A Reasonable World

18

His Holiness Clement XV, the Bishop of Rome, Defender of the Faith, etc., etc., formerly Clarence Cardinal Morphy of Chicago, was a worried man. All over the world, the faithful were flaking away. Church attendance was down, in some places by almost half; contributions were down by more than that. Number of seminarians, down; nuns and lay brothers, down. Birthrate of Catholic families, down. Resignations of priests, up. It looked to the Pope as if he had been called to preside over the dissolution of the Church. What a hell of a thing to be remembered for! But it could happen; in the nature of things, there would be a last pope sometime, just as there had been a last Emperor of Austria.

Morphy kneaded his stomach, fetched up a belch, and felt a little better. These banquets were giving him the fits, and he was putting on too many pounds; he would have to sweat them off when he got home, and if there was anything he hated more than sin, it was exercise.

It was not to the point, he thought now, that other religions were suffering as well; he had a fraternal sympathy for them, but they were not his lookout. He must save as much of the Church as he could. He knew he could not save it all.

This world tour— The travel and the speeches were exhausting, the crowds scanty. He was getting good media attention, but always in the context of crisis. He had been to Mexico and South America, pleading with the faithful not to turn their backs; now he was going to the Philippines on his way to Japan. The ocean habitat Sea Venture was docked at Manila; a visit had been arranged. That should be interesting, at least. Was the rest of the trip doing any good? He didn’t know.

“Let’s see,” Owen said, “the Pope will get here about three, but he’s sometimes unpunctual, so we’ll have to keep this a little loose. Whenever he does get here, I’ll meet him and take him around to the labs and whatever else he wants to see, and when I get the feeling he’s had enough, I’ll call the computer and have it broadcast the announcement about going up to the Sports Deck. It ought to take about half an hour to get everybody up there, Captain Trilling?”

“I’d say just about that.”

“You’ll have to leave a few people down here, of course.”

“I’ll pick the Protestants,” Trilling said. There was a little laughter.

“And I really don’t like leaving the lab and office sections absolutely empty, either. Jim has already said he will stay in the office and watch on holo. Is there a volunteer for the lab section?”

“I’ll stay,” Italiano said. “I’ve seen a pope.”

“All right, that’s decided, and thank you.”

His name was Arthur Bannerjee, and he had been an experimental subject in Dr. Italiano’s laboratory, an experience he thought of as interesting but which he had no desire to repeat. He remembered the laboratory and its location: it was right down at the bottom on the left side, frontward from the working section where the kitchens were: he had often smelled the aromas in the corridor.

The observer slipped out and into a passing young woman with a child. The woman held the boy’s hand in a protective grip; she had heard of the deaths of other children the same age, and she was worried. They entered the cafeteria, and when they went up to the service line, she slipped out again and into a food service person. She was tired, her hands were sweaty in the plastic gloves, and she hated the very smell of the food she was serving; but she smiled at each customer as she had been taught.

When she went back into the work area, she saw the big metal containers, cylindrical ones for soup and ice cream, square ones for entrees and bread. When lunch was over, she helped scrape the leavings into the garbage, then began closing the lids on the food containers and carrying them to the dumbwaiter. The observer watched carefully; it took about half a second to close a lid. There was great danger here, because if she failed to get into the container just as the lid closed, and then could not enter a nearby host again, she would die and her message would be lost.

She prepared herself like a diver about to go off the high board, feeling the nerve impulse in her shoulder that meant the motion was about to begin. Her host’s perception of time was too coarse to judge the interval precisely, and yet her timing had to be perfect. Wait, wait... Now! She leaped out and into the soup container. The lid closed, and that was all she knew until, as if it were in the same moment, the lid came off. She slipped into the man who was raising the container to pour soup into a vat. From him he went into a supervisor, then into a passing maintenance person, and so by a chain of hosts to Dorothy Italiano, where she wanted to be.

After his reception at the Malacanan Palace and the rally in Quezon City, the Pontiff finally got to Sea Venture, or the Medical Detention Center as they called it now. It was an unseasonably cold day, with high dirty storm clouds and spits of rain coming out of the north. With his bodyguards and his secretary, Morphy passed through the rather sinister detect-and-destroy device at the foot of the boarding ramp. There was no sensation. “Was I carrying one?” he asked the operator.

“No, Your Holiness.”

“That’s good.”

In the lobby a gray-haired woman came forward. “Welcome, Your Holiness. I’m Dr. Owen, the Director.” Morphy felt cheerful; it was good to be in out of the weather. “Ah, yes. We’ve heard a great deal about your work.” He held out his hand in a sort of all-purpose position, and she shook it. Not a Catholic, then; he hadn’t thought so. “Doctor,” he said, “we understand you’ve found out the children born infected have certain abnormal characteristics, is that right?”

“Yes, Your Holiness, it is. They have a strong affinity for each other, and will defend each other against any other child. And there are indications that some of them have unusual abilities, but it’s too early to be definite about that.”

“In general, would you say they’re pleasant children, well behaved? Are they obedient?”

“They are certainly pleasant, and as well behaved as any four-year-olds. They aren’t always obedient.”

“Well, do you think when they grow up they’ll be more difficult to deal with than qthers?”

“We are thinking of that as a possibility. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Owen introduced her staff, and the Pope said a few words to each. Nobody kissed his ring; this was worse than he had thought. They gave him a tour of the laboratories, then took him up to the Sports Deck where, it seemed, the whole population was gathered—children in front, adults in the rear—and the wind was still spitting cold droplets.

Dr. Italiano, who really had a very interesting mind, was thinking of the idea she had had last night, that it would be fun to find out if a symbiont could recall memories inaccessible to the host; it had not yet occurred to her to wonder how to verify them. And her first subject was being ushered into the room, visible to Italiano in the holoscreen; but there was no opening between the rooms, and in fact, she realized with despair, the two rooms did not even have a common partition.

The subject was being released from the pole restraint. She was sitting down. The guard was going away.

“Good morning, Miss Weinstein.”

“Good morning.”

“Was your breakfast okay?”

“Sure.”

“All right. Now today we’re going to try something that might be fun. Will you pick up the cylinders, please? Thank you. Now let’s talk a little about your childhood. What’s the earliest thing you can remember?”

“Oh—I was on the front porch, and I saw a little green grasshopper, but it jumped away.”

“How old were you when that happened, do you think?”

“About two, I guess. In fact, I know that’s right, because we moved to Cleveland when I was three, and we didn’t have a porch.”

. . . And there was only one way, but it was terribly dangerous, because she didn’t know how long the electrical connection was between the two devices. Nevertheless, when she saw that they were both energized, she slipped out across the gray space, into the computer, found the peripheral input, and—

Up through the metal cylinder, into Miss Weinstein’s hand and arm, into her brain.

Hello! How did you— Oh. Oh. Later. Let me talk now.

“All right,” said Italiano, “now I’m going to ask you to describe something that happened on your first birthday. Go ahead.”

“I can’t remember that.”

“Never mind.”

On the screen letters were forming:

MAN WITH FLOOR MACHINE IS KILLING CHILDREN. HE

“What is this?” said Italiano. “Is that a movie you saw?”

DOES IT WITH A POISON RING. SHAKES HANDS WITH THEM. HIS NAME IS CHARLES WILSON.

“I don’t understand. Are you telling me something that you saw when you were one?”

NO. NOW.

“But how do you know it?”

WAS IN HIM.

“And you say he has a floor machine? What is that?” POLISH FLOORS. MAIN DECK.

“Here?”

YES.

After a moment Italiano said, “Popeye, Security, please.”

The face of a ruddy young man appeared in the tube. “Security, Matthews. Hello, Dr. Italiano.”

“Sergeant Matthews, will you send somebody over for Miss Weinstein?”

“Already? Okay, two minutes. Any problem?”

“No.” She punched off and said, “Popeye, Trilling.”

A simulated face appeared. It said pleasantly, “Captain Trilling’s office, can I help you?”

“Emergency,” said Italiano.

“One moment.” The tube went blank, but a voice spoke. “Drillig.”

“Captain, it’s Dorothy Italiano. Are you on the Sports Deck?”

“Yes. Wad’s the drouble?” His voice sounded as if he needed to blow his nose.

“I have information that someone has been killing children aboard. Have any children died recently?”

“Yes, two. One yesterday ad one the day before.” Now there was a honk: he was blowing his nose.

“All right, then I think we have to assume this is true. The man’s name is Charles Wilson, and he works on the Main Deck as a maintenance person.”

“I cad check that, adyway. Thags.”

“Wait, there’s more. He does it with a poison ring.”

“Are you serious? Where did you get this idformation?”

“From one of my subjects.”

“I see. What does this mad look like?”

“Wait a minute, I’ll ask.” He heard her voice repeating the question; then there was a long pause. Eventually she said, “Young, tall, thin, brown hair.”

“Okay.” Trilling punched off and looked around. He could see a little group of maintenance people not far away, and one or two others glimpsed between bodies, but the crowd was too thick to see more, and his eyes were watering. This would have to happen on a day when he really ought to be in bed with a hot toddy. He punched for Owen’s office, got a simulation. “This is Drillig. Gimme Mr. Corcorad, blease.”

“By Corcorad do you mean Corcoran?”

“Yes, dabbid!”

“One moment.” He waited, fuming.

“Corcoran,” said a voice.

“Jib, we have an ebergency. Ask the computer to flag a maintenance worker named Charles Wilson—got that?” As he spoke, he was working his way back out of the crowd. He spotted two of his own people and beckoned them over.

“Charles Wilson,” said Corcoran.

“Right, and tell me where he is dow.”

“Probably on the Sports Deck.”

“Hell! I mean exagly where he is. And for God’s sake hurry.”