Project Pope (19 page)

She came out of the void and her feet seemed to touch the road, although it did not feel like any road she had walked before. It was smooth and shining and it stretched straight before her, with the burst of glory far away. Perhaps, she thought, too far for her to walk. And what would she do, what could she do, if out of sheer exhaustion, out of lack of strength, she should collapse upon the road before she came in sight of the shining, lofty towers?

But there seemed to be no problem, for she did not have to walk. Somehow or other, she was being wafted down the road with never a step to take. The music and the singing welled all around her and she wondered for a moment if it was the singing, the strength of sonorous song, that carried her along.

She seemed to hang in a strange lassitude, with a mist closing all around her so that she saw only the road and the gloryburst at the end of it, although the lassitude was tinged with a consuming joy and she moved along the road through no effort of her own, as if a gentle tide had caught her and was carrying her toward a far-off shore. The music became more glorious and the light seemed to grow the brighter. She closed her eyes against the brightness of the light and a holiness (a holiness?) caught her up and held her.

Then, without warning, the music went away and a silence fell and she came down upon her feet, no longer carried, no longer held, with her soles pressing hard against the road. Startled, she opened her eyes. Much of the brightness, she saw, had gone from the light. There now was a glow rather than a brightness, and in the glow the mighty towers stood up against the high, blue sky. The towers, and there were many of them, rose white against the blue. Pure white against pure blue and from far away, from among the towers, came the hint of music that had the sound of falling water, with each falling drop striking a distinctive note that blended with the others.

She looked for the angels, but there were no angels flying. Perhaps, she thought, they were flying so far away, so high, that no mortal eye could see them.

Beginning just a short distance from where she stood was the staircase, wide and steep, and of the purest gold, climbing toward the towers, narrowed by distance as it climbed so that at the very top, it seemed a thin pencil-streak of gold.

It was far to climb, she told herself, yet she must—step by step, until she reached the towers. There at the top there would be trumpeters to greet her with a celestial flourish.

As she prepared to take the first step of the climb, the mists that before had closed her in began to clear away and, beyond the road, the ground spread out before her and she saw the rabble that camped there on either side of the road. There were tents and huts and ramshackle buildings, with here and there great temples rising above the squalor, and crowded among all these, the rabble—a great concourse of beings such as she had never seen before. For some reason that she could not understand, she could not see them clearly, but she got the impression of horrendous shapes and hues, of a surge of terrifying life entangled in a loathsome mass.

She fled in senseless tenor up the great staircase, running with a desperation that left her weak and gulping. Finally stumbling, she fell and lay huddled on the stairs, clutching at the smooth stone in the fear that she might go sliding back into that pit of horrors.

Gradually she regained the even rhythm of her breath and the trembling of her body quieted. She lifted herself cautiously to look back down the stairs. The mists had closed in again; the rabble at the foot of the stairway again was blotted out.

Pulling herself erect, Mary started up the stairs again. Now the music was somewhat louder, although it still seemed far away. The towers gleamed white against the blue and a peace came down upon her, wiping out the terror that had engulfed her when she had seen the rabble.

The towers seemed as far away as ever. All the climbing she had done, all the running up the stairs, seemingly had gotten her no closer to the towers. And now, far up the stairs, she saw a dot that wavered in the golden light. For a moment she stopped her climb to watch, trying to make out what it might be. At first she thought it no more than bad eyesight. But the dot remained, dancing in the light reflected from the golden stairs.

Someone is coming to meet me, she thought. Someone is walking down the golden stairs to welcome me to Heaven!

She began to hurry—hurrying to meet that one who came to welcome her. The dot grew larger and ceased its wavering and she saw that it was man-shaped, that it walked upon two legs. But there was no sign of wings. And that was faintly disappointing, although she reminded herself that not everyone in Heaven necessarily would have wings. When she thought about that, she was astonished to realize how little she actually knew of the residents of Heaven. She had always thought of Heaven in terms of angels, and this manlike creature coming down the stairs was surely not an angel.

Nor, as he came closer and she saw him more clearly, could she be sure he was a man. Manlike, yes, but not entirely human and not heavenly. For one thing, he was black.

Disturbed, she slowed her climb and finally stopped, standing on the stairs and staring up at the one who was descending toward her. His ears were high and pointed and his face was narrow, like a fox's. The lips were thin and the mouth was wide. His eyes were slanted and they were yellow, like a cat's eyes, with no white showing in them. He was so black that he shone like a polished shoe.

What his body might be like or what he wore, she never even noticed. She was so fascinated, so hypnotized, so repelled by the face that she noticed nothing else.

He stood two steps above her. He raised a hand and shook a finger at her, as a parent or a teacher might shake a finger in rebuke. His voice thundered.

“Naughty!” he shouted at her. “Naughty! Naughty! Naughty!”

She turned about and fled, running down the stairs, with that single word hammering in her brain. She tripped and fell and rolled. She tried to stop herself, to recover her balance, but there was no way to recover from the fall. She kept rolling, bouncing on the steps, end-over-end and spinning.

And then she was no longer falling and she sat up dazedly. She had reached the bottom and was sitting on the road that came up to the stairs. The mist had cleared and she saw the rabble, packed tight on either side of the road, but not encroaching on it, as if there might be an invisible fence that held them off. They were jam-packed on either side of the road and they were laughing at her, hooting at her, jeering at her, making obscene gestures at her.

She scrambled to her feet and turned to face the stairs. The one who had come to meet her was standing on the bottom step. He still was shaking a finger at her and shouting.

“Naughty! Naughty! Naughty!”

Chapter Twenty-five

Jill had gone to the library; Hubert had left an hour or so before, off on some errand of his own. Tennyson sat in front of the fireplace, fascinated by the flame. In just a little while he was due at the clinic, although more than likely there'd not be much to do there. Vatican and End of Nothing humans seemed to be an unnaturally healthy lot. Except for Mary, he had tended no serious illnesses since he had been there. Minor complaints—a few common colds, an ulcerated tooth, a couple of backaches, occasional upset stomachs, one sprained ankle, and that had been all.

And now Mary was off to Heaven for the second time. He wondered idly what possibly could have happened to make her decide to try it once again. The last word he had had was that she had been unalterably opposed to returning there. And what, he wondered, would she find there—a renewed conviction that she really had found Heaven, or would she return with doubt? It could not be Heaven, he told himself; the whole idea was ridiculous, akin to the psychotically induced visions and revelations that filled the history of Earth's medieval age.

He slumped lower on the couch, staring at the fire. In just a short time, he reminded himself sharply, he'd have to get out of here and walk down to the clinic. There might be people waiting.

He felt an uneasiness, thinking it. And why, he wondered, should he be uneasy thinking of the people who might be waiting at the clinic? He hauled himself to a normal sitting position and craned his neck to look around the room. There was no one there and that was not strange, for he had known that there was no one there. He was alone and yet, quite suddenly, he was positive that he was not alone.

He rose to his feet and whirled around, his back to the fire so that he could examine the other side of the room, seeking out the shape that was lurking there. There was no one, nothing, lurking. He was sure of that. Still the uneasiness refused to go away. There was no reassurance in the emptiness of the room. There was, he was certain, something there, someone or something in the room with him.

He forced himself to speak, croaking rather than actually speaking. “Who is there?”

As if in answer to the question, he saw it in one corner, next to the spindly gilded chair that stood beside the table with the marble top—the faint glint of drifting diamond dust.

“So it's you,” he said, and as he spoke the glitter disappeared and there was nothing beside the gilded chair. Yet he still felt its presence. The glitter was gone, but the thing that glittered had not gone away.

Questions surged inside him, howling to get out. Who are you? What are you? Why are you here? But he did not voice them. He stood quite frozen, not moving from where he stood, still staring at the corner where he had seen the glitter.

Something spoke inside of him.

—I am here, it said. I am here inside of you. I am in your mind. Do you wish that I should leave?

It was a gentle voice (if it was a voice). Gentle and gentlemanly. He could not move a muscle. Terror—and yet it wasn't terror—held him in its grip. He struggled to speak, struggled to think, and yet there was no word or thought. His mind was frozen with his body.

—Do you wish that I should leave?

Words came to Tennyson.

—No, he said, not speaking aloud, but only in his mind. No, don't leave, but please explain yourself. You belong to Decker. Do you bring me word from Decker?

—I do not belong to Decker. I belong to no one. I am a free agent and I am Decker's friend. That is all I am. I can talk with him, but I cannot be a part of him.

—You can be a part of me. Why can you be a part of me and not a part of Decker?

—I am Whisperer. That is what Decker calls me. It serves as well as any name.

—You did not answer my question, Whisperer. Why can you be a part of me and not a part of Decker?

—I am Decker's friend. He is the only friend I have. I tested him long and hard to be sure he was a friend. I have tried with others and they might have been friends as well, but they did not hear me, did not recognize me. They did not know I was there.

—And now?

—I tried with Decker, but there was no getting inside of him. Talk with him, yes, but no getting in his mind. On that first day, I felt you might be the one.

—And now you'll desert Decker? Whisperer, you can't do that to him. I will not do that to him. I will not steal his friend.

—I will not desert him. But can I be with you?

—You mean you'll not insist?

—No, not insist. You say go, I go. You say stay away, I'll stay away. But, please!

This, thought Tennyson, this is all insane. It is not happening. I must be imagining it. There is no such thing.

The door burst open and Ecuyer stood within it.

“Jason,” he shouted, “you must come with me. You must come immediately.”

“Why, of course,” said Tennyson. “What is the trouble?”

“Mary is back from Heaven,” said Ecuyer, “and she's a basket case.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Again, Decker relived the moment. For years he had not thought of it, but now, ever since he had gone back to the boat, he had thought of it often, running the filmstrip of memory through again, with the old and faded recollection becoming the sharper with each rerunning.

He reached out and touched the metal box that stood upon the desk, the box he'd brought back from the lifeboat. It would all be there, he thought, in the records that the ship had made. But he flinched away from opening it and getting at the records. Perhaps, he told himself, he should have left them in the boat, where they had rested for twelve years, virtually forgotten.

Why was it, he wondered, that he hesitated to listen to the records? Was it that he feared the terror would be there? Could the ship have recorded the terror? Could it still lie there, as fresh and raw as it had been that day so many years before? He crinkled up his face in an effort at concentration. He had known that ship, had sailed it for years, had known every twist and turn of it, had loved it, been proud of it, talked to it in the lonely hours in the depths of space. At times, or so it seemed, the ship had talked back to him.

There was about it only one thing of which he had not been certain, and that was the true capabilities of the recordings that it made. That they had been detailed and clear, that they had missed nothing of significance, of that he was very certain. They recorded locations and distances, pegged coordinates within a small fraction of their value, pinpointed temperatures, pressures, chemical components, gravitational values, sniffed out life if life was present, sought out nonapparent dangers. But emotions—could they peg emotions? Could they have put on record that overwhelming terror that had driven his tough and seasoned crew in a mad frenzy for the lifeboats?

He sat at the desk, his fingers still touching the metal of the box, and closed his eyes the better to remember, seeking out, for the tenth time or more in the last few days, that one elusive thing that had escaped his memory.

They had been heading toward the deeper recesses of the Coonskin system when the warp had seized them. Strange thing, he thought—he'd always considered it to be a warp, that storied, unexplained rift in the space-time continuum that was little more than legend, a rift that had hurled the ship into another time and/or space. There were rich, tall tales told of such happenings in every bar of every frontier planet, but the fact of their telling by the ones who told them, swearing solemnly and often to the veracity of the tales, did little to confirm the existence of the warps, or even the most remote possibility of them.