Project Pope

Fifty-four

'Up to a point I can remember some of it, said Decker. 'I remember being plastered against the hull of the ship, trying to dig my fingers into the metal of it, looking out and seeing the hub of this place spearing up at me and the roads that ran into the hub like so many spokes. I don't remember running for the lifeboat because it wasn't me who ran, not me, this Decker II who sits here and talks with you, but the real, the first, the original Decker who was the pattern for me.

'It all checks out, said Tennyson, 'with what little the original Decker, as you call him, told me. He didn't tell me much. He was a tight-lipped man.

'So am I, said Decker II, 'but the shock and I might say the joy in meeting people of my kind has knocked some of the reticence out of me.

They sat in a pleasant room, high in one of the many towers. Thick carpeting covered the floors and paintings hung upon the walls. Comfortable furniture stood about.

'I'm glad, said Jill, 'that you were able to find this place for us. In all the alienness, it is a touch of home.

'It took a bit of doing, said Decker, 'but the Bubbly was insistent that I find a proper place to put you up. He's gone on hospitality.

'The Bubbly?

'The bubble with the funny face, said Decker. 'He is only one of the many who are here. Out of my irreverence, I call them Bubblies. They have another name, of course, but it's well-nigh unpronounceable in the human tongue and a literal translation of it sounds ridiculous. This particular Bubbly that you met is what might be called a friend of mine, although perhaps more than an ordinary friend. It's hard to explain. I call him Smoky, from that face of his, although all of them have the same kind of faces. He doesn't know what Smoky means, although I call him it to his face. He thinks it's an affectionate human name. If he knew its human meaning, he might get sore at me. You saw the Haystack that was there with him?

'I noticed it, said Tennyson. 'It was watching us.

'He is Smoky's first friend — first because he has been with him longer. I am his second friend, second because I've not been here that long. We make up a triad. Among the Bubblies, no Bubbly stands by himself. There must be two others with him. It's a sort of brotherhood, a blood brotherhood, but that's not exactly it, either, but it's as close as I can come. Old Haystack must have given you something of a start. He's a strange-looking critter.

'He certainly is, said Jill.

'Haystack's not too bad a sort, said Decker, 'once you get to know him. For one thing, he's not the kind of slobbering horror that you meet so often here.

'You take all of it very well, said Jill.

'I have no complaint, said Decker. 'I've been treated well. At first I wondered about my position — captive, refugee, exhibit? I guess I still don't know what I am, but I don't worry about it any longer. The Bubblies have done well enough by me.

'The Bubblies took what amounted to a picture of you, out there in the ship; not of you, but of the original Decker, said Tennyson, 'and used it to recreate another Decker, which is you. From that distance, with you behind the hull of the ship-

'You have to understand, Decker told him, 'that far more than a picture, as you term it, is involved. I'm not sure about the technique. I understand the principle but not how it works. The nearest I can come to explaining it, and it's a feeble explanation, is to compare it with the body scanner that was developed on Earth a long time ago. First it was called a brain scanner because it was used principally on the brain, usually to detect tumors. But later it was used as a body scanner. It could take a picture of cross sections of the body. It sort of peeled the body, speaking photographically, which is an awkward way of saying it, taking X-ray pictures at different depths. The term «picture» is not right, either. The data was fed into a computer that put together the findings so they could be read. Well, this is what the contraption used by the Bubblies can do. But it can operate over considerable distances. Its data can be used to reconstruct any sort of matter, anything on which the data has been obtained. I was told that in my case, in addition to the data on my body, it also had data on a cross section of the ship. But they only used my body data. I suppose the specification on that cross section of the ship is still somewhere in the files and that it could be recreated if there was any point in doing it.

'But Decker, the original Decker, was two hundred years or so out of his time, said Tennyson. 'That's what he told me. The lifeboat held him in suspended animation while it searched out a planet where he could survive. The search took some two hundred years. Yet your best estimate is that you have been here only a hundred years or so.

'This is the first I've known of that, said Decker. "But I can make a guess. It probably took the Bubblies a hundred years before they got around to me. They have a lot of data piled up. Sometimes they have to pick and choose what they want to recreate. Some of the data they have here may have been in the files for several hundreds of years. Some of it they may never get around to.

'You say a hundred years. How old were you when this happened — forty years or so? You don't look a hundred and forty to me. You don't look a day older than the Decker that I knew.

'Well, the way it goes, said Decker, 'is that they improve upon the data. When they turn out an organism from the data, they try to spot the weak points. I suppose that when I was built from the data, the data provided for that useless human organ, the vermiform appendix. Noting it was useless, they'd have probably left that out. I'll make you a wager I have no appendix. A weak or malformed heart valve — they'd fix that up as well. A missing tooth would be replaced, one that had caries would be replaced as well. A bad kidney or a suspect length of gut…

'You sound as if you could be immortal.

'Not immortal, but I'll probably last a while. If something went wrong and there was any need of saving me, they probably could do something about it — replace a heart, perhaps, or a liver or a lung. That's the way it is with everything. I'm the only human they have and they had no idea of my life style. But when I explained, once I'd learned their language, what I needed, they came through with — carpeting, paintings, furniture, the kind of food I required. They even made a few extras, more than I needed. That's what you have here. Give them the specifications and they'll come up with anything. They have matter converters of a sort. Not a dingus that you shovel sand into and out comes bouquets of flowers or ice-cream cones or decks of playing cards or whatever you may ask, but efficient machines, terribly efficient.

'There are no other humans here? asked Jill.

'A few other humanoids, but they aren't human. On a number of counts they aren't. Two legs, two arms, two eyes, two ears, a mouth and nose, but they aren't human. Which is not to say they are any less than human, for they aren't. Some of them may be a cut above a human. I know all of them and all of them know me; we all get along together. We do have a few things in common. For any one of us, it is better than associating with a brainy spider or a blob of pulsating intelligence.

'But what's the point of all of this? asked Jill. 'It sounds like a sort of galactic zoo.

'It's that, of course. But it's something else as well. My best translation, which is far wide of the mark, of the term used to describe this place would be the Center for Galactic Studies. The basic operation is very like your Vatican, although from what you've told me, the approach is somewhat different and the motives somewhat different, too. The Bubblies were the ones who started it, perhaps close to a million years ago, but they're only part of it now. Top dogs, of course, but along the way they picked up partners from other cultures oriented to research. Taken all together, it is an impressive operation. The entire undertaking is based on going out into the galaxy, going physically, and bringing back data. Once the data are in, life forms can be recreated and studied. It's not only data on life forms that they bring back, but artifacts from other cultures — machines, buildings, vehicles, toys, foods, crops, you name it. In this respect, the method would seem to be somewhat better than the Vatican approach; a more solid approach, but the area is restricted to a single galaxy, although there has been some noise over the last century or so about developing a technique that will make it possible to go farther out, to some of the nearby galaxies perhaps.

'How about security? asked Tennyson. 'It would seem to me a place like this would be a treasure trove. Once some of the races out there learned what you are doing, they might consider some judicious raiding. Vatican achieves some security by being in a remote location and keeping a low profile. Here you're sticking out, wide open.

'My crew, or rather the original Decker crew, said Decker, 'was scared off by a psychological weapon. A sense of terror was broadcast and I honestly can't tell you how it was done, the terror mixed with a booming voice that told them, though they couldn't understand the words, to get the hell out. The crew was so scared and so was I that no one made a move to veer off; they simply ran in terror, anything to escape. The ship crashed fifty miles beyond this place. Even your Listener, Mary, was effectively scared off. I didn't know about this until you told me, but it's apparent to me that she was frightened off. Even if she was not in the flesh, she still was detected. Somewhere in our files there is some data on her. Nothing done with it yet, I would imagine. Probably it didn't seem all that important.

'It brought us here, said Jill.

'Yes, it did. How much are you going to tell the Bubblies?

'We've told it all to you.

'Yes, of course you have. And I'll tell it to Smoky. Is there anything in particular you'd like me to say nothing about?

'Not a thing, said Tennyson. 'We are an open book.

'My best advice, said Decker, 'is to make an open breast of it. The Bubblies will be intrigued enough that they will start some digging. I doubt there is anything to fear from them. They're really fairly decent, even by human standards. Alien as all hell, of course, and hard at times to figure, but they're definitely not ogres. This is the first time in all their history that anyone has sneaked up on them. That is guaranteed to catch their attention. These equation folk of yours must have plenty on the stick.

'They're good at what they do, said Jill.

'I would guess that from the interest Smoky showed in them they're new to the Bubblies. Have you any idea where they are located?

'Not the faintest, Tennyson told him.

'You mean that, not knowing their location, you still could contact them?

'That's exactly right.

'But how?

'Look, Decker, we've told you almost everything. Leave us one trade secret.

'That's fair enough. It seemed to me that I saw a Duster with you. Could that be correct?

'Duster?

'A Duster. A fuzzy ball of glitter.

'One came along with us, said Jill. 'He seems to have disappeared.

'Could he have had something to do with it?

'Decker, I said one secret, didn't I? asked Tennyson.

'Yes, you did. I'm sorry.

'How about the equation folk? asked Jill. 'Do you know where they are?

'They're clustered in Smoky's parking lot, said Decker. 'All bunched up together and the equations and diagrams flickering so fast you can barely see them. But, now, I'll have to say good night. You people want to get some rest. And I have work to do tomorrow.

'You have a job?

'Certainly. Almost everyone does. You are allowed to pick what you want to do — that is, if you're qualified. My specialty is interpreting. Strangely enough, I found that I had an ear for alien tongues. I can manage with quite a lot of them. But basically I'm a sort of curator. I make a valiant effort to classify all the junk from distant worlds that finds its way into this place.

'You know, of course, said Jill, 'that we don't intend to stay long?

'Protocol, if nothing else, said Decker, 'demands that you talk with Smoky and perhaps some of the other Bubblies. They'd take it rather badly if you didn't. I would guess they have a lively interest in you. I'll go along with you to act as interpreter.