Project Pope

  For he must know, he told himself; it was vital that he know if this was Ecuyer.

  The place was hazy and there was a quaver in the air. If only something, just one thing, would be still, he thought—if he could get one good look at something. The trouble was that while it never actually changed, it always seemed on the verge of change. That was it—uncertainty.

  Having looked away, he now looked back, swiveling his head quickly in the hope he might catch the diagrams and equations by surprise.

  Ecuyer was gone. The gray and rose were gone. In its place was a purple and gold; another diagram and a new set of equations.

  Seeing them, he froze. His terror rose to choke him and he screamed.

  “Mary! Mary! Mary!”

  He struggled to climb out of wherever he was, although there was nothing he could climb and someone had seized him to prevent his climbing.

  “No! No! No!” he shouted, and someone was whispering to him.

  “There, there, there,” the someone said, and soft hands were upon him and when he opened his eyes he found himself in darkness—which was strange, for he had not known his eyes were closed.

  The voice said, “No, Hubert, it’s all right. He was having a nightmare.”

  “Jill?” Tennyson asked weakly.

  “Yes. It’s all right now. I’m with you. You’re back again.”

  He was in bed, he saw, with Jill bending over him and Hubert hovering in the lighted doorway.

  “I worked late,” said Jill, “and I thought you might be asleep, but I knocked anyway and Hubert let me in. I wanted to see you. I had so much to tell you.”

  “I was in the equation world,” he told her. “I was dreaming it again. Ecuyer was there and he was gray and rose and when I looked away for a moment …”

  “You were screaming at Mary. Was Mary there? The Heaven Mary?”

  He nodded, struggling to sit up, still befuddled with the dream. “She was purple and gold,” he said. “And it was horrible.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was the first time he’d returned since he’d finally walked away from the boat ten—no, it must have been twelve—years ago, and it still was there, where he’d remembered it, lying in a small, grassy valley between two ranges of steep hills. Brambles had grown up around it, but not so thickly or so high as to obscure it. Apparently nothing else had found it, for it lay exactly as he remembered it, and he wondered how he could have found it so easily, walking straight through the tangled foothills to the place he knew it was.

  —Whisperer, are you here? he asked.

  Knowing that he was, but he had to ask.

  —Yes, Decker. Of course I’m here. So is the Old One of the Woods. He’s been following us for days.

  —What does he want?

  —He’s curious, is all. You puzzle him. All humans puzzle him. And you puzzle me. Why back to your beginning?

  —It’s not my beginning, said Decker. I began very far from here.

  —Your beginning on this planet, then.

  —Yes, my beginning on this planet. You know, of course, what lies down there.

  —You told me. A lifeboat. A vehicle that carried you safely through space until it found a place where you could survive. But you never told me more. Decker, you are a close-mouthed man. Not even your best friend.…

  —Is that what you are?

  —If I am not, name one who is.

  —I would suppose you’re right, said Decker. When the boat aroused me from suspended animation, I had no idea where I was. At first, it seemed an absolutely primitive planet, untouched by any sort of intellectual culture. I explored. I kept no track of time, but I must have roamed for weeks, maybe for months, and there was nothing but the wilderness, although in many ways a pleasant wilderness. Then, after days of wandering away from the boat, going farther than I had ever gone before. I stood on a mountain spur and saw Vatican, shining in the distance. I knew then I was not alone, that there were intelligent beings here, although at the time I had no idea what they were.

  —But you did not go rushing in to announce yourself.

  —Whisperer, how could you know that?

  —Because I know you, Decker. I know you for the kind of man you are, reserved, stand-offish, pathologically disinclined to show any kind of weakness. Always on your own. A loner.

  —You know me far too well, said Decker. You are a sneaky bastard.

  —So are you, said Whisperer. But with dignity. Always with dignity. Why is dignity so important to you, Decker?

  —Damned if I know, said Decker. I suppose it always has been.

  The Old One of the Woods was still on the slope above them, hunkered in a patch of woods at the edge of a boulder field, staring down upon them. Decker sensed him now, sensed him very strongly. There were long stretches of time when he had no sense of the lurker, but now and then he did. He had become aware of this one well before Whisperer had announced they were being followed.

  —The Old One’s still up there, he said.

  —Pay no attention, Whisperer told him. It only wants to watch us. It thinks we do not know it is here. It is getting satisfaction out of watching us and us not knowing that it is.

  Standing on the slope, Decker went back in time to that day when he first had sighted End of Nothing and Vatican, realizing when he saw them that he was not marooned on a desert planet. He had come back to the boat and had put together a load of necessities—tools and cooking utensils and other simple things—then had headed out for End of Nothing, pausing only for a quick look back at the boat where it lay in the grassy valley.

  Arriving at End of Nothing, he had selected a site at the edge of the settlement and, without leave or hindrance, had built the cabin. He had cut down trees of a proper size, sawed them to a proper length, notched them and rolled them into place. He had quarried stone to construct the hearth and fireplace, had gone down into the small business section of the town to buy windows. He had chinked the logs with moss and clay. He had cut a supply of firewood and stacked it. He had spaded and worked up a garden patch, then gone once again into town to buy seeds to put into the soil. He had lived mostly off the land, hunting for the pot, seeking out wild plants as greens and vegetables, fishing a nearby stream until his garden had started to produce food.

  There had been visitors, at first a lot of visitors, all of them with questions trembling on their lips. Among them had been a little brown-robed monk from Vatican, as pleasant a robot as he had ever met, although to Decker it had seemed that he might have been more than a simple monk. His visitors had provided him with a deal of useful information about End of Nothing and an even greater supply of advice. The information he had gratefully stored away, the advice he had generally ignored. And then, having given him the information and advice, his visitors (all of them) had begun their gentle prying into his history and affairs. He did not forthrightly refuse them what they sought; he simply evaded the questioning as gently as he could and they had gone away perplexed. A few of them had come back to visit him again but, getting no more on the second trip—or the third or fourth—than they had gotten on the first, they had not come again, and finally everyone left him very much alone.

  Which, he told himself, was fine with him. It was the way he liked it. He felt regret at times that he had dealt with his neighbors as he had, but each time he thought this he became more and more convinced it was the only way he could have handled the situation. Better to be a man of mystery than what he might have been had he told his story. As it stood, he had given them something they could speculate upon, perhaps to their vast enjoyment, all these years.

  Why back to your beginning? Whisperer had asked him. Why back to your beginning on this planet? And why, indeed? he now asked himself. A hunch, he thought. A hunch that more than likely had very little basis. And even had it a solid basis, what would he, or could he, do about it? Decker, he told himself, you’re crazy—downright stark, staring crazy.

  —Decker, that Tennyson I liked, Wh
isperer said. I liked him quite a lot.

  —Yes, he was likable.

  —He saw me, said Whisperer. I am sure he saw me. There are very few who see me. It takes an ability to see me.

  —He saw you? How can you be sure? Why didn’t you mention it before?

  —I did not mention it because until now I could not be sure. But having thought of it for days, I now am sure. He saw me and he could not believe it, he could not believe what he had seen. He rubbed his eyes, thinking there was something wrong with them. You remember, don’t you? You asked if he had something in his eye and he said only dust. Then you asked again. You asked if you could wipe out his eye, but he said he was all right.

  —Yes, now that you mention it, I do recall the incident.

  —And I, said Whisperer, I, as well, saw something, but only fleetingly. I don’t know what I saw.

  —You did not speak to him? You did not try to speak?

  —No, I did not try to speak. But there is a strangeness in the man. I am sure of that.

  —Oh, well, said Decker, we’ll see him again, I’m sure. You may have another chance to plumb the strangeness you think you saw in him.

  The Old One of the Woods had moved. He no longer was hiding in the clumps of trees below the boulder field. Decker no longer had any sense of him.

  —Let’s go down, he said to Whisperer, and see how the boat is getting on.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jill had left just half an hour before, returning to the library, when Ecuyer showed up. Tennyson was dawdling over a cup of coffee. Hubert, after letting Ecuyer in, went back to the kitchen and started making a clatter. Hubert didn’t like people who lingered at the table.

  “You’re up and about early,” Tennyson said to Ecuyer. “Sit down and have a cup of coffee.”

  “I believe I shall,” said Ecuyer, “although neither of us has too long.”

  “I have all the time there is,” said Tennyson. “I’m not due at the clinic until—”

  “This morning you haven’t all the time there is. The two of us have been summoned.”

  Tennyson stared at him, saying nothing.

  “Summoned,” explained Ecuyer, “to an audience with His Holiness.”

  “Oh?”

  “Is that all you can say?”

  “What did you expect me to do? Fall over dead? Be seized by a fit of trembling? Sink down upon my knees?”

  “You could at least show some respect. It is a signal honor to be summoned by the Pope.”

  “Sorry,” said Tennyson. “I would suppose it is. What is it all about?”

  “I’m not sure. Perhaps the Heaven incident. Theodosius and Roberts will be with us.”

  “The cardinals?”

  “Yes, the cardinals.”

  “I can understand why the Pope might want to see you. If it’s about the Heaven incident, you’re in it to your knees. But I—”

  “Mary is your patient. He might have some medical questions about her. I’m not even sure it’s about Heaven. It might be just to meet you. Ordinarily a new Vatican staff member will have an audience with the Pope. Certainly he would want to meet the new Vatican physician. I suspect he would have arranged it long before this, but it has been a busy time.”

  “I have an impression it is always busy here,” said Tennyson.

  “Well, yes. But sometimes more than others.”

  They sat drinking their coffee. Hubert kept up his clatter in the kitchen.

  “Hubert,” said Ecuyer, raising his voice.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Cut it out,” said Ecuyer. “We have a right to sit here and drink our coffee.”

  “Why, certainly,” said Hubert. The clatter subsided.

  “He’s spoiled,” said Ecuyer. “I spoiled him myself. I don’t know what to do with him.”

  “There’s something I have been meaning to ask you.”

  “Go ahead. Don’t take too long.”

  “I saw this cube—the one with all the equations and diagrams. I think I told you. Have you seen it too?”

  “Well, yes, I guess I did. A long time ago. It was taped some years ago. Rather a long time ago.”

  “You told me the Listener went back several times and could make nothing of it.”

  “That’s right,” said Ecuyer. “Are you hung up on it?”

  Tennyson nodded. “There is something there. Something that I miss. Something that it seems to me I almost have and then it eludes me. I have a feeling that if I could stretch my mind just a little farther, I could come to grips with it.”

  “Any idea of what it might be?”

  “Not at all. That’s the hell of it. I know there is something there, but no idea what it is. I find myself imagining all sorts of things, but I know it’s none of them.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” counseled Ecuyer. “I can show you things even worse. I had expected you to do more digging into the files than you have done. You are welcome, you know. Anytime you wish, anything you wish.”

  “There have been other things to do,” said Tennyson. “And, truth to tell, I might be even a little bit afraid of what I’d find. The equation world bothers me. The autumn world still haunts me. I’d like to go back and see the autumn world again, but something keeps me from it.”

  Ecuyer finished off his coffee.

  “Come,” he said. “Let us see the Pope.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The Pope was a cross-hatched human face—or the suggestion of a face, for to see it clearly required close attention and some imagination—imposed upon a dull metallic plate set into a bare stone wall. It reminded Tennyson of the photo of a sampler from the nineteenth century that he had seen in a book he’d found in a library years ago, and also, in a haphazard sort of way, of the children’s game of tic-tac-toe. The face was not entirely and fully apparent at any time, although every now and then he managed to get a fairly comprehensive glimpse of it. No decorative effort was made to soften the bleak starkness of the face, nothing to impart to it any hint of power or glory. And perhaps, he thought, this studied attempt to achieve a dismal plainness made the face all the more impressive.

  The small audience room in which they sat was plain as well, with no effort made to conceal the fact that it had been carved out of the granite mass that was the core of the ridge upon which Vatican buildings perched. Just four blank stone walls with a plate set in the center of one of the walls to display the Pope. To reach the room, they had descended a number of stairs, all carved from the solid rock, with galleries running off at the landings of each staircase, burrowing their way deep into the granite. There was no doubt that this computer-Pope was buried deep into the very structure of the hill.

  More than likely, Tennyson told himself, there were many other Pope-faces in other audience rooms, some of them undoubtedly much larger than this one, for there must be times when the entire Vatican personnel would be gathered into one group for an audience with the Pope. A multi-Pope, he thought, a mechanism so large and so all-pervading that it could be many places at any given time, attending to any number of tasks at the self-same time.

  The Pope spoke now and his voice was flat, while at the same time managing to be smooth and cold. An utterly unhuman voice, and likewise unrobotlike, for while robots did not speak with human intonation, there yet were times when they imparted some human warmth to the words they spoke. But this voice was empty of all emotion; it held no warmth. It was neither a human voice nor a robot voice, nor yet the harsh voice that one might imagine a machine to have. It pronounced its words in precise clarity and the thought behind the words was ruthless and relentless—machine thought, computer thought, naked electronic thought.

  “Dr. Tennyson,” said the Pope, “tell me of the Listener, Mary. What is her mental condition?”

  “I can be of little help, Your Holiness,” said Tennyson. “I can tell you of her physical condition; I would not know about her mind. I am not trained in mental illness.”

  “Then what good ar
e you?” asked the Pope. “If we had a robot physician, which has been discussed at times, it would know about her mind.”

  “Then,” Tennyson said shortly, “build your robot physician.”

  “You are aware, Holiness,” said Cardinal Theodosius, “that the humans of Vatican would have no trust in a robotic doctor. As you say, we have discussed it many times.…”

  “All of this is beside the point,” said His Holiness. “You are using a chance remark of mine to evade my question. How about you, Ecuyer? Have you some insight into her mind?”

  “No insight into her mind,” said Ecuyer. “Neither am I trained, Holiness, to evaluate a human mind. All that I would be able to do is describe her behavior. Up till now, all the time that she has been with us, she has been gentle and devoted to her job, but since she has found Heaven, or thinks she has found Heaven, her personality has changed. She has assumed a haughty importance that makes it difficult for us to work with her.”

  “Does that not seem strange to you?” asked the Pope. “To me, it would appear inconsistent. If she really had found Heaven, as she claims, would you not think she might become more devout and humble? The haughtiness you talk of does not appear to be the behavior of one who has acquired evidence of Heaven. As a good Christian, you should know.”

  “Your Holiness, I am not a good Christian,” said Ecuyer. “I’m not sure I’m a good anything at all. Holiness, certainly you know that I am not a Christian. You are baiting me.”

  “And the Listener, Mary? Is she a Christian?”

  “Holiness, I am sure she is. You must understand, however, that Search is not concerned with theological matters.”

  “That is strange,” said the Pope. “I would have thought you would be.”

  “Holiness, you are being deliberately difficult today,” Cardinal Theodosius chimed in, “and your attitude is not worthy of you. You underestimate our friend of the Search Program. Through the years he has performed outstanding services for us.”

  “Eminence,” said Cardinal Roberts, speaking stiffly, “I think you presume too far.”