Clifford Simak - Project Pope

In between the roadways, set at every angle, each surrounded by small courtyards, were buildings of every shape and size. These were not formed of the same material as the larger structures, but were of every color. It was, thought Tennyson, as if one were looking at tabletop models of many villages, but with all the tabletops haphazardly slung together with no regard to their relationship to one another.

The platform took a sudden curve, almost throwing them off their feet, changing from one roadway to another and almost at once entering another tunnel. When it emerged from the tunnel, it was in what appeared to be the interior of one of the larger buildings they had been looking at. Gently the platform came to a halt in what could have been a parking lot, for there were many other vehicles there.

Jill and Tennyson stepped off and the equation folk floated off the platform, with the four cones herding them down a path between the cars.

They entered a room. At the farther end of it a bubble sat on a dais ranged against the wall. Other cones were there in groups around the dais, and to one side of it sat a small haystack that had eyes peering from the hay, while an octopuslike creature hopped back and forth before the bubble. Each time it landed on the floor, it made a squishy sound like a large chunk of fresh liver hurled against a solid surface.

The cones herded them forward until they stood before the bubble, then fell back and left them there.

The bubble was more than just a bubble. It had a dimple in the forefront of it, and inside the dimple was what might have been a face — the sort of face that one could not be sure was there. One second you could see it and the next moment it had dissolved into drifting smoke.

Jill gasped. 'Jason, she said, 'do you remember that memo — the memo that Theodosius wrote? The one I found in the wastebasket in the secret closet?

'My God, yes! said Tennyson. 'The bubble is one of the things that the cardinal described. A face like drifting smoke, he said.

Noise came from the drifting smoke, a grating, scraping noise. The noise went on for some time. In a little while, it became apparent that the noise was the bubble talking to them.

'I can't make out a word of it, said Jill.

— It is trying to communicate, said Whisperer. That is evident. But unintelligible.

— It sounds as if it might be shouting at us. Is it angry, Whisperer?

— I think not, said Whisperer. It projects no sense of anger.

One of the cones came scurrying up and stood before the bubble. The bubble grated at it, and it turned and scurried off. The bubble fell silent. It was still looking at them, although at times the smoke would obscure the face, but even then they felt it still was looking at them.

— I think, although I can not be entirely sure of this, said Whisperer, that it has summoned someone that may be able to translate the conversation it essays with you.

The bubble stayed silent. The cones were silent, too — if, in fact, they ever made a sound. The only sound was the squishy-liver sound of the octopuslike creature that kept hopping back and forth. The eyes of the haystack creature to one side of the dais watched them unblinkingly.

Silence, except for the liver plopping, held the room. Then there was a new sound — the unmistakable sound of someone walking, of bipedal human walking.

Tennyson turned toward the sound.

Thomas Decker was striding purposefully across the room toward them.

'Ecuyer, this time I want you to come clean with me, said Cardinal Theodosius.

'Your Eminence, protested Ecuyer, 'I've always come clean with you.

'If by that you mean that you have told me no lies, said the cardinal, 'you may be right. What I'm talking about is that you have not always told me all you know. You've concealed facts from me. For instance, why did you never tell me about Decker's Whisperer?

'Because the subject of the Whisperer never came up in any conversation with you, said Ecuyer. 'That, combined with the fact that I did not hear of it myself until just a few days ago.

'But Tennyson knew about it. Well before you did.

'Yes, that's true. He was a friend of Decker's.

'How did he get mixed up with the Whisperer?

'The way he told me was that the Whisperer sought him out.

'But when he told you it was considerably after the fact.

'I gather that it was. He had the feeling that he owed it to Decker not to tell me, or anyone. He told me only after Decker had been killed.

'Except for the matter of the Whisperer, you and Tennyson were very close. By which I mean that he told you everything.

'That was my impression.

'Did he happen to tell you that he was going to Heaven?

Ecuyer, jerked upright in his chair. He stared at the cardinal for a moment, trying to read his face — but no one ever read a robot face. Then he slumped back again. 'No, he said, 'he didn't. I had no idea.

'Well, it happens that he has. Gone to Heaven, I mean. He's either on his way or already there.

'Eminence, said Ecuyer, 'you can't possibly know that.

'But I can, said Theodosius. 'An Old One told me. I thought about it for a while before I summoned you. We have plans to make.

'Now, wait a, minute, said Ecuyer. 'You say you heard it from an Old One? Where did you find the Old One?

'I went visiting. I found one in the hills above Decker's cabin.

'And he told you Tennyson was about to go to Heaven?

'He said he was already on his way. Tennyson and Jill. The Whisperer, he said, had found a way to take them.

'We talked about it —

'You talked about it? And not a word to me?

'There was no point in saying anything to you. All of us agreed it was impossible.

'Apparently it was not impossible.

'It's true that Tennyson has been missing for a day or two, but that doesn't mean —

'Jill has been missing, too. If not to Heaven, where would they have gone? There's no place on End of Nothing that they would be going.

'I don't know, said Ecuyer. 'It seems impossible they could have gone to Heaven. For one thing, no one had the least idea of where to look for it. Maybe if we could have found the Mary cubes…

'The Old One said the people of the equation world had given them some help.

'Well, yes, that might have been possible. Both Tennyson and Jill had been to the equation world.

'There, you see, said Theodosius, 'that's something else that you never told me. Didn't it ever occur to you that I might like to know what is going on?

'How sure are you that the Old One knows what he is talking about? And how come you went visiting an Old One and —

'Ecuyer, all these years we have been wrong about the Old Ones. They are not the ravening horrors that the myths have told. That's what is wrong with myths, they so seldom tell the truth. The Old One I talked with was the one that brought Decker home, and Hubert. Standing on the esplanade, he talked with me and Tennyson. We owe them an apology for all we've thought of them. We should have become friends with them very long ago. It would have been to our advantage if we had.

'Then you're fairly sure about the Heaven visit?

'I'm sure, said Theodosius. 'The Old One seemed to have no doubt, and I believe he told me true. It was an act of friendship, his telling it to me.

'Christ, it seems impossible, said Ecuyer. 'Yet, if it was done, Tennyson would be the one to do it. The man is remarkable.

'When Tennyson and Jill return, we must be ready for the word they bring.

'You think they will be back?

'I'm certain that they will. They do this for Vatican. Despite the shortness of their stay with us, they — the two of them — have become one with us. Tennyson told His Holiness the other day something that the Pope passed on to me. He was quite tickled with it. About the monasteries of Old Earth….