"Stories of Science, History & Mystery"
Chapter IV: Good Intentions
«Ein Teil von jener Kraft, die stets das Böse will, und stets das Gute schafft.»
«A part of that power which would the Evil ever do, and ever does the Good.»
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Mephistoles in Faust
April 2011
1.
Barely a year had passed since their first meeting in Scotland, but they were almost set for implementing their grand experiment. Chris decided to effectively buy the church in Saint-Genis-Pouilly through his family's charitable foundation. The French government was in dire straits when it came to its finances, and thus private charitable funds were welcome in managing historical sites.
Permanent access to the site proved crucial. Though the intended message was supposed to arrive in the past, the laser still had to be set up correctly to focus the message on the right spot; a task, that could be done in the present time. This took a lot of tweaking, even for someone of Daniele's caliber. Moreover, even in the time travel experiments, a majority of the radiation would impact the church in the present time. In order to avoid damage to the structure, shielding equipment had to be put in place.
Setting up the far infrared laser at the CERN facility proved to be even more of a challenge. There were no scientific reasons for doing so, so they effectively had to make it up. The project also had to be financed by a science foundation. Luckily, Liz had some contacts in the Russian science foundation to rubber stamp a ghost project. The money for the laser and equipment came from a trust Chris had set up in Luxembourg. Since the project had already been approved, and supposedly peer reviewed, no-one asked questions thereafter. The fact that the value of the equipment that they wheeled in vastly surpassed the grant money from the science foundation should have raised eyebrows, but everyone was too busy with their own gadgets to notice.
There was a lot of excitement at CERN about the upcoming campaigns. Could the Higgs boson already be discovered before the summer? The conditions were not optimal yet, but many were hopeful. Liz had been involved in particle physics for 13 years now, more than a third of her life. Her former PhD advisor was basically guaranteed to receive the Nobel Prize for his contributions. This should have been a crowning achievement; yet paradoxically, she had lost almost all interest.
The possibility of time travel, though yet unproven, was just a completely different premise. As Chris had aptly put it «They will populate the particle zoo with another species - the Higgs boson - but we will change history!»
Even so, she was conflicted about the implications of what they were doing. Some might say that they were tampering with history. Also, the methods were far from ethical. Destroying all copies of Garganov's book, lying about the research project, and using a foundation as cover for access to the church. This was all slippery slope territory for allegedly doing good. Still, the end seemed to justify the means. It was important to know whether time travel was possible or not; and it was probably best if they were the first to know. It was clear that they had to keep it a secret.
The night when message 1 was transmitted was cloudy; it had been raining for days. Liz and Daniele were frantically working in their cub to check and re-check that all their equipment was working. It was always the most unnerving aspect of the work. One had no control of the beamline, and was just waiting for the experiment to commence. Meanwhile, one's own equipment might just stop working at the critical moment, and so no data would be collected. They had backup equipment for almost everything, again due to the generosity of the Harrison trust fund.
Finally, the beamline was up, and protons were being crashed into each other at practically light speed. Tiny black holes emerged under Geneva. Daniele started his carefully crafted experiment sequence. Everything had to work for a full sixty minutes now. No problems with the beamline, no problems with the lasers, no problems with the delay generators. Literally a thousand pieces had to work in unison.
After half an hour, Liz received an email from Chris that the message was visible in the church. His actual message read «The Eagle has landed» Not a very original message, and certainly one to arouse suspicion. Then again, better than «The time experiment is working». Chris loved his World War 2 movies, so it was his choice. So far, so good. Liz hoped that the message also made it to the 1530's.
When the sixty minutes were up, it felt like an anticlimax. Had the experiment worked? When would they know? The initial assessment of the ATLAS team, in charge of finding the Higg's boson, was pessimistic. Naturally, the mood at the institute was deflated. The detailed analysis would take weeks, so no one would know for sure. After another hour, where Liz pretended to do data analysis on the particle physics experiments, there were still no news from Chris.
«What do you think, should we call it a night?» Liz asked Daniele.
«Yeah, let's get some sleep.» Daniele said.
As they exited the CERN complex at 5 am, suddenly a phone call from Chris.
«Hi, what's up?» Liz asked.
«Come over, I need to show you something.» Chris said in a hushed voice.
When Daniele and Liz got to the church, they could not see anything special. It was still the same Romanesque building they remembered. Chris stood by the entrance, and waved them to come in.
They quickly proceeded to the archway in the crypt section of the church. Only the priest and other religious leaders would have access to this part, meaning that the message would go to a select audience. The engraving would have appeared on the central stone almost 500 years ago.
Liz shone the light on the archway, but no engraving was visible. Instead, they noticed that a part of the stone had been chiseled away. It was exactly the spot where the message should have appeared. It might suggest that someone removed the message, not wanting others to read it. Still, that was hardly a proof. It might also just be a coincidence.
«Is that it?» Liz asked.
«Come over this way» Chris begged them. He walked over to another part of the crypt.
Liz looked at the engravings on the wall. She could not see anything of note. Chris then pointed to the ground. They were standing on a tombstone. The epitaph read «Foy et éternity. Hubert Villon 1503-1580»
It was the exact phrase they had used in the message. In fact, the words foy and éternity had been misspelt on purpose. While French was not a codified language at the time, it was still very unlikely that someone had used exactly the same words with exactly the same misspellings.
«Wow» Daniele said «This actually worked!»
«Unbelievable» Liz said.
The friends shared a moment of glory.
2.
Chris wanted to find out more about priest Villon. He did some research in the national archives in France. Daniele went down to the Vatican to sort through church writings. The team could verify a few facts, such as the birth and death dates. They also found out that he was a monk in the Benedectine order prior to his ordainment as a priest. He obviously had no offspring, at least no legitimate children. There were other Villon family members in the region. A brother owned a mill in the nearby village of Crozet. After 1600, however, the family seemed to have largely disappeared from the area.
In some ways, the team had reasons to be happy. They had apparently successfully communicated a message to someone in the past. Liz was also relieved that there had been no repercussions. Their tampering with the laws of the Universe had gone unnoticed. Yet, that also left the possibility that the experiment had in fact failed. It was basically a question of probability. Yes, it was likely that it worked; but they could not be sure.
For Chris, the disappointment was of a different nature. «Imagine, you had received a personal message from the Almighty Himself to spare your life. How would that affect you?»
«Maybe he was just an ordinary man. You can't give superpowers to someone just by one one divine moment.» Daniele contended.
«I would at least have expected him to become a local leader or go on a pilgrimage. He lived until a mature age. He had time to make a difference.»
«He might have been very secretive» Liz offered. «The message was intended for him. Maybe he never shared it with anyone, and took it to the grave with him?»
Chris grew pensive. «The grave, of course!» he exclaimed.
It took Liz a second to catch on. «You want to open the tomb?» she asked.
«That is sacrilege!» Daniele protested. Though he was by no means a practicing Catholic, it went against his very nature.
Liz did not have such qualms. It was just a dead body after all. «He is long gone. Does it make a difference if it is a French priest or an Egyptian mummy?» she asked.
Daniele had to concede that his argument did not stand. But he would not participate in a grave digging expedition. «Call me a mystic, but I don't want to wake evil spirits.» he said.
As Daniele had decided to sit this one out, Liz and Chris were left to deal with the project by themselves. It was harder than they imagined. Daniele was their trusty and resourceful engineer. The guy for the hands-on stuff. The theoretical physicist and history/philosophy enthusiast were a different breed.
Luckily, youtube videos came to the rescue. They figured out how to leverage the tombstone with appropriate crow bars. Even so, they had damaged the tombstone and the surrounding stones considerably. It was not a polished job let's say. Later, Daniele berated them for not having used suction cups; but Chris scoled him:
«That was your job. We did what we could.»
Inside the grave, they found a skeleton without a trace of organic matter. Everything had decomposed.
«No book I guess» Chris said with some disappointment.
But under the skeleton, they made an important find. There were about a hundred clay plates that had been neatly put in place.
«We have hit the jackpot!» Chris said.
And indeed, the team would soon have access to the inner thoughts of a person that lived 500 years ago, and that they had communicated with.
Liz was surprised by this turn of events. Again, everything had worked out almost too perfectly. Imagine Villon had written a book, she thought. How did they always get so lucky? In fact, it did not really make sense.
«Don't you think it's strange that he wrote his diary on clay plates; just so that we could read them?» she said.
«I don't think so.» Daniele said. «He was probably inspired by our message etched in stone.»
«Paper was actually very valuable in those days, while clay plates were much more accessible.» Chris added.
Those were valid points. Priest Villon had communicated in the same way in which he received the message.
«Fair enough. But if you communicate with the Almighty, would prayer not do? Can't God hear you? Would that not suggest that God is not really all powerful?»
«Maybe God did not respond to his prayers, and so he put it in writing. We emphasized the importance of eternity. He wanted his message to be conserved forever. Writing on clay tables probably seemed like the obvious thing to do.»
3.
Daniele catalogued Villon's notes, and made a translation into English. The diary revealed a conscientious man who belabored many evils of his time. He described the suffering of the simple peasant; the unpredictable weather that ravaged their harvests, the illnesses that befell them, and the injustices that were committed against them. He foremost spoke out against the cruelty of the rulers, who were only interested in warfare; and of course the avarice of the clergy. He thanked God for sparing his life, but felt powerless to fight the oppressors. Not receiving another message, he grew increasingly desperate.
Liz knew that the Middle Ages were a pretty wretched time, but to hear the suffering from an actual person in such a personal way was very moving. It was also tragic that Villon's mental health had progressively deterioriated.
«O anime affannate (O wearied souls!)» Daniele said, citing Dante.
«Seems like we messed up his life a bit.» Chris said.
Liz smelled Chris' ulterior motive. «Are you implying that we send another message?» she asked reproachfully.
«I think we should help the guy a little.» Chris suggested. «Give him another message to put his soul to rest.»
«Don't forget the law of unintended consequences.» Liz warned.
«Yes, but when we sent the first message, we did not even know who would receive it. How could we anticipate what would happen? Now we have detailed information on his thoughts. It seems to me like a very targeted intervention could do a lot of good.» Chris pleaded.
«I don't doubt the good intentions in all of this, but we must realize that our actions will have consequences. Some of those outcomes might be very beneficial. Others might be catastrophic.» she said.
Yet in her heart, Liz was always on the side of the little guy. Her protests were waning, and she knew she would cave eventually. «Whatever we choose to do, let's carefully think this through at least.» she said.
They would have another month before the Higg's boson experiments would be stopped for the year. This set them a deadline by which a new message would have to be ready.
They had long debated possible scenarios. Daniele hard argued that they should inspire Villon to help the poor. Chris had thought that such a message could be dangerous, because it would make Villon into a revolutionary character. One who would lead the peasants in a revolt. The retribution by the nobility might then cause war and annihilation of the Villon clan. Surely that was not what they wanted?
«A revolution spills blood. This is France, remember?» Liz said.
«But then, what do you give the guy? Some bullshit promises?» Daniele complained.
Ouch, Liz thought. That was uncalled for. They all knew that Chris liked to bullshit people a little, but it was generally in good humor.
«Look Daniele, I actually agree with you. We should give Villon something. I had thought of giving him the location of a silver mine that was only discovered 200 odd years later. This way, I was hoping he would use the bounty to do some good.» Chris said.
«Great idea!» Daniele said, jumping on it.
«But we have no idea what he will do with those riches.» Liz protested. She felt that it was dangerous to shower that much money and power onto someone. What gave them the right to do this? They were not God.
«By giving him money, he does not have to take it from someone else in an uprising. It's no longer a zero sum game.» Chris argued. «My family hit the lottery a long while ago, due to their connections to the English throne. Whose fault or doing was that? I guess we just got lucky. Why shouldn't someone else like Villon benefit from a similar strike of good fortune?»
Turning to Liz, Daniele said «You said yourself that you were touched by Villon's diary. He was maybe not a saint, but he seemed to be a decent man. I would trust him to do the right thing.»
Liz had lost the argument, as she knew all too well before.
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© Credit for the art work goes to my children Emile and Winnie. All rights of this work are protected.