Project Pope

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.

What she could not accept was that implied area beyond the borders of either space or time, that implication of a never-never land that could exist with no need of either time or space and, presumably, without the steadying hand of the physical laws that went with them. It was one, she thought, with the energy of thought, with the thrust of mind — and 'energy' might not be the right word, for energy was a familiar component and as such could be ruled out of this other place. It all was one with the robots using the power of thought to operate the ships with which they ventured not only across the known universe, but into the areas beyond.

As far as the rest of the history of Vatican was concerned, it was straightforward narrative — the initial landing of the ships from Earth, the early pioneering days, the construction of Vatican itself, the construction, continuing even to this day, of an electronic pope, the bringing in of humans, the setting up of the Search Program, the development of new capabilities in the newly manufactured robots.

The entire project had been well thought out by the robots from the very start. Before they had ever left the Earth, they had known what they were looking for — an out-of-the-way planet where casual visitors were not likely to blunder in on them, where they would be left alone to carry out their work. But they must find, as well, a planet where it would be possible for humans to live. The robots could have lived on almost any sort of planet, and had it not been for the human factor, the search for their base of operations would have been much simpler. But never for a moment had the robots considered embarking on their project without human help. Whether at that time they had evolved the principle of the Search Program, which was based solidly on humans, was not completely apparent from the record, although Jill was inclined to believe that they had. The old bond with humanity still existed; the ancient partnership still held.

Just how many ships the robots had used to transport themselves and their equipment to End of Nothing, or how they had originally acquired the ships, also was not written out in black and white. The best estimate she could arrive at was that there had been no more than three. Several trips to and from Earth had been made, the later trips to bring in materials that could not be accommodated on the first flight, with the last trip bringing in the humans whose descendants still lived upon the planet. Eventually the ships had been broken up for the metal and other materials that could be salvaged. Once again, it was not clear when this had been done, but it made sense, Jill told herself, that it had not been until the thought-driven ships (if they really were thought-driven) had been built.

The robots had done much more, at first glance, than it would have seemed could have been done in a thousand years — that is, until one considered that robots need take off no time to rest or sleep. They could work around the clock, if need be, for weeks and months, perhaps for years, on end. They were never tired or sleepy. They were never ill. They felt no need of recreation or of entertainment, and she found herself wondering, bemusedly, what a robot might do for recreation or for entertainment. They did not have to take time out to eat; they never paused for breath.

And the remodeling of robots, the designing of new robots (a new generation or generations of robots) was simpler, too, when one thought about it, than would be the mutation and evolution of biologic forms. The genetic shufflings that must take place to bring about appreciable modifications in biological systems would require an enormous amount of time. Natural biological evolution required the death and birth of many generations to pass the gene mutations on and to allow the long, slow process of adaptation. But in a robot society all that would be required to bring about desired changes and new capability would be the redesigning of new forms and mechanisms and the engineering that it would take to translate the blueprints into being.

Behind her a footstep sounded, and at the sound she turned around. It was Asa with her sandwiches and the glass of milk.

He put them down, carefully, in front of her and stepped softly to one side.

'And now, he asked, 'what would you have me do?

'For the moment, she said, 'nothing at all. Take a rest. Sit down and talk wit-h me.

'I need no rest, he said. 'I have no need to sit.

'It's not against your rules, is it?

'Well, not against the rules.

'Even cardinals sit, she said. 'When His Eminence, Theodosius, comes to visit me, he often sits and talks.

'If you wish, said Asa, perching himself upon the stool the cardinal used on his visits.

She picked up a sandwich and took a bite. It was roast beef and tasted good. She picked up the glass of milk.

'Asa, she said, 'tell me about yourself. Were you forged on Earth?

'Not on Earth, milady.

'Then here?

'Yes, here. I am a third-generation robot.

'I see. And how many generations might there be?

'There is no way of telling. It depends on how you count. Some say five, others seven.

'That many?

'That many. There may be even more.

'Have you ever been to some of the places the Listeners have found?

'Twice, milady. I have made two trips.

'Ever outside of time and space?

'On one of them, he said. 'One of the two, I was outside of time and space.

'Could you tell me what it was like?

'No, I cannot. There is no way to tell. It's another place. Not like here at all.