Was this really seventeenth-century Rome? What happened to all the . . . stuff?
And why was she so exhausted?
Sera heard people shouting in Italian outside so she went to the window and brushed aside the curtains to look. There were two groups of men in what looked to be some kind of town square. They were arguing and pointing at each other. One group was dressed in the black robes that she knew Roman Catholics called cassocks. They had matching black hats. The other group was dressed in more modern-looking trousers and long shirts. They looked like students.
And then Sera spotted the smallest of the trouser-wearing crew. He was standing right in the middle of the action, shouting louder than anyone else and in perfect Italian.
Dak.
Sera threw on the clothes Dak had clearly left for her and rushed out the door, the dog following closely behind. She pushed her way into the crush of people and tugged at Dak’s arm. “What are you doing?” she scolded him. “You’re going to get trampled out here.”
“Sera?” Dak was looking at her like he’d just seen a ghost. “Why aren’t you still . . . sleeping?”
The argument around them escalated, and Sera realized why this felt so different from any of their previous warps. Because she wasn’t wearing a translation device, she couldn’t understand a word anyone was saying.
Dak let her pull him aside. Once they were a safe distance away from the two clashing groups, Sera asked, “How long was I asleep? And why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Only a few hours,” Dak said. “You seemed sick or something, so I thought it was best to let you rest.”
The dog growled at Dak and showed her teeth.
Sera agreed with the dog: Dak was being sketchy. She narrowed her eyes at him. When was the last time he’d left her alone just because she was a little under the weather? Never, that’s when. Dak didn’t pay attention to stuff like that. He had to be up to something.
“You should have woken me up,” Sera snapped. “What are we doing here? What have I missed?”
Dak shouted a few more lines of Italian at the men in black cassocks before turning back to Sera. “Are you familiar with the heliocentric theory?” Dak asked her.
“Duh,” Sera answered. “The heliocentric theory states that the Earth revolves around the sun — not the other way around. I wrote about it on my blog two years ago. Remember? You left a comment suggesting that the Earth revolves around cheese.”
“Oh,” Dak said. “I mean, I forgot. Anyway, Galileo has been promoting the heliocentric theory all over the place lately, and now he’s been called in for an inquisition.”
“Right,” Sera said, recalling the significance of the date she’d entered into the Infinity Ring. “This is the day they find him guilty of heresy, right?”
Dak nodded excitedly. “It’s history in the making, Sera. In order to stay out of jail, Galileo is going to be forced to publicly declare that he was mistaken —”
“What a joke!” Sera shouted. “All of Galileo’s research is supported by the most powerful telescope available at the time. He proved the Earth revolves around the sun. It’s one of the most absurd setbacks in the history of scientific progress!”
Dak looked genuinely frightened by her anger.
“Sorry.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You know how I get when it comes to this stuff.”
Dak took a step closer and told Sera in a much quieter voice, “You’re right to be upset. In history as we know it, the cardinals rule against Galileo. We’re here because we can’t let that happen.” He opened up his backpack and pulled out the copy of Isaac Newton’s The Principia and handed it to her. “How familiar are you with this book?”
“Are you kidding?” Sera said. “I basically have it memorized.”
“Good,” Dak said, “because you’re going to use it to prove Galileo’s position is valid.”
“What?” Sera said. “How?”
“I’ve already set everything in motion for you,” Dak told her. “You just have to trust me on this one.”
But that was the problem. Sera didn’t know if she could trust Dak anymore. He’d been acting strange from the moment he’d shown up at her parents’ house. And now there was this look in his eyes she didn’t recognize. And there had to be a reason her dog was still snarling at her best friend and emitting a low growl. Animals sensed when people were hiding something.
Sera would have started drilling Dak with additional questions if at that exact moment, everyone in the town square hadn’t gone utterly silent.
Sera looked up and saw a group of armed soldiers escorting a man in shackles toward the courthouse.
A buzz of voices rippled through the square as the shackled man was led right past Sera and Dak. He looked up and met eyes with Sera, and Sera’s heart began pounding so fast, she wondered if this was what it felt like to have a heart attack.
This was her idol, Galileo.
In the flesh. In chains.
She actually had to remind herself to breathe.
When the man was led through the doors of the courthouse, Dak tapped the book in Sera’s hands. “The entire course of history is counting on you,” he said.
“No pressure,” Sera mumbled to herself, still staring at the doors of the courthouse. She swallowed hard, remembering that ten cardinals would rule Galileo guilty. How was she going to convince them that the Earth revolved around the sun when they were so set in their ways, they had refused to even look through Galileo’s telescope?
13
The Trial
SEVERAL HOURS later, Sera found herself standing outside the courtroom, where she and Dak argued with a dozen armed guards who refused to even let them inside. Actually, it was just Dak doing the arguing. Sera couldn’t understand a word anyone was saying, and the daggers she was staring at the men didn’t seem to be having much of an effect.
Sera had spent the day in her small room with her dog, reviewing Isaac Newton’s masterpiece, The Principia. Only it wasn’t considered a masterpiece in seventeenth-century Rome because it had yet to be written. Isaac Newton hadn’t even been born yet. So every sentence in the book would be unfamiliar to the cardinals. Sera couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Of course, it was a moot point if Sera couldn’t even get into the courtroom. She watched as Dak went from arguing in a calm, rational way to shouting, but the guards continued shaking their heads and shooing Dak and Sera away.
“What now?” Sera asked Dak when he turned his back on the men, shaking his head, too. The trial was nearly over.
“I don’t understand why they’re not here yet,” Dak said, looking over Sera’s shoulder.
“Who?” Sera wanted to know. “And what did you just say to the guards?”
Dak turned to Sera, his face red with anger. “They don’t know who they’re dealing with, Sera. I’m tight with this pacifist group, the AB. As soon as they find out I was mistreated, they’re going to —”
“Who’s the AB?” Sera interrupted. “How come I’ve never heard of them?”
Dak’s face grew uncertain, like he’d just let something slip that he’d meant to keep to himself. “It’s just this group that helps, you know . . . I met them while you were asleep. They’re the ones who hooked us up with the clothes we’re wearing.”
“But who are they?” Sera asked. “And why are they helping you?”
Her dog barked at Dak and continued her low growling.
“Maybe I’m just a likable guy,” Dak said, looking down at the snarling dog. “Right, girl?”
The dog snapped her teeth at Dak. This time, Sera actually had to hold her dog back. Before she could ask Dak any more questions, a group of four robust men dressed in black cassocks approached the guards. One of them waved to Dak and said something in Italian.
“Thank heaven,” Dak resp
onded.
“What?” Sera asked. “What is it?”
Dak turned to her. “They’re going to take care of us.”
“Is it the AB group you were talking about?”
Dak nodded.
As the men spoke to the guards in deep, authoritative voices, Sera studied the gold trim of their cassocks. She’d never seen a priest wear gold before. It almost seemed too flashy for church. It reminded her of the gold Infinity Ring they had used to warp here, and she wondered if Arin back home had anything to do with the AB. Maybe the smaller Hystorian group had taken on a different name.
Sera was shocked when the guards suddenly stepped aside and allowed the men in gold-trimmed cassocks to open the doors to the courtroom. The AB men bowed to Dak, which confused Sera even more, and waved them inside.
And then something happened that she did not expect at all. Out of nowhere, she felt faint and almost passed out. She had to go down on one knee so she wouldn’t fall forward and smash her face on the ground. There was a weird ringing in her ears, too, and for a few seconds her mind went blank. But then she was fine again, like nothing happened.
“Come on,” Dak said anxiously. “They’re just about to issue their verdict. You do your thing, and I’ll keep an eye out for unwanted guests.” He stopped her near the back row of chairs and transferred the translation device, which was gold like the Ring, from his ear into Sera’s. She felt the translator in her tooth, which Riq had inserted months ago, spark to life once the earpiece was in place. Dak winked at her — which was weird — and stepped back into the shadows just as one of the cardinals slammed his gavel against the table.
“We have our verdict,” the man said in Italian.
Sera could understand him perfectly now. It was a little gross to think of Dak’s earwax mixing with her own, but it was the only way she’d be able to present her argument.
“By majority vote,” the cardinal went on, “we find the defendant, Galileo Galilei —”
“Wait!” Sera said, leaping out from behind the last row of chairs.
Everyone spun around to look at her. The courtroom was packed. She stepped forward, trying to appear confident, and stated, “Galileo is right about the heliocentric theory, and I can prove it!”
Two of the guards came rushing into the courthouse and took Sera by her arms, but one of the cardinals stood up and shouted, “Let the girl speak!”
Sera saw that while the rest of the cardinals were dressed in traditional cassocks, the robe of the man who’d just spoken up had gold trim, like the men outside. She wondered if he was part of the AB group, too.
When the guards released her, Sera walked down the aisle toward the front of the proceedings, feeling as nervous as she’d ever felt in her entire life. She scanned the crowd for her parents. Hadn’t Dak said they were here somewhere? Then she saw Galileo was looking right at her. It was a dream come true to be able to defend him. But that dream would quickly turn into a nightmare if she failed.
One of the guards tried to take the dog out of the courtroom, but the cardinal wearing the gold trim came to Sera’s defense a second time. “Leave the dog alone,” he said. Then he turned to Sera. “Please, go on, young lady. Tell us why you believe Galileo is correct in his assertion that the Earth does indeed revolve around the sun. As you know, the church contends it’s the other way around.”
Sera stepped in front of the row of cardinals and cleared her throat. She looked back at Galileo. She could see it in his eyes: He was counting on her. But what she was about to do was more complex than he knew. Aristotle was the one who helped establish the geocentric theory — which stated that all the other planets, and the sun, too, revolved around the Earth. Sera felt really weird about proving the founder of the Hystorians wrong about something. But hadn’t Aristotle also claimed that science and knowledge were ever evolving?
Sera’s dog trotted up to her and sat down, her tongue lapping out the side of her mouth. Sera petted her and took a steadying breath. She then turned her attention toward the cardinals. “Are any of you familiar with a man named Sir Isaac Newton?” she asked.
The men all shook their heads.
“That’s because he doesn’t live anywhere around here,” Sera said. “And he refuses to travel to Rome. But a few days ago, I had the good fortune of speaking to Mr. Newton. And I believe some of the things he told me will change astronomical science forever.”
When the men all leaned forward, seemingly intrigued by her opening, Sera knew she’d have just this one chance to explain it in a convincing manner. And she knew she’d have to keep it simple enough for everyone in the entire courtroom to understand.
She took another deep breath, let it out slow, and began.
She told the men how Isaac Newton was walking in a garden one day when he witnessed an apple falling from an apple tree. It was a normal-enough occurrence, sure, but it got him to thinking. Why had the apple fallen toward the ground instead of falling sideways or rising straight up in the air? Why was the fruit seemingly attracted to the ground? And why did it happen the same way every time?
When Isaac Newton thought more about this event, Sera told the courtroom, he had an epiphany. When released from any height, all earthly objects fell toward the ground. He even tested his theory. And then he took it a step further, suggesting that every object draws other objects toward it, but the larger and heavier object always possesses the more powerful drawing power. Therefore the apple will always fall toward the Earth instead of the Earth rising up toward the apple.
To state it simply, Sera explained, the Earth is a million times heavier than an apple, therefore its drawing power is a million times stronger.
Sera swallowed and looked around the room.
Dak was nowhere to be found.
But Galileo was nodding in support. And the cardinals were all still listening.
She went on.
“Sir Isaac Newton then applied this idea in a more universal way,” she told them. “If the sun is a million times larger and heavier than the Earth, which Mr. Galileo has observed in his extensive telescopic research, then isn’t it going to have a draw that is a million times stronger?”
When nobody said anything, she answered her own question. “Of course it is. And that’s what causes the Earth to revolve around the sun instead of the other way around. It has nothing to do with politics or religion and everything to do with science.”
A rumbling of voices started spreading through the courtroom.
“Furthermore,” Sera said, “Isaac Newton believes the heliocentric theory is supported by his laws of gravitation, which I’ve hand-copied for all of you today. So you can see for yourselves.” She began handing each cardinal a piece of paper with Newton’s three laws of motion. “However, this doesn’t mean the sun stays in a fixed position either. So you’re both right in a way. All planetary masses are in constant motion.”
The buzz inside the courtroom swelled even more, and one of the cardinals had to slam his gavel on the table to get everyone to quiet down.
When Sera was done passing out the pieces of paper to all the cardinals, she saw Galileo wave her over. Her heart sped up as she approached him. “Yes, sir?” she said tentatively.
“That was really something,” he said. “Do you mind if I take a look at one of those?”
“Of course,” Sera said, handing over her last copy of Newton’s gravitational laws. She watched Galileo study the words and equations. She could almost imagine his great mind doing somersaults inside his skull.
After a couple of minutes, he looked up and said, “This is groundbreaking, young lady. I’d like to meet this Sir Isaac Newton fellow immediately. Can you arrange it?”
Sera’s eyes grew wide with surprise. “Oh, well . . . he’s really hard to reach at the moment, but —”
Luckily, she was interrupted by one of the cardinals, who was pound
ing his gavel again. “All rise,” he announced. “In light of this new testimony, we’ve decided to suspend our decision until an academic committee can properly study this new theory called . . .”
“Gravity,” Sera said.
“Yes, gravity,” the man said. “Galileo is free to go.”
14
The Kick that Ended a Friendship
SOME PEOPLE in the courtroom booed. Others cheered. And then a group of people near the back began chanting Galileo’s name in this strange, drawn-out way that Sera thought would be more appropriate at a professional sporting event than in a courtroom.
“Ga-li-le-o!”
“Ga-li-le-o!”
“Ga-li-le-o!”
Sera was surprised to see the man pointing up into the crowd and pumping his fist. He jumped up on one of the tables and shouted, “It moves! I’ll repeat it until my dying day! The Earth moves, do you hear me? It moves!”
This proved to Sera she had altered history forever. Instead of having to rescind his belief in the heliocentric theory, Galileo was shouting it from the rooftops. Or at least the tabletops. He even went over to a group of young women and kissed all their hands in an incredibly flirtatious way.
Interesting, Sera thought. Galileo is a player.
She shook the thought from her head and decided to go in search of Dak. It was probably a good idea to get out of the courtroom before anyone figured out that Isaac Newton didn’t even exist yet. She looked all around the crowded courtroom but didn’t see Dak anywhere.
Her dog was gone, too.
She broke into a cold sweat and began walking up and down each row, searching for them. She squeezed through a large group of celebrating students, deciding to try behind the stage. The first thing she saw was the group of men in gold-trimmed cassocks, standing around in a circle.
And then she noticed what was inside that circle.
Eternity Page 6