Authors: Cordy| Michael
Chapter
11.
Back in his quarters, Torino plugged the drive into his laptop. As he examined the contents, he felt little remorse for what had happened to Lauren Kelly and her husband. He had offered her the chance to collaborate and she had declined. Though he had not intended Bazin to harm the couple, it was vital that he learn what Lauren Kelly knew. Perversely, what had happened might even prove beneficial to the Church. With the woman silenced, it would be easier to protect the discovery outlined in the Voynich - assuming she had completed the translation. His greater concern was the Holy Father and others in the Curia. Until he had evidence, they would never condone what he was doing, especially his unholy alliance with Bazin.
On screen, the computer files documented most of the successes and failures on Lauren Kelly's tortuous path to decoding the Voynich. He read how, with Elizabeth Quinn's help, she had quickly discounted a complex polyalphabetic cipher and used her impressive breadth of linguistic knowledge to deduce that the text was a posterior synthetic language based on two existing languages. Torino had learnt this much from her talk at Yale but now he had the details.
Voynichese was apparently a hybrid of highly structured Latin and Mandarin Chinese, in which characters didn't just represent letters but whole words and phrases. The relevant letters of the Latin alphabet and the key Chinese symbols had then been transliterated into the unique characters used in the Voynich text, further disguising the blended language. Apart from this transliteration, however, the translated part of the manuscript contained no cipher. The use of Chinese tallied with Torino's research on Father Orlando Falcon. A favourite of Ignatius Loyola, Falcon had been sent on one of the first missions to China as a young Jesuit in the late 1540s.
Torino already knew from the Inquisition Archives that the author had possessed a phenomenal intellect; it was one of the reasons the Church had taken his claims so seriously, and why he had been punished so severely. Torino was equally impressed, however, by the depth of Dr Kelly's scholarship, and the counterintuitive way in which she had burrowed into the author's brilliant mind to unlock his story.
Or most of it.
Scanning the files, Torino found her verbatim translation of the Voynich story. It was even more vivid and terrifying than the synopsis had been - but it didn't include the remaining astrological section. And there was no mention of Father Orlando's radix or 'source'. In one of her earlier files Kelly had written:
From what I've learnt, I believe the final astrological section maycontain a series of compass bearings, geographical landmarks and starsigns. My creeping suspicion is that the more I discover the more I'll beforced to revise my assumptions about the document and itsmysteries . . .
What had she meant by that? Had she decided that the story was not an allegory but a chronicle of what its author had actually discovered? If so, had she since unravelled the final astrological section - and the map it might contain? It was tantalizingly inconclusive.
Cursing Bazin for failing to complete his task, he searched the rest of the files, but found no clear evidence that Lauren Kelly had yet deciphered the final section. Perhaps it was in the files that Bazin had been unable to download before he was interrupted. If so, Torino must claim it for the Church.
But how?
He wanted to rush out and order Bazin back to check the rest of her computer. But the Kelly house was now a crime scene and possibly under surveillance. As the Superior General of the Jesuits, he couldn't afford to be incriminated. He would have to be patient and bide his time until the right moment presented itself. He didn't feel patient, though. He felt as if a clock was ticking, counting down the seconds until his beloved Church either fulfilled its rightful destiny as God's sole ministry on Earth, or disappeared, dismissed as an obsolete relic.
Chapter
12.
Three weeks later
Death had brought them together. They had met at the funeral of a mutual friend in Boston, while he was at MIT and she was at Harvard. She had said later that she had taken an instant dislike to him, thought he was too physically confident, too sure of himself. Then they had begun to talk - really talk - and discovered that they had both recently lost a parent, she her father and he his mother.
Death had bonded them.
They agreed on little: she was religious and believed passionately in conservation, he was an atheist and had no qualms about working for Big Oil, but each loved the way the other thought. He also loved the nape of her neck and her smell. She loved his strength and the way he listened. Soon they loved each other. They joked that they were going to live for ever or die in the attempt. Nothing would separate them. Ever. If one got lost, the other would go to the ends of the Earth to find them.
Now Ross found himself staring into the darkness, gripped by panic, unable to find his soulmate. Lauren was lost to him.
Death threatened to separate them.
'Ross, Ross, Ross.'
His heart skipped. He could hear her calling to him in the dark. She was trapped and needed his help. He had to find her and do whatever was necessary to rescue her . . .
'Ross.'
A hand on his shoulder shook him gently.
'Ross, wake up.'
Ross opened his eyes, and when he saw her his first emotion was relief: it had been a nightmare. Lauren was fine. She was there.
But it wasn't Lauren. It was her assistant, Zeb Quinn. The sickening sadness flooded back.
'Ross, it's about three o'clock in the afternoon. I let you sleep for a few hours after lunch while I watched over Lauren. I'm off back to Yale now but your dad and Lauren's mum are coming up soon. Mr Greenbloom, the neurosurgeon, said he wants to talk with you all. You okay with that?'
'Yes.' He rubbed his eyes and stood up beside Lauren's bed. He was wearing jeans and a faded sweatshirt. Dazed with sleep, he checked his watch. 'Thanks, Zeb. Thanks for everything.'
'If you need me for anything - anything at all - call me. You got my cell number. Right?'
'Right. Thanks.' Zeb left, and he went to the adjoining bathroom to splash his face with water. Three weeks had passed since the burglary and in that time he had aged visibly. His face was pale, his blue eyes were bloodshot and his hair - partially shaved where they had sutured a gash with twelve stitches - was flecked with new silver. The doctors said the hairline fracture on his skull was healing well and his dislocated shoulder had made a full recovery. But that was only half the story.
Lauren's room in the Sacred Heart Hospital outside Bridgeport, Connecticut, was clean and bright. A large window looked out over Long Island Sound, and if he peered to the right he could just see the distant towers of Manhattan. Flowers and cards adorned the broad windowsill. Friends had showered him with messages, but those who had come to visit had been awkward, unsure how to respond to Lauren's injury. Ross was grateful that few had known of her pregnancy and now preferred to be left on his own; it was difficult enough to handle his own shock and grief without managing theirs. The exception had been Zeb Quinn. Though she and Ross had never been close, she had proved herself a true and practical friend.
The two orchids on the sill were from Lauren's sisters, who lived abroad, one in London, the other in Sydney. They had flown in and stayed for two weeks to help and support their mother. In the last week they had gone home. One of the larger bouquets was from Xplore. After making the right sympathetic noises, Kovacs had told Ross that they wanted him back and were prepared to wait until he was ready to discuss terms. But right now Ross couldn't have given a damn about his career.
Lauren's bed was in the middle of the room. She had been turned to prevent bedsores, and lay partially on her left side. Wires and tubes connected her to a bank of monitors and intravenous drips. A white tube extended from her trachea to a ventilator, whose rhythmic sound dominated the quiet room. The bandages had been removed from her head, and her blonde hair was growing back after the surgery. Her eyes were closed. She looked frail but beautiful, a sleeping princess. He fantasized that if he kissed her in just the right way he could wake her - and mend her broken body.
As he gazed at her, he felt a surge of irrational hatred for the Voynich manuscript. If she hadn't felt compelled to complete it, they would have been returning from their holiday now. Instead he had spent the last few weeks in Hell, rattling around in their empty house, which Lauren - and Lauren alone - had made into a home. Every detail in it reminded him of her and happier times. There was a suggestion that the intruder had been after her files, though there was no proof and no leads. The police had speculated about motive, but all they knew with any certainty was that Ross and Lauren had disturbed him and she had got in his way.
So arbitrary. So meaningless.
Lowered voices outside the door interrupted his thoughts. There was a knock, then Henry Greenbloom entered holding a manila folder. He was a thin, pale, angular man who kept his eyes fixed on the bed as he greeted Ross. Lauren's mother, Diana Wharton, followed with his father. Sam Kelly was a big man, a farmer with calloused hands and a craggy, weathered face, while Lauren's mother was an elegant, alabaster-skinned academic from Manhattan, yet they had become friends. They had lost their partners at about the same time, but the reason for their mutual liking was simple. They were decent people who respected each other and loved their children.
Greenbloom pointed to the chairs arranged by the bed and met Ross's eye for the first time. 'Shall we sit?' His tone was clinical and detached. 'It's important you all fully understand the situation. The fact of the matter is that even if Lauren does come out of her coma, which is unlikely, given the head injuries she sustained, she may well be brain-damaged and paralysed. Her spinal cord hasn't been severed, but the damage between the C3 and C4 vertebrae may have left her paralysed from the neck down. She needs a ventilator to breathe and that may not change.'
Ross glanced at his wife and wondered if she could hear the surgeon's bleak description of her future - or lack of it. Through the window, he heard a car start, someone say a cheerful farewell, and laughter. It was difficult to accept that outside this room life was continuing as normal.
Greenbloom went on: 'The better news is that because Lauren's head and neck absorbed much of the impact the baby is still viable.' Ross felt a painful jolt of hope. Greenbloom produced a scan from his folder. 'According to Obstetrics, the foetus is about the right size for sixteen weeks, measuring around four and a half inches from crown to rump and weighing two point eight ounces. Ultrasound examination reveals clear activity. There's a long way to go, and we'll need to monitor the situation constantly, but it's possible that the baby will reach full term in Lauren's uterus.'
'What about Lauren? What are the options?' said Ross.
'Barring a miracle, there are two. We wait indefinitely for Lauren to come out of her coma, hoping she won't be paralysed or too brain-damaged.' A pause. 'Failing that, after an agreed period of time, we turn off the ventilator.'
'And let her die?' Ross said, horrified. 'What about stem-cell therapy and all the other cures you guys are meant to be working on? I've read there might be a breakthrough in healing spinal-cord injuries in the next few years.'
'There might be, Ross, but I can't see Lauren waking again, never mind walking. The bitter truth is that there's not much more that we or any medical team in the world can do for her. It's the baby we have to focus on.'
Diana Wharton wiped her eyes and reached for the scan. 'Is Lauren suffering?'
'No.'
'And there really is hope for the baby?'
'Yes.'
She turned to Ross and his father. 'That's something, isn't it?'
Sam Kelly rested a hand on hers and smiled. 'That's a lot. There's always hope.'
Ross felt a rush of admiration for his father. A hardworking farmer, beset by disappointment and tragedy, he had learnt to accept and look beyond both. He remembered the day when his father had told him his new baby brother wasn't coming home, and that his mother couldn't have any more children. He had gone on to say he felt blessed that his wife had survived and that Ross should feel glad he still had a mother. Even when cancer had taken her a few years ago, his father still counted himself fortunate for the time he'd had with her. But Ross couldn't be so stoical. He couldn't just accept what was going to happen. Was Lauren at peace in a dark, dreamless sleep or, as in his nightmare, was she calling to him, desperate to be rescued?
Greenbloom stood up. 'We'll do everything we can for the baby. I just wanted to make sure you knew the facts of the situation so you could prepare yourselves for every eventuality.'
Ross blinked back tears of grief and frustration. He had made a career of finding what others couldn't but now, when it mattered most, he was useless. Her mother passed him the scan and he saw his own grief reflected in her face. Then he saw his father's sadness and compassion. In both he witnessed something else: resignation. They were already making their peace with whatever would happen to Lauren and pinning their hopes on their grandchild.
Ross couldn't do that. He studied the scan. The foetus looked like a baby: there was fine hair on its head; its fingernails were formed; the legs were longer than the arms. He wanted a child more than anything in the world, and he wanted it to have the brothers or sisters he had never had, but he didn't know the baby. He did know and love Lauren. He realized guiltily that he would gladly give up the baby to save his wife. His chest tightened and the blood pounded in his head. Whatever the doctor had said about Lauren, and whatever hope there was for their baby, Ross wasn't ready to give up on her. Not yet. Not ever.