Project Pope Page 7

  She moved slowly, hoping that slowness might signify some measure of dignity, although she had doubts it would. More than likely, the cardinal would lay it to the fact she was shaking in her pants. And she wasn't shaking; this robot cardinal on an obscure world at the edge of the galaxy meant very little to her. The cardinal sat quietly, waiting for her, probably sizing her up as she walked across the room.

  She reached a spot some three feet in front of him and halted. She bent a knee and the cardinal extended a hand. There's the ring, she thought. She kissed it. He took away the hand and made a motion for her to rise, so she rose.

  'Miss Roberts, said the cardinal, his voice low and deep.

  'Your Eminence, she said.

  'Please be seated.

  She saw the chair that had been placed for her, at one corner of the desk.

  'Thank you, she murmured, sinking into it.

  For a moment silence held in the muffled room, then the cardinal said, 'I would suppose good manners should lead me to express the hope that you had a pleasant voyage. But knowing the ship, I'm sure that was impossible. So may I say I hope it was not too bad.

  'It was not too bad, Your Eminence. The captain is a good man. He did what he could.

  The cardinal reached out to the desk, picked up folded sheets of paper that were lying there: The papers made a crinkling sound.

  'Miss Roberts, said the cardinal, 'you are a persistent person. We have here several letters from you.

  'Yes, Your Eminence. Which you failed to answer.

  'Our failure, said the cardinal, 'was deliberate. We answer few letters. Especially we do not answer letters such as yours.

  'Which means, I imagine, that you do not want me here.

  There, she thought, I did it! I forgot to call him Eminence.

  The cardinal, if he noticed, did not seem to mind.

  'I do not know, he said, 'how I can explain our policy without seeming rude.

  'Then, Your Eminence, said Jill, 'please that you be rude. For I want to know.

  'We have no wish, said the cardinal, 'to be publicized. We do not wish our existence and our work exposed to public view.

  'You could have told me that before I made my trip, Your Eminence. You could have written to discourage me. I would have listened to reason. I might even have accepted, perhaps have understood, your posture. But you hoped, of course, that ignoring me would be discouragement enough.

  'We had hoped it would, Miss Roberts. 'Your psychology, Your Eminence, did not work. A frank disclosure of your policy, as you call it, would have served you better.

  The cardinal sighed. 'Is this defiance that I hear?

  'I'm not sure, Jill replied. 'Ordinarily, I'm not defiant of authority. I never set out to be. But it seems to me that I deserve better of you. I was frank in my letters. I told you what I planned to do, what I hoped to do. I asked your cooperation. You could, Your Eminence, have granted me the courtesy of telling me not to come.

  'Granted, we could have done that, said the cardinal. 'It would have been more fair to you and more considerate of us. But our thinking was that such a move on our part would have placed undue emphasis on the work we're doing here. A refusal of your request might have made it seem we were working undercover, as it were, and have made us seem more important, perhaps more sensational, than we are. We operate with an extremely low profile and wish to keep it that way. We have been laboring the last ten centuries and in that time have accomplished something of what we set out to do, but not as much as we had hoped. We may need many more millennia to achieve our goal, and to achieve that goal, we must be allowed to work without interference. We do not want the galaxy to begin moving in on us.

  'Your Eminence, each year you have thousands of pilgrims moving in on you.

  'That is true, but these thousands are a mere handful to the numbers that would move in or attempt to move in if a journalist of your competence and reputation were to write of us. The pilgrims come from many planets, most of them members of obscure faiths that have heard of us. But because the faiths are obscure and scattered over many planets, and not too many visit us from any single planet, the impact is not massive and awareness of us is diluted. We do not proselytize, we do not try to bring our message to the galaxy, for, as yet, I doubt that we have a message. Someday, some century, we will have a message, but not yet.

  However, we cannot close our doors to those who, in full faith, seek us out. We are honor-bound to do what we can for them and, in all honesty, I must admit that the contributions they make to our cause are welcome, for we have no financial backing…

  'Let me write of your work, Eminence, and you will have the backing. All the backing that you need.

  The cardinal raised his hands out of his lap and made a negatory sign. 'The cost would be too great, he said. 'We still have far to go, and we must walk that road in our own way and our own fashion. The pressures that would intrude from the galaxy, were we better known, would defeat our purpose. We still must labor, holding tight to the humility of a task little more than started. Seeming success, any sort of adulation, would work very much against us. We must hold to our dream of a universal religion and we must spare no effort. Worldliness would undermine our purpose. Do you understand?

  'I think I can, Your Eminence, said Jill, 'but, surely, to accomplish your purpose you need not work in obscurity.

  'But, Miss Roberts, that is exactly what we must do. Were we not obscure, we would be subjected to much interference, some of it well meant, some of it not so well intentioned. Even now… He paused and started at her owlishly.

  'Even now, Eminence? she prompted.

  'Consider, he said, 'that we have something the galaxy could well use but which, in all conscience, cannot be put to use until we know the whole of it, or at least can glimpse an outline of the whole of it. There are, I am sure, unscrupulous forces in existence that would try to steal from us, to wrest our knowledge from us, for purposes of their own, ignoring the total structure that we try to forge. We do not fear this for our sake, but for the sake of the galaxy, perhaps the universe. Our structure must remain unflawed. It must, when completed, be whole, a consistent whole, built on a logic that cannot be denied, that is apparent to all who may look upon it. It cannot be picked apart by vultures. It cannot be riddled by the worms of self-interest. Pieces of it must not be wrenched away and put in the marketplace for the limited benefits these pieces would represent. We have recognized this danger from our beginning; recognition of the peril has been impressed upon us through the years. We fear that even now, even in our obscurity, there may be burrowers nibbling at us. We do not know who they are or what they are or how they nibble or even the purpose of their nibbling, but we feel sure that they are there. This small nibbling we perhaps can withstand, but if we were open to the galaxy, in full sight of the galaxy, if you should write of us…

  'You want me to leave, she said. 'You want me to turn about and go away.

  'We have tried to be honest with you, said the cardinal. 'I have tried to reason with you. In reasoning with you, I may have said too much. We could have refused you admittance, refused to talk with you, but we realize that, in your heart, you mean no harm to us, that you did not even dream of the implications of what you propose to do. We regret the trouble and expense to which you have been put. We could wish you had not come, but since you have, we feel we must accord you a certain courtesy, cold though it may seem. We hope that you will think about what I have told you. I believe you are stopping at Human House.

  'Yes, I am, said Jill.

  'Please, said the cardinal, 'would you be our guest? A suite can be assigned to you, for as long as you may wish to stay. Naturally, all expenses that you have incurred or are likely to incur as a result of coming here will be repaid by us in full. Plus a per diem to compensate for the time you've wasted. Would you do at least this much for us: Accept our invitation to be our guest and give yourself the time to think on what I've said.

  'Your offer is generous,
Eminence, said Jill, 'but I do not intend to let it go at that. I do not accept your blanket refusal. Surely we can talk again.

  'Yes, we can talk again. But I fear to little purpose. Our viewpoints differ too extensively.

  'There must be certain facets of your work that can be safely told. Perhaps not the whole story….

  'I have in mind, Miss Roberts, an alternative suggestion.

  'An alternative, Eminence?

  'Yes, how would you like to work for us? We can offer you a most attractive position.

  'A position? I'm not looking for a position.

  'Please, said the cardinal. 'Before you refuse me, allow me to explain. For many years, we have talked of the advisability of writing a formal, authoritative history of Vatican 17, for our own use only. Over the centuries, we have stored the data that would go into such a history — all the happenings, even from the day we first arrived upon this planet, an account of all our work, the hopes, the successes and the failures. It is all there and waiting for retrieval, but somehow we have never gotten around to it. We've had so much to do and, truth to tell, we never have had anyone competent to do it. But now….

  'But now you think that I might write it for you — a thousand years of history. In some detail, I would suppose. How many thousand pages of manuscript? How long would you think that it might take? A lifetime, or two? And you'd pay me well for it?

  'Well, yes, naturally we'd pay you handsomely for it, said the cardinal. 'More than you'd make, far more than you'd make, flitting around the galaxy in search of disjointed subjects for your writing. And more than that. Optimum working conditions. All the assistance you might wish. Pleasant surroundings in which to live and work. No pressure for completion.

  'That's good of you, she said.

  'At least, he said, 'you'll accept our hospitality for the moment. Someone can show you the suites available. You can take your pick. No need to go back to Human House. We can pick up your luggage and bring it here.

  'I'll have to think on it, Your Eminence.

  'Then think on it here. You'll find our suite far more comfortable….

  Good Lord, she thought. All the data here, squirreled away in memory cores, waiting for retrieval!

  'You do not answer, said the cardinal.

  'Your offer is most kind, she said. 'I think I shall accept the hospitality that you offer, since that seems to be your wish. On the other matter, I need some further thought.

  'Take all the time you wish, said the cardinal. 'We shall not press for an early answer. We'll talk about it later. But let me say we do need your services very badly. The history should be written. But it takes a certain kind of talent to do the writing of it — perhaps a human talent, which we have been unable to acquire. Here on End of Nothing it is difficult to obtain the kind of human talent that we need. The planet is too far and lonely to attract humanity. Go out at night and look up and there are few stars. The galaxy itself is a shimmer in the sky and that is all. But there are certain advantages. There is space, there is newness. A freshness that is not found on many planets. And the mountains. To our humans, the mountains are a constant source of great delight.

  'I am sure they are, said Jill.

  Thirteen

  'This, Ecuyer told Tennyson, 'is our repository. Here, stored and filed and cross-indexed and ready, close at hand, are the records of the work we've done in the Search Program.

  The room was large. There were no windows. Pale ceiling lights marched in converging rows into the distance. Ranks of filing cabinets, floor to ceiling, stretched away farther than one could see.

  Ecuyer walked slowly down one row of the cabinets, his hand laid flat against their fronts, sliding along the metal. Tennyson trailed along behind him, lost in this cavern of files. He felt the place closing in on him, pressing close, looming over him with a threat of suffocation.

  Ahead of him, Ecuyer halted and pulled out a drawer, fumbling, or pretending to fumble, among the many small crystal cubes that lay within the drawer.

  'Ah, here, he said, coming up with one of them. 'A cube picked quite at random.

  He held it up for Tennyson to see, a gleaming crystal cube four inches on a side. It was, thought Tennyson, quite unspectacular. Ecuyer closed the drawer. 'And now, he said. 'if you are willing, I should like to show you.

  'Show me?

  'Yes, let you experience what is imprinted on the cube — live the experience picked up by the sensitive, the experience that he lived through. What he saw and felt and thought. Put you inside the sensitive…

  He peered intently at Tennyson. 'It will not hurt, he said. 'You will not be uncomfortable. There'll be no pain, no fright.

  'You mean that you want me — that you can connect me somehow to that cube?

  Ecuyer nodded. 'Simply done, he said.

  'But why? asked Tennyson. 'Why should you want to do this?

  'Because I could talk about our work for the next three days, said Ecuyer, 'and not be able to give you an understanding of it such as you can gain from a few minutes on this cube.

  'I can see that, said Tennyson. 'But why me, a stranger?

  'A stranger, perhaps, said Ecuyer, 'but I want you very much to stay here and be a member of the team. We need you, Jason. Can't you understand that?

  'As a matter of fact, I have already decided to stay on, said Tennyson. 'I sat on a bench in a beautiful garden this morning and found that I already had made my decision without being aware I had.

  'Well, now, that's fine, said Ecuyer. 'That's splendid. But why did you wait? Why didn't you tell me immediately?

  'Because you still were sneaking up on me, said Tennyson. 'You do it so well that it was fun to watch.

  'I'm properly rebuked, said Ecuyer, 'and I don't seem to mind at all. I can't tell you how happy it makes me. And, now, how about the cube?

  'I'm a bit nervous about it, but if you think I should, I will.

  'I think you should, Ecuyer told him. 'It's important to me and I think to you that you know exactly what we are doing.

  'So I'll understand this Heaven business better?

  'Well, yes, but not entirely that. I can see you're still a skeptic on what you call the Heaven business.

  'Yes, I am. Aren't you?

  'I don't know, said Ecuyer. 'I can't be sure. Every fiber in me cries out against it and yet…

  'All right, said Tennyson. 'Let's get on with the cube.

  'Okay, said Ecuyer. 'This way.

  He led the way out of the stack and into a small room crowded with equipment.

  'Sit down in that chair over there, said Ecuyer. 'Take it easy. Relax.

  A helmet arrangement was suspended over the chair. Tennyson regarded it with some suspicion.

  'Go on, sit down, said Ecuyer. 'I'll fit the helmet on you and drop the cube into the slot and-

  'All right, said Tennyson. 'I suppose I'll have to trust you. 'You can trust me, Ecuyer said. 'It won't hurt at all. Tennyson lowered himself cautiously into the chair, squirmed around to get comfortable. Ecuyer carefully lowered the helmet on his head, fussing to get it adjusted.

  'You all right? he asked.

  'All right. I can't see a thing.

  'You don't need to see. Breathing all right? No trouble breathing?

  'None at all.

  'All right, then. Here we go.

  For a moment there was utter darkness, then there was light, a greenish sort of light, and a wetness. Tennyson gasped and then the gasp cut off, for everything was all right, better than all right.

  The water was warm and the mud was soft. His gut was full. For the moment there was no danger. Contentment filled him and he allowed himself to sink deeper into the yielding mud. When the mud no longer yielded, he agitated his legs, trying to sink deeper, but this gained him little, although when he ceased the effort, he could sense the mud beginning to flow over him and it was warm and an added safety factor. He settled as deeply, as compactly as he could, the contentment deepening, a lassitude spreading through him. Wit
h the mud spreading over him, in no matter how thin a layer, he was shielded from view. The likelihood was that no prowling predator would detect him, snap him up. It is good, he thought smugly to himself. There was no need to move, no necessity to invite attack by moving. He had everything he needed. He had eaten until food no longer had attraction for him. He was warm and safe. He could remain motionless, exert no effort.

  And yet there was, he found, an internal nagging that arose once he was all settled in full enjoyment of contentment. A question that never had come on him before, for up until this instant, there had been no question of any sort at all. Until now he had not been aware there was such a thing as question. He existed, that was all. He had never cared what he might be. The matter of identity had never arisen.

  He stirred uneasily, befuddled and upset that the question should arise to so disturb him. And that was not the worst of it. There was something else. It was as if he were not himself, not he who had found the question, the question not internal to him but coming from somewhere outside himself. And there was nothing outside himself — nothing but the warmth of the shallow sea, the softness of the bottom mud and the knowledge that the fearful shadow avid to gulp him down was not present now, could not see him now, that he was safe from the prowling predator that snapped up trilobites.

  'My God! he thought in sudden fear and wonder. 'I'm a trilobite!

  With the words, the utter darkness faded and then flickered off, and he was once again sitting in the chair and Ecuyer was standing in front of him, holding the helmet in his hands. Tennyson let out his breath in a gust and stared up at Ecuyer.

  'Ecuyer, you said a random cube. That was not a random cube.

  Ecuyer grinned at him. 'No, I would think not. You recall the sensitive I told you of.

  'Yes, the man who was a trilobite. But it was so real!

  'Rest assured, my friend, said Ecuyer. 'This was no shadow show. No entertainment stunt. For a while there, you were a trilobite.