Project Pope

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, standoffish, 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 of 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 our 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, Whisperer said. I liked him quite a lot.

— Yes, he was likeable.

— 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.