Roderick heard voices from behind the polished black door.
‘…more your league…’
‘…I see. Then where does he get this…?’
‘Beats me, don’t think he’s really nuts, but you never… well yeah, guess his mother did try to tell me something about this robot idea he’s got only I had this long-distance call just about then, bad connection I could hardly hear the guy, thought he was trying to sell us a P.A. system for the gym, it was only a lousy pietà.’
‘And you mentioned… ological difficulties… Okay, bring him in.’
Father O’Bride came out, grabbed him and trundled him through the black door to meet Father Warren.
Father Warren didn’t look much like The Man Himself. He did at least look like a priest, all in black. He could be a lot older than Father O’Bride or a lot younger, but he was definitely a lot thinner and darker, with a narrow pair of eyes, a narrow blue chin and long narrow hands. The hands kept kneading each other on the desk, as though trying to restore circulation.
‘Sit down, Roderick. Relax.’ His voice was deep and liquid, like the voice telling you to use Thong deodorant (‘Thonng’). One of the hands reached towards a silver cigarette-box, then withdrew to a silver dish of taffy. ‘Candy?’
Roderick shook his head.
‘Advent, I understand. Well now. Yes.’ He sat back and stared at Roderick until the robot looked away. The room was comfortable enough, and not at all religious: one little statue of Our Lady stood at the other end on its own little stand; it might have been a potted vine or a parrot-cage for all the difference it made here with the fireplace, easy-chairs, table lamps and magazine racks, the bookcases, the deep carpet.
‘Father O’Bride tells me you’ve been having a little trouble with your catechism.’
‘Yes sir, yes Father.’
‘And that you claim to be a robot?’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘Father O’Bride thinks you read too much science fiction.’
‘I don’t even know what it is, Father.’
‘No? Hmm.’ The hands played a game of church-and-steeple. ‘Look, you can be honest with me. I don’t disapprove of science fiction, not at all. In fact I read it myself. In fact I have a few books here, any time you feel like borrowing one, just help yourself.’ He swivelled in his chair and reached down a paperback. ‘I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov. Tried that yet? Here, take it along.’
‘Thanks, Father.’ He started to get up.
‘When you go, that is. I think first we ought to, to “rap” a little, get to know each other. After all, I don’t get too many chances in a country parish like this, to talk to real robots.’ The smirk never reached his dark eyes.
‘Talk?’
‘Tell me a little about this, this “guy” you say invented you.’
‘Gee I don’t know much, just that his name is Dan Sonnen-schein. But he and some other guys I guess they just went in this lab and maybe mixed up some chemicals and stuff and — here I am.’
‘And no mother involved?’
‘No, Father. I mean no mother, Father. No father either, Father.’ He paused. ‘I mean there’s Ma and Pa, but they’re both adopted, they’re not real.’
‘Not real. I see.’ The long fingers began squeezing one another. ‘Not real. Hmm, not, not real.’
‘Not real parents I mean.’
‘I understand you don’t think God is “real” either?’
When Roderick slipped off his shoe, his foot just reached the top of the deep carpet pile. He started running it back and forth to feel the slight pain that wasn’t really painful. ‘I don’t know. All I said was, if Dan made me and God made Dan, who made God? Father O’Bride got awful mad then.’
‘Yes well… Tell me, Roderick, have you ever looked up at the stars, and wondered?’
‘Wondered?’
‘How it all got there: millions on millions of little points of light, each one a great big sun, perhaps a sun with planets like our own Terra, perhaps with intelligent beings like us — but millions on millions of these suns, so far apart that the light from them takes centuries to reach us — haven’t you ever wondered how that all came about? Who made it?’
‘Sure, Father. I figure maybe it was just always there. Or else maybe it just popped up one day and there it was. Or maybe it—’
‘Yes yess, I can see you’ve thought about it. Now—’
‘—makes itself. Or heck, does it need to be made anyhow? Couldn’t it just—’
‘Fine, yes, that’s enough. But tell me, don’t you ever wonder if there isn’t something — or Someone — behind it all? Even if the universe “makes itself”, who arranged it that way? Eh? Eh?’
‘I don’t know, Father. What’s the point of wondering if you can’t find out the answer?’
‘Ah!’ The fingers came together, forming a little cage. ‘Just that!’
‘Huh?’
‘What’s the point of wondering? The “point” is, here you are, wondering what the point is.’
‘…?’
‘That is to say, God is the Ultimate Mystery, the Paradox of Paradoxes — by the way, do you know what a paradox is?’
‘Sure Father, don’t you?’ Roderick sat up. ‘It’s like a sign that says “Don’t Read Signs”. Or like, like priests, if they want to have kids they have to stop being Fathers.’
‘Yes fine, but what I meant was, God is — is unknowable. Great minds have been racking their brains for centuries trying to answer questions about Him, and — and getting nowhere fast, you might say. He is All Good, yet allows evil to exist in His world, the world He made. He is All Powerful, yet He allows people to disobey Him. He knows the future, yet we are still free to choose how we will live our lives. He is All Loving, yet allows His beloved Son to die on the Cross. He—’
‘Father I don’t get any of this. Especially the stuff about the Cross, the sacrafice Sister Olaf called it. But I mean in chess a sacrafice is just a sucker play — Father O’Bride says it’s the same in baseball — so how come this All Smart God fell for it?’
‘Fell for…?’
‘I mean here he had everybody just where he wanted them, he was going to send everybody to Hell, right? So I mean if he takes the Son instead his game position has gotta be worse after, right? I mean the only reason you make a sacrafice is to force the other guy to give you a better deal, sucker him into it, yeah? Like Father O’Bride does all the time with his t-shirt deals—’
‘Stop, stop, stop! Wait, wait a minute, wait…’ Father Warren seemed to be having trouble with his hands, the fingers knotting and tangling almost as though the hemispheres of his brain were at war. ‘I can see we’ll need a lot more work. A lot more work, if you… if you think that God… “game position”!’