‘I am tired out,’ said Ecuyer. ‘Something horrible has happened. Something that’s never happened before. Or, I don’t think it has.’
Tennyson put another log on the fire and walked back to the couch, sitting down beside Ecuyer and hoisting his bare feet up on the coffee table. He wiggled his toes. The heat from the fire felt good on them.
Ecuyer took another deep drink of the brandy. ‘You won’t join me?’
Tennyson shook his head. ‘Too early in the day.’
‘Ah well,’ said Ecuyer, ‘since I never went to bed. . .’ He drank more of the brandy.
‘There’s something you came here to tell me,’ said Tennyson, ‘and you’re taking a long time getting to it. If you have changed yourmind…’
‘No, I’m just putting it off. It’s something you have to know. It’s a bit painful.’
Tennyson said nothing. Ecuyer continued working on the brandy.
‘It was like this,’ Ecuyer finally said. ‘I’ve been putting off having a look at the second Heaven cube. You know I have. You’ve been bugging me about it. Jason, did you ever get around to viewing the first Heaven cube?’
‘No. Somehow I felt a strange reluctance. Maybe slightly afraid of it. Uncomfortable at the thought of it. I know I should have. I might have found something that would have helped me to treat Mary.’
‘I felt the same reluctance with the second cube,’ said Ecuyer. ‘I kept putting it off, finding reasons to put it off. Maybe I was afraid of what I might experience. I don’t know. I tried to analyze my feelings and came up zilch. Then last evening I decided – forced myself to decide – I’d fooled around long enough.’
‘So you finally viewed it.’
‘No, Jason, I didn’t.’
‘Why the hell not? Shy off at the last moment?’ ‘Not that. It wasn’t there.’
‘What do you mean, it wasn’t there?’
‘Just that. It isn’t there. It isn’t where we put it. We, old Ezra and me. You know Ezra. He’s the custodian.’
‘Yes, I know him.’
‘He followed procedure. He always follows procedure. He never misses a lick. He always does what he’s supposed to do. I’ve worked with him for years; I’d trust him with my life.’
Tennyson waited and in a few moments Ecuyer resumed. ‘When a new cube comes in, I deliver it to Ezra and he puts it in a safe. After I have viewed it, it may go to Vatican, and when it comes back from them, it is filed in one of the cabinets. Often a cube does not go to Vatican immediately, or may not go at all if we judge it would have no particular interest, in which case it also is filed in a cabinet. Ezra has a system all his own. I don’t know what it is; maybe no more than his memory. We have thousands of cubes; ask him for one and he can lay his hands on it instantly. He never falters. He goes straight to it. So far as I know, there is no actual flung system as such, but somehow or other Ezra can find anything you ask for. There’s a measure of security, of course, in such an arrangement.’
Tennyson nodded. ‘Ezra is the only one who knows.’
‘That’s right. There are a few cubes, a few special ones, I can come up with without help from Ezra, but not many.’
‘But until you view a new cube, it stays in a safe. The Heaven cube wasn’t in the safe- is that what you’re telling me?’
‘Jason, that’s what I am telling you. Ezra opened the safe and it wasn’t there. There were three other cubes, but not the Heaven cube. Three that I hadn’t got around to viewing-‘
‘One of them labeled wrong?’
‘No. To he certain, I viewed the three of them. None of them the Heaven cube. Stuff that came in just recently.’
‘Paul, who else could open that safe?’
‘No one. Not me, not anyone but Ezra.’
‘All right. So Ezra. . .’
‘Impossible,’ said Ecuyer. ‘That repository is Ezra’s life. His whole existence centers on the Search Program. Without it, he’d be nothing. He’d be empty. I’d trust him further than I would trust myself. He’s tied even more closely to the program than I am. He’s been with it longer. He was assigned to it when it first started, centuries ago.’
‘But if someone in Vatican. . .’
‘Not a chance. Not even the Pope. Ezra’s loyalty belongs to Search, not to Vatican.’
‘Then someone must have learned the combination. Would that be possible?’
‘I suppose so. An outside chance. An extremely outside chance.’
‘The cube couldn’t have been mislaid?’
‘No. Ezra put it in the safe. I stood by and watched him put it in and lock the door.’
‘Paul, what do you think?’
‘God, Jason, I don’t know. Someone stole the cube.’
‘Because they didn’t want it viewed?’
‘I would suppose so. There’s this theological faction in Vatican. The ones who advocate canonizing Mary -‘
‘The ones who’d like to get rid of Search. Who’d like to discredit you.’
‘I can’t be sure of that,’ said Ecuyer, ‘but I assume they would – if they had a chance, that is.’
The two men sat in silence for a moment. The new log Tennyson had thrown on the fire was blazing now, crackling as it burned. Dawn light had flooded the room.
‘That’s not all of it,’ said Ecuyer. ‘I haven’t told you all of it.’
‘What else is there to tell?’
‘The first cube, the first Heaven cube, is gone as well. It also has disappeared.’
Thirty-nine
The whisper went into Vatican, across all of End of Nothing.
Mary has performed a miracle. She has cured Jill of the stigma. She put her hand on Jill’s cheek and the stigma went away.
The nurse said she’d seen it happen. Mary had asked Jill to bend over so she could reach out and touch her. As soon as Mary touched her cheek, the ugly blemish had been no more. Her cheek no longer bore the mark.
A miracle! A miracle!! A MIRACLE!!!
There could be no question of it. The few who caught a glimpse of Jill cried out the miracle, bore fervent testimony that the shameful mark was gone.
After a few people had cried out the miracle, Jill fled.
A worried band of cardinals carried the word to His Holiness, and His Holiness, not entirely happy with all their foolishness, clucked and made other derogatory noises, counseling the cardinals to assume a more skeptical attitude until more evidence was in. When one cardinal suggested that an ecclesiastical judiciary inquiry aimed at determining the advisability of beatification be convened, the Pope said it was much too early for such steps. His Holiness, somewhat upset, was essentially noncommittal, keeping his options open.
A general holiday, automatically, almost instinctively, was declared. Workers on the farms, the gardens, and the orchards dropped their tools and joined in a haphazard processional, heading for Vatican. Woodcutters came scurrying in from the forests. Many monks and other Vatican workers streamed out to join the happy throng. Vatican guards had their work cut out to prevent the mob from an indiscriminate invasion of Vatican. In the vast basilica, humans and robots fought for kneeling room to pray. At first the bells were silent, but, finally, in an attempt to placate the crowd, which had been shrieking against Vatican’s apparent indifference to the self-evident miracle, pealed out and all the world was happy.
Knots of people gathered around the clinic, chanting for Mary, invading the little garden, trampling the shrubbery and the flowers. Guards held back the assemblage that continued to grow larger by the minute.
Mary, wakening, heard the chanting – ‘Mary! Mary! Mary!’ -and managed to sit up in bed, amazed that many voices should be calling out her name. The nurse was not in the room; she had stepped into another room where, leaning out the window, she could see to better advantage what was going on.
Mary, summoning all her strength, slid out of bed, holding onto a chair to pull herself erect. She tottered to the door and, leaning against the wall for support, made her way down the corridor to where the great front door stood open to let in fresh air and coolness.
The crowd caught sight of her as she came out the door, clinging to it with one hand to keep from falling. A hush fell on all those who were gathered there, all eyes turned to take in the frailty and unquestioned holiness of the woman who stood there in the door.
She raised her hand to them, fist clenched, one finger extended, shaking that one finger in their collective faces. Her voice was thin and reedy, a quavering screech, and it carried far in the awe-struck silence.
‘Naughty!’ she shrilled at them. ‘Naughty! Naughty! Naughty!’
Forty
‘It doesn’t look as if anyone’s at home,’ Tennyson told Ecuyer.