“Now to me this looks like an ink blot,” said Heilbron, to Hooper’s evident relief. “But my genuises tell me these are the shadows of four men, the rocket, launch gantry, and a lifting crane. Use the computer to deproject and subtract out everything but the thing they’re lifting and Voila!”
“A carrot!” exclaimed Hooper, staring in bewilderment at the final, blurred computer picture.
“That’s right, Sam, it’s a carrot,” said Heilbron triumphantly. “It’s two metres long; they’re loading it under netting and they’re taking it to Mars.”
Wallis said, “I have it.” He pushed back his chair, stood up and paced up and down, staring into the middle distance. Then he came back, staring at Heilbron, and nodding his head in agreement.
“Well?” Hooper snapped.
“Some carrot, sir,” said Wallis.
Heilbron half-smiled. “Got it in one. Let me tell you about the carrot, Sam. Look at the last picture. It’s a nice present from our lady in the Cosmonaut Hotel.”
It was a black and white photograph. It had been taken through a door slightly ajar, the camera had been held about two feet back from the crack. Three men, dressed for a Russian winter, their fur hats and coats fringed with snow, stood at the reception desk.
“The little guy with specs is local, just reception for the other two. The guy with the Astrakhan hat we haven’t yet identified. But the other guy we do recognize. His name is Boris Voroshilov, former lecturer in physics from Tbilisi, now employed at Chelyabinsk-7. He designs nukes.”
“Richard…”
Heilbron raised his hand and continued. “Phobos Five is a cover. Somewhere out there the cosmonauts have sent an automated probe with a tape recorder on to Mars on the old orbit. Meanwhile our heroes have slipped their moorings and set out into the blue yonder on a new orbit, complete with carrot. Only it isn’t a carrot, Sam, it’s a ten megaton hydrogen bomb.”
Sacheverell said, “I know of only one application for a hydrogen bomb in deep space. Deflecting an asteroid.”
Heilbron pointed the end of his pipe at the JCJS. “Tell me something. Why would Zhirinovsky want to do a thing like that?”
Hooper’s face was like an executioner’s.
The CIA chief hammered it home: “Sam, we’re going to get it right in the Kansas breadbasket.”
Inquisition: the Interrogation
The priest settled into the witness’s chair. The notary said: “Identify yourself to this Congregation.”
“I am Jacques Grandami, of the Jesuit Order. I teach theology and natural philosophy at a number of colleges in France.”
Terremoto began the questioning: “You are acquainted with Vincenzo Vincenzi?”
Reptilian eyes flickered briefly in Vincenzo’s direction. “I know him from the school of theology in Paris, and later in Bologna.”
“What is your opinion of the man?”
“He claims to be devout.”
“Claims to be?”
“I cannot say that he is not. He has the outward appearance of piety. In Bologna he took part in the choral recitation of the divine office, and in the daily recitation of faults.”
“Why then do you seem to hesitate over his piety?”
“He is extremely disputatious, lacking the spirit of humility. He scorns reasoned argument which does not fit his opinion. He thus shows manifest contempt for the arguments of Scheiner, Ciermans, Malapert and other Jesuits against the Copernican system, which he advocates even though, as this Congregation knows, it has been condemned as false. Komensky of Prague, in his Refutatio Astronomiae Copernicianae, has written a brilliant refutation of the heliocentric doctrine. But Vincenzo refuses to acknowledge its intellectual force. Instead he has spoken to me, with approval, of the Bruno heresy that the Universe is infinite and that the stars are suns, with planets and living creatures on them. In addition to his false advocacy, he is not, I regret to say, true to his order. He belongs to the Order of Preachers but does not preach. He has taken a vow of poverty and yet lives in a villa provided by the Duke of Tuscany. He has taken a vow of celibacy but shares a bed with a woman.”
Terremoto made to dismiss Grandami but one of the cardinals, a man with a light freckled skin and an accent which seemed to place him in the far north of the country, stopped him. “One moment! You have said that you are a theologian.”
“I am, Your Eminence.”
“Then perhaps you can answer this question. What is the basis, in the Holy Scriptures, for belief in a stationary Earth?”
Grandami smiled unpleasantly. “How could Joshua have commanded the Sun to be still if it was not moving in the first place? Does the Psalmist not describe the Sun as going forth in a circuit to the ends of heaven? Does Job not write of the pillars of the Earth trembling?”
The cardinal bowed. “Thank you, Jacques Grandami. The Peace of Our Lord go with you.”
The interrogation began on the second day, without preliminaries. A row of grim faces met Vincenzo as he was guided to his bench. Cardinal Terremoto opened the proceedings. His piercing eyes were fixed on Vincenzo, and the corners of his mouth were turned down in an unconcealed scowl. Vincenzo felt his legs shaking and his stomach in queasy knots.
Terremoto looked right and left. “This Holy Congregation is now prepared to question the prisoner. Before we proceed, does the advocate have anything to say on the prisoner’s behalf?”
Marcello turned to his client. He whispered, “Recant, Vincenzo.”
The monk shook his head.
“Recant and throw yourself on the mercy of the court. All these people want is a public abjuration.”
Vincenzo’s head was lowered. Almost imperceptibly, he shook it again.
Marcello stood up. Terremoto’s small eyes were glaring into his own; the hostility was undisguised, bearing down on the young man like a physical force. The lawyer, fear gnawing at his heart, took an instant decision which he knew would affect his future career and forever change the life of his client. “Your Eminences, I regard the guilt of my client as sufficiently well established by these proceedings. As he persists in denying his guilt, and shows no sign of contrition for his erroneous beliefs, I must ask to be relieved of the duty to defend him.”
The cardinals murmured between themselves. There was some nodding of heads. Then Terremoto said, “Your duty to the prisoner is discharged. Leave us with good conscience.”
“Marcello!” Vincenzo cried out in shock. But the lawyer avoided the astronomer’s gaze, and Vincenzo could only watch as his former advocate picked up a sheaf of papers and scurried out of the courtroom, eyes to the ground and bent almost double. He momentarily buried his face in his hands.
The lawyer had hardly left the room when Terremoto began the questioning. “On whose authority do you state that the Earth rotates?”
“My lawyer has sold his soul.”
“Answer the question.”
“Authority? That of my eyes and brain, Eminence.” Vincenzo’s voice was shaking.
“I ask of written authority.”
“Your Eminence, the English monk Bede stated that the Earth is a ball floating in space a thousand years ago. Nicolas Oresme, over three hundred years ago, stated that the Earth is round and rotates about an axis. And the same was said by Cardinal Nicholas Cusanus over two centuries ago. They even say that Aristarchus and Eratosthenes…”
“Do you read Greek?”