The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [91]
“Tell us, Monsieur,” Philippe said. “This may be our last night for such stories. Tell us your tale.”
Voltaire was silent for the space of fifty breaths, then he sighed. “We could not make them listen, of course, and were nearly arrested for trying. Mr. Heath, a student of Sir Isaac and my companion, hit upon a desperate plan. The comet, we knew, must be guided to London by some sort of attractor, a device with an affinity for that hurtling stone. If we could find it, Mr. Heath thought we might possibly reverse it.”
“Reverse it?” Franklin heard himself say. “You mean hurl the comet back into the heavens? That was only days, perhaps hours, before it struck. It was an impossible task.”
“We did not think we could hurl it back into the void,” Voltaire said, “but even a small deflection, a small alteration of course, might have landed it in the sea.” He clasped his hands as if in prayer. “We could think of no other plan.”
“But you did not find it.”
“No, we did. Mr. Heath had the resources of Newton at his disposal, and made a detector. We found the device. But it was ringed with French spies, and they took us up. They clapped irons on us and put us in a galley bound for Barbados.”
“Barbados?”
“We never reached it, of course. The comet fell, and the waves came. It was all darkness and motion for us, and at last water. The hold was filling, and a jailer with a heart tried to set as many of us free as he could. I was one, but before we could reach Mr. Heath, the ship was shattered. I had his hand; I felt him go down. I had the jailer's keys, but could not find the lock on his chains—and then fear took me, and to save my miserable life I left him. I clung to wreckage and ended on the shore of Normandy, almost dead.” He shook his head. “I am no hero. I am a coward of the worst sort.”
“You lived to fight another day,” Oglethorpe said gently.
“You would not have done it. You would have sunk to the very bottom with him, given your last breath to save him. I did not.”
Franklin pushed a stick into the flames. “I knew Heath. He would have been furious if you had died in a vain effort to save him. And no man here can say what he would have done—only what he might hope to do, which is not the same thing.”
“That was well said,” Oglethorpe replied.
Voltaire looked back at Franklin, and this time their eyes met, not in contest but in commiseration. Then the Frenchman nodded.
“And remember what your mentor Leibniz was wont to say,” Franklin added. “This world is the best of all possible worlds, and so what happened, naturally was for the best.”
That drew a bit of laughter, and even Voltaire grinned again. “I once bitterly remonstrated with that philosophy,” he said. “It is a philosophy well suited to men of wealth and privilege, yes, and ill suited to those who daily suffer in this life. And yet, at times, I understand it. If things could not have been better—if they cannot be better—then why waste the effort of remorse or of hoping for a better future day?”
“And now I see you are still a poet,” Philippe said.
Voltaire did not answer, but stared into the fire as if he saw any better day consumed in its flames.
“Well, gentlemen,” Oglethorpe told them all, “I will bid you good night. A little sleep, and then I have a march to make. I've asked King Philippe and Governor Nairne to give me the northern command, and they have been kind enough to flatter me with it. By tomorrow, I shall be carrying the standard of Mars to our enemy.”
“Good night, sir,” the king said, “and godspeed. You are our truest knight.”
Oglethorpe and his men reached the northernmost redoubt before first light. He was struck by the incredible calm of the morning, in the face of what he knew must come. Since the invaders landed from the airships, there had been a few minor skirmishes—it seemed that the Indians from the West were as undisciplined and overeager for battle as his own—but for the most part there had been silence from them. That wouldn't last much longer.
Their first target would have to be the towers