‘I’m not sure,’ said Tennyson, ‘that what you say is the whole of it. Maybe what Vatican fears is a wholehearted reversion of the unofficial Vatican, the under-Vatican, to the Christian faith. That faith undoubtedly still has the capacity for a strong hold on your ordinary robot. You must remember that many robots are Earth-forged and thus closer to humans than the more modern robots that were constructed since the exodus from Earth. Among humans, Christianity still remains a powerful force. Five thousand years after Jesus, it still is a faith sufficiently satisfying to be accepted by huge masses of humanity. While Vatican is not adverse to most of their robots continuing to believe, marginally, in Christianity, it would be a great embarrassment and an impediment to the work that Vatican is doing if there was a strong, perhaps fanatical, resurgence of the faith. Heaven, I am convinced, could do exactly that.’
‘Certainly you are right,’ said Decker, ‘but I still believe that what Vatican fears is any factor that would upset the theory of the universe they seem to be evolving.’
‘But wouldn’t you think,’ asked Tennyson, ‘that they would want to know? What are they gaining by sticking their heads in the sand, hoping that by doing nothing, Heaven will go away?’
‘Eventually,’ said Decker, ‘they will come around to a practical point of view. Whatever else they are, they are not fools. But right now they’re recoiling from the shock. Give them a while and they’ll get their feet back under them.’
He reached for the bottle and held it up in invitation. Tennyson held out his glass. Decker filled both glasses and set the bottle back on the hearth.
‘Think of it,’ said Decker. ‘A concept built up painfully through the centuries by a rather ordinary life form on an ordinary planet of an ordinary sun, finally culminating in what amounted to an act of faith, continued by that faith, fed by that faith, and now threatening to topple a millennium of concentrated effort by a brainy group of thinkers. Man is not the smartest animal in the galaxy, by no means the most intelligent. Could it be possible, Jason, that man, through sheer intuition, through his yearning and his hope, could have found a truth that-‘
‘I don’t know,’ said Tennyson. ‘No one does.’
‘It is an intriguing thought,’ said Decker.
‘A terrifying thought,’ said Tennyson.
‘If only Vatican were not so single-minded, so hell-bent in their effort to discover the final faith and truth of the universe, do you have any idea of what they could do, what they represent?’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Tennyson. ‘I have no idea what they have.’
‘They know the answers, I am certain, to questions few others have ever thought to ask. They have dug deeper, I am convinced, into the core of universal knowledge than anyone possibly could guess. They have the clout, the power, the glory that would overshadow this galaxy if they could bring themselves to use it. Thank God, they can’t bring themselves to use it. They are so obsessed with this other business, they have no room for power and glory.’
Decker set his glass on the hearth, got up and went back to the kitchen area, lifted the lid of a kettle and used a spoon to stir whatever was cooking in it.
In the corner, hovering a few inches above the table on which sat the small group of carven stones, a small puff of diamond dust sparkled in the light from the flickering fireplace flames. Tennyson jerked upright, slopping some of the drink out of his glass. The other day, he remembered, the day that he had first met Decker, he’d seen this glitter of diamond dust poised over Decker’s shoulder. He had turned away his head and when he’d turned it back, the glitter had been gone. But the same glitter- he was sure it was the same glitter – this time did not go away. It stayed above the table.
Decker came back to the fire, picked up his glass and settled in his chair.
‘How about staying for supper?’ he asked. ‘I have stew, more than enough for the two of us. I’ll stir up a pan of cornbread and pop it in the oven. We’ll have it warm. I’ve run out of coffee, but I have tea.’
‘Tea is fine,’ said Tennyson.
‘I’ll crank up Old Betsy and take you home,’ said Decker. ‘It’ll be a dark night. Walking, you might lose your way. Unless you’d want to stay the night. You could have the bed. I have extra blankets. I could stretch out on the floor.’
‘I should get back sometime this evening.’
‘No problem. You pick the time.’
‘Tom,’ said Tennyson, ‘I had the impression you were noncommunicative. I’d been told you were stand-offish.’
‘Charley tell you that?’
‘I think so. I talked to no one else about you.’
‘Everyone else would have told you the same if you had asked.’
‘But I didn’t ask.’
‘That’s the point,’ said Decker. ‘Even now you haven’t asked. When did I come here? How did I come here? Why did I come here?’
‘Well, hell, I haven’t told you anything about myself, either,’ said Tennyson. ‘Although I wouldn’t really mind. What I did or was never seemed important.’
‘Story is,’ said Decker, ‘that you were on the lam. That’s what the village says.’
‘It’s true,’ said Tennyson. ‘You want to know the details?’
‘Not in the least,’ said Decker. ‘Here, let me fill your glass.’
They sat in silent companionship, drinks in hand, watching the fire.
Decker stirred in his chair. ‘To appreciate Vatican’s viewpoint,’ he said, ‘you have to ask yourself what a robot is. Too often we make the mistake of thinking of him as a mechanical man, and that’s not what he is. He is a whole lot more than that and a great deal less. I suspect that a robot often thinks of himself as a slightly different human, and in this, he is as wrong as we are. It’s strange that both robot and human should make the same mistake.
‘The one question that must first occur to us is to ask ourselves if a robot is capable of love. Of loyalty, yes; of responsibility, yes; of logic, yes. But how about love? Can a robot actually love anyone or anything at all? The robot has no spouse, no children, no kin of any sort, no blood relatives. Love is a biological emotion. It should not be expected of a robot, nor should a robot expect to experience it. Because he has no one to love, a robot has no one to protect or care for – he doesn’t even have to worry about himself. With minimal repair and maintenance, he theoretically can live forever. He does not have the specter of old age to worry over. He does not have to amass a fortune to care for himself in his later years. In the way of personal relationships, he actually has nothing at all. Which leaves a big hole in his life, a lot of emptiness.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Tennyson, ‘he would not know about the emptiness. He would not be aware that he is empty.’
‘That might be true if robots lived entirely by themselves, if they lived apart from biological beings. But they don’t; I don’t think they can. They’re hung up on humans; they must have their humans. And all these years, observing humans, they must realize, at least subconsciously, what they are missing.’
‘So you think,’ said Tennyson, ‘that, lacking the ability and opportunity to love, they turned to religion to fill the emptiness. But that makes no great amount of sense; religion is based on love.’
‘You forget,’ said Decker, ‘that love is not the only factor contributing to religion. There is faith as well. At times a very dogged faith, and a robot is so constituted that he could operate a long way on dogged faith alone. I would think that he could become, with very little effort, a fanatic that would put to shame any human zealot.’
‘But is what Vatican has a religion?’ Tennyson asked. ‘There are times when I think it’s not.’
‘It probably started out to be,’ said Decker, ‘and even now many of the simple members of Vatican still think religion is their true vocation. But over the years, Vatican’s objective has changed. I am sure of that. The Search now is aimed at universal patterns, at what any cardinal probably would define as universal truths. Which, when you come right down to it, would be far more attractive to the robotic mentality than any kind of faith. If, when they reach the end of the road they are following, they find, perhaps with some surprise, that after all they’ve discovered the true universal theology, they’ll feel fairly good about it.’
‘But if they come up with something else,’ said Tennyson, ‘they’ll not mind at all.’