Project Pope (6 page)

“And you propose to storm those heights?”

“Jason, you're being dramatic now. A bit consciously dramatic. I'm not storming anything. There is a story here and I intend to get it. By going through channels. By marching up there in all politeness and saying who I am and what I want to do. And while I'm getting this story, what do you propose to do?”

“Honestly, I don't know. I've not even thought about it. I've been running and I guess here the running stops. I can't go back to Gutshot, not for a while at least.”

“You sound as if you intend to keep on running.”

“Well, not right away. This is as good a place as any to stop and rest awhile and have a look around.”

The long line of pilgrims who had disembarked from
Wayfarer
were snaking down the field, apparently going through a visitor checkpoint.

Tennyson nodded at them. “Do we have to go through the same procedure, do you know?”

Jill shook her head. “I think not. No papers are required, not for humans anyhow. End of Nothing officially is listed as a human planet and there are certain courtesies extended to humankind. It's a small place, too, and apt to be informal. A few days from now you may find yourself having lunch with the police chief, or the sheriff or the marshal, whatever the man is called, who will ask you some polite questions and will look you over well. I'm not sure about here, but that's the way it usually works in small human colonies.”

“Well, that sounds not too hard.”

“You'll have to explain no luggage. The people at Human House may be curious. I think it would be best to explain that you had to run for the ship at Gutshot and somehow lost the luggage.”

“You think of everything,” said Tennyson. “Your mind is devious. What would I do without you?”

“I sort of have taken care of you, haven't I?” said Jill.

“This evening I'll start paying back,” Tennyson promised. “Dinner at Human House. Candlelight and a clean cloth on the table, china, shining glass, silver, a menu with some choice, a bottle of good wine …”

“Don't get your hopes too high. Don't fantasize too much. Human House may not have that kind of dining room.”

“Well, whatever it may be, it'll be an improvement on that cubbyhole aboard the ship you shared with me.”

“That cubbyhole aboard the ship was kind of nice,” said Jill.

“I think,” said Tennyson, abruptly changing the subject, “someone is finally driving out to get us.”

Chapter Seven

The dining room at Human House was fairly civilized. There was a clean white cloth on the table, shining glass and china, the menu had five entrees, and the wine was passable.

“It is all so enjoyable,” Jill said to Tennyson. “I hadn't expected the food to be so delicious. I suppose that after the month we spent aboard the ship, anything at all would be something of a feast.”

“Tomorrow you start work,” he said. “Will I be seeing you fairly often?”

“As often as possible. I should be back here every night. Unless, of course, Vatican throws me out or won't let me in.”

“You mean you haven't previously contacted them?”

“I tried to, but I couldn't. I sent several letters, but received no reply.”

“Maybe they don't want publicity.”

“We'll see about that. I'll talk with them. I can be fairly persuasive if I have to be. And what about you?”

“I'll look around. I'll get a feel of the place. If there's no other physician here, I may set up a practice.”

“That would be fine,” she said. “Jason, would you really like it?”

“I don't know,” he said. “I said it on the spur of the moment, I guess, without a lot of thought. There is a doctor at Vatican and he may take care of the humans here in town. A new practice might be hard going for a time. The town looks like a pioneer town, but it can't be. If what the captain told us is right, the robots have been here for almost a thousand years.”

“The town probably is not nearly that old,” she said. “The robots might have been here for quite some time before the town actually got started.”

“I suppose so, but it still must be old. Although it's quite apparent little progress has been made. Maybe that's because it is dominated by Vatican. Everything and everyone here must revolve about Vatican.”

“That might not be all bad,” said Jill. “It would depend on what kind of people—robots and humans—make up Vatican. They might welcome someone with fresh viewpoints and new ideas.”

“I'll wait and see,” he said. “There isn't any hurry. I'll know better what is here for me, if anything, within a week or so.”

“You sound as if you plan to stay. For at least a while.”

He shook his head. “I don't even know about that. I need a place to hunker down for a spell. I don't imagine the people back in Daventry will ever guess I made it to the End of Nothing ship.”

“Chances are,” she said, “they think you were lost at sea. The Gutshot radar must have tracked your flier. There is no way, is there, they could tell you got out of it?”

“Not unless someone found the chute. I think that's unlikely. I pushed the chute as far under the building as I could.”

“That should make you fairly safe. Would they be so enraged at you—so anxious to apprehend you they would track you here?”

“No, probably not. The whole episode was more or less political. It would have helped some people if they could have hung the margrave's death on me.”

“They were looking for a scapegoat.”

“Exactly,” said Tennyson. “And they probably can use my disappearance to hang it on me, anyway. So everyone is pleased. But, at the moment, what happens back at Gutshot is not important. How about you? You must have a fair amount of money invested in this trip.”

“Some, but in my business, that's a chance you take. The cost won't be all wasted in any case. If I can get the story, I think I may have something that will be really big. If I can't crack Vatican, I still have something. Not so big, of course, but something.”

“Jill, how do you figure that?”

“Well, look, I travel here and they won't let me in. They won't talk to me. They give me a total brush-off. They might even, if they feel violently enough about it, throw me off the planet. So why won't they let me in? Why won't they talk to me? Why did they throw me out? What's going on? What's going on at this big, secret-religion institution that can't stand the light of day? What have they got to hide?”

“Yes, I see,” he said. “Yes, that would make a story.”

“By the time I got through with it, it would make a book.”

“How did you run into it in the first place?”

“Things I picked up here and there. Over several years. I kept hearing things. Funny little whispers. None of them too important, some of them with little information in them. But, pieced all together, they got more and more intriguing.”

“So you've been digging at it for years. Trying to pick up clues.”

“That's true. I worked hard at it. Not all the time, of course, but whenever I had a chance. I did a fair amount of thinking. The more I thought about it, the more the facts seemed worth going after. I may, as a matter of fact, have hypnotized myself with my thinking on it. It may turn out there is little here, no more than a bunch of silly robots embarked on a nonsensical enterprise.”

Both of them fell silent for a moment, giving their attention to the food.

“How is your room?” asked Jill. “Mine is quite satisfactory.”

“So is mine,” said Tennyson. “Not the lap of luxury, but I can get along with it. One window gives a view of the mountains.”

“There aren't any telephones,” said Jill. “I asked about it and was told there are no phones at all. A phone system has never been set up. There are electric lights, though, and I asked about that. I said how come electricity but no phones? No one seemed to know.”

“Maybe no one ever felt the need of phones,” said Tennyson.

“Pardon me, sir,” said a voice. “Pardon the intrusion, but it is important.…”

Tennyson looked up. A man was standing at his elbow. He was tall, somewhat beyond middle age, with a craggy face, smoothed-back hair, and a bristling, neat mustache that was turning gray.

“I understand,” said the man, “that you are a physician. At least, I am told you are.”

“That's right,” Tennyson replied. “I am Jason Tennyson. The lady with me is Jill Roberts.”

“My name,” said the man, “is Ecuyer. I'm from Vatican. Our physician was killed several days ago in a hunting accident.”

“If there is some way in which I can be of service.…”

“You'll pardon me, ma'am,” said Ecuyer. “I dislike to interrupt your dinner and take away your partner. But we have a very ill woman. If you'd have a look at her.…”

“I have to get my bag,” said Tennyson. “It's in my room.”

“I took the liberty,” said the man from Vatican, “of asking the manager to have it brought down for you. It will be waiting in the lobby.”

Chapter Eight

The woman was old. Her face resembled a withered apple, the mouth pinched in, the puffy cheeks showing an unhealthy, hectic pink. The black button eyes stared at Tennyson with no sign that she had seen him. She struggled for breath. Beneath the sheet, the body was shrunken and stringy.

The gray-garbed nurse handed the chart to Tennyson.

“This woman is important to us, Doctor,” said Ecuyer.

“How long has she been this way?”

“Five days,” said the nurse. “Five days since …”

“Anderson should not have gone on his hunting trip,” said Ecuyer. “He told me she'd be all right; rest was all she needed.”

“Anderson is the man who was killed?”

“He and the two others. They tried to talk him out of going. He was new here; he did not recognize the danger. I told you it was an Old One of the Woods, did I not?”

“No, you didn't. What is an Old One?”

“A huge carnivore. Bloodthirsty, ferocious. Attacks a man on sight. The other two went along in an effort to protect the doctor—”

“The temperature has held for the last three days,” said Tennyson to the nurse. “Has there been no break?”

“None at all, Doctor. Small fluctuations. Nothing that could be called significant.”

“And the respiratory difficulty?”

“It seems to be getting worse.”

“The medication?”

“It's all on the chart, Doctor.”

“Yes, I see,” said Tennyson.

He picked up the woman's scrawny wrist. The pulse was rapid and shallow. The stethoscope, when he held it against her chest, communicated the rasping of the lungs.

“Food?” he asked. “Has she taken nourishment?”

“Only the IV the last two days. Before that a little milk and some broth.”

Tennyson looked across the bed at Ecuyer.

“Well?” asked the Vatican man.

“I think pneumonia,” said Tennyson. “Probably viral. Have you facilities for making tests?”

“We have a laboratory, but no technician. He was with Anderson and Aldritt.”

“All three were killed?”

“That's right. All three. Perhaps you, Doctor …”

“I do not have the expertise,” said Tennyson. “All I can do is treat the disease. You have medical and pharmaceutical supplies?”

“Yes, a wide range of them. Ordinarily, we do not run so thin on medical staff. We did have two technicians, but one resigned several months ago. We've not been able to replace him. End of Nothing, Doctor, apparently is not the kind of place that attracts good people.”

“My best diagnosis,” said Tennyson, “is some type of viral pneumonia. It would help to know the type, but without trained personnel, that's impossible. There are so many new viruses, picked up and transmitted from planet to planet, that it's hard to pinpoint one specific agent. Within the past year or two, however—or so I read in medical journals—a new broad-spectrum antiviral substance—”

“You mean protein-X,” said the nurse.

“Exactly. Do you have it?”

“Some came in on the last trip
Wayfarer
made. The trip before this one.”

“It could be effective,” Tennyson said to Ecuyer. “Not enough is known about it to be sure. The substance specifically attacks the protein coating of a virus, destroying the entire virus. We'd be taking a chance using it, of course, but we have nothing else.”

“What you are saying,” said Ecuyer, “is that you cannot guarantee.…”

“No physician can make a guarantee.”

“I don't know,” said Ecuyer. “Somehow or other, we must save her. If we don't use the protein …”

“She still may live,” said Tennyson. “Her body will have to fight against the virus. We can give her some support. We can help her fight, but we can't do anything about the virus. She has to beat that herself.”

“She's old,” said the nurse. “She hasn't much to fight with.”

“Even with the protein,” asked Ecuyer, “we can't be sure?”

“No, we can't,” said Tennyson.

“About the protein agent? You want to think about it further? The decision is up to you. But I'd judge we haven't too much time. What is your recommendation, Doctor?”

“As a physician, if the decision were mine alone, I would use the protein. It may not help. But so far as I know, it is the only thing with which to fight an unknown virus. I have to be honest with you. The protein could conceivably kill her. Even if it helped, it might not help enough.” He moved to Ecuyer's side, laid a hand on his arm. “This woman means a great deal to you?”

“To all of us,” said Ecuyer. “To all of us. To Vatican.”

“I wish I could help you more. I'm in no position to insist on anything. Is there something I can do or tell you that would help you in reaching a decision?”