Clifford Simak - Project Pope

— Then all this business of equations and diagrams, those are really problems. Not just talk, but problems.

— They are problems, said Whisperer. Maybe some talk, but mostly problems. They do not need to really talk. They commune among themselves. They know each other so well.

— Wait, said Tennyson. Could these people be retired? You know what retired means?

— I'm not sure I do.

— When a human has worked for the greater portion of his estimated time, he is retired. He no longer has to work. He has time for himself. He can do anything he wants to.

— Yes, that's it, said Whisperer.

— So we found an old folks' home. A bunch of oldsters, fiddling away their time.

— No, not fiddling away their time. In their own minds, they still have work to do. That's why they work so hard. The greatest sorrow for them is that the problems they work on are not immediate problems, not functional problems, not real work. Real work is what they thirst for, but they are not allowed to do it.

— Where are the others of them? Those who are not retired?

— Otherwere. Near or far, I cannot tell. They work on real problems.

— But the retired ones, the ones you talked with. They do chores as well? They can think as well? They have capabilities?

— They sent me out, said Whisperer. Where, I do not know. No geography. No coordinates. I skated on a magnetic flux and I danced with ions, I warmed myself on a red dwarf star in blackness.

— They really sent you? Not just showed it to you? They sent the atoms of you?

— They sent the atoms of me.

— Why? asked Jill.

— Because they knew I wanted to. They read the wishes of me. Or maybe only to show me the skill of them. This I do not think, for I was made to understand that it was but a small thing that they did. A kindness to me, knowing what I wanted. And I talked to them of Heaven.

— Heaven?

— You want to go to Heaven, do you not? Could I be mistaken?

— No, you're not, said Tennyson. No, you're not mistaken. But there are no coordinates, no data…

— You must talk with me again of it, show it in your minds. You tell me the story that you know. Everything you know of this Heaven place.

— And then?

— I'll talk with them again. Tell them how badly you wish to go. How you so much deserve to go. They'll try, I know. This would be real work for them, not just the games they play. They'll be glad of it. The equations will flash and the diagrams will build and they'll search their data and their memories.

— But even if they found Heaven, if they located it, could they take us there?

— They sent me out, said Whisperer. They sent me many places.

Mary died in the middle of the morning, a frail old woman who appeared in death more frail and unsubstantial than she had appeared in life, as if death had subtracted from her a portion of the physical dimension she had held as a living entity. Tennyson, standing by her bedside, looked down on her, the body making only a small elongated mound beneath the sheet. Again, as he had each time before when he had lost a patient, he felt a smudged sense of guilt, not sharply defined, but a vague wondering if he might not better have fulfilled his obligation as a healer, and a dull feeling of blame in having failed. He had saved her life that first time — he was sure he had; the death blow had been struck on the golden stairs of Heaven when the dark man had harried her down the stairs, shaking a finger at her. After that she had not wanted to live, had not fought to live, and by her own acceptance of death had slipped quietly into it.

The nurse touched his arm. 'I am sorry, Doctor. The nurse, he told himself, understood. 'So am I, he said. 'I had a great deal of admiration for her.

'There was nothing you could have done, said the nurse. 'Nothing anyone could have done. Then she moved away, and after a moment Tennyson turned about and left.

Ecuyer rose from a chair in the waiting room. Tennyson nodded at him. 'It's over.

Ecuyer came up close to him and they stood facing each other. 'She was the best of them, said Ecuyer. 'The best Listener I ever knew. There is a big crowd outside, waiting. I will have to go tell them.

'I'll go with you, said Tennyson.

'It is strange, said Ecuyer. 'Not only was she a good Listener; she was a devoted one. She believed deeply in the program. It was her entire life. And yet she will be the one who will spell its end.

'Have you heard anything? Been given any word?

Ecuyer shook his head. 'It may not happen that way. It all will be smooth and quiet. No big upheaval. Just a steady clamping down. New regulations, quietly inserted into the procedure, a general closing in. One day, without realizing that it has happened, we'll know that we are done, that our work is finished.

'What will you do, Paul?

'I'll stay here. I have no place else to go. I'll be taken care of; Vatican will see to that. That much at least they owe me. So will the Listeners be taken care of. We'll drag out our lives here, and when the last of us are gone, that will be the end of it.

'If I were you, I wouldn't be so certain, Tennyson said. For a moment he debated with himself whether to tell Ecuyer something of what Whisperer had said, holding out to him one last feeble hope.

'Do you know something? asked Ecuyer.

'No, I guess I really don't.

There was no purpose in telling him, thought Tennyson. The hope, at best, was a slight one — almost no hope at all. What Whisperer had proposed seemed impossible. On the surface it seemed far-fetched. It was impossible, he told himself, that the equation people could seek and find, with virtually no data, the place Mary had called Heaven. Heaven could be anyplace. It could be in a distant galaxy. It could be in another universe. Although come to think of it, it might not be so far away. Decker had thought he knew where it was; the implication was that he had been there, or very close to it. Although that, he reminded himself, was poor evidence. Decker had not spelled it out and now he never would.

Ecuyer was at the door, holding it open for him, and he went out. The small plaza in front of the clinic was jammed with waiting people. There had been a number of them there when Tennyson had come in; now there were even more. They were quiet — not even the murmur of low whispering that ordinarily was the case with such a crowd.

Ecuyer walked forward and the crowd watched. They know, Tennyson told himself, what Ecuyer is about to say, but they'll wait on his saying it. Human and robot alike will wait quietly for the word — word that Mary's dead and they finally have a saint.

Ecuyer spoke quietly. He did not raise his voice.

'Mary has gone to her reward, he told the waiting throng. 'Only moments ago. She died peacefully, with a smile upon her lips. There was nothing that could be done to save her.

A sound swept the crowd, a sound like a monstrous in-drawn breath. A sigh of relief? Tennyson wondered. The end of waiting.

Then someone with a foghorn voice — a human rather than a robot voice — broke into formalized prayer, and other voices joined in until the unison of prayer reverberated through all of Vatican. Many knelt to pray, but others remained standing, and a moment later the bells of the basilica began a steady, somber tolling.

Ecuyer came back to Tennyson and together the two of them walked away.

'Shouldn't you be joining in with them? asked Tennyson. 'Don't mind a heathen like myself.

'I'm not- Ecuyer started to say, but did not finish it. He said something else. 'If Mary could only know this, she'd love it. She was a devout person. She went regularly to mass, she spent hours upon her knees, telling the beads. Not for appearance's sake, not for show — she lived her religion.