Asimov's SF, July 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “He was aboard the ship,” Dee admitted, “but his nightmares were his own—Tom Digges had a better dream by far, and so did Drake, although Drake still will not admit that his was a dream induced by the narcotizing effect of breathing ether. At any rate, Field will be unready to believe that your mysterious apparitions are angels rather than demons.”

  “I'm a literate man, Doctor,” Kelley said, “and I'm not stupid. I can't explain how I have the gift of seeing into the stone's darkness when others cannot, but I do have it—and, thus far, I know of no one else who has. The voices are real, and I believe them when they say that they emanate from the realm between the stars: the realm of the angels. I'm a Copernican, as you are; I've tried to read the Description of the Celestial Orbs that Tom Digges published, following his father's discoveries; although much of it was beyond my understanding, I understand that the Earth turns on its axis, so that the sun only appears to move around it, and that all the planets orbit the sun. I know that the sun is but one star in a vast host, whose members are very far apart, and—thanks to the stone—I know that the spaces between them are not empty; in the same fashion that God has wasted no worlds, so he has not wasted the spaces in between. The quintessential realm is populated by angels, who need not assume material presence of our sort at all—and, when they do, are hardly more than vaporous shadows—but who have form and structure of their own, in another kind of matter. I have been given a simple proof of the truth of what I say to present to you, Master, although it will require some hours even for a mathematician of your prodigious imagination to assess its merit.”

  Dee seemed startled by all of this, perhaps more so by the fine speech than the offer of proof. “What proof ?” he demanded, gruffly.

  “I understand, Doctor,” Kelley continued, growing in confidence, although his head felt lighter still as he let the ideas fill it, “that you and Leonard Digges were frustrated in your hope that the Copernican system would provide a perfect mathematical account of the movement of the planets about the sun, without any need for Ptolemaic epicycles. I am instructed to tell you that the flaw rests in your assumption that the planetary orbits are circular. In fact, they are elliptical. If you take that into account, you will be able to explain away the seeming anomalies in the orbits, see the elegance of the system, and deduce the mathematical law of affinity.”

  Dee was manifestly shocked now—again, Kelley thought, not so much by the actual content of what he had been told as by the fact that a man of his sort should say such things at all. “You're right in your judgment, Doctor,” Kelley admitted. “I'm not much of a philosopher, and don't know the full significance of what I've just said—but I have it on the authority of an angel that you will.”

  Dee was still nonplussed, but made haste to collect himself. “Giordano is a firm believer in the Copernican system and the principle of plenitude,” he murmured. “He left Paris because the Aristotelians who had harried him out of Italy made life equally uncomfortable for him there—but he has never extended the principle of plenitude so far as to argue that the spaces between the worlds must be as full of life as the worlds themselves. He has atomist leanings, and has assumed in the past that worlds are the proper objects of Creation, and that what lies between them is a void. Given that the crew of my ether-ship proved that the ether is breathable, however, albeit disturbing, then space must be a plenum rather than a void, and the principle of plenitude would then suggest ... I cannot see, though—even if the principle were admissible—how any inhabitants of those spaces might be made of another kind of matter.”

  “According to my understanding of the angel Aristocles,” Kelley told him, now feeling almost intoxicated by the tide of odd cognition, “the matter we can see and touch is but the tenth part of all the matter in the universe, the rest being hidden from our eyes, even with the aid of telescopes.”

  “What do you know about telescopes?” Dee was quick to say.

  “That cat's long out of the bag, Master,” Kelley said. “There's hardly anyone in England who does not know that you and Digges equipped the navy and the Muscovy Company with such devices in secret, to give them an advantage over the Spaniards and the Portuguese. The secrets of navigation contained in your forbidden books are likely a lot safer, because common men could not make head nor tail of them, but there's not a glassmaker in the realm who isn't playing games with combinations of magnifying lenses. We all put our fingers to our lips when we speak of it, especially in the company of foreigners, but everyone knows that the Spaniards now have such devices too.”

  Dee frowned, but shrugged his shoulders, admitting that his protest had been a mere token of pretense. “You're right,” he said. Then he made a visible effort to collected himself. “It will take me hours to manipulate the numbers,” he continued, “but if your proof is sound ... Tom Digges wrote me a letter only last month regarding the mathematics of the parabola, determined by his experiments in ballistics; he suggested that there might be parabolas elsewhere in nature, but ellipses are another matter ... if you're right, it might demonstrate that your ether-dwellers possess exotic knowledge. Have you any other to offer, before I set to work?”

  “No, sir,” Kelley said, warily, “but I've been promised more. You'll be in a better position after this evening's seance to assess what you might yet be able to learn—and to judge who else ought to be let in on the secret.”

  “If what you mean by the secret is that there's a new war supposedly raging in Heaven,” Dee said, “that cat's out of the bag, too—your wife told me.”

  “No, Master,” Kelley said. “The secret's far more elaborate than that. Did she also tell you that England is threatened by invasion?”

  Dee only shook his head at that, refusing to be surprised. “No,” he said, “but I've heard that Drake is convinced that an invasion has already taken place on the far side of the world. Have your angels told you about a world inside the moon? Have they mentioned Great Fleshcores?”

  Kelley could see now that John Dee was fighting hard to suppress anxieties of his own, and was genuinely uncertain as to what to believe. If the mathematician's assumption that the planetary orbits were circular really were to be proven false by a few hours’ calculations, he would surely be persuaded that Kelley's stone and powder did have magic in them.

  “According to the angels, Master,” Kelley said, softly, “it was a miracle that all five of your crewmen survived their fall to Earth—but it was divine justice too. Had the ether-ship not been sabotaged, it would have been more probable, not less, that the five men inside it would have perished.”

  “I had thought until a little while ago that only three survived,” Dee said, quietly. “But if Drake can be trusted, Raleigh is in the Pacific islands, and if the rumors that float upriver are true, de Vere is in London again, although he rarely goes abroad for fear of being recognized ... but there'll be time to discuss the matter further tonight. You must be hungry and weary, Master Kelley. Come into the kitchen now.”

  “Brother Cuthbert found me a bed last night, and a good meal,” Kelley told him, as they went back into the corridor. “I must admit, though, that I'm glad to find a Dominican already in residence here. I'd have worried, otherwise, about the risk of bringing a Catholic into your home.”

  Dee did not get a chance to reply. The people gathered at the kitchen table—who included a woman Kelley assumed to be Dee's wife, as well as his own wife and the two Dominicans—had obviously become impatient waiting for them.

  “In the Vatican, Master Kelley,” Giordano Bruno said, “the cardinals are obliged to play the game of Devil's Advocate before elevating anyone to sainthood. What Brother Cuthbert and your wife have told me has intrigued me, but I cannot resist the temptation to play the game. How do you know that the angels which speak to you are unfallen, and are not the servants of Satan?”

  “I dare say that men of my station make easy prey for the Father of Lies, and his agents,” Kelley retorted, wishing that he could muster as much conv
iction in his words as he had in his soul, and wishing that the dire sensation in his head would let him be, “but I can only say that I cannot doubt what I have been told; it is an undeniable revelation. If it turns out to be false, I dare say the only cost will be my own eternal damnation. I believe, given that balance of penalty and reward, that my angels are entitled to a fair hearing.”

  “I would not wish it otherwise,” said Bruno, glancing at Dee with a spark in his eye. “I can hardly wait.”

  * * * *

  4

  Before John Dee locked himself away with his books and his quills to make his calculations, in response to the suggestion that Kelley had given him, he sent a manservant into London. The servant had instructions to find Sir Francis Drake, if he could, and tell him quietly that Master Dee would appreciate a visit from him, begging him to exercise the utmost discretion in the meantime.

  Kelley watched the man leave with mixed feelings, fully convinced of the desirability of his carrying the message, but also painfully conscious of the fact that he was the only manservant Dee had. The mathematician's sons were mere infants, Bruno and Cuthbert were monks, and the house was otherwise full of women—Dee's mother, wife and daughters, his own wife, and two maidservants. If the Church Militant were to come calling, there would not be the least possibility of offering any defense. The mysterious savior who had released him from Hungerford jail might still be watching over him as best he could, but he must also have other matters demanding his attention, else he would presumably have stayed with the men he had saved.

  While Dee worked, Giordano Bruno was very enthusiastic to interrogate Kelley regarding the background to the statements he had made in the library. The Dominican did not even know as much as common English rumor-mongers about Dee's ill-fated ether-ship. It was obvious that Dee had complete trust in the Italian scholar, but Kelley felt obliged to be circumspect, and resolved to tell him no more than any tavern rumor-monger would have been glad to let him know. He went outside in the hope of clearing his head, but Bruno followed him into the kitchen garden behind the house. When Kelley leaned on the rickety fence, looking in the direction of the river, Bruno did likewise.

  “How did you come to lose your ears, Master Kelley?” Bruno asked.

  “They were severed by the hangman,” Kelley told him. “I was charged with forgery. I was guilty. I've had a long career as a faker, ever since I was apprenticed as a boy to an apothecary. He was a faker too, but his fakery was licensed. Mine overstrayed that boundary.”

  “But you're not faking now?” Bruno persisted. “You really do believe that you can talk to angels?”

  “Fakery becomes a habit,” Kelley replied, so deflated and sober he almost wished that his angel-gifted giddiness might increase again to an intoxicant degree. “Charlatans often fall victim to their own deceptions, as I've had some opportunity to observe. I cannot doubt that I have had congress with angels—but the fact that I cannot doubt it might only indicate that I am victim to delusion. I've always nursed the ambition to be an honest magician, and now that I seem to be one, it might be that the force of my ambition has inhibited my judgment.”

  “There are powerful men on the continent who'd be glad to burn you alive merely for harboring that ambition,” Bruno told him, catching his somber mood, “whether it had borne fruit or not. There's pressure on the Holy Father even to declare the principle of plenitude heretical, although that's a matter of factional in-fighting rather than committed faith. Such items of belief have become banners behind which rivals rally, no more meaningful than heraldic coats of arms—but people will likely die for them, as tension builds within Christendom. We live in turbulent times, which are unpromising for false magicians and true ones alike.”

  “There are men in England who'd be glad to bring back the burnings,” Kelley admitted, dolefully, “in spite of Queen Jane's declarations of tolerance.”

  “And yet, Master Kelley,” Bruno said, pensively, “there's a sense in which you and John Field have more in common with one another than you have with John Dee. Dee, if I judge him right, is a Sadducist, who is deeply skeptical regarding the reality of any and all spiritual beings save the Lord Himself—and I suspect that he has doubts even about the Lord. You speak of angels while Field rants about demons, but you are, at least, speaking the same language.”

  “And you belong to an Order whose reason for existence is to root our heretics by any means possible,” Kelley pointed out. “Which makes you strange company for Doctor Dee the Protestant Sadducist, does it not?”

  “Sir Philip Sidney provided me with an introduction to Doctor Dee,” the Dominican replied, equably. “My intention is go on to the Countess of Pembroke's estate when the occasion presents itself, where I've been promised security. You're keeping company with a Dominican yourself, without seeming to reckon him an adversary—or is that simply a matter of the enemy of your enemy being your friend?” Bruno nodded his head toward the kitchen door as he spoke; Brother Cuthbert had gone to sleep in one of the kitchen chairs, having suffered more from the day's exertions than Kelley

  “It was a matter of convenience when I made his acquaintance,” Kelley confessed, “but I feel an obligation now. Thanks to me, he was arrested and thrown in jail, and then escaped. He returned good for evil by taking me to a safe haven last night. He's a marked man now, thanks to me—but he has nothing to do with the mission the angels entrusted to me. Nor do you.”

  “I do now,” Bruno stated, flatly. “For what it may be worth, I follow a doctrine of tolerance myself, although it has made me suspect within my own order. I don't believe that fire is the best medicine for heresy—and I'm certain that the spread of Protest has proved my point. I'm no longer minded to believe, though, that my enemies’ enemies are my friends. The world is a deal more complicated than that, I fear.”

  “Agreed,” said Kelley, knowing full well that the Dominican was prompting him to tell him more about exactly how complicated the world really was.

  “Brother Cuthbert is racked by his conscience,” Bruno said, “unable to get rid of the suspicion that it was a demon who freed him from Hungerford jail.”

  “Whatever it was,” Kelley said, equably, “Brother Cuthbert would be most unwise to admit that suspicion to Field's men—or to his Romanist confessor.”

  “Agreed,” said Bruno. “We all have too many enemies nowadays, even among our friends. We hardly need invaders from the moon, or beyond—although, if we are to face such invaders, I suppose it would be as well if we had angels on our side. If there really is a new war in Heaven, though, I suppose we must have enemies among the angels, too. Is the war a new rebellion of the fallen, do you know, or has some new Lucifer sprung up to repeat the folly of the old?” Brother Cuthbert had obviously told Bruno what Kelley had said to him in the jail.

  “I cannot tell,” Kelley said, uneasily. “I don't understand much of what the angels say, but I don't think that it's simply a matter of revolt. Perhaps there are nations of angels, just as there are nations of men, which feel the need to go to war even though they all believe that they are serving God. As above, so below—isn't that what mystics say?”

  “If the principle of plenitude were strictly applied,” Bruno said, nodding his head in recognition of the occultist's motto, “I suppose that one might find warring nations in every capsule creation—even one that might extend through the spaces between the stars. One might have hoped, I suppose, that ours was the only Creation unlucky enough to have suffered a Fall, and that all the others were happy, peaceful, and united ... but that was not the vision that Digges, Drake, and Field were gifted under the influence of the ether, according to the accounts I've lately had of Doctor Dee's experiment. They seem to have glimpsed an Empire as proud and hopeful as the Church of Rome, and much vaster, but teetering on the brink of its own Protest. As above, so below, as you rightly observe ... and so, perhaps, ad infinitum.”

  “You shall know more tonight,” Kelley promised him, a little sulkily, “if Docto
r Dee gives you permission to be present when I speak to the angels.”

  “You would refuse permission, if it were up to you?” Bruno retorted. “Well, I suppose I cannot blame you for that, given what I am—but I shall be there nevertheless, and I hope that Master Dee will permit Brother Cuthbert to be there too. His curiosity and ignorance are more of a threat to you now than his enlightenment could ever be.”

  Kelley knew that, and acknowledged it before the Italian finally turned back to go into the house. Kelley remained there a little longer, still staring at the stretch of the Thames that was visible between two of the sheds full of fishing-tackle. As the twilight faded, the ferrymen plying the river increased the urgency of their rowing, but the barge-horses hauling cargoes with or against the current maintained their own stately pace, seemingly immune to anxiety or persuasion. Kelley went back inside himself, to search for his wife. He felt in desperate need of loyal and innocent company for a while—but even Ann, given the circumstances, could not think of anything else.

  “We should never have come here,” she told him. “We should have gone our own way, among our own kind. It's not for the likes of us to heed the summons of angels.”

  “When the angels issue commands,” Kelley told her, not for the first time, “obedience is not a matter of choice.” But he saw by the way she looked at him that even her loyalty, let alone her innocence, could no longer be taken for granted. She could no more believe that he was under an irresistible compulsion than he could deny it—but she had got the stone and the powder here safely, without requiring the intervention of any ambiguous superhuman assistant, and that was something for which he had to be wholly and heartily thankful.