Behind her a footstep sounded, and at the sound she turned around. It was Asa with her sandwiches and the glass of milk.
He put them down, carefully, in front of her and stepped softly to one side.
‘And now,’ he asked, ‘what would you have me do?’
‘For the moment,’ she said, ‘nothing at all. Take a rest. Sit down and talk wit-h me.’
‘I need no rest,’ he said. ‘I have no need to sit.’
‘It’s not against your rules, is it?’
‘Well, not against the rules.’
‘Even cardinals sit,’ she said. ‘When His Eminence, Theodosius, comes to visit me, he often sits and talks.’
‘If you wish,’ said Asa, perching himself upon the stool the cardinal used on his visits.
She picked up a sandwich and took a bite. It was roast beef and tasted good. She picked up the glass of milk.
‘Asa,’ she said, ‘tell me about yourself. Were you forged on Earth?’
‘Not on Earth, milady.’
‘Then here?’
‘Yes, here. I am a third-generation robot.’
‘I see. And how many generations might there be?’
‘There is no way of telling. It depends on how you count. Some say five, others seven.’
‘That many?’
‘That many. There may be even more.’
‘Have you ever been to some of the places the Listeners have found?’
‘Twice, milady. I have made two trips.’
‘Ever outside of time and space?’
‘On one of them,’ he said. ‘One of the two, I was outside of time and space.’
‘Could you tell me what it was like?’
‘No, I cannot. There is no way to tell. It’s another place. Not like here at all.’
Eighteen
Once again Tennyson was in the place of equations and of diagrams, and this time some of them could be vaguely recognized.
One, he was convinced, was Ecuyer. The diagram somehow had the look of Ecuyer and the equations that were associated with it, in some manner which he could not comprehend, spelled out Ecuyer. Maybe the color, he thought, for Ecuyer’s diagram and equations were gray and rose, but why gray and rose should be Ecuyer, he could not imagine. Certainly, he thought, color should have little to do with it – rather it would be the shape of the diagrams and the components of the equations that should determine what they were. Tennyson fought mentally, sweating and gasping, clawing at his intellect, to factor out the equations, but that was impossible because he did not know the conventions and the signs.
Deliberately he backed away from Ecuyer, or what he thought must be Eçuyer. Deliberately, but fighting every step that backed him away. View it all from another angle, he told himself, achieve a perspective from a distance, look away for a while to wipe it from your mind in the hope that when looking back at it again something – either something in the diagram or the equations – will jump out at you.
For he must know, he told himself; it was vital that he know if this was Ecuyer.
The place was hazy and there was a quaver in the air. If only something, just one thing, would be still, he thought – if he could get one good look at something. The trouble was that while it never actually changed, it always seemed on the verge of change. That was it – uncertainty.
Having looked away, he now looked back, swiveling his head quickly in the hope he might catch the diagrams and equations by surprise.
Ecuyer was gone. The gray and rose were gone. In its place was a purple and gold; another diagram and a new set of equations.
Seeing them, he froze. His terror rose to choke him and he screamed.
‘Mary! Mary! Mary!’
He struggled to climb out of wherever he was, although there was nothing he could climb and someone had seized him to prevent his climbing.
‘No! No! No!’ he shouted, and someone was whispering to him.
‘There, there, there…’ the someone said, and soft hands were upon him and when he opened his eyes he found himself in darkness – which was strange, for he had not known his eyes were
closed.
The voice said, ‘No, Hubert, it’s all right. He was having a nightmare.’
‘Jill?’ Tennyson asked weakly.
‘Yes. It’s all right now. I’m with you. You’re back again.’
He was in bed, he saw, with Jill bending over him and Hubert hovering in the lighted doorway.
‘I worked late,’ said Jill, ‘and I thought you might be asleep, but I knocked anyway and Hubert let me in. I wanted to see you. I had so much to tell you.’
‘I was in the equation world,’ he told her. ‘I was dreaming it again. Ecuyer was there and he was gray and rose and when I looked away for a moment…’
‘You were screaming at Mary. Was Mary there? The Heaven Mary?’
He nodded, struggling to sit up, still befuddled with the dream. ‘She was purple and gold,’ he said. ‘And it was horrible.’
Nineteen
It was the first time he’d returned since he’d finally walked away from the boat ten – no, it must have been twelve – years ago, and it still was there, where he’d remembered it, lying in a small, grassy valley between two ranges of steep hills. Brambles had grown up around it, but not so thickly or so high as to obscure it. Apparently nothing else had found it, for it lay exactly as he remembered it, and he wondered how he could have found it so easily, walking straight through the tangled foothills to the place he knew it was.
– Whisperer, are you here? he asked.
Knowing that he was, but he had to ask.
– Yes, Decker. Of course I’m here. So is the Old One of the Woods. He’s been following us for days.
– What does he want?
– He’s curious, is all. You puzzle him. All humans puzzle him. And you puzzle me. Why back to your beginning?
– It’s not my beginning, said Decker. I began very far from here.
-Your beginning on this planet, then.
– Yes, my beginning on this planet. You know, of course, what lies down there.
– You told me. A lifeboat. A vehicle that carried you safely through space until it found a place where you could survive. But you never told me more. Decker, you are a close-mouthed man. Not even your best friend. . .
– Is that what you are?
– If I am not, name one who is.
– I would suppose you’re right, said Decker. When the boat aroused me from suspended animation, I had no idea where I was. At first, it seemed an absolutely primitive planet, untouched by any sort of intellectual culture. I explored. I kept no track of time, but I must have roamed for weeks, maybe for months, and there was nothing but the wilderness, although in many ways a pleasant wilderness. Then, after days of wandering away from the boat, going farther than I had ever gone before, I stood on a mountain spur and saw Vatican, shining in the distance. I knew then I was not alone, that there were intelligent beings here, although at the time I had no idea what they were.
– But you did not go rushing in to announce yourself.
– Whisperer, how could you know that?
– Because I know you, Decker. I know you for the kind of man you are, reserved, standoffish, pathologically disinclined to show any kind of weakness. Always on your own. A loner.
– You know me far too well, said Decker. You are a sneaky bastard.
– So are you, said Whisperer. But with dignity. Always with dignity. Why is dignity so important to you, Decker?
– Damned if I know, said Decker. I suppose it always has been. The Old One of the Woods was still on the slope above them, hunkered in a patch of woods at the edge of a boulder field, staring down upon them. Decker sensed him now, sensed him very strongly. There were long stretches of time when he had no sense of the lurker, but now and then he did. He had become aware of this one well before Whisperer had announced they were being followed.
– The Old One’s still up there, he said.
– Pay no attention, Whisperer told him. It only wants to watch us. It thinks we do not know it is here. It is getting satisfaction out of watching us and us not knowing that it is.
Standing on the slope, Decker went back in time to that day when he first had sighted End of Nothing and Vatican, realizing when he saw them that he was not marooned on a desert planet. He had come back to the boat and had put together a load of necessities – tools and cooking utensils and other simple things -then had headed out for End of Nothing, pausing only for a quick look back at the boat where it lay in the grassy valley.