This entire plan was, in other words, an embryonic disaster. But it might not occur for another hundred years that most of the Royal Society, and a King with a passion for Natural Philosophy, would spend a night together in Cambridge, within shouting distance of the bed where Isaac slept and the table where he worked. Isaac had to be drawn out, and it had to happen tonight. If this would lead to open war with Hooke, so be it. Perhaps that was inevitable anyway, no matter what Daniel did in the next few minutes.