Project Pope

Forty-two

Despite the flaring candles the room was dark, the darkness soaking up the candlelight. The humped shadows of furniture crouched like stalking beasts. The guard stood, spraddle-legged, against the door. Cardinal Theodosius sat in his huge, high-backed chair, seemingly muffled in his robes.

'Dr. Tennyson, he said, 'in all the time that you've been here, this is the first time you've done me the honor of dropping in on me.

'I knew how busy you must be, Your Eminence, said Tennyson. 'And, heretofore, there was no need.

'There now is need?

'I think there is.

'You come to me at a time of some difficulty. We have few such times in Vatican. But now we do. Those fools out there.

'That's why I came to see you. Jill…

'I would have expected such action from the humans. You humans are a flighty tribe. Solid folks, but excessively emotional. At times it seems to me that you do not have good sense. With the robots I would not have expected it. We are a stolid people, at times phlegmatic. You would not have thought that robots could work themselves into such a state of hysteria. You were about to speak of Jill?

'Yes, I was. said Tennyson.

'She is one of the finest humans I have ever met. She has identified with us. She is interested in us and in Vatican. You know how hard she works.

'Indeed I do.

'When she first came to us, said the cardinal, 'she was somewhat less than enchanted. She wanted to write about us, as you well know, but that we could not allow. For a time I thought that when the ship next left she would be leaving on it. That I did not want her to do, for I knew inside myself, well before she demonstrated that I was correct, that she was the capable, devoted historian we needed and had never found. Tell me, Doctor, if you will, why simple folks such as we should feel so desperate a need to have our history written. Not for others, but for ourselves. Jill would have been glad to write our story for others, but that we would not countenance. However, we are all too happy to have her write it for ourselves.

'I am no psychologist, said Tennyson, 'so I speak with no certainty and surely no authority. However, I would like to think that it might be because you have done a job of which you are very proud.

'Indeed we are, said the cardinal. 'We have reason to be proud.

'And because, said Tennyson, 'you want to solidify your identity into such a form that it will not be forgotten. So that, perhaps, a million years from now other life forms will know that you were here, or that you still are here, if, in fact, you still exist a million years from now.

'We will be here, said Theodosius. 'If not I, if not my other fellow robots, at least Vatican will be here. Back on Earth, you humans formed economic corporations that assumed an identity of their own, persisting as corporate entities over thousands of years. The humans who formed and carried on the corporations died, but the corporations did not die. They carried on because they were ideas expressed in materialistic terms. Vatican is not a corporation but it is akin to a corporation. It is an idea patterned in materialistic terms. It will endure. It may change, it may have its ups and downs, it may be forced to evolve, it may face many crises, but the idea will not die. The idea will go on. Ideas, Dr. Tennyson, are not easily destroyed.

'This is all fine, Your Eminence, said Tennyson, 'and I value your judgments on this or any other subject, but I came here to talk of Jill, to tell you —

'Ah, yes, Jill, said the cardinal. 'It was all most unfortunate. In this saint business, I am afraid, she was caught — how is it you say it? — she was caught in the middle, I suppose. It all must have been embarrassing to her, to have people shouting at her, proclaiming a miracle. Citing her as evidence of a miracle. You are a doctor; can you tell me how it happened? This silly business of Mary performing a miracle on Jill's face is all poppycock, of course, and I cannot believe —

'Your Eminence, said Tennyson, rudely breaking in, 'I came to tell you that Jill has disappeared. I've looked everywhere. I thought, perhaps, that you…

'The poor girl, said the cardinal, 'undoubtedly has gone into hiding, fleeing from those fanatic louts out there.

'But where could she have gone? She knew of only a few places she could go to hide. She really had no place to hide.

'Tell me, truly, Doctor, how this so-called miracle came about? What erased the stigma? Not Mary, I am sure of that. It must have been something else. You're a doctor; you must have some idea of what happened. Would you say, perhaps, a spontaneous remission, the body's curing of itself?

'Dammit, Your Eminence, I do not know. I've come to you for help. I want to know anything you might know that could help me find her.

'Have you looked in the library?

'Yes, I've looked in the library. I've looked everywhere.

'In the little garden by the clinic?

'Yes. I've told you. I've looked everywhere. You talk with her a great deal; you go to the library to visit her. Did she ever tell you anything, say anything at all that might — A loud hammering on the door interrupted them. Tennyson swung around to see what was going on.

The startled guard opened the door a crack to peer out and whoever had been pounding on it gave it a fierce shove, knocking the guard out of the way. A robot dressed in a monkish habit burst into the room.

'An Old One! he bawled. 'Your Eminence, an Old One!

The cardinal rose from his chair.

'An Old One, he thundered. 'What about an Old One? Cease all this hullabaloo and tell me what you want.

'An Old One is coming, the monk shouted at him. 'An Old One is coming up the esplanade.

'How do you know it's an Old One? Have you ever seen an Old One?

'No, Your Eminence. But everyone says it is an Old One. Everyone is running and screaming. Everyone is scared.

'If it is an Old One, said the cardinal, 'they had damn well best be scared.

Through the open door came the faint sound of screaming, a noise that filtered through many corridors.

'Up the esplanade? asked Tennyson. 'Heading for the basilica?

'That is right, Doctor, said the monk.

Tennyson said to the cardinal, 'Don't you think we should go out there and see what the Old One wants?

'I do not understand it, said the cardinal. 'No Old One has ever come to Vatican before. In the early days, when we first came here, we occasionally caught glimpses of them, never very many of them, and always from a long distance off. We didn't try to see them too closely. We had no commerce with them. We never troubled them and they never bothered us. Some terrifying tales weire told of them, but that was later on, the length of time that it takes for a myth to build.

'They did kill my predecessor — the young doctor — and the two humans who were with him.

'That is true, but the idiots went hunting them. You do not hunt an Old One. It simply isn't done. That was the first time, and the only time, that the Old Ones ever have committed violence.

'Then it's reasonable to think this one comes with no violence in its mind.

'I wouldn't think he is here to do us violence, said the cardinal, 'but who is to know? The people have a right to fear the Old Ones, if only from the stories they have heard, and to flee as they now are doing, It's only common sense.

'Well, are you coming out with me or not?

'You intend to confront the Old One?

'Not confront him. Meet him.

'Oh, I suppose I might as well, said Theodosius. 'There'll be no one else, I'm sure. I warn you, there'll just be the two of us.

'We will be enough, said Tennyson. 'Is there any chance we can communicate with him?

'There are ancient tales that some communication may be possible with Old Ones.

'All right, then. Let's go out and talk with this one.

Tennyson led the way, with Theodosius at his heels and the guard and monk trailing them at a considerable and, presumably, a safe distance.

As they walked through the corridors leading to the entrance of the papal palace, Tennyson tried to remember what he had been told of the Old Ones. It turned out, it seemed, that he had been told very little. The Old Ones had been here, on End of Nothing, when the robots had arrived. There had been only accidental, glancing contacts between the Old Ones and the residents of Vatican. Over the years a myth of the Old Ones as ferocious killers had grown up, the sort of stories that were told in chimney corners in the dead of night. But whether there might be any basis of fact for such stories, he had no way of knowing. Actually, during the time that he had been here, he had heard very little talk of Old Ones.

They came out of the palace and there, a short distance to the right, stood the massive, soaring basilica, its front facing on the broad, paved esplanade that ran up from the east. The esplanade was empty of either robots or humans — emptier than Tennyson had ever seen it. On top of buildings to either side human and robot heads peeked out, watching what was happening below. A breathless silence lay over everything, broken only now and then by distant shouts and shrieks.

Far down the esplanade a pudgy figure trudged, as broad as it was tall. Viewed from the distance that they stood, it appeared not too large, although Tennyson realized that to loom up as it did from the far end of the esplanade, it must be huge.

He hurried down the steps and along the walk that led to the basilica, with the cardinal crunching along behind him, the monk and guard lagging far behind.

Reaching the flight of wide stone stairs that led up to the basilica, Tennyson and the cardinal climbed them and stood waiting for the Old One.

The cardinal said, in an astonished voice, 'Doctor, that thing out there is spinning on its axis.

It was, indeed. It was a huge sphere, standing, Tennyson estimated, some twenty feet into the air. It was spinning slowly, and as it spun, it was moving forward. The surface of the globe was black, and while the surface was fairly smooth, it was pockmarked with numerous indentations. It was suspended in the air, its spinning body clearing the pavement by a foot or more.

'Strange, said the cardinal. 'Very strange, indeed, Doctor, have you ever seen anything quite like it?

'No, I have not, said Tennyson. 'You seem astonished. Can it be true you have never seen an Old One?

'As I told you, long ago, when we first came here. The stories had it that they were globular, but you know how stories are. I, myself, have never seen one until now.

The Old One came up to the foot of the stairs. There it halted and its spinning stopped. It dropped to the pavement and rested there.

'Those pockmarks on its hide, said Tennyson, 'must be sensory receptors. Sight, smell, hearing — Lord knows what else.

The cardinal said nothing. He stood erect, no longer muffled by his robes, like a soldier at attention.

The Old One sprouted an arm on his right side. It pushed out of his body and grew in length. At the end of it was what amounted to an outsize hand. It reached the hand into a pocket that had not been apparent before the hand dipped into it. It brought out something clutched in its fist and, lengthening its arm to do the job, laid it on the pavement. It was a human body. Tenderly, the fingers of the massive hand straightened the body and turned it on its back.

'My God! Tennyson cried. 'That's Decker!

He went several steps down the stairs, then stopped. The Old One's hand had dipped into the pocket again and now came out. Carefully and neatly, it deposited what it had brought from the pocket alongside Decker's body — a rifle, a rolled-up sleeping bag, a knapsack, a camp axe and a battered coffee kettle.

On the left side it also grew an arm, and with it reached into another pocket on the left side of its body. Out of it it brought another object and laid it on the pavement, alongside Decker's body — a robot with the top of its metal skull torn off, and another rifle. Carefully the fingers straightened out the dead robot and laid the rifle beside it.

The Old One pulled its arms back into its body, became a simple globe again.

It began to hum, like a vibrating drum, and its humming filled the air, as if the air itself might be vibrating. Out of the humming came human words, deep, slow, and somberous.

'We are wardens, it said. 'We keep watch upon this planet. We allow no killing here. Killing for food to keep life within the body is acceptable, for this is the plan of life for some. But not killing for any other reason.

The humming subsided and the words fell away.

Then the humming began again and more words came. 'We have lived in peace with you. We want to keep on living so. Do not allow this to happen again.

'But, sir, cried Tennyson, 'you killed three humans only a short time ago.

The humming built up. 'They came hunting us. They had it in their minds to kill us. This is not allowed. No one kills us. We killed to save ourselves. We killed because the humans were not desirable — they had no place upon this planet.

The humming died and the Old One began to spin. Once it had started spinning, it began to move away, down the esplanade.

Tennyson leaped down the stairs and knelt beside Decker in hope that there might be life still within the man. Decker was dead, had been dead for hours.

Tennyson looked up at Cardinal Theodosius, who was coming slowly down the stairs. Behind him, Tennyson heard the drumbeat of running footsteps. When he turned, he saw that it was Ecuyer.

'Jill is back, Ecuyer shouted at him.

The running man pulled up in front of him, panting from his running.

'She said she had been to the equation world. She said… He stopped and gazed in horror at what lay upon the pavement.

'What have we here? he asked.

'Decker dead. The Old One brought him home.

'So that was an Old One, said Ecuyer. 'I could not know. One hears so many stories. Jason, do you know what happened?

Tennyson shook his head. 'The Old One brought that other. A robot with the top of its head shot off.

Ecuyer walked over to the robot, stood peering down at it.

'Jason, he said haltingly, 'do you know who this is?

'Just a robot. I can't tell…

'It's our boy, Hubert, said Ecuyer. 'The one that cooked your meals and cleaned up the place, that looked after you.