Project Pope

'But many of us have a Christian heritage, whether we're actually Christians or not. It doesn't make any difference whether we are or not. In many of us, the old way of Christian thinking still hangs on. Look, we still use Christian swear words — hell and Christ and God and Jesus. Those words roll easily and naturally off our tongues.

Te

'Of course not, Jason. But when mankind began leaving Earth, they lost a lot, or shed a lot, along the way. A lot of us don't know what we really are.

They sat silently for a time and then she said, her voice soft and low, 'Jason, you don't notice my face any longer — the stigma, that horrible angry scar. I can tell you don't. I can tell you really don't. You're the first man in my experience who has ever gotten so he didn't notice it.

'My dear, he said, 'why should I?

'Because it disfigures me. Because it makes me ugly.

'There is enough beauty in you, he told her, 'both inside and outside you, that disfigurement doesn't matter. It takes nothing from you. And you're right — I don't see it any longer.

She leaned toward him and he caught her in his arms.

'Hold me, she said. 'Hold me. I need it so much, Jason.

One evening only. Most other evenings he did not see her. She worked long hours digging out the history — extracting it from the records, pulling it together, trying to understand what she was finding, wondering at the fanatical devotion that through the years had driven the robots on their dedicated quest. Not religion, she told herself at times, not entirely religion, then again she would become convinced that it was religion. Although as she worked, the nagging question came in her mind and would not go away:

What is religion?

Cardinal Theodosius came at times to visit her at her work, hunched on a stool beside her, muffled and overwhelmed in his purple vestments, looking very much like a wrapped-up mummy.

'Do you need more help? he'd ask her. 'If so, we could find more aides for you.

'You've been most kind to me, Your Eminence, she'd say. 'I have all the willing help I need.

And she had. The two robots working with her seemed as interested as she. The three of them, grouped about the great desk where she worked, put their heads together in an attempt to puzzle out the occasional obscurity in the record, to debate fine points of theology and meaning, trying to make come clear and understandable the faith and thought that had been put down centuries before.

On one of his visits the cardinal said, without preamble, 'You are becoming one of us, Miss Roberts.

'Well, hardly, Your Eminence, said Jill Roberts.

'I did not mean what you apparently thought I meant, said the cardinal. 'I was thinking of your viewpoint, of your evident enthusiasm and devotion to fact.

'If you're thinking of truth, Eminence, I've always been devoted to the truth.

'It is not the matter of truth so much, the robot said, 'as it is of understanding. I do believe you may be begi

Jill pushed away the papers she had been working on. 'No, Eminence, I do not understand. Perhaps you can enlighten me.

There are great areas of understanding that are lacking. The principal lack is an explanation of what made you come out here to End of Nothing. What drove you out of Earth? The supposition is that you chafed under the rule that no robot could become a communicant of a church, that you were denied religion. That is what any robot in Vatican will tell you, speaking as if this is an article of faith. But here I find no clear-cut evidence —

'What came before the fact of our coming here, said the cardinal, 'is not in the record. There was no need to put it in. All of us knew why we came here. It was a part of us, it was understood. There was no reason to record it, for it was well known.

She said no more; she was hesitant to argue with a cardinal, even a robot cardinal.

He seemed not to notice she did not pursue the question; possibly he was confident he had explained to her satisfaction. Nor did he push the conversation further. He sat hunched upon his stool for a few minutes longer, then rose and left.

Te

'So you sca

'It left me, said Te

'It left me the same, said Henry. 'I've done no Listening since. Frankly, I'm afraid to. I tell myself that back to the trilobite is as far as I should go. The trilobite must be close to the edge of sentience. Go back another step and a man is apt to wind up a lump of mindless protoplasm, knowing nothing but the urge toward food, the flight from danger. That was almost the case with the trilobite. But it was my own mind intruding that made sense of the trilobite. It just could be that if I went back far enough, I could get stuck forever in a mass of living jelly. That would be a hell of a way for a man to end his days.

'You could try for something else.

'You don't understand. Sure I could try for something else. A lot of the Listeners aim for specific areas. Sometimes they make it; a lot of times they don't. You can't quite be sure. Listening is a tricky business. It's not entirely under control. Take Mary, for instance. I suppose she will try for Heaven again, and with a Listener like Mary, she'll probably find her way. But even she can't be sure. You can never be sure. I never really tried to go back along the germ-plasma line. I just happened to.

'Then why are you reluctant to do any more Listening? You might not-

'Dr. Te