Which was very nicely expressed, Galileo thought—both to affirm Urban’s angelica dottrina and at the same time assert the freedom Galileo had been given to discuss things ex suppositione.

Riccardi approved the book without having read the whole of the finished version. With an endless number of small problems and delays, the publisher in Florence began the work of printing a thousand copies.

WITH THE DIALOGO FINISHED AND IN PUBLICATION, Galileo was happy to see an invitation to a banquet come from the Grand Duchess Christina. She had not been sending these to him as often as before, and when they had come Galileo had been too harried to be pleased. Now he was happy to accept and attend.

In the antechamber to the great dining salon of the Medici palazzo, Galileo made his way through the crowd of courtiers to the drinks table and was given a tall gold goblet filled with new wine. He greeted Picchena and all the rest of his acquaintances at the court, and was circulating and talking with them when the Grand Duchess Christina, as distinguished and regal as ever, called him over to the open French doors leading out to the terrace and formal garden. “Signor Galileo, please come here. I want you to meet a new friend of mine.”

The friend was Hera of Io, from Jupiter.

Galileo clapped both hands to his chest; hopefully this resembled his usual flamboyant court mannerisms enough that it did not look too bizarre, because he was helpless to stop himself—he simply had to press down on his pounding heart, to keep it from breaking his ribs and flying free. It was definitely her, right out of his dreams: a woman quite tall but otherwise ordinary enough, fair-haired, fine featured, well dressed in the style of the court, a bit stout in such raiment. She had the same intelligent look in her eye as always, now curious to see his reaction to her presence, both concerned and amused—a very familiar look.

“Well met, my lady,” he managed to croak as he took up and kissed her offered hand. It felt chill.

“It’s my honor,” she said. “I read your Sidereus Nuncius when I was young, and thought it very interesting.”

Here in Italy she called herself Countess Alessandra Bocchineri Buonamici. She was Sestilia Galilei’s long-lost older sister, she said, and the diplomat Giovanfrancesco Buonamici’s wife. Here she spoke Tuscan with all the fluency of a Florentine, her voice richer and more vibrant than the internal translator’s had been. Galileo mouthed some typical phrases of courtly small talk, feeling Christina’s eye on them. Knowing his confusion, Alessandra did most of the talking. He learned that she spoke French and Latin, and played the spinet, and wrote poems, and corresponded with her friends in Paris and London. Count Buonamici was her third husband, she informed him; the first two had died when she was quite a bit younger. He could only nod. It was a common story; the plague in the last decade had killed half the people of Milan, and almost as many everywhere else. People died here. But not on Jupiter—

“I will seat you two next to each other at the banquet,” Christina declared, happy to see them hitting it off.

“Many thanks, Your Beautiful Highness,” Galileo said, and bowed.

When Christina had left them alone in the doorway, Galileo swallowed hard and said, “You remind me of someone?”

Her oak-colored eyes crinkled at the corners. “I should think so,” she said. “Perhaps you can escort me out to the terrace. I would like to take the air before we eat.”

“Of course.” Galileo felt a strange kind of pleasure growing in him, fearful but romantic, uncanny but familiar. To know she was real—it made him shudder.

Out on the terrace there were some other couples, and the two of them talked in distracted semicoherence about Florence and Venice, Tasso and Ariosto. He spoke for Ariosto’s warmth while she defended Tasso’s depth, and neither were surprised to find they came down on opposite sides of the question. Her husband had just been assigned to a posting in Germany, she said; she would have to leave quite soon.

“I understand,” he said uncertainly.

She asked about his work, and Galileo described the problems he was having with the publication of his book.

“Perhaps you could delay publication?” she asked. “Just by a year or two, until things calm down?”

“No,” Galileo said. “The printing has already begun. And I have to publish. The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve already waited fourteen years, or even forty.”

“Yes,” she said. “And yet.”

A crease appeared between her eyebrows as she considered him. She took his hand and led him around a corner of the palazzo, to a long bench against the wall in the dark. She asked him to sit down, and then reached out and touched him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Look

I do not wish, Your Excellency, to engulf myself inadvertently in a boundless sea from which I might never get back to port, nor in trying to solve one difficulty do I wish to give rise to a hundred more, as I fear may have already happened in sailing but this little way from shore.

—GALILEO, Il SAGGIATORE

HE STOOD ON THE FRACTURED ICE, under the livid gas giant. Hera stood beside him, looking uncharacteristically abashed. “Sorry to intrude like that,” she said, “but you went away without warning.”

“Cartophilus took me away. He said it looked like I was in distress.”

“We all were,” she said. “We still are.” She gestured up at writhing Jupiter. “I need your help.”

“Good,” he said. “Because I need yours.”

The gas giant was still roiling in the sky, great red spots all over it, many of them swirling into each other and casting off convoluted squiggling ribbons.

Hera said, “Aurora’s people have captured Ganymede and his group. She’s getting messages from Jupiter itself, she says, and because of them, she wants to take Ganymede physically up there, to Jupiter.”

“To Jupiter? But why?”

“That’s what I want your help to find out. At this point you appear to have a better understanding with Aurora than anyone else,” shooting a sharp glance at him. “All she’ll say to me is that we need to hurry if we want to be part of it. I thought you would want to be here, and as you had disappeared, I went to see.”

“I’m glad you did. It was good to see you there.” This was true beyond his ability to explain, even to himself.

She nodded and led him to her ship, which was where they had left it, on the ice outside the gate of Rhadamanthys. He climbed up after her and strapped himself into his chair. This place was like a room in his mind now, a closet where many memories from his past were housed, along with the conversations with Hera. Here he had seen the dark side of Jupiter, and its new crescent slicing into the starry black.

She tapped at her pad and said, “It seems you were right about the breakout of storms. Jupiter, or whatever lives in Jupiter, is upset. Aurora says we need to let it know that the attack on Europa was an aberration, a criminal act that we abhor. She says we must go there to make that clear. It’s responding to her now, and she says it appears to want to contact the mind of the one responsible for the …”

“For the damage,” Galileo suggested.

“Yes.” She shuddered, tapped on her pad, and the ship rose until they were pressed back hard into their chairs. “I guess it can do what it wants with him.”

“It might kill him.”