Project Pope

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 are 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.

'I think not, Theodosius said stubbornly. 'In a deliberative council, such as this, due respect must be paid to every viewpoint raised. The issues must be solemnly and honestly discussed.

'None of you as yet, said the Pope, 'has tried to discuss the issue. The finding of Heaven, or the presumed finding of Heaven, is getting out of hand. Are any of you aware that there is a growing sentiment to canonize the Listener Mary, to make a saint of her? We have never created a saint. We have canonized no one. And if we were about to do so, certainly we would want to wait until she was decently dead.

'Your Holiness, said Roberts, 'all of us are aware of what you speak. With you, all of us realize the seriousness of it, the danger it could pose. The whole idea is impossible, of course, but at this point in the situation, we cannot step in and oppose it openly. We cannot lose sight of the fact that many — perhaps the most — of the minor members of Vatican, even after all these years, still are caught up in the simplicity and the promise of the Christian faith.

'What promise, Cardinal? asked the Pope. 'Surely no robot, no matter how devout, can ever hope to be translated into Heaven. Nor, if he properly takes care of himself, would ever need to be.

'The fault, perhaps, lies in ourselves, said Theodosius. 'Many of our people in the more humble posts — the farm workers, the gardeners, the woodsmen, the laboring brothers, even many of the monks — are very simple souls. With them the basic idea of Christianity, although somewhat faded, nevertheless is a rather powerful force. They don't understand Christianity, of course, but even back on Earth, a thousand years ago, many people who prided themselves on being Christian may have understood it even less. These people of ours do not know all that we have learned; we have not tried to explain any of it to them. We know that life and intelligence can come in many forms- biological, nonbiological, and that strange matrix of intelligence we find in those worlds beyond the space-time universe. We know there is at least a second universe and perhaps a third and fourth, although we cannot be certain. We have a hint, but no more than a hint, that there may be some sort of overriding Principle, more complex than the principle that would apply to a space-time universe alone. So we know that if there is a Heaven (if there could be a Heaven in this sort of multi-universe), it necessarily must be more than a simple Christian Heaven, or a Happy Hunting Ground, or an Island of the Blest, whatever you might choose to call it. It couldn't be so crude and simplistic as a broad golden staircase and winding trumpets and angels blithely flying-

'That all is true, said Roberts, 'but this matter of sharing with our brothers the knowledge that we hold or glimpse has been under continuing review, and in every instance when it has been discussed, we have decided that it would not be advisable to inform the others fully. Can you imagine the kinds of interpretations that would be put upon certain segments of the knowledge? We have created an elite within Vatican; only the elite are aware of the knowledge we have gained. That may be wrong, but I think it is justified by the inherent danger of revealing all the facts. Revealing them, we would have been rent by a thousand heresies. No work would have been done because each robot would be convinced that he alone understood correctly and would have thought it incumbent upon himself to set his erring brothers straight. There would have been bickering and squabbling and animosities that could tear us apart. It was, we agreed in every instance, better that we continue to let the others cling to their residual Christianity, sterile as it might be.

'Bickering! said the Pope in his cold, terrible voice. 'What is this you're doing if not bickering? And worst of all, you've bickered before two humans who would not have been aware of it.

'I, Your Holiness, am aware of a great part of it, said Ecuyer, 'and had my suspicions about the rest of it. As for my friend Dr. Tennyson-

'Yes, Tennyson, demanded the Pope, 'what about it?

'You can rest easy, Holiness, said Tennyson. 'If you wonder whether I am thinking of mounting a crusade to inform the other members of Vatican, I can tell you I have no such intentions. I'll just stand by and watch, with some interest, what happens here on out.

'As for the outside universe, said Roberts to the Pope, 'there need be no fear that the word will be carried by the two humans who joined us recently. Neither of them will be — leaving.

The Pope grumbled, 'I don't know. There is this Decker human. He turned up out of nowhere. Have any of you ever learned exactly how he got here?

'No, Holiness, we have not, said Theodosius.

'If one of them can get in without our knowing it, said the Pope, 'another can get out. The humans are a slippery race. We must watch them all the time.

'They are our brothers, Holiness, said Theodosius. 'They have always been, and they still are. There is an unspoken pact between robot and human. Through all the years, they have stood side by side.

'They exploited you, said the Pope.

'They gave us all we had, said Theodosius. 'Had it not been for humans, there would have been no robots. They fashioned us in their shape — no other race would have done that. No other race has. Other races have made machines, but no robots.

'And still just now, said Tennyson, 'you have told me that I can't leave Vatican. That I would not be leaving, neither the woman nor I. Is this the measure of the brotherhood you speak of? Not that I am surprised; I expected it.

'You were fleeing for your life, said Theodosius. 'We gave you sanctuary. What more do you expect?

'But Jill?

'Jill, said Theodosius, 'is quite another matter. I am convinced she does not want to leave.

'For that matter, said Tennyson, 'neither have I any great desire to leave. But should I want to, I would like to think I could.

'Dr. Tennyson, said the Pope sternly, 'the matter of whether you are to leave or are not to leave is not the subject under discussion. Let us leave it until another time.

'Agreed, said Tennyson. 'I'll bring it up again. 'Sure, said Ecuyer, 'you'll bring it up again.

'Now, said the Pope, 'allow us to get back to a consideration of Heaven.

'It seems to me, said Ecuyer, 'that the problem is quite a simple one. Is there a Heaven or is there not? If there's not, all this discussion is entirely pointless. Why don't you go and see? Vatican has the means to go almost anywhere-

'But there are no coordinates, said Roberts. 'The Listener Mary's cube shows no coordinates. We must know where we an going before we start out.

'Mary may make another trip, said Tennyson. 'Is it not possible that on the second trip, or on subsequent trips, she may be able to provide coordinates?

Ecuyer shook his head. 'I don't think she will be going or another trip. I don't think she wants to go. I think she is afraid.

The day was misty, with lowering clouds that sliced off half the height of the mountains and lent to the land a gray-wool quality. The path that Tennyson had been following began to rise, and as he went up the hill, the mist cleared enough for him to make out the cabin that crouched on top of it. He was certain it was Decker's place. He wondered if he would find the man at home or if Decker might be off on one of his rock-hunting trips. Tennyson shrugged. No matter. If Decker was not home, he'd turn about and go back to Vatican. It was a pleasant day to walk and chances were he would have taken a walk in any event before the day was over.

Decker came around the corner of the cabin when Tennyson was halfway up the slope. He was carrying an armful of firewood, but he waved with his free hand and shouted a greeting that was muffled in the heavy air.

He left the door open and when Tennyson stepped through it, Decker came back from the fireplace at the opposite end of the room and held out his hand. 'Sorry that I had to leave you on your own, he said, 'but I wanted to get rid of that load of wood. It was heavy. Now let's sit down in front of the fire. It's a good day for it.

Tennyson pulled his knapsack off his shoulder, reached into it and hauled out a bottle. He handed it to Decker.

'I found I had an extra one, he said.

Decker held it up to the light.

'You're a lifesaver, he said. 'I went through my last one a week ago. Charley sometimes brings me a couple, but not always, not on every trip. He's short himself, I suppose. He steals it, you know.

'Yes, I know, said Tennyson. 'If Charley is the Wayfarer captain. I never knew his name.

'That's the man, said Decker. 'How well did you get to know him?

'I imagine not at all. We talked off and on. He told me about Apple Blossom.