Project Pope

Eleven

Tennyson found the garden in the rear of the building where the clinic was housed. The sun was coming up and to the west the mountains loomed close — perhaps seeming much closer than they were, he thought — a great wall of blue shadow, with the blueness changing tone and character, darker at the base, lighter near the mountaintops, with the whiteness of the icy peaks glittering with a diamond brightness in the first light of the sun. The garden was formal and well kept and, in this early-morning hour, had a softness to it. Brick-paved walks ran through it, the walks bordered by low-growing shrubbery and neatly laid-out beds of flowers, many of which were in bloom. Looking at them, Tennyson was unable to find one with which he was familiar. Far to his right, at the other end of the garden, three figures in brown robes strolled slowly, apparently in deep reflection, down a path, their gleaming skulls bowed forward, metal chins resting on their breasts.

The chill of the night was rapidly disappearing with the rising of the sun. The garden was a quiet and pleasant place, and Tennyson found himself thinking how fine it was to be there. At an angle where three paths ran together, he came upon a bench of stone and sat down upon it, facing the blue loom of the mountains.

Sitting there, he was astonished to find within himself a quiet, warm pride of competence he had not felt in years. Mary was doing well — perhaps beginning the road to full recovery, although it was still too early to be sure of that. The fever was abating and her pulse was stronger. The breathing was less labored. He had seen, or imagined he had seen, a faint flicker of latent consciousness in her eyes. She was old, of course, but in that pitifully shrunken body, he had sensed a willingness and a power to fight for life. Perhaps, he told himself, she might have much to fight for. She had found Heaven, Ecuyer had said, and that was patent nonsense. But having found Heaven, or what she thought was Heaven, the wish might be strong within her to learn a great deal more about it. That, at least, had been the sense of what Ecuyer had told him the night before — that Mary's life must be saved so she could learn more of Heaven.

There was no logic in it, he told himself. Someone was mistaken — either that, or it was some sort of joke, some sort of in-joke in Vatican or, perhaps, in the Search Program. Although Ecuyer, telling him of it, had not sounded as if he might be joking. He had told Ecuyer, and sitting there on the garden bench, he now told himself again, that Heaven, if it in fact existed, was not the sort of place that could be found. Heaven is a state of mind, he had said to Ecuyer; and Ecuyer had not disputed that, although it had been apparent that Ecuyer, a self-confessed not-quite-believer in Vatican itself, had held some sort of faith that Heaven could be found.

Nonsense, he told himself again. There was not a scrap of logic in it. And yet, he thought, more than likely this Heaven business was not one isolated instance of nonsense, but an extension of centuries of nonsense. No logic in it, and yet a robot, if it was distinguished by any character at all, would be known for its logic. The very concept of robotics was based on logic. Ecuyer had said that the robots had worked on self-improvement, were far better mechanisms than they had been when they first had come to End of Nothing. It did not seem possible, on the face of it, that the process of self-improvement would have lessened the quality or the scope of the logic that had served as the cornerstone of their creation.

He was missing something, he thought. Within all this array of apparent illogic, there must be some factor, perhaps a number of factors, that he did not recognize. Vatican-17 was not an institution that could be dismissed lightly. Ten centuries of devoted effort had gone into it, with the effort still continuing — the effort to establish a truly universal religion, to construct an infallible pope, the search to discover and understand all the facets that could be, or should be, incorporated into a universal faith.

He was trying too soon to evaluate it, he thought. Perhaps a human lifetime would not be sufficient to reach an evaluation that had some color of validity. He'd have to go along with it, watch and listen and question where he could, cultivate a feeling for what was happening in this place, get to know the personalities who were connected with it.

And thinking this, he was astonished to find that, unbidden, he had reached a decision, while thinking of something other than decision. For if he was to watch and listen, to question when he could, then the assumption must be that he would be staying here.

And why not? he asked himself. To get off this planet, he would have to return to Gutshot and, within the foreseeable future, that was the last thing he wanted to do. It was not bad here — not what he had seen of it, at least. Staying here he'd have the opportunity to practice medicine, perhaps a rather leisurely practice, watching over the health of the humans associated with Vatican, and probably occasionally caring for some of the human colony not actually associated with Vatican. He'd have good quarters, with a robot to look after him, more than likely interesting people with whom he could spend time. When he had fled Gutshot, he had been looking for sanctuary of any kind, and here he had found a better sanctuary than he had thought possible. A strange place, but he could become accustomed to it. Primitive in many ways, although no more primitive than Gutshot.

He sat on the bench and scrubbed the toe of one shoe back and forth along a crack in the bricks of the walk. He had come to a decision, he thought, much more easily than he had anticipated. Perhaps he would tentatively have accepted Ecuyer's offer the night before if the man had not thrown in the implied threat that Vatican held the means to keep him here. The threat had been uncalled for; why had Ecuyer felt impelled to make it? Threat or not, Tennyson told himself, staying on made sense. He had no place else to go.

He rose from the bench and strolled slowly down the walk. In a little while, he'd go back to the suite, where Hubert would have breakfast waiting. But he realized that this was precious time, that when the sun finally came up, this early-morning garden would become something different. The soft, gentle magic of the moment would be gone and might never come again — perhaps for someone else, but not for him. Here he had caught the needed moment to come to terms with himself, to decide, without rancor and with no guilt, that he would remain in this sanctuary.

Ahead of him the path took a sharp angle which was masked by a small group of purple-flowered shrubs, somewhat higher than most of the others. Rounding the curve, Tennyson stopped in midstride. Squatted on the walk, working with a pair of pruning shears on an array of bushes, was a robot. The bushes sprouted magnificent blooms of red, the velvet petals of the flowers jeweled with morning dew.

The robot looked up.

'Good morning, sir, he said. 'You must be the physician who arrived last night.

'Yes, I am, said Tennyson. 'But how do you come to know of me?

The robot wagged his head. 'Not I alone, he said. 'Everyone has heard of you. There is nothing happens here that is not known to everyone at once.

'I see, said Tennyson. 'But tell me — these are roses, are they not?

'Indeed they are, the robot said. 'A flower out of ancient Earth. We have many of them here and we prize them greatly. They do not have wide distribution. You recognized them; have you seen other roses?

'Once, said Tennyson. 'Long ago.

'You know, of course, the robot said. 'that we ourselves came from Earth. The ties have long since been broken with the Mother Planet, but we cling tightly to the heritage. Will you tell me, sir, have you ever walked on Earth?

'No, I haven't. Not many humans have.

'Ah, well, the robot said, 'I only thought I'd ask. He clipped a single, long-stemmed blossom and held it out to Tennyson.

'Please, sir, he said, 'accept from me a piece of ancient Earth.