Project Pope

— I know. I know not how. But the Bubbly and the Plopper are very closely related.

— Let's try to sum it up, said Te

— We should be leaving now, said Jill. Whisperer, could you take us home?

— I can take you home.

— How about the equation folk?

— No need to worry about them. They can find their way back. If they want to go.

— You think they may not want to go? Oh, yes, I see what you mean. They were put away in an old folks' home and now they've broken free of it…

— So we have only ourselves to think of, said Te

— Why do we feel this way? asked Jill. Here we are assigning the Bubblies an adversary role. Maybe it won't turn out that way at all. This Center and Vatican are engaged in the same activity. They might want to be cooperative. They might want to join in with Vatican…

— Which is the last thing Vatican would want.

— I can't help it, said Jill. I think the same way you do — that the chance is they are adversaries. But we can't be sure of that.

— For one thing, said Te

— But they must have known about Vatican long before we came here. Remember the Theodosius memo. A survey party of the Bubblies did visit Vatican.

— Yes I know, I have been wondering about that. Also what Decker said about the data piling up. A Bubbly survey sweep might take centuries, might cover a lot of planets. They'd come back with tons of data. They'd be forced to pick and choose. They'd study only what seemed the most important. Maybe the Vatican data is still in the files untouched. Vatican's not too spectacular. It might not have made much of an impression. Perhaps the Bubblies never had run across robots before, would not even guess at their capabilities. So far as we know, the human made robots are the only ones in the galaxy. To the Bubblies, a robot might seem to be nothing but a lump, a chunk of metal, a machine. They stayed only a few minutes, not much more than a fly-over. Remember what that memo written by Theodosius said — that the one he saw clearly looked down upon him with enormous disdain.

— Theodosius couldn't be sure of that. It was only his impression.

— I'm not certain of that. A robot cardinal can be pretty damn discerning.

— Well maybe so, said Jill. I hope you're right.

— Do you now, asked Whisperer, wish to go back home? I am ready to transport you there. I'd not mind going back myself.

— We can't, said Te

— You endanger yourselves, warned Whisperer. I know of danger in this place.

— I wish we could pin down, said Te

— It could be, said Jill, but the exercise of power must presuppose a political organization. Does this place operate politically?

— There's no way we can know, said Te

— I know, said Jill. I know what we could take back as proof. One of the worms. If we took back a worm, the theologians would have to agree that this is not Heaven. There are no worms in Heaven. There simply could not be.

— I sorrow to tell you this, said Whisperer, but I ca

— Now that we know where Heaven is, said Jill, could we send out other Listeners? They could bring back proof imprinted on their cubes.

— It wouldn't work, said Te

— If we, said Jill, could only take back a cube.

— We can't, said Te

— They let us in, said Jill. They must have let us in. They could have stopped us or driven us off as they drove off Mary.

— In that you're wrong, said Whisperer. The equation people do not operate as the Listeners operate. The equation people did get us here without detection. We were here before Center knew of us. Having done it once, however, I'm not sure we could do it a second time. The people here, now aware of the chink in their defenses, will take steps to insure it won't come about a second time.

— So that's it, said Te

— Do you mean to say, Jill asked, that we have made this trip for nothing?

What was the answer to that? Te

Why, he wondered, had he (or Jill) not been able to foresee this situation? They had talked about it, of course — the necessity of returning from Heaven with some proof, one way or another. But they had given no adequate thought to what such proof must be. Why had they not realized the near impossibility of obtaining unquestioned proof?

If they only had more time, they could work it out. It seemed, however, that they had little time. There was a danger here, a danger that he could not define, but a danger that every fiber of his being insisted that they faced. And Whisperer agreed.

Failure, he thought. They had accomplished their mission and still they faced failure.

What the hell could he do, or Jill, or the two of them together? One thing, he knew, they could not do. They could not turn tail and run, not for a while at least.

— If we could only get word back to Theodosius, said Jill. Word that we are here and it isn't Heaven.

— I can take back word, said Whisperer.

— But who could you tell it to? There is no one on End of Nothing you can talk with. Not Theodosius, not Ecuyer….