"It's an impossible one," said Hassan. "I don't know how happy this will make you, Kemal, but you gave us our only hope."

"How did I do that?"

"Your analysis of Naog, " said Hassan. "If there's anyone who was like Columbus in all of history, it was him. He changed history by the sheer force of his will. The only reason his ark was built at all was because of his grim determination. Then because his boat carried him through the flood, he became a figure of legend. And because his father was a victim of the Derku's brief return to human sacrifice just before the flood, he told everyone who would listen that cities were evil, that human sacrifice was an unforgivable crime, that God had destroyed a world because of their sins."

"If only he had told people slavery was evil, too," said Diko.

"He told them the opposite," said Kemal. "He was a living example of how beneficial slavery could be -- because he kept with him his whole life the three slaves who built his boat for him, and everyone who came to meet the great Naog saw how his greatness depended on his ownership of these three devoted men." Turning to Hassan, Kemal added, "I don't see how Naog's example inspired you with any kind of hope."

"Because one man, alone, reshaped the world," said Hassan. "And you were able to see exactly where he turned onto the path that led to those changes. You found that moment where he stood on the shore of the new channel that was being carved into the Bab al Mandab, and he looked up at the shelf of the old coastline and realized what was going to happen."

"It was easy to find," said Kemal. "He immediately started for home, and to his wife he explained exactly what he had thought of and when he had thought of it."

"Yes, well, it was certainly clearer than anything we've found with Columbus," said Hassan. "But it gives us the hope that perhaps we can find such a moment. The event, the thought that turned him west. Diko found the moment when he determined on being a great man. But we haven't found the point where he became so unrelentingly monomaniacal about a westward voyage. Yet because of Naog, we still have hope that someday we'll find it."

"But I have found it, Father," said Diko.

Everyone turned to her, She seemed flustered. "Or at least I think I have. But it's very strange. I was working on it last night. It's so silly, isn't it? I thought -- wouldn't it be wonderful if I found it while ... while Kemal was here. And then I did. I think."

No one said anything for a long moment. Until Kemal rose to his feet and said, "What are we doing here, then? Show us!"

It was more than Cristoforo could have hoped for, to be included on the Spinola convoy to Flanders. True, it was just the sort of opportunity that he had been preparing for all his life till now, begging his way onto any ship that would carry him until he knew the coast of Liguria better than he knew the lumps in his own mattress. And hadn't he turned his "observational" trip to Chios into a commercial triumph? Not that he had come back rich, of course, but starting with relatively little he had traded in mastic until he came home with a hefty purse -- and then had wit enough to contribute much of it, quite publicly, to the Church. And he did it in the name of Nicolo Spinola.

Spinola sent for him, of course, and Cristoforo was the picture of gratitude. "I know that you gave me no duties in Chios, my lord, but it was nevertheless you who allowed me to join the voyage, and at no charge. The tiny sums I was able to earn in Chios were not worth offering to you -- you give more to your servants when they go to market to buy the day's food for your household." A ludicrous exaggeration, they would both know. "But when I gave them to Christ, I couldn't pretend that the money, meager as it was, came from me, when it came entirely from your kindness."

Spinola laughed. "You're very good at this, " he said. "Practice a little more, so it doesn't sound memorized, and speeches like that will make your fortune, I promise you."

Cristoforo thought that he meant he had failed, until Spinola invited him to take part in a commercial convoy to Flanders and England. Five ships, sailing together for safety, and one of them devoted to a cargo that Cristoforo himself was in charge of trading. It was a serious responsibility, a good-sized chunk of the Spinola fortune, but Cristoforo had prepared himself well. What he hadn't done himself, he had watched others do with a close eye to detail. He knew how to supervise the loading of the ship and how to drive a hard bargain without making enemies. He knew how to talk to the captain, how to remain at once aloof and yet affable with the men, how to judge from the wind and the sky and the sea how much progress they would make. Even though he had actually done very little of the work of a sailor, he knew what all the jobs were, from watching, and he knew whether the jobs were being done well. When he was young, and they were not yet suspicious that he might get them in trouble, the sailors had let him watch them work. He had even learned to swim, which most sailors never bothered to do, because he had thought as a child that this was one of the requirements of life at sea. By the time the ship set sail, Cristoforo felt himself completely in control.

They even called him "Signor Colombo." That hadn't happened much before. His father was only rarely called "signor," despite the fact that in recent years Cristoforo's earnings had allowed Domenico Colombo to prosper, moving the weaving shop to larger quarters and wearing finer clothing and riding a horse like a gentleman and buying a few small houses outside the city walls so he could play the landlord. So the title was certainly not one that came readily to one of Cristoforo's birth. On this voyage, however, it was not just the sailors but also the captain himself who gave Colombo the courtesy title. It was a sign of how far he had come, this basic respect -- but not as important a sign as having the trust of the Spinolas.

The voyage wasn't easy, even at the outset. The seas weren't rough, but they weren't placid, either. Cristoforo noticed with secret enjoyment that he was the only one of the commercial agents who wasn't sick. Instead he passed the time as he did on all his voyages -- poring over the charts with the navigator or conversing with the captain, pumping them for all the information they knew, for everything they could teach him. Though he knew his destiny lay to the east, he also knew that he would someday have a ship -- a fleet -- that might need to voyage through every known sea. Liguria he knew; the voyage to Chios, his first open-sea journey, his first that ever lost sight of land, his first that relied on navigation and calculation, had given him a glimpse of eastern seas. And now he would see the west, going through the straits of Gibraltar and then veering north, coasting Portugal, crossing the Bay of Biscay -- names he had heard of only in sailors' lore and brag. The gentlemen -- the other gentlemen -- might puke their way across the Mediterranean, but Cristoforo would use every moment, preparing himself, until at last he was ready to be the servant in the hands of God who would ...

He dared not think of it, or God would know the awful presumption, the deadly pride that he concealed within his heart.

Not that God didn't already know, of course. But at least God also knew that Cristoforo did his best not to let his pride possess him. Thy will, O Lord, not mine be done. If I am the one to lead thy triumphant armies and navies on a mighty crusade to liberate Constantinople, drive the Muslims from Europe, and once again raise the Christian banner in Jerusalem, then so be it. But if not, I will do any task thou hast in mind for me, great or humble. I will be ready. I am thy true servant.