Galileo's Dream - Kim Stanley Robinson 5 стр.

When he got Paduas tower of Santa Giustina centered in the glass, as clear as if he were on Paduas city wall staring at it, he suppressed any shout, any smile, and merely bowed to the doge and moved aside, so Dona and then the others could have a look. A little touch of the mages silent majesty was not inappropriate at this point either, he judged.

For the view was, in fact, astonishing. Ho! the doge exclaimed when he saw San Giustina. Look at that! After a minute or two he gave over the glass to his people, and after that the rush was on. Exclamations, cries, incredulous laughter; it sounded like Carnivale. Galileo stood proudly by the tube, readjusting it when it was bumped. After everyone had had a first look, he spotted terra-firma towns even more distant than Padua, which itself was twenty-five miles away: Chioggia to the south, Treviso to the west, even Conegliano, nestled in the foothills more than fifty miles away.

Moving to the northern arches, he trained the glass on various parts of the lagoon. These views made it clear that many of the senators were even more amazed to see people brought close than they had been buildings; perhaps their minds had leaped as quickly as Galileos servants to the uses of such an ability. They gazed at worshippers entering the church of San Giacomo in Murano, or getting into gondolas at the mouth of the Rio de Verieri, just west of Murano. Once one of them even recognized a woman he knew.

After that round of viewing, Galileo lifted the device, helped now by as many hands as could touch the tripod, and the whole assembly shifted together to the easternmost arch on the southern side of the campanile, where the glass could be directed over the Lido and the fuzzy blue Adriatic. For a long time Galileo tapped the tube gently from side to side, searching the horizon. Then happily he spotted the sails of a little fleet of galleys, making their final approach to the Serenissima.

After that round of viewing, Galileo lifted the device, helped now by as many hands as could touch the tripod, and the whole assembly shifted together to the easternmost arch on the southern side of the campanile, where the glass could be directed over the Lido and the fuzzy blue Adriatic. For a long time Galileo tapped the tube gently from side to side, searching the horizon. Then happily he spotted the sails of a little fleet of galleys, making their final approach to the Serenissima.

Look to sea, he instructed them as he straightened and made room for the doge. He had to restrain himself to hide his euphoria. See how using ones plain sight, one sees nothing out there. But using the glass

A fleet! the doge exclaimed. He straightened and looked at the crowd, his face red. A fleet is approaching, well out from San Niccolo.

The Sages of the Order crowded to the front of the line to see for themselves. Every Venetian holding in the eastern Mediterranean was subject to attack by Turks and Levantine pirates. Individual ships, fleets, coastal towers, even fortress towns as formidable as Ragusa had suffered surprise assaults. Thus the rulers of Venice, all of them with naval experience of one sort or another, were now nodding to each other meaningfully, and circulating into the crowd surrounding Galileo to shake his hand, slap him on the back, ask for future meetings. Fra Micanzio and General del Monte in particular had worked with him at the Arsenale on various engineering projects, and their congratulations were especially hearty. They had first met him twenty years before, when they had brought him in to consider if there were ways the oars of their galleys could be reconfigured to give them more power, and Galileo had immediately sketched out analyses of the oars movement that considered their fulcrum to be not the oarlocks, but the water surface, and this surprising new perspective on the problem had in fact led to improvements in oarlock placement. So they knew what he was capable of. But this time del Monte was shaking his hand endlessly, and Micanzio was grinning, with eyebrows raised as if to say with a laugh, Finally one of your tricks will really matter!

And at this moment, Galileo could afford to laugh with him. Galileo suggested to him that they time the interval between this observation of the fleet through the glass, and the moment when ordinary lookouts saw the ships with their unaided vision. The Doge overheard this and required that it be done.

After that, Galileo had only to stand by the device and accept more congratulations, and point the thing to resight it if someone requested it. He drank their praise and he drank wine from a tall gold cup, feeling expansive and generous. The colorful throng around him, with its impressive percentage of purple, sparked memories of Carnivalememories that gave every festive evening in Venice an aura of splendor and sex. Combined with the height of the campanile, and the beauty of the watery city below them, it felt like they stood on Olympus.

On the winding way back down the campanile stairs, Galileo was joined on one dark landing by the stranger, who then clomped down the iron stairs beside him. Galileos heart leaped in his chest like an animal trying to escape. The man was dressed in black, and must have lurked in waiting for Galileo, like a thief or an assassin.

Congratulations on this success, the man said in his hoarse Latin.

What brings you here? Galileo asked.

It seems you listened to what I told you before.

Yes, I did.

I was sure you would be interested. You of all people. Now I will return to northern Europe. Again: Alta Europa. When I come back to your country, I will bring a spyglass of my own, which I will invite you to look through. Indeed I invite you now. Then, when Galileo did not reply (they were nearing the bottom of the stairs and the door to the Piazzetta), he said, I invited you.

It would be my pleasure, Galileo said.

The man touched the case Galileo carried from his shoulder. Have you used it to look at the moon?

Nonot yet.

The man shook his head. If his face was a blade, his nose was its sharpened edge, long and curved, tilted off to the right. His big eyes gleamed in the stairwells dim light. When you achieve a power of magnification of twenty or thirty times, you will find it really interesting. After that, I will visit you again.

Then they reached the ground floor of the campanile, and walked together out onto the Piazzetta, where they were interrupted by the Doge himself, waiting there to escort Galileo back to the Signoria: Really, my dear Signor Galileo, you must do us the honor of returning with us to the Sala del Senato to celebrate the incredible success of your extraordinary demonstration. We have arranged a small meal, some wine

Of course, Your Beneficent Serenity, Galileo said. I am yours to command, as you know.

In the midst of this exchange the stranger had slipped away and disappeared.

Unsettled, distracted by the memory of the strangers narrow face, his black clothing, and his odd words, Galileo ate and drank with as much cheer as he could muster. A chance meeting with a colleague of Keplers was one thing; a second encounter, deliberately made, was something elsehe wasnt sure what.

Well, there was nothing to be done now but to eat, to drink more wine, and to enjoy the very genuine and fulsome accolades of Venices rulers. Two full hours of the celebration of his accomplishment were marked by the giant clocks on the salas walls, before the lookouts on the campanile sent word down that they had spotted a fleet approaching San Niccolo. The room erupted in a spontaneous cheer. Galileo turned to the doge and bowed, then bowed again to all of them: left, right, center, then again to the doge. Finally he had invented something that would make money.

Chapter two

I Primi Al Mondo

The next night, back in Padua, Galileo went out into his garden and aimed his best occhialino at the moon. He left Mazzoleni sleeping by the kitchen fire, woke none of the servants; the house was asleep. This was the hour, as on so many nights, when his insomnia took hold of him.

Now his mind was filled with the strangers blade of a face, his intense gaze. Have you looked at the moon? The moon tonight was near its first quarterthe bright part almost exactly half the whole, the dark part easily visible against the night sky. An obvious sphere. Galileo sat on a low stool, held his breath, then brought his right eye to the eyepiece. The little black circle of glass was marked on its left side by a luminous white patch. He focused on it.

At first he saw nothing but a chiaroscuro flecking of grayish black and brilliant white, the tremble of the white seeming to flow over the dark spots. Ah; hills. A landscape. A world seen from above.

A view from world to world.

He loosened the screw on the tripod head and tapped the tube, trying to capture in the glass the tip of the moons upper crescent. He tightened the screw, looked again. Brilliant white horn; and a dark gray in the curve of the horn, a blackness just slightly washed with white. Again he saw an arc of hills. There, at the border of light and dark, was a flat dark patch, like a lake in shadow. The sunlight was obviously shining horizontally over the landscapeas it would be, of course, as he was looking at the area experiencing dawn. He was looking at a sunrise on the moon, twenty-eight times slower than a sunrise on Earth.

A view from world to world.

He loosened the screw on the tripod head and tapped the tube, trying to capture in the glass the tip of the moons upper crescent. He tightened the screw, looked again. Brilliant white horn; and a dark gray in the curve of the horn, a blackness just slightly washed with white. Again he saw an arc of hills. There, at the border of light and dark, was a flat dark patch, like a lake in shadow. The sunlight was obviously shining horizontally over the landscapeas it would be, of course, as he was looking at the area experiencing dawn. He was looking at a sunrise on the moon, twenty-eight times slower than a sunrise on Earth.