Clifford D. Simak - Project Pope

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Title: Project pope
Author: Clifford D. Simak
Original copyright year: 1981
Genre: science fiction
Book price (of scanned edition): GBP 1.75
Comments: to my knowledge, this is the only available e-text of this book
Source: scanned and OCR-read from a paperback edition with Xerox TextBridge Pro 9.0, proofread in
MS Word 2000.
Date of e-text: July 4, 1999
Prepared by: Anada Sucka
Anticopyright 1999. All rights reversed.
Project pope
Clifford D. Simak
Prologue
Thomas Decker was half an hour from home when Whisperer stopped him in his tracks.
- Decker, said Whisperer, speaking inside Decker's mind. Decker, now I'll get you. This time I
will get you.
Decker swiveled about on the game trail he had been following, his rifle raised, held away from
his body, ready to snap to his shoulder against the first sign of danger.
There was nothing in sight, nothing stirring. The heavy growth of trees and brush came down close
against the trail on either side. It all hung motionless. There was not the slightest breeze, no
flicker of a bird. There was absolutely nothing. Everything was frozen, as if eternity had clamped
down.
- Decker!
The word was inside his mind. There had been no sound, nothing spoken. The only sound was in his
mind and he had never been able to decide, in all his previous encounters with Whisperer, if there
had been a sound inside his mind. He just knew the words, lodged there in that area of his brain
in the front of his head, just above his eyes.
- Not this time, Whisperer, he said to the other, speaking to it as it had bespoken him, no words
uttered, but forming the thoughts and words inside his mind for Whisperer to read. Today I'm not
playing any games with you. I've played the last game with you. There won't be any more.
- Chicken, said Whisperer. Chicken, chicken, chicken!
- To hell with your chicken business, said Decker. Come out and show yourself and see if I am
chicken. I've had it with you, Whisperer. I'm up to here with you.
- You are chicken, said Whisperer. You had me in your rifle sights last time and you did not pull
the trigger. Chicken, Decker, chicken.
- I have no reason to kill you, Whisperer. Actually no wish to. But, so help me God, I'll let you
have it just to get rid of you.
- If I don't get you first.
- You've had chances at me, said Decker. You must have had a lot of chances. So let's quit this
bickering. Let us stop this horseplay. You don't want to kill me any more than I want to kill you.
You just want to keep on playing. I'm sick of your silly games. I'm hungry and I'm tired and I
want to get on home. I don't want to play hide-and-seek with you, chasing you up and down the
woods.
By now he had figured out where Whisperer was located, and he shifted slightly in the path to face
the spot where Whisperer was hidden in the underbrush.
- You had good luck this time, said Whisperer. You found a lot of gems. Maybe even diamonds.
- You know damn well I didn't. You were with me. You watched me all the time. I sensed you.
- You work hard, said Whisperer. You should find diamonds now and then.
- I'm not looking for diamonds.
- What do you do with what you find?
- Whisperer, why all these silly questions? You know what I do with them.
- You give them to the captain of the ship to sell at Gutshot. He steals you blind. He sells them
for three times what he tells you that he gets.
- I suspect he does, said Decker. But what the hell? He needs the money more than I do. He's
putting together a stake to buy that place on Apple Blossom. Why this sudden interest, Whisperer?
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- You do not sell him all?
- That is true. I keep the better pieces.
- I could use some of your better pieces.
- You, Whisperer? What would you want of them?
- Shape them. Carve them. Change them.
- You are a carver, Whisperer?
- Not an accomplished carver, Decker. Just a hobbyist. Now he knew exactly where Whisperer was
located. If he made the slightest move, he would let him have it. Whisperer wasn't fooling him
with this talk of gems and carving. It was just a lot of talk to throw him off his balance.
He might as well, Decker told himself, put an end to it. For months now, this hidden clown had
been pestering him, trailing him and watching him, jeering at him, threatening him, getting him to
play the silly game, making an utter fool of him.
- I could show you, in a stream not far from here, said Whisperer, a place where there are many
gems. There is one piece, a large chunk of jade, I want very much myself. Get the jade for me and
you can have all the rest.
- Get it yourself, said Decker. If you know where it is, get it for yourself.
- But I cannot, said Whisperer. I have no arms to reach, no hands to grasp, no strength to lift.
You must do it for me. After all, why not? We are friends. We have played games enough to even be
old friends. We've been at it long enough.
- Once I get my hands on you, said Decker. Once I get you in the sights again.
- What you had in your sights, said Whisperer, was not me. It was a shadow, a shape I made that
you would think was me. When you saw the shape and did not shoot, I knew you were my friend.
- Friend or not, said Decker, shape or not, shadow even, next time I'll pull the trigger.
- We could be friends, said Whisperer. We've spent an infancy together. We have romped and played
together. We've grown to know one another. Now that we have matured...
- Matured?
- Yes, Decker, our friendship has matured. No more play is needed. It was only a rite. Perhaps it
was foolish of me to inflict the rite upon you. A rite of friendship only.
- A rite? You're crazy, Whisperer.
- A rite you did not recognize, did not understand, and yet you played it with me. Not always
willingly, not always in good temper, often cursing and frothing and thirsting for my blood, but
you played it with me. And now that the rite is done, we can go home together.
- Over my dead body will we go home together. I'll not have you cluttering up the cabin.
- I would not clutter greatly. I would take little room. I could squeeze into a corner. You would
not even notice me. And I need a friend so greatly. I must pick a friend so carefully. I must find
one that is tuned to me -
- Whisperer, said Decker, you are wasting your time. Whatever the hell you are driving at, you're
wasting your time.
We could be good for one another. I would carve your gems and talk with you on lonely nights and
sit before the fire with you, and there would be many tales we could tell each other. You,
perhaps, could help me with Vatican -
- With Vatican! yelled Decker. What in the name of Christ have you to do with Vatican?
One
Jason Tennyson, fleeing for his life, came in low over the precipitous mountain range that lay to
the west of Gutshot. Immediately after he caught sight of the lights marking the town, he pressed
the ejection button and felt himself flung upward with a greater violence than he had expected.
For a moment he was enveloped in darkness; then, as his body spun, he saw the lights of the town
again and thought that he also saw the flier. But whether he saw the flier or not, he knew, was of
slight importance. It would continue over Gutshot, angling slightly downward over the ocean that
hemmed in the tiny town and spaceport against the towering mountains. Some fifty miles out to sea,
if his calculations were correct, the flier would go into the water and be lost. And lost as well,
he hoped, would be Dr. Jason Tennyson, lately court physician to the margrave of Daventry. The
radar at Gutshot space base undoubtedly had picked up the flier and would track it on its course
across the water, but at its low altitude, the base would soon lose contact with it.
His fall was slackening and suddenly, as the chute popped open to its full extent, he was jerked
sidewise and began swinging in wide arcs. An updraft caught the chute, forcing it back toward the
looming peaks and slowing the swinging; but in a moment it slid out of the updraft and was
floating smoothly downward. Tennyson, dangling at the end of the lines, tried to make out where he
would land; it seemed toward the south end of the spaceport. He held his breath and hoped. He
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threaded his arms through the chute straps and clutched his medical bag, holding it close against
his chest. Let it go well, he prayed - let it continue to go well. So far it had gone surprisingly
well. All the way he had held the flier low, rocketing through the night, making wide circuits to
avoid feudal holdings, where radars would be groping skyward, for in this vicious world of
contending fiefs, a close watch was always kept. No one knew at what time or from what direction
raiders might come swooping in.
Peering down, he tried to gauge how close he might be drifting to solid ground, but the darkness
made it impossible to judge. He found himself tensing, then consciously willed himself to relax.
When he hit, he had to be relaxed.
The grouping of lights that marked the town was some distance to the north; the spatter of
brilliance that was the spaceport was almost dead ahead. A blackness intervened to shield out the
spaceport lights and he hit the ground, knees buckling under him. He threw himself to one side,
still holding tightly to the bag. The chute collapsed and he struggled to his feet, pulling on
lines and shrouds.
He had landed, he saw, close to a group of large warehouses at the south end of the port. It had
been the bulk of the warehouses that had cut off the spaceport lights. Luck, he realized, had been
with him. Had he been able to plan it, he could not have chosen a better landing site.
His eyes now were becoming accustomed to the night darkness. He was situated, he saw, near an
alley that ran between two of the warehouses. He saw also that the warehouses were set on pilings;
a foot or so lay between the ground and the foundations of the buildings. And there, he thought,
was where he could hide the chute. He could bundle it together and push it as far into the space
as he could reach. If he could find a stick of some sort, he could even push it farther. But all
that was needed was to push it far enough that it would not be spotted by a passerby. This would
save him considerable time. He had feared that he might have to try to dig a hole or find a clump
of trees in which to hide the chute. All that was necessary would be for it not to be found for
several days; hidden underneath the warehouse, it might not be found for years.
Now, he thought, if he could find a ship and, somehow, get aboard. He might have to bribe some
member of the ship's personnel, but that should not be hard. Few of the ships, most of which were
freighters, that touched down at Gutshot would visit the port again for a long time, perhaps for
years; others of them might never come this way again. Once on the ship, he would be safe. Unless
someone found the chute, there would not be any evidence that he had ejected from the flier.
The chute safely hidden, the bag now unstrapped from about his waist and carried in his hand, he
made his way down the alley between the two warehouses. At the mouth of the alley, he stopped. Out
on the port, directly opposite where he stood, was a ship. The gangplank was down and a long line
of people - all of them aliens of various sorts - were being herded up the plank and into the ship
by a small group of ratlike creatures. The line extended some distance back from the ship, and the
ratlike guards were yelling at the aliens in the line, waving clubs at them to hurry them along.
The ship would be taking off soon, Tennyson told himself, puzzled at what kind it was. Few
passenger liners came down at this port, and this one did not have the appearance of a liner. It
was a dumpy old tub, blackened and disreputable. Its name was painted above the port and it was
some time before Tennyson could make out that it spelled WAYFARER, for the paint was flaking and
there was much rust upon the hull. There was no smartness to the ship. It was not the sort of
craft that any self-respecting traveler would choose. But, while he looked at it with some
distaste, Tennyson reminded himself that he was not in a position to be discriminating. The ship
apparently would be leaving soon, and that was far more important than knowing what kind it was.
If he could manage to get aboard, that would be good enough. If his luck still held for him...
Tennyson edged out beyond the alley's mouth. To his right, beyond the warehouse, a splash of light
flared out across a walk that paralleled the perimeter of the field. Walking out cautiously a few
feet farther, he saw that the light came from a small bar.
Some sort of altercation had arisen at the bottom of the gangplank. A spiderlike alien, all arms
and legs, was arguing with one of the ratlike creatures that were superintending the boarding. As
Tennyson watched, the spidery alien was pushed out of the line, with one of the rat beings
following, prodding it with a club.
The front of the warehouse lay in deep shadow and Tennyson edged along it rapidly. He came to the
end and stood still, looking at the bar. His best course, he figured, would be to get beyond the
bar and approach the ship from its forward end. Huddling in its shadow, he might be able to
approach the gangplank and wait for a chance.
The last of the line of passengers were snaking up close to the gangplank. In a few more minutes,
the boarding would be completed. The ship might not take off immediately, but he had the hunch
that if he was going to get aboard, he would have to act quickly.
To get past the bar, he decided that he would simply walk past, moving confidently, as if he had
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the right to be there. Someone might see him but probably would pay no more than passing notice of
him. The spidery alien had disappeared and the guard had returned to a position near the
gangplank.
Leaving the corner of the warehouse, Tennyson set off down the walk that passed in front of the
bar. Beyond the bar, deep shadows again lay in front of another warehouse. If he could reach that
warehouse without being challenged, he probably could make it to the ship. On a secondary port
such as this one, security measures were not tight.
Now he was passing in front of the bar. Looking in one of the three windows from which the light
poured, he glimpsed a coat rack standing beside the door. He paused in midstride, riveted to
attention by what he saw. Hanging on the rack was a blue jacket, with the word WAYFARER stitched
in gold thread across one breast. Above it rested a cap that matched the jacket.
Acting on impulse, Tennyson swung toward the door, went through it. A mixed group of humans and
aliens were sitting in tables at the back; a few were lined up at the bar. The barkeep was busy. A
couple of people lifted their heads and looked at him when he came in, then went back to what they
had been doing.
Swiftly he reached out to grab the jacket and the cap, then was out the door again, his shoulders
hunched, expecting an outcry behind him. But there was none.
He slapped the cap onto his head, shrugged into the jacket.
The line in front of the ship's gangplank was gone; apparently everyone had boarded. Only one
ratlike creature remained standing at the gangplank's foot. Swiftly, purposefully, Tennyson strode
across the field, heading for the ship.
The one ratlike guard might challenge him, but he doubted it. The jacket and cap should be
sufficient disguise. More than likely the guard would not recognize him as an intruder. Few humans
could recognize any particular alien; to them all aliens looked alike. The same was true of
aliens, who ordinarily could not distinguish one human from another.
He reached the foot of the gangplank. The ratlike creature made a sloppy salute.
'Welcome, sir,' it said. 'Captain has been asking after you.'
Two
After a time, one of the ratlike crewmen found him in the small, closetlike equipment hold where
he had squeezed himself to hide. The crewmen hauled him out and took him to the captain, who was
alone in the control room, sitting at his ease in one of the three chairs. At the moment nothing
needed to be done; the ship was running on its own.
'What is this you have?' the captain asked.
'Stowaway,' the rat creature said. 'Dug him out of a small aft hold.'
'Okay,' the captain said. 'Leave him here. You can go.'
The rodent turned to go.
'My bag, please,' said Tennyson.
The rat turned around, still holding the bag.
The captain said, 'Give the bag to me and then get out of here. Get the hell out of my sight.'
The rat turned over the bag and left hurriedly.
The captain examined the bag thoughtfully, then lifted his head and said, 'So it is Jason
Tennyson, is it? M.D.?'
Tennyson nodded. 'Yes, I am a doctor.'
The captain set the bag down on the deck beside him. 'I've had a few stowaways in my time,' he
said, 'but never a doctor. Doctor, tell me, just what is going on?'
'It's a long story,' said Tennyson, 'and I'd prefer not going into it.'
'You'd been in that hold for hours,' the captain said. 'I suppose you sneaked on at Gutshot. Why
did you wait so long?'
'I was about to come out,' said Tennyson. 'Your rat-faced friend beat me to it.'
'He is no friend of mine.'
'My error,' said Tennyson.
'There aren't many humans out here,' the captain said. 'The farther out you go, the fewer you will
find. I have to use this kind of scum to man the ship. And I have to haul loads of other scum out
to End of Nothing and-'
'Out to the end of what?'
'End of Nothing. That is where we're going. Don't tell me you weren't headed there?'
'Until this moment,' Tennyson said, 'I had never heard of it.'
'Then it must be that you were intent on leaving Gutshot.'
'That, Captain, is a fair assumption.'
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'In some sort of trouble there?'
'I was running for my life.'
'And popped onto the first ship that was taking off?'
Tennyson nodded.
'Sit down, man,' the captain said. 'Don't stay standing there. Would you like a drink?'
'That would be fine,' said Tennyson. 'Yes, I could use a drink.'
'Can you tell me?' the captain asked. 'Did anyone see you duck into the ship?'
'I don't think so.'
'You're fairly sure?'
'Well, you see, I went into a bar. One of the spaceport joints. When I left, it seems that somehow
I got hold of the wrong jacket and wrong cap. I was, if I remember, in somewhat of a hurry...'
'So that's what happened to Jenkins's cap and jacket. Jenkins is my first mate.'
'I'll return the jacket and the cap,' said Tennyson. 'I left them in the hold.'
'I find it strange,' the captain said, 'that you did not take the pains to find out this ship's
destination. You, apparently, have no wish to go to End of Nothing.'
'Any place away from Gutshot,' said Tennyson. 'They were closing in on me. Well, maybe not, but I
had the feeling that they were.'
The captain reached for a bottle that was standing on a table beside him and handed it to
Tennyson.
'Now I'll tell you, mister,' he said, 'I am convention-bound to quote the rule book to you. It
says in Article Thirty-nine, Section Eight, that any stowaway must be placed in detention and
returned thereafter, as speedily as possible, to the port where he had stowed away, there to be
delivered up to the port authorities. During the intervening period, while he is on board the
vessel on which he stowed away, he is required to do such tasks, however menial, the captain may
assign to him to help defray his passage. Are you aware of these provisions, sir?'
'Vaguely,' said Tennyson. 'I know it is illegal to stow away. But I must tell you-'
'There is, however, another matter which I feel compelled to consider,' the captain told him. 'I
have the feeling, knee-deep as I am in alien scum, that humans under whatever circumstances,
should always stick together. We run fairly thin out here and it is my opinion that we should be
supportive of one another, overlooking transgressions if they be not too odious. . .
'Your attitude does credit to you,' said Tennyson. 'There has been something I've been trying to
tell you and haven't had the chance. You see, sir, I am not a stowaway.'
The captain turned steely eyes on him. 'Then tell me what you are. If you're not a stowaway, what
are you?'
'Well, let us say,' said Tennyson, 'that I was simply pressed for time. That I did not have the
time to arrange for passage by going through the formal channels. That, for compelling reasons I
have revealed to you, I couldn't afford to miss your ship, so came aboard in a rather unorthodox
manner, passed on board by an unsuspecting alien crew member who mistook me for the mate and -'
'But you hid away.'
'Easy to explain. I feared that you might not give me the time to explain my situation and be so
conscientious as to heave me off the ship. So I hid and waited until there seemed little chance
you could do anything but continue on your way.'
'By all of this, do I understand you to be saying that you stand prepared to pay your passage?'
'Most certainly I do. If you'll only name the figure.'
'Why,' said the captain, 'most willingly indeed. And I'll charge you not one tittle above the
regular fare.'
'That's considerate of you, sir.'
'Dr. Tennyson,' the captain said, 'please go ahead and drink. You have not touched the bottle to
your lips. It makes me nervous to see you sit there and merely fondle it.'
'I'm sorry, Captain. I didn't mean to make you nervous.' Tennyson tipped the bottle, took a
generous swallow, then lowered it again.
'Marvelous,' he said. 'What is it?'
'It's a concoction called Scotch,' the captain told him. 'It first was brewed on Mother Earth.'
'You mean Old Earth?'
'That's right,' the captain said. 'The home planet of us humans.'
'I have a great curiosity about Old Earth. Have you ever been there?'
The captain shook his head. 'Few humans have ever set foot upon its sacred soil. We are scattered
far and thin in space, and few of us go on that pilgrimage we always promise ourselves that
someday we will make.'
'Ah, well,' said Tennyson. He tilted the bottle once again.
'To get back to our arrangement,' the captain said. 'I fear I have to tell you that I have no
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place for you. The cabins, the few that I have, are filled. Even my own quarters are rented out to
a horde of scaly horrors who are pilgriming to End of Nothing. At the end of the voyage, I shall
have to fumigate the place before I can move back in, and it may be years before I am rid of the
stench of them.'
'Why let them have it, then?'
'Because of money,' said the captain. 'This particular band of scum is filthy rich and they must
have my best accommodations without regard to cost. So that is how it is. I charged each of the
bastards a triple fare. Although I think now I may live to regret my greed. The mate and I are
sharing his quarters, turn and turn about. The mate is a devoted garlic eater. Thinks it keeps him
healthy. Only dire necessity forces me to crawl into his bunk.'
'The mate is the only other human?'
'Ordinarily, yes. Just the two of us. The crew is made up of rat people, like the one who found
you, and other assorted unsavory beings. The passenger hold and cabins are filled with nauseating
pilgrims.'
'If you dislike aliens so much, why are you in this business? Surely you could operate in
freight.'
'Five more years of this,' the captain said. 'Five more years is all that it will take. There's no
real money in freighting. But hauling these damned pilgrims is profitable if you can stand it. And
I can stand it, just barely, for another five years. For, by then, I will have money enough to
retire. Back to a pink planet, name of Apple Blossom. Silly name, of course, but it's perfect for
the planet. Have you ever been on a pink planet, Doctor? There are not many of them.'
'No, I never have.'
'Pity,' said the captain.
A tap sounded from the direction of the open door.
The captain swung about in his chair. 'Oh, there you are, my dear,' he said, obviously pleased.
Tennyson also swung about. A woman stood in the doorway. She was statuesque, with broad shoulders
and hips. Her eyes crinkled in an expressive face. Her mouth was generous and soft, her hair a
halo of gleaming gold.
'Come in, please,' said the captain. 'As you see, we have picked up another passenger. Four humans
aboard on a single trip. I believe that to be a record.'
'If I am not intruding,' she said.
'You are not,' the captain told her. 'We are pleased to have you. Jill Roberts, this is Dr.
Tennyson. Dr. Jason Tennyson.'
She held out her hand to Tennyson. 'I am glad to see another human. Where have you kept yourself?'
Tennyson froze momentarily. Turning her head, the woman had exposed her other cheek. Across it,
from temple to jaw, covering almost the entire right cheek, was an angry, ugly slash of red.
'I am sorry, Doctor,' she said. 'It is the way I am. It has horrified my friends for years.'
'Please forgive me,' said Tennyson. 'My reaction is inexcusable. As a physician. . .'
'As a physician, there is nothing you can do about it. It is inoperable. No cosmetic surgery is
possible. Nothing. I have to live with it; I have learned to live with it.'
'Miss Roberts,' said the captain smoothly, 'is a writer. Articles for magazines. A long shelf of
books.'
'If that bottle has not grown fast to your hand,' said Jill Roberts to Tennyson, 'how about
letting loose of it?'
'Certainly,' Tennyson said. 'Let me wipe it off.' He scrubbed its neck on his shirt sleeve.
'It appears there are no glasses aboard this bucket,' said Jill Roberts. 'But I don't really mind.
Drinking out of a bottle after someone else is only another way to trade around some germs.'
She took the bottle and sat down in the one remaining chair. 'Where are you putting up?' she asked
Tennyson. 'I recollect the captain told me all the cabins are filled. He hasn't put you down in
steerage with the alien cattle, has he?'
'Dr. Tennyson,' said the captain primly, 'was a late show. I have nowhere to put him. He turned up
unexpectedly.'
She raised the bottle to her lips, lowered it, looked inquiringly at Tennyson.
'Is that true?' she asked.
Tennyson grinned. 'The captain is trying to be polite. Actually, I was a stowaway. As to
accommodations, neither of you should worry about it. I can curl up anywhere. I'm just glad to be
aboard.'
'That is not quite right either,' said the captain. 'He did stow away, but now he offers to pay
his passage. Technically, he no longer is a stowaway.'
'You must be starved,' Jill said, 'unless you brought along a lunch.'
'I never thought about it,' said Tennyson. 'I was in too much of a hurry. But I could do with a
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steak.'
'You'll get no steaks on this tub,' said Jill, 'but there's guck to fill the gut. How about it,
Captain?'
'Surely,' the captain agreed. 'Almost immediately. I'm sure something's left.'
Jill rose and tucked the bottle underneath her arm. 'Send the food to my cabin,' she told the
captain, then turned to Tennyson.
'Come along, you. We'll get you washed up and your hair combed and see what you really look like.'
Three
'Now for some ground rules,' said Jill. 'On such short acquaintance, I'm not about to crawl into
bed with you, but I will share the bed -or, I suppose, the bunk, for it's really not a bed. Like
the captain and the mate, we'll take turns in it. You can use the can - on board such a ship as
this, I think it's termed a head. We'll eat our meals together and we can sit and talk and play my
music crystals. I'll ignore a pass or two, being naturally good-natured and more kindly than is
good for me, but if you get too heavy, I'll heave you out.'
'I shall not get too heavy,' said Tennyson, 'however much I may be tempted. I feel something like
a stray dog someone picked up.'
He used half a slice of bread to mop up his plate, sopping up the gravy left over from the stew.
'In my ravenous hunger,' he told her, 'this meal was tasty, but it had a strange tang to it. Stew,
of course, but a stew of what?'
'Don't ask,' she said. 'Just shut your eyes and eat. Holding your nose helps, too, if you can do
that without strangling. There is a deep, dark suspicion that when one of the pilgrims die - and
some of them do, of course, packed into steerage as they are. . .'
He waved a helpless hand at her. 'Please, Jill, desist. My body needs the food and I'd like to
keep it down.'
'I would not have thought a doctor would have a queasy stomach.'
'Doctors, my dear,' he said, 'are not total brutes.'
'Put the plate away,' she told him. 'You've mopped it shining clean. I still have the captain's
bottle-'
'I noticed. You just marched off with it.'
'It's not the captain's bottle. He simply pilfers it and the consignee looks the other way. He
hauls in several cases on every trip, I understand. Special-order shipments for the gnomes at
Project Pope.'
'Gnomes at Project Pope? What in hell have gnomes to do with it, and what is Project Pope?'
'You mean you don't know?'
'Not at all,' he said.
'Well, I guess they're not really gnomes, although it's a term that is often used for them. Some
of them are humans, but the most of them are robots.'
'That's no real answer,' said Tennyson. 'Tell me what you're talking about. It sounds mysterious
and-'
'What about you, my friend?' she asked. 'What's all your mystery? The captain said you stowed away
and then you paid your passage. And if you don't know about Project Pope, why are you heading out
for End of Nothing? There's no reason to go there except for Project Pope.'
'So help me,' said Tennyson, 'before I set foot on this ship, I had never heard of End of Nothing
or of Project Pope. What is this End of Nothing?'
'In due time,' she said, 'I shall be glad to give you all the details that I have. But you give
first. I took you in, remember. I am sharing with you. Now, let's each have a drink, then you
start.'
They each had a drink. He wrested the bottle from her and took another one, then handed it back.
'You know,' he said, 'that stuff has authority.'
'Give,' she said.
'Well, first of all, I really am a doctor.'
'I never doubted that. I had a peek into your bag.'
'You know about Gutshot, the planet that we took off from.'
She shivered. 'A horrid little place, although I was glad enough to get there. It was the last
stop on the way to End of Nothing and, working my way out, there've been too many stops. I never
dreamed, of course, that I'd have to put up with such a filthy ship to get there. I asked around.
Would you believe it, this is the only ship between Gutshot and End of Nothing. This captain of
ours has the pilgrim trade tied up.'
'About the pilgrims...'
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'Nothing doing. First you talk of Gutshot, then I'll talk of gnomes and popes and pilgrims.'
'It's simply told,' said Tennyson. 'Gutshot, as you may know, is a feudal planet. A lot of nasty
little fiefs headed by crews of dirty people - some of them human, but a lot of them not. I was
court physician to the margrave of Daventry. Human, as you may have guessed. A human doctor
trained in human medicine would be of little use to aliens. It was not the job I would have
picked, but at the time I considered myself lucky to get it. A young physician fresh out of
medical school ordinarily finds it hard to get started in his profession unless he has some money.
I had no money, of course, and there didn't seem to be too many clinics that were looking around
for fresh new talent; besides, it costs a fortune to set up a practice of your own, after which
you'd sit around for several years, slowly starving, until people began coming to you. Once the
initial shock of Gutshot wore off, I became somewhat accustomed to it. Like you can grow
accustomed, after a time, to an aching tooth. So I stayed on. The fees were good. In fact, to me,
they seemed princely. The margrave was not a bad guy. Not good, but not bad either. We got along
together. Then the bastard up and died on me. Nothing wrong with him. Just tipped over. Heart
attack, I'd guess, although there hadn't been any indication he was heading for one. I didn't
really have a chance to determine cause of death and-'
'But no one could blame you. It was not your -'
'What you can't comprehend,' he said, 'is the kind of politics there are in any feudal setup. A
pack of wolves held in restraint by one man. Loose the leash and they're at one another's throats.
I'd not consciously been involved in any politics, but I had sort of been the margrave's
lieutenant and advisor, unofficially of course, so considerable resentment was aimed at me. Almost
immediately the rumor sprang up that the margrave had been poisoned, and before it got well
started, I was on my way. I had no real power base and knew it. I would have been a pigeon for
almost anyone. I gathered up most of my ill-got earnings, which I had been careful to keep in a
handy place and in highly transportable form, stole a flier, and was out of there as fast as I
could manage. Night was coming on and I flew low and crooked to keep out of any radar range. I
knew there was no place on the planet where I'd be safe-'
'So you headed for the spaceport.'
'Right. I knew I didn't have much time. I figured there were people about three jumps behind me.
So I had to find a ship and find it fast. One that would be out in space before the posse hit the
port.'
'So that's it?'
'That's it,' he said. 'What worries me most is the captain. I had to tell him some of it. I should
have lied, of course, but had little time to think up a lie and. . .'
She shook her head. 'You don't need to worry about our precious captain. If he's questioned, he'll
swear he knows nothing of you. He's not looking for trouble. He's got this End of Nothing monopoly
all tied up and doesn't want to lose it. It's a gold mine for him. He hauls a load of pilgrims
out, dumps them off, packs in the ones he hauled on the previous trip and takes them back to
Gutshot.'
'They all come form Gutshot? I never heard of any pilgrims there.'
'Probably none from Gutshot, which is just the port of entry to End Of Nothing. They come from all
over this sector of the galaxy, flying in from everywhere, gathering and waiting for the ship to
End of Nothing. Then our captain herds them aboard and flies them out to Project Pope.'
'You're not a pilgrim?'
'Do I look like one?'
'No, you don't. How about the loan of that bottle for a moment?'
She handed him the bottle.
'I don't know the entire story,' she said. 'I'm going out to have a look at it. It should provide
material for several articles. Perhaps even a book.'
'But you must have some idea, which is more than I have.'
'Just the basic rumor. Just the tangled stories that one hears. Actually rumor may be all, but I
think not. There must be something out there, with all this pilgrim traffic. I tried first to
track down where the pilgrims were coming from, but that proved a dead end. There is no
concentration of them. A few come from one planet, a few from still another, one or two from yet a
third. All of them non-human - maybe specific kinds of aliens, although of that I'm not sure.
Apparently all members of obscure cults or sects. Maybe each sect has a different faith - if you
can call what they have a faith - but all of them are somehow tied in with this Pope project. That
doesn't necessarily mean they know anything about it. It may just be something on which they can
base a shaky faith. Creatures of all kinds reaching for a faith, willing to grab at almost
anything just so it's mysterious or spectacular, preferably both. The thing that bothers me, the
thing that sends me out, is that the whole business has a human ring to it. The site of Project
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Pope, as I understand it, is called Vatican-17 and-'
'Hold up a minute,' said Tennyson. 'That does have a human ring. There was a Vatican on Earth...'
'There still is,' she said. 'The center of the Roman Catholic faith, which still exists on Earth
and on several other human planets, is still headed by a pope and is still as strong as ever,
perhaps stronger, its people still as devout as ever. But I doubt that this Vatican-17 has
anything to do with the one on Old Earth. It sounds like some sort of take-off. For one thing,
there are robots-'
'What would robots have to do with an Old Earth religion?'
'I don't know and I don't think it is an Earth religion. Someone, perhaps the robots, borrowed the
terminology...'
'But robots?'
'I know. I know. That's what I'm trying to find out.'
'And End of Nothing?'
'End of Nothing,' she said, 'is out on the Rim. Among the Rim stars, of which there are not many.
A lot of space. Not much of anything else. At the very edge of intergalactic space. So far as the
planet is concerned, I know nothing except that it is Earthlike. No trouble for humans to live
there. This ship, I am told, gets there in a standard month or less. How many times the speed of
light that is, I have no idea. The old crate is equipped with an inertial drive, which one would
not suspect in such a wreck. No great danger involved. It mostly crosses empty space. The ship
makes six round trips a year, which spells out to an awful lot of pilgrims hauled.
The captain is an enigma. He probably could have command of one of the proudest interstellar
liners; he has the required status. But here he is, running pilgrims he despises.'
'But making a barrel of money. Told me five more years and he can retire to a planet named Apple
Blossom.'
'Yes, he told me that, too. Apparently he tells everyone. I don't know how much to believe.'
'Perhaps all of it,' said Tennyson. 'Men do strange things to cash in on their dreams.'
'Jason,' said Jill, 'I like you. Do you know why I like you?'
'My honesty and trustworthiness,' he said. 'My humanity, my compassion, my integrity...'
'No, none of those. I like you because you can look at me without flinching. You don't pull away.
People, to start with, always pull away and flinch. I have come to terms with it myself; I wish
other people would.'
'I scarcely notice,' he said.
'You're a cheerful liar. You do notice it. No one could help but notice it.'
'The shock, what initial shock there is,' he said, 'comes from the fact that otherwise you are so
beautiful. Without the cheek, your features are classic. One side of your face arrestingly
appealing, the other side marred.'
'You can even talk about it,' she said, 'and make it sound all right. No pity for me. Not even
sympathy. As if it were quite normal. And that helps a lot. To be accepted as I am. I tried so
hard. I went to so many different clinics. I was examined by so many people. And always the same
verdict. Capillary hemangioma. Nothing to be done. One specialist-can you imagine it?-suggested I
wear a mask, a half-mask covering the bad side my face. He assured me that one could be molded and
fitted -'
'If it's a mask you are looking for,' he said, 'you have the best one that there is - your self-
acceptance.'
'You really think so, Doctor?'
'Of course I do.'
'The bottle, please,' she said. 'Let us drink to that.'
They drank to it, solemnly, in turn.
'One question,' he said. 'Not to change the subject, but a practical question. Once we get to End
of Nothing, what kind of accommodations will we find? What kind of place to stay?'
'I have reservations,' she said, 'at a place called Human House. I don't know a thing about it
except that it's expensive - if that's any criterion.'
'When we arrive, may I take you to dinner that first evening? To take the taste of this ship out
of our mouths.'
'Why, thank you, sir,' she said. 'That is thoughtful of you.'
Four
They sat in the control room, sprawled out in the chairs.
'Don't make the mistake,' the captain warned them, 'of thinking of the robots of Project Pope as
happy little servitors. They are high-powered electronic contraptions. Some people think they have
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managed to construct organic brains for themselves, but this I somehow doubt. Such a thought stems
from the prejudicial viewpoint of a biological being. There is no reason to believe, once you
think of it realistically, that a technological thinking and reasoning apparatus, given the
present state of the art, need be one whit inferior to a human brain, or, actually, any kind of
brain. These robots, for centuries, have been continually upgrading their capabilities, improving
themselves in many different ways, as a human mechanic will keep on dinging up an engine to make
it run better.'
'How well are you acquainted with them?' Tennyson asked.
'Normal contacts only,' the captain replied. 'The necessary contacts for the conduct of my
business. I have no friends among them, if that is what you're asking.'
'I'm sorry if I seemed to question you,' said Tennyson. 'I was simply curious. It seems I'm being
plopped down into a situation I know nothing about. I'd like to find out as much as I can.'
'I have been told,' said Jill, 'that the robots have humans working for them.'
'I don't know if the humans are working for them,' the captain told her. 'Maybe they are working
together. There are humans, a rather large corps of them. But my contacts never have been with the
humans. I see only the robots and then only when they want to see me. Project Pope is a big
operation. No one outside Vatican really seems to know what is going on. One story has it that the
robots are trying to build an infallible pope - an electronic pope, a computer pope. There appears
to be an idea that the project is an outgrowth of Christianity, an Old Earth religion.'
'We know what Christianity is,' Jill said. 'There still are a lot of Christians, perhaps more than
ever before. True, Christianity no longer looms as important as it did before we began going into
space. This, however, is a relative thing. The religion is still as important as ever, but its
seeming importance has been diluted by the many other faiths that exist in the galaxy. Isn't it
strange that faith is so universal? Even the ugliest aliens appear to have a faith to cling to.'
'Not all of them,' said the captain. 'Not all of them by any means. I have run into alien areas,
into entire planets, where no one had ever thought of religion or of faith. And, I must say, that
they were not the worse for it. Sometimes, I thought better.'
'Constructing a pope,' said Tennyson, 'is a strange task to set oneself. I wonder where the robots
got the idea and what they expect the end result to be.'
'You never can tell about robots,' the captain observed. 'They are a funny lot. Spend enough time
in space and you quit worrying or wondering about why anyone is doing something or what they
expect from doing what they do. None of these rummy aliens think the way we do. They're a bunch of
zany bastards. Compared to most of them, robots are downright human.'
'They should be,' said Jill. 'We are the ones who dreamed them up. No other culture did. There are
those who will tell you that robots are extensions of ourselves.'
'There may be some truth in that,' the captain agreed. 'Screwy as they may be at times, they are
still several cuts above any alien I ever met.'
'You don't like aliens,' said Tennyson.
'You aren't just whistling through your teeth. Who does like the scummy bastards?'
'And yet you use them on your ship.'
'Only because I can't pull together a crew of humans. Out here, there aren't many humans.'
'And you haul the aliens out to End of Nothing, then haul them back to Gutshot.'
'Someone has to haul them,' said the captain, 'and I get well paid for doing it. I haul them, but
nothing says I have to associate with them. It's not only that I dislike them, which I do, but we
humans have to stick together. If we don't, they'll overwhelm us.'
Tennyson studied the captain. There was nothing of the look of the fanatical bigot about him, He
was of indeterminate age - a young-old man - his profile resembling a hatchet. There was no humor
in him; he was all deadly business. A strange man, Tennyson told himself - one of those twisted
men found in lonely places. More than likely the captain was lonely. For years he had ferried
alien pilgrims between Gutshot and End of Nothing, and all the time, out of his loneliness that
cried out for humanness, his contempt and horror of his passengers had grown until it now was
tightly woven into the fabric of his life.
'Tell us about End of Nothing itself,' said Jill. 'We've talked about it ever since I came aboard
and not once have you told me what kind of planet it is. I have no idea if it's farmland or-'
'It's not farmland,' said the captain. 'The project does have some gardens and fields, the robots
laboring in them, to grow food for their biological brothers. But other than that, it is all
wasteland, the environment untouched, standing as it always has. It has not been exploited; there
are not enough people in its economy to exploit it. The only exploiter that I know, is a man by
the name of Thomas Decker. Decker is a strange character. He lives alone in a cabin at the
outskirts of the settlement.'
'You are a friend of Decker's?'
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摘要：

file:///F|/rah/Clifford%20D.Simak/Project%20Pope.txtTitle:ProjectpopeAuthor:CliffordD.SimakOriginalcopyrightyear:1981Genre:sciencefictionBookprice(ofscannededition):GBP1.75Comments:tomyknowledge,thisistheonlyavailablee-textofthisbookSource:scannedandOCR-readfromapaperbackeditionwithXeroxTextBridge...

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