“Yes, yes, I see that,” Galileo said, growing more and more excited as he read the text. “And this treatise has some connection to my work…”
“More than you realize,” Bellarmine said. “Touch that emblem.” He gestured to one of many little multi-colored ovals that occupied the margins of the text. This one contained a tiny, stylized arrow that pointed up. “It will cause the manuscript to scroll backward, to the beginning.”
Galileo did as told. The text slowly scrolled, until it came to what was clearly a title page.
Galileo gasped.
The title read, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo. It was indicated as published by the presses of Landini, in Florence, in the year 1632. Its author was Galileo Galilei.
“Clever forgery!” Galileo exclaimed, half in anger, half in admiration. “So your scribes at the College seek to publish some confusing document under my name, and therein mislead the world about my real contentions!”
“I think it is not a forgery,” Bellarmine said, “or, at least, something not as simple as a forgery. I think you will agree, if you read on.”
But Galileo turned away from the text, and focused instead on Bellarmine. “It is a Dialog about the Two Chief World Systems, purportedly written by me, except I did not write it. Therefore, it must be a forgery.”
Bellarmine shook his head no. “I think you would do better to say, not that you did not write it, but you did not write it yet.”
“Preposterous,” Galileo said. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Would it surprise you to know that I read your Sidereus Nuncius, on that very Instrument at which you have just been staring, in 1599, the year Clement VIII made me a Cardinal—a good decade before you would even make the observations with your telescope that would form the basis of that essay you published in 1610?”
“Forgive me, Eminence—that cannot be true!” But Galileo’s mouth hung open.
“I assure you it is,” Bellarmine said. “You see, I have been an admirer of yours—albeit secret—for quite some time. Perhaps even longer than you.”
Galileo harrumphed, and looked back at the text on the Instrument.
“I grant you, of course, that there is no way I can conclusively prove what I have just told you,” Bellarmine allowed, “not about seeing Sidereus Nuncius in 1599, eleven years before you wrote it, nor about the legitimacy of your authorship of the Dialogo that you see before you now, which apparently has seventeen more years before it comes into being in… in the outside world.”
“The outside world in contrast to what other world?” Galileo asked. “In contrast to this illuminated world—this, moving manuscript lit from within? What is this, then, a portal on to the Platonic world of eternal truth and verity? That world is a figment of imagination far greater than Prester’s Speculum!”
Bellarmine ventured a small truth in jest. “Oh, I would say there is little chance of the information contained in the Instrument being eternally true, my friend, if you or any mortal wrote it.”
Galileo looked fitfully at the text. “What other manuscripts does this Instrument contain?” He jabbed another emblem.
The text disappeared. “Oh no!”
“Do not be alarmed,” Bellarmine said, and leaned over Galileo’s shoulder. “At least, there is no need to be concerned about the words disappearing.” He touched a third emblem. The words returned. “You see, they are easily recalled. Here,” he said, gesturing to another oval. “That one makes the text proceed forward. The one underneath speeds it to the very end. You will find at the end of your text a listing of other authors whose works are within the Instrument.”
Galileo touched the speed-to-the-end symbol—a miniature of Mercury, god of thievery as well as speed. Words flew upward on the screen, like souls freed from hell. Finally, a profusion of proper names settled into stability at the end of the document.
Galileo looked, muttered. “Most of these are not known to me,” he said.
“Try that one,” Bellarmine offered.
And his finger pointed to: Einstein.
Galileo stayed in the room with the Instruments, poring over their contents, for nine days and nights.
Bellarmine brought him food and drink and consolation.
“I think I have read enough,” Galileo said at last.
“Good,” Bellarmine replied. “The word outside is that we are torturing you, or have killed you, or are threatening to do one or both. It would be helpful if you could show your face and assure everyone that you are unharmed.”
“But I am not unharmed,” Galileo said. “My soul has been fed to the breaking point. I will never be the same.”
“Ah, yes, well, this is the price we pay for knowledge, is it not? This is the price you want the whole world to pay—a world of people with intellects far feebler than yours—when you feed them your theories, your theories which you are so sure are true, about the Earth and the heavens. Except, you are not so sure any more, are you?”
“No, I am not,” Galileo said, with profound fatigue.
“You need not worry for your physical being—nor even for the survival of your soul,” Bellarmine said softly. “Others before you have seen these Instruments—not many, but others—and most have survived.”
“Others? Who?” Galileo asked.
“Well, I told you that I first saw this sixteen years ago, and I am still here, and alive.”
“Yes, but I meant—”
“I know what you meant,” Bel-larmine said. He pondered for a moment. “Leonardo da Vinci saw these Instruments—he studied them for years—I suppose there is no harm in telling you that.”
“Yes, that would make sense,” Galileo said. “He is rumored to have made sketches, extraordinary, of flying devices, machines that could live under the sea…”
“The rumors are true,” Bellarmine said.
“But where did you get these Instruments? How long have they been here?”
“That I am unable to tell you, not because I do not want to, but because we honestly do not know,” Bellarmine said. “Some say Marco Polo brought them back from Cathay. But there is no real evidence of that. The first definite record we have of them here is in 1357. The three of them. Why three? Maybe as protection in case one or two of them were lost. Who knows. The first people who read the words within could barely understand what they meant. Oh, they understood some of the Ancients. But when they came upon you—Galileo Galilei—they had as much comprehension of you as you do of Albert Einstein.”
Galileo trembled. “I understood not much of Einstein—most of his mathematics is beyond me. But I grasped some of Isaac Newton, and from that vantage point, and what little of Einstein I could comprehend, I can see that my work is…”
Bellarmine shook his head sympathetically.
“I can see that the notion that the Sun is the center of our system is… is a relative thing, not as absolute as first I thought. We must take care not to make the same mistake with Copernicus as the world has been making for lo these fourteen centuries with Ptolemy.”
“Good,” Bellarmine said. “My faith in your judgment has not been misplaced.”
“So much knowledge to be had here,” Galileo said, rubbing his eyes and looking again at the Instrument. “Will I be permitted to return?”
“Perhaps,” Bellarmine said. “We shall see.”
“But our problem remains,” Galileo said. “Even if I renounce what I have said, even if I publish not another word about my telescopic observations and their support of Copernicus, that will not stop others from following in the path I have started.”