Project Pope (14 page)

Then, turning back toward Vatican, he'd finally find one of the few roads, little more than a broader trail, to lead him home. He'd trudge along it happily, his feet raising little puffs of dust, the warmth of the sun upon his back, the peace of the mountain on his mind. And a few days later, he would go out again, perhaps in a different direction this time, to prowl up and down the land while the mountains watched.

One afternoon, heading back toward Vatican along one of the narrow roads, he heard something approaching from behind. Looking back, he saw a beat-up surface vehicle, with a man sitting at its wheel. Tennyson was surprised, for this was the first time on any of his hikes that he had seen another person, let alone a car. He stepped well out of the road to give it room to pass, but it did not pass. When the car drew up to him, it stopped and the man said to him, “Are you so dedicated to your walking that you would refuse a lift?”

The man had an honest, open face, with searching blue eyes.

“I would appreciate a lift,” said Tennyson.

“I take it,” said the man as Tennyson climbed into the seat beside him, “that you are the new doctor over at Vatican. Tennyson, isn't it?”

“That's right. And you?”

“I'm Decker. Thomas Decker, at your service, sir.”

“I've been roaming around out here off and on for several weeks,” said Tennyson. “You're the first man I've seen in all my rambles.”

“And the only one you are likely to see,” said Decker. “All the rest of them stick close to home and fireside. They have no curiosity or appreciation for what lies all about them. They look at the mountains every day of their lives and all they see are mountains. You see more than mountains, don't you, Doctor?”

“A great deal more,” said Tennyson.

“How about seeing even more? I'm in a mood, if you wish, to conduct a guided tour.”

“You have a customer,” said Tennyson.

“Well, then, the battery's up,” said Decker, “and we have hours of operation. First, let us see the farms.”

“The farms?”

“Yes, of course, the farms. You eat bread, do you not? And meat and milk and eggs?”

“Certainly I do.”

“Where, then, did you think it all came from, other than from farms?”

“I suppose I never thought about it.”

“These robots think of everything,” said Decker. “They must feed their humans, so some of them are farmers. Electricity is needed, so they built a dam and set up a power facility. Some solar power as well, but they've not pushed the solar power. However, they have the capability and can expand it any time it's needed. They also have a sawmill, but it runs only part-time, for now there's no great demand for lumber. Some centuries ago, when the building was going on, there was a great need of it.” He chuckled. “You can't beat the robots for efficiency. They use a primitive steam engine to operate the sawmill, using slabs and sawdust produced by the mill to drive the engine.”

“They're a self-sufficient community,” said Tennyson.

“They have to be. Out here they are on their own. There's no such thing as imports, except for small items they may need from time to time. The small items
Wayfarer
hauls in for them. The freight costs a pretty penny. The robots keep pace with the economy's demand by keeping the demands small and simple. If you don't need much, you don't need much cash, and the robots have very little cash. What they gouge out of the pilgrims just about keeps them going. They have a small woods crew that does nothing all the year around but cut logs for the fireplaces that are used by everyone. A steady demand, a steady supply, perfectly balanced. They have it figured out. They have a grist mill to grind their wheat and other grains into flour. Again, a steady demand and a steady supply, with a reserve stashed away against a bad year, although so far, I understand, there has never been a bad year. All primitive as hell, but it works and that's what counts.”

They now were driving along a somewhat better road than the one from which Decker had picked up Tennyson, cut into level farming country. Acres of ripening grain stood blowing in the wind.

“Soon they'll be harvesting,” said Decker. “Even Vatican people will drop all their sanctified duties and go out into the fields to bring in the crops. Cardinals with their red and purple robes tucked up to guard them against being stained by dust. Brown-clad monks bobbing along, being useful for the only time in the year. They use cradles to cut and gather the grain, swarming about the field like so many ants. They've rigged up a threshing machine that works rather well, and it runs for weeks to get all the threshing done. Another steam engine to operate the thresher. For it they haul in and stack cords of wood well ahead of time.”

Interspersed among the grain fields were pastures, lush with grass, roamed by cattle, horses, sheep and goats. Hog pens held thousands of grunting porkers. Hordes of chickens roamed a fenced-in hilly section.

Decker jerked his thumb toward the horizon. “Fields of maize,” he said, “to fatten up the hogs. And that small field ahead of us is buckwheat. I told you; they think of everything. Back in the hills, they have an apiary with hundreds of stands of bees. Somewhere around here—yes, we're coming up on it now. See it? Cane. Sorghum cane. Sorghum for the buckwheat cakes you'll be eating later on.”

“It takes me back to my home planet,” Tennyson said. “Ours was a farming planet. Solidly based on agriculture.”

They came on orchards—apples, pears, apricots, peaches and other kinds of fruit.

“A cherry orchard,” said Decker, jerking his thumb again. “Cherries ripen early. All the crop's been picked.”

“You're right,” said Tennyson. “The robots have thought of everything.”

Decker grunted. “They've had a long time to think of it. Almost a thousand years—perhaps a little longer, I don't know. Wouldn't have needed any of this if they hadn't needed humans. But they needed humans. Your robot is a silly sort of chap; he has to have his humans. I don't know when the first humans were brought in. My impression is a century, or less, after the robots got their start.”

The sun was close to setting when they turned back.

“I'm glad you showed it to me,” said Tennyson. “I had no idea.”

“How you getting along at Vatican?” asked Decker.

“Well enough. I've scarcely gotten settled in. What I see I like.”

“What do you know about this Heaven flap?”

“I hear something occasionally. I'm not sure I know what it's all about. There is a woman who thinks that she found Heaven.”

“Did she?”

“I honestly don't know. I'm inclined to doubt it.”

Decker wagged his head. “There are always flaps of one kind or another. If not Heaven, then it's something else.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Tennyson caught the glitter over Decker's right shoulder. He looked away and then looked back and the glitter was still there, like a haze of suspended diamond dust. He put up a fist to rub his eyes, and as he did, the glitter went away.

“Get something in your eye?” asked Decker.

“It's nothing,” said Tennyson. “Just some dust. I have it out.”

“Want me to take a look at it? Make sure?”

“No, thank you. It's all right.”

Decker headed the car up a winding road that climbed the ridge on which Vatican crouched against the backdrop of the mountains, now purple with approaching dusk.

“You want to be dropped at the clinic?” Decker asked. “Or is there some other place that would be more convenient?”

“The clinic's fine,” said Tennyson. “And I must thank you for the tour. It's been enjoyable.”

“I go rock hunting every now and then,” said Decker. “Out for several days. Back into the mountains. If you could find that kind of time, how about joining me on one of the trips?”

“I'd like to do that, Decker.”

“Call me Tom.”

“All right, Tom. I'm Jason. There might be periods when I could go. I'd have to pick my time.”

“The trip could be adjusted to your schedule. I think that you might like it.”

“I'm sure I would.”

“Then let's plan on it.”

When Decker dropped him at the clinic, Tennyson stood on the roadway, watching the clattering vehicle until it went around a bend in the road and out of sight. Then he turned about and headed for his suite, but on an impulse turned aside and went down the path that led to the garden he had found that first day he'd come to Vatican.

The garden lay in a pool of twilight, a place of softness and strange sweet-flower perfume. It was, he thought, a dimly lighted stage posed against the massive, deep-purple curtains of the towering mountains. And as he looked, he knew instinctively why he had come—here was the place to say farewell to a perfect day. Except that until this moment, he had not realized it had been a perfect day. Had it been Decker, he wondered, who had made it a perfect day, but knowing as he thought of it that it had not been Decker. The man was a new friend, someone who was not tied in with Vatican and, for that reason, somewhat different from the others he had met here. But there had been something else, he knew, although he could not put a finger on it.

A robot came trundling down the brick-paved walk.

“Good evening, sir,” it said.

“A good evening to you,” said Tennyson, then, “I'm sorry. I failed to recognize you immediately. You are the gardener. How are the roses doing?”

“They are doing well,” said the gardener. “Most of them, for the moment, past the best of their bloom, although there'll be more later. I have a group of yellows that are budding now. In a few days, they'll be at their best. You must come by and see them.”

“That I shall do,” said Tennyson.

The robot made as if to pass him, heading for the gate, then turned to face him squarely.

“Sir, have you heard the news?”

“I'm not sure,” said Tennyson. “Of what news are you speaking?”

“Why, sir, the move that is being made to canonize the Listener Mary.”

“To canonize—you mean to proclaim her a saint?”

“Exactly, sir. It is the feeling of Vatican—”

“But people are not canonized until they're dead—ordinarily a long time after they are dead.”

“I don't know about that, sir. But as one who has found Heaven …”

“Now, wait a minute, gardener. Where did you hear this? Who is talking about it?”

“Why, all the Vatican commonality. She would be our first saint. Everyone is convinced it would be an excellent idea. Our first saint; we've never had another, and it is said it is time we had one and—”

“How about the cardinals? What does His Holiness think?”

“Sir, I do not know. I'm not privy to such things. But the talk is everywhere. I thought you'd like to know.”

He raised a hand, which still grasped a pair of shears, in solemn salute and went on down the walk, passing through the gate, leaving Tennyson standing alone upon the walk.

A vagrant wind, blowing off the face of the mountains, brought a wave of perfumed lushness.

“For the love of God,” said Tennyson, speaking to himself, aloud, “there'll be no living with her now.”

Chapter Seventeen

Late at night a single light burned above Jill's desk. Her two aides were gone—one to perform certain pious duties, the other to fetch her sandwiches and a glass of milk.

She pushed away the pile of notes she had been working on and leaned back in the chair, stretching her arms above her head. Then she folded them across her breasts, hugging herself tightly.

Far places, she thought—strange, impossible places outside of time and space. Where could that be? What lay outside the boundaries of space and the restrictions of time? Once again she drove her mind to understand, but there was no way, nothing on which to base such an understanding, and the records gave no hint. But they did make clear—these records—that, at times, the robots ventured out into that impossible area that lay beyond the space-time continuum, traveling in ships of their own devising. Ships driven by the energy of thought, the power of mind? She could not be certain, but that was the hint that lay within the records.

Good Lord, she thought, what had she gotten herself into? Why did I ever allow myself to be so sucked in? But one thing was clear—now that she had gone this far, she should not quit, she could not turn about and walk away. She could not shut the book and leave it. She simply had to know, and there was so much to learn. Jason had warned her what could happen and she should have listened to him. You'll get sucked in, he'd said; you won't be able to pull yourself away.

The aides had protested at her methods of research, her skipping through the records. This was not the way to do it, one of them had told her—you start at the beginning and go on to the end; you do not skip about. But she had to skip about, she'd told him; she must get an overview, she has to catch the pattern. Otherwise, how could she relate what has happened with what is about to happen? Once we know that, she had told him, we'll go back to the beginning and proceed from there.

The otherwhere, she thought, and the otherwhen. But that was not right. These places were neither where nor when. They were in some far distant country of the mind, but not her mind—the mind or minds of something else, of someone else. Could that far distant world, she thought, be in the esoteric dimensions of magnetic flux where lived those entities that were not biological, although they held not only life, but intelligences for which there were no explanations? No, it could not be, she thought, for outrageous as it all might be, these entities still existed within the common and familiar areas of both time and space, although perhaps one twisted beyond all human recognition. Within time and space, she told herself, the physical laws of the known universe still must operate—there must be energy and matter, cause and effect, being and not being—although within those parameters, there must be room for a consciousness and an intellect and a thinking that could quite conceivably be in advance of biological thinking. That she could buy—it came hard to say, yes, that could be so, but it still was acceptable, it still lay within the bounds of human reason.