Project Pope

Twenty-nine

Decker was hoeing in his garden. The plot, Tennyson noted, was clean and neat. The vegetables marched in sturdy rows. There were no weeds. Decker wielded the hoe with unhurried strokes.

Tennyson walked to the edge of the garden and waited. Decker, finally seeing him, hoisted the hoe and put it on his shoulder, walking down the row.

'Let's get out of the sun, he said to Tennyson. 'It's hot out in the garden.

He led the way to a shaded area where two rough wooden chairs flanked a low wooden table with a pail sitting on it.

Decker reached for the pail. 'It's only water, he said. 'It's probably warm, but at least it's wet.

He held it out to-Tennyson, who shook his head. 'You go first. You've been out there laboring.

Decker nodded, lifted the pail and drank from it, then handed it to Tennyson. The water was tepid, but as Decker had said, it was wet. He put the pail back on the table and sat down in the chair across the table from Decker.

'I keep a pail of water out here while I work, said Decker. 'It's too far to walk back to the house to get a drink when I need one.

'Am I interfering with your work? asked Tennyson. 'If you have a second hoe, I'm not bad at hoeing.

'No interference. In fact, you gave me a good excuse to stop. I'm just polishing the garden. It really does not need a hoeing.

'There's something I have to say to you. said Tennyson. 'I don't know if you and I are friends. I rather think we are, but it would depend on one's definition of a friend.

'Let's proceed on the assumption that we are friends, said Decker, 'until we find out otherwise.

'It's about Whisperer.

'So he came to you.

'That's right. How did you know?

'I was fairly sure he would. He was entranced by you. He told me so. I knew he'd hunt you up.

'He did more than hunt me up. He became — how the hell can I say this? He got into my mind; he became a part of me. Or at least he said he was a part of me. I can't be sure of that. He didn't stay too long.

'You threw him out?

'No. He offered to leave if I wanted him to go. He was a gentleman about it.

'What happened?

'About that time, Ecuyer came tearing in. Mary had got back from Heaven and was pretty well shook up.

'What happened to Mary?

'We haven't the full story as yet. She was scared out of her skull. She's still not quite coherent.

'It would seem, then, that it wasn't Heaven.

Tennyson shook his head, perplexed. 'We don't know. We can't make sense out of any of it. But about Whisperer. I told him he belonged to you; that I'd not lift a hand to steal him.

'I don't know if he belongs to me. I don't think he does. We are friends, that's all. It is quite a story. For years he pestered me. Played a game with me. It was the damnedest thing. He'd trail me and ambush me when I was in the wilderness. Challenging me. He wanted me to hunt him. He talked but not with a voice. Just words inside my mind. Probably you know how it is.

'Yes, he talked with me.

'I figured he was some big bloodthirsty beast. A ravening man-hunter with a twisted sense of humor. A couple of times, I got a bead on him, or what I thought was him. I had him in the sights, fair and square, but I didn't pull the trigger. I don't know why I didn't. I suspect that by that time, I'd gotten to like the bastard. There were times when, if I could have seen him, I would have clobbered him. Just to get shut of him, you understand, to get him off my back. But when it came right down to it, I couldn't pull the trigger. He claimed later on that he was only testing me to make sure he could trust me as a friend. Not pulling the trigger must have convinced him, for he finally showed himself and there, instead of a ravening beast, was this little puff of shining dust.

'Since then he has lived with you.

'He's in and out. Off and on. You saw the carvings on the table?

'Yes, I saw them.

'Whisperer carves them. I don't know how. I have a feeling that he can manipulate molecules — break them down, remove them from those areas he wants to carve away. I'm not sure of that. It's just a possible explanation that I came up with, out of thin air. He helps me hunt gems. Again, how he does it, I don't know. But he sniffs them out somehow. He locates them, tells me where to find them. Once we have them, he picks the ones he wants to carve.

'But you talk with him. You could have asked him. He could have told you.

'I don't think so, Jason. Our conversations are not on that high a level. At times I've felt funny with him, sensed a strangeness. Now, from what you've told me, I think I know what it was. He was trying to get inside my mind — trying, but unable to make it.

'You're probably right, said Tennyson. 'He told me he had tried with you.

'But he can get into your mind.

'Tom, I can't be sure. He told me he had sneaked into my mind. I can't swear to it. All I have is his word for it. If he was, it was not for long. It was only a minute or two before Ecuyer arrived. I'm not sure I like this business of Whisperer. I'm not sure I want him messing around inside my head. Myself is enough; I'm not sure there's room for anyone else.

'I doubt you have anything to fear, said Decker. 'He's a gentle soul. All that's wrong with him is loneliness. I helped him some with that. He thirsts for friends. I am, or was, the only one he has. Strange I feel a friendship for him. That seems impossible, that a man could feel friendship for a pinch of dust. I can sense the alien in him, but it doesn't put me off. I don't know who he is-

'I wanted to ask you that. I thought that by now…

'I've never asked him. I thought it was none of my business. And he's never told me. I thought at one time that perhaps he would, but he never has. Maybe it's too complicated to tell. I've done some speculating, of course, but I doubt I've ever gotten close.

'So you have no objection if I let him into my mind? If I tell him to stay out, I'm sure he will stay out.

'No objection, said Decker. 'I think you should let him in, if you have no objection, if you're not too queasy about it. Maybe he'll tell you things when he's inside your mind that both of us should know. He's been on this planet for a long time. He must have been here even before Vatican. Maybe he can shed some light on Vatican. I know he's interested; he's forever poking around over there. I have the impression, though, that he doesn't find out much.

He got out of his chair. 'Would you have a drink with me if I can find a jug?

'Yes, of course I would.

'You stay here, then. I'll go up to the shack and get it. It's too nice a day to be sitting in a house.

'It is that, said Tennyson.

After Decker left, Tennyson sat quietly in his chair. Before him stretched the garden patch and a small open wood. Far off, the mountains reared into the blueness. Over all lay a sense of peace and quiet. Far off, a bird made half-hearted song, and at times a tiny breeze made a small, whispering rustle in the leaves. Even the sunshine was a quiet sunshine.

Off to the left he could see the gray and white of Vatican, the buildings blending into the background unobtrusive, almost apologetic for intruding on the world. A quiet institution in a quiet world, thought Tennyson; no bad place to be. Over there, Jill was working in the library. He tried to separate the buildings in order to distinguish the library, but was unable to tell one building from another. At this distance, they made up a single huddle.

Jill worked too hard, he told himself; she was spending too many hours going through the records. The whole business had become an obsession with her. No longer did she mention leaving End of Nothing. Sitting there, he called her up in mind again — the intense face in the lamplight, telling him what she'd found that day, talking it out with him, trying out ideas on him — and all the time that ugly scarlet slash across one side of her face, a stigma that he scarcely ever noticed now, but it was, he thought, a pity just the same.

So deep was he in his thoughts of Jill that he was startled when Decker returned to thump down a bottle and two glasses on the table.

'Drink up, he said. 'This is the last of the bottle that you brought me, but Charley is due in another day or two. He'll bring me more.

'You don't have to depend on Charley, said Tennyson. 'I'll fetch you a couple or three bottles. Ecuyer has a cache of it. More than the two of us possibly can use.

Decker grunted. 'I said Charley would be showing up in a day or two and I got no flicker of interest out of you. Does that mean you're not going to try to arrange a deal to go back with him?

'It's too soon, said Tennyson. 'Gutshot will still remember me. There might be someone hanging around on the watch for me. Even if that weren't so, I don't think I want to leave. Not quite yet, anyhow.

'How about Jill?

'She'll probably stay on for a while as well. She's all caught up in her history project.

'Both of you, said Decker, 'are learning what I learned. End of Nothing is a fairly tolerable planet. Good climate. Productive land. No one pushing other people around. That's the best of it. There is no pushing around.

'That's why you stayed?

'That's part of it. The other part of it is that I am a couple of hundred years out of my time. I'll tell you the whole story someday, when the time comes and you have a lot of leisure to listen. But the gist of it is that I had to abandon ship. My crew ran off and left me, but somehow, in panic and by oversight, perhaps, they left one lifeboat. Not for me, not intentionally for me, I am sure; they probably just overlooked it in their mad rush to escape. I got into it and went into suspended animation. The ship got me here safe and sound, sniffing out a planet that would support me, but by the time it got me here a couple of centuries had passed. I am an anachronism, a man two centuries out of his world. I can't go back to the galaxy again; I'd be out of my depth. Here it doesn't matter. Most of the humans here are more outdated than I am. And the robots, God knows. In a lot of ways, they haven't advanced an inch beyond the time they came here a millennium ago. In other ways, they may be a million years ahead. They're brain-picking the galaxy, perhaps the universe.

'You have any idea what they really have?

'No inkling at all. Whatever they have, they keep it bottled up.

'And yet they are afraid. Jill found a memo one of the cardinals wrote. Undated, so there's no telling when it was written. It tells of a bunch of aliens, riding in bubble ships, that came here. On a survey, more than likely. They stayed only a short time, less than an hour. But this cardinal was scared pink with purple spots.

'There's a legend of the visit, Decker said. 'It must have happened years ago. The Day the Bubbles Came. It has all the markings of an ancient folktale, but the memo probably means that it has some historic basis.

'Why should the robots be so upset about it? The visiting aliens offered no harm; they didn't hang around.

'You must realize, said Decker, 'that the robot never is an adventurer. He always plays the averages. He never takes a chance. He is always cautious. That's the true measure between a robot and a human. Men take chances, plunge ahead, go for broke. A robot never does. It may be a reflection of his inferiority complex. He talks big, acts big at times, but he's never really big. He hunkers down a lot. He jumps at his own shadow. Vatican robots have been fairly successful here; there's not much here to spook them.