by Bruce Buff
Trish didn’t acknowledge his words. She pointed to the upper right of the fresco. “What Bible passages does that refer to?”
Father Michael said, “It’s from the book of Daniel. ‘God shall awake some unto life ever lasting and others unto reproach in death.’ ”
“I’m afraid I’m not in good shape if that is true. I’m no Daniel,” Dan said.
Father Michael quickly replied, “Woe to that man who did not return to the fountain of mercy out of hope of forgiveness but, terrified by the enormity of his crime, despaired. That’s also in this Tree of Life and refers to Judas. His great sin was not betraying Jesus. It was believing that God was not merciful and loving enough to forgive him. The only thing God’s forgiveness does not overcome is unrepentance, for forgiveness must be freely received. You should keep that in mind.”
Father Michael looked at his watch, and with a faint smile, said, “Time to get going on your path to either help bring on or prevent whatever might happen next.”
Trish looked one last time at the fresco. “If you turn the fresco upside down, the tree looks like a truncated pyramid, the same shape that led Heron of Alexandria to discover imaginary numbers. This similarity to what’s in Stephen’s journal seems too unlikely to be a coincidence. What do imaginary numbers have to do with everything?”
“Let’s go and see what we can find out,” said Father Michael.
Chapter 69
Father Michael halted at the back of the basilica. After a single bell chimed, he looked around intently and then hurried Dan and Trish out the door and toward the main entrance of the Cappella Colleoni. A sign on the door stated that it was closed. As they approached it, the door opened and Brother Cletus stepped out, holding the door open for them. Once they entered the chapel, Brother Cletus nodded toward Father Michael, then closed the door and left.
The three of them stood in eerie silence until Father Michael spoke. “This is the funeral chapel of Bartolomeo Colleoni, an influential military leader who became wealthy defending numerous ruling factions in the fifteenth century, including the Republic of Venice. Such was his power that he had the sacristy of the basilica torn down to make room for this. It is often described as a ‘jewel box’ because of its shape and the mix of ornate pink and white marble in its façade.”
The sixty-foot-square marble interior was as ornate and impressive as the that of the basilica. Yet again they had no time to admire this magnificent example of Renaissance art. Father Michael walked toward a funeral monument embedded in the marble-clad wall. Underneath it were oak panels and a single pew.
After looking back over his shoulder at Dan, Father Michael pushed a hidden clasp on the outer side of the leftmost panel. It swung open on a center axis, with half the panel recessed into an opening in the wall, while the other half protruded outward.
Moving with haste, Father Michael reached in and pulled out a slim envelope and handed it to Dan.
Seeing For my friend Dan written in a familiar hand on the front, Dan felt the scab ripped off his wound yet again.
Duty took over, and he pushed aside his feelings and examined the sealed letter. He took pictures with his phone of its exterior. He didn’t want to miss or destroy something important. With deliberate care, he used his thin drivers license to detach the lightly attached flap.
Unfolding the single sheet of tightly creased paper, Dan saw a dozen tables mapping DNA base pair triplets to the alphabet. In the first table, the triplet GCT corresponded to A, and so on.
While the mappings were clear, he wasn’t certain of their purpose. Was it meant to translate DNA triplets into letters or the other way around?
He couldn’t believe that human DNA, simply translated using the paper he held, would produce anything other than gibberish or a short word that was nothing more than a random outcome. Otherwise, it would mean life was completely designed, in every aspect, and that the designer had enough foreknowledge of what humans would become that he knew the language to use to communicate whatever was intended to be discovered at a far-off date.
The other possibility, that the table was meant to translate letters into DNA triplets for human purposes, was confirmed when Father Michael said, “Stephen said you might need this someday to access his work.”
That meant the paper was the means to the passcode Stephen had used to encrypt his work on the computer environment Dan had set up for him. That also meant the first possibility for the use of the translation tables was as far-fetched as Dan had thought.
Yet, without a key phrase to translate with the tables, Dan was still stuck. He needed to know what word or phrase would lead him to enter the right set of DNA triplet letters to unlock Stephen’s research. It would also help if he knew which of the tables to use for the translating but, worst case, he’d try each. It would just take more time.
With a quizzical expression, Dan looked at Father Michael and asked, “Is there anything else?” In a voice tinged with urgency, he added, “This is useless without something to translate.”
A small smile formed on Father Michael’s face as he said, “Stephen said to ask you what were the first eleven words he said to you, letters only. I guess he thought it was memorable enough that you’d remember.”
Indeed, Dan did. Stephen made it impossible to forget. Throughout the years, Stephen repeated the last three words whenever he wanted to prod Dan into doing something. “Take a swing” was short for “Don’t just stand there. Grab a bat and take a swing.”
“When did you get this?” Dan asked.
“Steven had it delivered to me days before his death,” Father Michael said.
So Father Michael had withheld it from him. “Why didn’t you give this to me right after Stephen died? One person died and many more are at risk because of the delay.”
“You said you didn’t know his work. You were in a lousy state of mind. Stephen was dead and I needed reasons to believe in you and in what you’d do with Stephen’s work. I don’t think you realize how far you’d fallen and how much you’ve changed for the better in a really short time. Whatever has happened has clearly benefited you. And how could any of us know how our actions would have impacted others? Things might even be worse if I had given this to you at Stephen’s wake. I did the best I could with what I knew.”
“What if I had never sought you out? What if we hadn’t figured out that Stephen’s journals pointed us to you?” Dan said solemnly, reflecting on the meaning of how he’d been and the path he was on.
“I would have reached out to you.”
Suddenly, Dan wasn’t sure if he could trust Father Michael after all. “A little more trust still would have been nice.” He watched for Father Michael’s reaction to the word trust.
Father Michael shrugged slightly, then said, “I got a message from Stephen the night he died. You should use one table, in sequence, for each word in the phrase.”
“Great. And now that you’re being more forthright, do you know anything about a treatment for Ava?”
“Nothing. I certainly wouldn’t have withheld anything that could help her.”
Dan sat down in the pew and glanced once at Father Michael. Then he turned on his tablet and began entering the DNA triplet characters that corresponded to the letters of Stephen’s long ago words. Eleven words became 39 letters that formed a 117-character string of Gs, Ts, As, and Cs.
With trepidation, he entered the last character and hit enter. The screen went momentarily blank, then was replaced by a list all of his failed attempts to gain access. He was in.
A flood of thoughts filled his mind. Finally, he held Stephen’s work in his hands. But now that he had access to it, Dan was as apprehensive as much about what he might find as what he might not. One of Stephen’s mottos had always been, Don’t ask a question if you don’t want to hear the answer. Dan had asked a lot of big questions lately, and he definitely feared some of the answers.
But he didn’t have the luxury of time to prepare himself for what might come next. “I’m in!” he exclaimed.
“What do you see?” Trish asked eagerly.
“It’s going to take time to figure that out,” Dan replied.
“The chapel reopens in forty-five minutes,” said Father Michael.
Instead of responding, Dan buried his face in the tablet and began typing, swiping, and reading as quickly as he could. It was essential for him to understand the nature of Stephen’s work, and its relation to Viktor’s, as quickly as possible.
The first order of business was finding any evidence of whether Stephen had been involved in any sort of espionage or exchange of secrets. From there, he’d look for indications of revolutionary discoveries in biology that could lead to the next stage in human evolution, provide a cure for Ava, or reveal evidence for the human soul and God.
Fortunately, Stephen had organized his work well. Four main directories were titled Source Data, Processors, Converted Data, and Notes. Dan would focus on the notes and converted data. For now, he was far more interested in Stephen’s results than how he’d got to them.
Within each of the main directories were three subdirectories, labeled Biological Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Other. The last, while probably least helpful for what he needed now, grabbed his immediate attention. Both the notes and converted data directories were empty. The source data, whatever it was, was in a format that made it impossible to understand.
Father Michael hovered nearby, looking back and forth at the tablet, seemingly in an internal struggle between trying to see and avoid seeing what it would disclose. After a few minutes, Trish grabbed his arm and tugged him toward the altar on the other side of the chapel, away from Dan.
Focusing on the biological sciences notes, with occasional peeks at the converted data, he got an overview of what was there, but very little about what the detailed contents meant. That would take days, if not weeks or months, to understand, and he would need the right knowledge even to attempt it.
Then he began examining the connection between biology and physics, searching for how anything Stephen had discovered could have impacted Viktor’s work.
Minutes later, an alarm on Father Michael’s smartphone chirped and he said, “Fifteen minutes left. If you want privacy, you should wrap up what you are doing until later.”
Dan had to decide what to do. His initial excitement at gaining access to Stephen’s work had been damped by the confirmation of what it would take to understand it. The desire for definitive answers would not be satisfied on this day or any other in the near future.
Yet what he had seen was promising. Every indication was that a lot of Stephen’s work was indeed based on actual DNA. Stephen’s notes pointed to data and programs that could model anatomy and physiological development. There were numerous references to a symbolic language, or at least processing that mimicked it, derived from DNA. And, most fascinating of all, there was mention of a code within DNA. Whatever the truth turned out to be, there was nothing yet to cause Dan to question Stephen’s beliefs. There was still reason to have faith in his friend and hope of finding something worth knowing, as far-fetched as Stephen’s claims had been.
The physics side of things was more challenging. In the little time he had spent on it, Dan had seen things in Stephen’s notes based on pure physics, but he didn’t understand them, nor was there a clear link to their origin or relationship to biology.
The good news was that there was nothing that pointed to espionage.
Sadly, he had not found anything that referred to a treatment for Ava. Still, there was a lot more of Stephen’s files to work through. Until he could do that, it was premature to say there was nothing that could help her.
That left the immediate issue of deciding whether to turn over the remainder of Viktor’s files to Evans. Dan feared what they could trigger more than what they could prevent.
While lost in thought, from across the chapel, he heard Trish ask, “Father Michael, with all that is going on, maybe you can answer a question I have had for a long time. If God exists, why are there so many different religions?”
“Exactly, why should anyone think religion is anything more than man-made?” Dan yelled out before returning his full attention to the contents of his tablet.
Father Michael said, “Think what it would take for there to be one religion, throughout the whole world, throughout all of human existence. God would either have to have implanted that one religion so deeply into everyone’s mind, or appeared so frequently during all of human history, that we would not have free will nor have a right relationship with Him.”
“But then how can anyone know what is ‘right’ to believe? And what happens to those who weren’t fortunate enough to born into the ‘right’ faith?” Trish added.
“I think our conscience still guides us, and enough has been revealed to know what God wants from all of us, no matter what we believe or practice. Then, at some point in our lives, maybe even immediately thereafter, we are presented with the ultimate truth about God, whatever that is, which we either accept or reject of our own free, fully informed will. Until then, we try as best we can to practice the religion that we believe is closest to God, recognizing there are things we’ll be wrong about—not about Him, but in our understanding of our relationship to Him.”
“That’s all well and good,” a distracted Dan said, looking up briefly, “but what about religious people who say they’re rightly killing in God’s name, or carrying out His judgments?”
“I think it’s a pretty safe bet that if God wasn’t going to impose His will on us to make us believe the same religion, He doesn’t want highly flawed people to think we need to do that for Him. Ironically, when people force their religion on others, they’re opposing God’s will by impeding peoples’ ability to come to Him freely. They’re also contradicting their stated belief that God is all-powerful, by assuming He can’t act on His own.”
“Try telling that to the not so small number of people who think God has told them they should kill those who don’t believe as they do.”
“That’s their will, not God’s, and replacing His with theirs is a terrible mistake. You can see it on their faces. There is no love of God in them, just the hatred that comes from the devil.”
“Get rid of one and you get rid of the other,” Dan replied.
“Shouldn’t you be concentrating on what we’ve been after?” Trish said.
“I’ve got this not so small problem of deciding what to do with technology that could tip the balance among people and governments who take their religious and political differences very seriously. Given that, I thought there might be some relevance,” Dan said sarcastically.
“You found something in Stephen’s files that could do that?” Trish said. “What is it?” she asked, while Father Michael focused his gaze on Dan.
Dan wasn’t sure how to answer. Silence prevailed until he turned toward Father Michael and said solemnly, “Stephen told me that his genetics research revealed a teleology in physics that contributed to the formation of life. In other words, the properties of physics were established in such a way as to guide the formation of life. Consequently, learning more about biology also revealed something about physics. He was researching this with Viktor Weisman. And I may have the only copies of his files left. That means what I do with them has to be dead right.”
“And you hoped Stephen’s files would have information on this that would help you decide what to do?” Father Michael said.
Quiet again prevailed as Trish looked at Dan. She looked disappointed. Although she didn’t say anything, she didn’t have to. Dan knew what she was thinking. With all the danger they had faced together, he still hadn’t been completely honest with her.
Avoiding her gaze, Dan turned to Father Michael and said, “Stephen also said that he believed that
science, as deadly as it can be, progressed in a manner that kept history on track, kept humanity from destroying itself even while horrific things were happening, and that his discoveries could do that, too. What do you think of that?”
“It does seem that just as everything could collapse, something comes about to prevent it. Fate’s hidden hand, or something more than that, applies the right touch at the right time,” Father Michael answered.
“Only I don’t get the luxury of being just an observer to it this time.”
“No, you don’t. How does it feel to be the potential caretaker for humanity after wanting to withdraw from it for so long?”
“About as crappy as you would think,” Dan answered.
“Now what will you do?” Trish asked softly in a voice that sought to reassure.
“I’m not sure. Definitely try not to repeat the errors of my past,” Dan said.
Looking at Father Michael, Dan said, “Can I talk privately with you for a moment?”
“In the confessional?”
“The end of the pew over there is good,” Dan said.
“Go ahead,” Trish said to both of them.
“What’s on your mind?” Father Michael said once they were seated.
Dan was tempted to reply, You mean other than all the other little stuff we’ve discussed? but said instead, “I don’t want to sound crazy, but I’ve had this halting feeling lately of being stalked, but not by anything human. It feels powerful and threatening. I can consider the possibility of believing in God and definitely don’t believe in the devil. What do you think’s going on in my mind? Is stress getting to me? Without breaking confidentiality of others, have others said things like this to you, and what do you advise them? I need to know what to think about myself as I decide whether I can trust my judgment.”
“Well, each situation is different. In your case, for a long time, your beliefs seemed settled. Now they are apparently in play. Perhaps the bystanders have decided to get involved and what you’re experiencing is a battle for your soul. If so, you might want to think about the consequences of that and what you can do to influence the outcome,” Father Michael said solemnly.
