Читаем Angels & Demons полностью

Langdon couldn’t help but smile. He still couldn’t fathom that he was standing in this room. It’s in here, he thought. Somewhere in the dark, it’s waiting.

"Follow me," Langdon said. He started briskly down the first aisle, examining the indicator tabs of each vault. "Remember how I told you about the Path of Illumination? How the Illuminati recruited new members using an elaborate test?"

"The treasure hunt," Vittoria said, following closely.

"The challenge the Illuminati had was that after they placed the markers, they needed some way to tell the scientific community the path existed."

"Logical," Vittoria said. "Otherwise nobody would know to look for it."

"Yes, and even if they knew the path existed, scientists would have no way of knowing where the path began. Rome is huge."

"Okay."

Langdon proceeded down the next aisle, scanning the tabs as he talked. "About fifteen years ago, some historians at the Sorbonne and I uncovered a series of Illuminati letters filled with references to the segno."

"The sign. The announcement about the path and where it began."

"Yes. And since then, plenty of Illuminati academics, myself included, have uncovered other references to the segno. It is accepted theory now that the clue exists and that Galileo mass distributed it to the scientific community without the Vatican ever knowing."

"How?"

"We’re not sure, but most likely printed publications. He published many books and newsletters over the years."

"That the Vatican no doubt saw. Sounds dangerous."

"True. Nonetheless the segno was distributed."

"But nobody has ever actually found it?"

"No. Oddly though, wherever allusions to the segno appear—Masonic diaries, ancient scientific journals, Illuminati letters—it is often referred to by a number."

"666?"

Langdon smiled. "Actually it’s 503."

"Meaning?"

"None of us could ever figure it out. I became fascinated with 503, trying everything to find meaning in the number—numerology, map references, latitudes." Langdon reached the end of the aisle, turned the corner, and hurried to scan the next row of tabs as he spoke. "For many years the only clue seemed to be that 503 began with the number five… one of the sacred Illuminati digits." He paused.

"Something tells me you recently figured it out, and that’s why we’re here."

"Correct," Langdon said, allowing himself a rare moment of pride in his work. "Are you familiar with a book by Galileo called Diàlogo?"

"Of course. Famous among scientists as the ultimate scientific sellout."

Sellout wasn’t quite the word Langdon would have used, but he knew what Vittoria meant. In the early 1630s, Galileo had wanted to publish a book endorsing the Copernican heliocentric model of the solar system, but the Vatican would not permit the book’s release unless Galileo included equally persuasive evidence for the church’s geo centric model—a model Galileo knew to be dead wrong. Galileo had no choice but to acquiesce to the church’s demands and publish a book giving equal time to both the accurate and inaccurate models.

"As you probably know," Langdon said, "despite Galileo’s compromise, Diàlogo was still seen as heretical, and the Vatican placed him under house arrest."

"No good deed goes unpunished."

Langdon smiled. "So true. And yet Galileo was persistent. While under house arrest, he secretly wrote a lesser-known manuscript that scholars often confuse with Diàlogo. That book is called Discorsi."

Vittoria nodded. "I’ve heard of it. Discourses on the Tides."

Langdon stopped short, amazed she had heard of the obscure publication about planetary motion and its effect on the tides.

"Hey," she said, "you’re talking to an Italian marine physicist whose father worshiped Galileo."

Langdon laughed. Discorsi however was not what they were looking for. Langdon explained that Discorsi had not been Galileo’s only work while under house arrest. Historians believed he had also written an obscure booklet called Diagramma.

"Diagramma della Verità," Langdon said. "Diagram of Truth."

"Never heard of it."

"I’m not surprised. Diagramma was Galileo’s most secretive work—supposedly some sort of treatise on scientific facts he held to be true but was not allowed to share. Like some of Galileo’s previous manuscripts, Diagramma was smuggled out of Rome by a friend and quietly published in Holland. The booklet became wildly popular in the European scientific underground. Then the Vatican caught wind of it and went on a book-burning campaign."

Vittoria now looked intrigued. "And you think Diagramma contained the clue? The segno. The information about the Path of Illumination."