we can get on the sky. With a nine-hour time difference we can seriously extend the night sky coverage.”
“There are security considerations.”
“Mark, let’s not get too paranoid. Operating a telescope remotely is what you’re supposed to do with a remote telescope. The control signals will route through Oxford.”
“I said I’d think about it.”
Webb sighed. “It’s your country.” He retreated to his room, had a quick shower and then rummaged in the dormitory cupboard. There was a heavy Shetland wool pullover, left by some visiting observer. Red and yellow lightning stripes weren’t his fashion statement but it was warm.
“Oliver.” Leclerc startled him. The Frenchman was looking worried. He spoke quietly, almost conspiratorially. “Oliver, we have to talk.”
“Sure.” Webb took him into his room and closed the door firmly.
Leclerc looked at Webb uncertainly. “Oliver, there is something very strange going on here.”
My opinion exactly, Webb was tempted to say, but instead waited for him to continue. But Leclerc was judging his man, clearly in an agony of doubt as to how far he could trust Webb.
A brisk knock at the door. “Join me in a run, Oliver? Or are you still feeling fragile?” Judy, bouncing up and down outside Webb’s door.
“One minute!” he called out, and there was the sound of retreating footsteps.
“We’ll talk later,” Webb said quietly.
“We must. But only you and me. Nobody else.”
Judy, in a grey tracksuit, jumped up and down outside the building, waiting for her colleagues. Webb emerged. She beckoned him over, taking advantage of their eye contact to assess him with a swift female intuition. His muscular frame and untidy, curly brown hair gave the impression of an outdoor type rather than the quiet academic he clearly was; subtle lines around his jaw suggested a determined streak, and around his blue eyes an unusual intelligence; but at the same time there was a sort of naivety about him. She sensed that he could be humorous, but that he was also shy, even awkward in company. It made for an interesting and unusual colleague.
Webb trotted over to Judy, stretching in the crisp fresh air and the sunlight.
“This is a working run, right?” Webb said.
“Absolutely!” Judy exclaimed, jumping. “We need it to clear the cobwebs.”
Leclerc appeared a minute later, taking no chances: he was wearing last night’s Eskimo suit. Parisian elegance peeked defiantly over the fur-lined collar in the form of a spotted red bow tie. Webb had never before seen a jogger in a bow tie; unaccountably, the minor eccentricity put Leclerc up in Webb’s estimation.
“Wagons ho!” she called out. They took off on a slow trot down the road.
She smiled broadly at Webb. “That was fun. What gives with Sacheverell and you?”
“Herb is a mafia hit man. He’s a bully, a megaphone, a weather vane, a party apparatchik of the lowest order…”
“But Oliver,” Judy laughed, “he’s our top man in the field.”
“Sure, if you measure scientific excellence by media coverage.”
Leclerc was taking it wide at the hairpin bend, puffing. “Why the seething hatred, Oliver? Academic rivalry? Or did he reject some paper?”
Judy was beginning to speed up. Webb let her get ahead. “Not at all, it’s because I care about truth. Herb rewrites history in a way that would make Stalin blush. He rigs conferences, stuffs his own people on committees, manipulates opinion…”
“Ah, now we’re getting to it,” suggested Leclerc. “He succeeds where you have failed to communicate your…”
“… but his scientific talent is minimal. He’s never had an original thought in his life. He’s put the field back a decade.”
“Oliver,” Judy called over her shoulder, “we don’t need stunning new insights for this one. An identification will do.”
“Herb will try to take over this show and if he succeeds we’ll screw up.”
Judy was now loping. In spite of her shorter legs Webb, beginning to pant, was having difficulty keeping up. Leclerc was beginning to trail. “I think you just like a good fight.”
“My dear Doctor Whaler, you malign me. I’m a quiet academic taken away under protest from an important piece of research.”
“More important than the planet?”
“So, they kidnapped you too, Oliver?” Leclerc asked, catching up with an effort.
“It was more like an offer I couldn’t refuse. What about you, Judy? Don’t they abduct people in flying saucers in this neck of the woods?”