Arriving at End of Nothing, he had selected a site at the edge of the settlement and, without leave or hindrance, had built the cabin. He had cut down trees of a proper size, sawed them to a proper length, notched them and rolled them into place. He had quarried stone to construct the hearth and fireplace, had gone down into the small business section of the town to buy windows. He had chinked the logs with moss and clay. He had cut a supply of firewood and stacked it. He had spaded and worked up a garden patch, then gone once again into town to buy seeds to put into the soil. He had lived mostly off the land, hunting for the pot, seeking out wild plants as greens and vegetables, fishing a nearby stream until his garden had started to produce food.
There had been visitors, at first a lot of visitors, all of them with questions trembling on their lips. Among them had been a little brown-robed monk from Vatican, as pleasant a robot as he had ever met, although to Decker it had seemed that he might have been more than a simple monk. His visitors had provided him with a deal of useful information about End of Nothing and an even greater supply of advice. The information he had gratefully stored away, the advice he had generally ignored. And then, having given him the information and advice, his visitors (all of them) had begun their gentle prying into his history and affairs. He did not forthrightly refuse them what they sought; he simply evaded the questioning as gently as he could and they had gone away perplexed. A few of them had come back to visit him again but, getting no more on the second trip – or the third of fourth – than they had gotten on the first, they had not come again, and finally everyone left him very much alone.
Which, he told himself, was fine with him. It was the way he liked it. He felt regret at times that he had dealt with his neighbors as he had, but each time he thought this he became more and more convinced it was the only way he could have handled the situation. Better to be a man of mystery than what he might have been had he told his story. As it stood, he had given them something they could speculate upon, perhaps to their vast enjoyment, all these years.
Why back to our beginning? Whisperer had asked him. Why back to your beginning on this planet? And why, indeed? he now asked himself. A hunch, he thought. A hunch that more than likely had very little basis. And even had it a solid basis, what would he, or could he, do about it? Decker, he told himself, you’re crazy – downright stark, staring crazy.
– Decker, that Tennyson I liked, Whisperer said. I liked him quite a lot.
– Yes, he was likeable.
– He saw me, said Whisperer. I am sure he saw me. There are very few who see me. It takes an ability to see me.
– He saw you? How can you be sure? Why didn’t you mention it before?
– I did not mention it because until now I could not be sure. But having thought of it for days, I now am sure. He saw me and he could not believe it, he could not believe what he had seen. He rubbed his eyes, thinking there was something wrong with them. You remember, don’t you? You asked if he had something in his eye and he said only dust. Then you asked again. You asked if you could wipe out his eye, but he said he was all right.
– Yes, now that you mention it, I do recall the incident.
– And I, said Whisperer, I, as well, saw something, but only fleetingly. I don’t know what I saw.
– You did not speak to him? You did not try to speak?
– No, I did not try to speak. But there is a strangeness in the man. I am sure of that.
– Oh, well, said Decker, we’ll see him again, I’m sure. You may have another chance to plumb the strangeness you think you saw in him.
The Old One of the Woods had moved. He no longer was hiding in the clumps of trees below the boulder field. Decker no longer had any sense of him.
– Let’s go down, he said to Whisperer, and see how the boat is getting on.
Twenty
Jill had left just half an hour before, returning to the library, when Ecuyer showed up. Tennyson was dawdling over a cup of coffee. Hubert, after letting Ecuyer in, went back to the kitchen and started making a clatter. Hubert didn’t like people who lingered at the table.
‘You’re up and about early,’ Tennyson said to Ecuyer. ‘Sit down and have a cup of coffee.’
‘I believe I shall,’ said Ecuyer, ‘although neither of us has too long.’
‘I have all the time there is,’ said Tennyson. ‘I’m not due at the clinic until-‘
‘This morning you haven’t all the time there is. The two of us have been summoned.’
Tennyson stared at him, saying nothing.
‘Summoned,’ explained Ecuyer, ‘to an audience with His Holiness.’
‘Oh?’
‘Is that all you can say?’
‘What did you expect me to do? Fall over dead? Be seized by a fit of trembling? Sink down upon my knees?’
‘You could at least show some respect. It is a signal honor to be summoned by the Pope.’
‘Sorry,’ said Tennyson. ‘I would suppose it is. What is it all about?’
‘I’m not sure. Perhaps the Heaven incident. Theodosius and Roberts will be with us.’
‘The cardinals?’
‘Yes, the cardinals.’
‘I can understand why the Pope might want to see you. If it’s about the Heaven incident, you’re in it to your knees. But I-‘
‘Mary is our patient. He might have some medical questions about her. I’m not even sure it’s about Heaven. It might be just to meet you. Ordinarily a new Vatican staff member will have an audience with the Pope. Certainly he would want to meet the new Vatican physician. I suspect he would have arranged it long before this, but it has been a busy time.’
‘I have an impression it is always busy here,’ said Tennyson.
‘Well, yes. But sometimes more than others.’
They sat drinking their coffee. Hubert kept up his clatter in the kitchen.
‘Hubert,’ said Ecuyer, raising his voice.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Cut it out,’ said Ecuyer. ‘We have a right to sit here and drink our coffee.’
‘Why, certainly,’ said Hubert. The clatter subsided.
‘He’s spoiled,’ said Ecuyer. ‘I spoiled him myself. I don’t know what to do with him.’
‘There’s something I have been meaning to ask you.’
‘Go ahead. Don’t take too long.’
‘I saw this cube – the one with all the equations and diagrams. I think I told you. Have you seen it too?’
‘Well, yes, I guess I did. A long time ago. It was taped some years ago. Rather a long time ago.’
‘You told me the Listener went back several times and could make nothing of it.’
‘That’s right,’ said Ecuyer. ‘Are you hung up on it?’
Tennyson nodded. ‘There is something there. Something that I miss. Something that it seems to me I almost have and then it eludes me. I have a feeling that if I could stretch my mind just a little farther, I could come to grips with it.’
‘Any idea of what it might be?’
‘Not at all. That’s the hell of it. I know there is something there, but no idea what it is. I find myself imagining all sorts of things, but I know it’s none of them.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ counseled Ecuyer. ‘I can show you things even worse. I had expected you to do more digging into the files than you have done. You are welcome, you know. Anytime you wish, anything you wish.’
‘There have been other things to do,’ said Tennyson. ‘And, truth to tell, I might be even a little bit afraid of what I’d find. The equation world bothers me. The autumn world still haunts me. I’d like to go back and see the autumn world again, but something keeps me from it.’
Ecuyer finished off his coffee.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let us see the Pope.’
Twenty-one
The Pope was a cross-hatched human face – or the suggestion of a face, for to see it clearly required close attention and some imagination – imposed upon a dull metallic plate set into a bare stone wall. It reminded Tennyson of the photo of a sampler from the nineteenth century that he had seen in a book he’d found in a library years ago, and also, in a haphazard sort of way, of the children’s game of tic-tac-toe. The face was not entirely and fully apparent at any time, although every now and then he managed to get a fairly comprehensive glimpse of it. No decorative effort was made to soften the bleak starkness of the face, nothing to impart to it any hint of power or glory. And perhaps, he thought, this studied attempt to achieve a dismal plainness made the face all the more impressive.