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Leone, for the times demand just such a papal bull on the central subject in question.”
    “Which is, Your Holiness?”
    “That which is tearing the Church asunder,” the Pope said forcefully. “One way or another, the matter must be resolved, and I am going to do it, no matter how endlessly Cardinal Silver urges politic prevarication. That’s why I have summoned you to Rome, Father De Leone.”
    “It is?”
    At that moment a servant entered with the coffee service, and while it was poured, my hopessoared. Was this boon truly going to be granted me at the end of my life? The Pope was going to issue a bull on the spiritual status of transcorporeal successors, and she had summoned
me
to advise her! Therefore she must intend, at the very least, to deny communion to successor entities once and for all, perhaps even threaten excommunication of their human templates, if I could convince her. Perhaps she even intended that I do a bit of ghostwriting on the bull.
    When the servant had retired, Mary I leaned forward slightly, sipped at her coffee, and gave me a look that in an erotic situation might have been called seductive.
    “You have the opportunity to perform one final service for the Church, Father De Leone,” she said. “If you agree, you and I will lay to rest the great demonic conundrum of the age, and restore the harmony of the Church, perhaps even attract a new generation of converts.”
    “Your Holiness!” I exclaimed. “I would be deeply honored to assist you in such an endeavor in any way that I can.”
    “Oh, yes, I was chosen to paper it all over, to change the subject, but the subject will not go away, and it has fallen to me to resolve it,” the Pope went on as if talking to herself.
    Then, as if realizing what she was doing, she fixed me with an eagle-eyed gaze that seemed almost avid. “And that’s what you and I are goingto do together, Father De Leone, if you accept this mission.”
    “Your Holiness—”
    The Pope held up an imperious hand. “This cannot be a command, Father De Leone,” she said, “you must volunteer, and before you do, you had better hear the burden I wish to set upon you, for I doubt it is what you think.”
    The Pope broke the regal mood with a sip of coffee before it could properly form. “I’ve read everything you’ve ever written,” she said, “including the interdicted material. I have also read your medical reports. It would seem the Church is about to lose your wise counsel….”
    She regarded me with an unmistakable predatory eagerness. “You are a dying man, Father De Leone; I give you my profuse papal blessing, but I also offer you a chance to achieve sainthood.”
    “Sainthood!”
    “You do this deed for the Church and you will more than deserve it,” the Pope said. “When the dust clears, I’ll push it through, or my successor will, for it will be no sham.”
    What could this woman possibly be planning? Why did this talk offer of sainthood fill me with such dread?
    “I want to record your consciousness hologram and install your successor entity in the Vatican computer net. I want to hear your wise counsel from the Other Side.”
    “What!” I shouted, rising to my feet with my fists in the air.
    “Sit down, Father De Leone, hear me out!” the Pope commanded.
    I sank back into my chair utterly stunned.
    “Yes, yes, I know, you’re appalled, you are firmly convinced that any such successor entity would be a satanic golem of the bits and bytes, and that your immortal soul would already be standing for Judgment for the sin of its creation, or, worse still, trapped in an eternal electronic limbo. I told you, I’ve read every word. That’s why you’re perfect, and that’s why if you agree to serve you will be a true saint.”
    “I understand little of what you are saying, Your Holiness,” I moaned, “but what I do reeks of mortal sin.”
    “Perhaps it does,” agreed the Pope. “Perhaps it is a terrible thing to ask. But you are the ideal