‘You surprise me by how much you seem to know of us and our operation.’
‘Our concern for the planet,’ said the Old One, ‘made it seem wise that we keep marginally informed.’
‘Heaven!’ said Theodosius, gulping slightly.
‘That’s right – Heaven,’ said the Old One.
The cardinal found he could stay no longer. Abruptly he turned about and went plunging down the hill, tearing his way through low-growing bushes, his purple vestment catching on the bushes, torn to shreds as his headlong flight tore the fabric free.
At the foot of the hill, he came to a shallow ravine paved with huge flat stones that through the years had fallen from the hillsides. A small, shimmering sheet of water slid among the stones.
Here Enoch Cardinal Theodosius dropped to his knees. He clasped his hands together and held them on his breast. He lowered his head to rest against the clasped hands.
‘Almighty God,’ he prayed, ‘let it come out right! Please, make it come out right!’
Fifty-two
It was exactly as he remembered it – the pea-green carpet of the surface ran out to the distant horizon to meet the pale lavender of the shallow bowl of sky. The cubes were there, the same as ever.
And yet it was not the same as ever, and the difference lay not in where he was or where the cubes might be – the difference lay within himself. He was not himself, not himself alone; he was himself and someone else, himself and others.
On his first trip to the equation world, he had sensed Whisperer only marginally; the greater part of the time he had not sensed him at all. Too scared, perhaps, to be aware of him, too taken up with all the rest of it. He did sense him now, he knew that he was here, the soft, almost fairy touch of him. But it was not Whisperer; it was someone else that he felt closer to.
– Jason, said Jill, speaking as a part of him, the two of them inseparable, as if their minds had become one mind and their bodies one as well. Jason, I am here.
He had felt some of it the night before when the two of them had joined, opening their minds so that Whisperer might join with the both of them that they might grieve with him. There had then been the touch of two minds becoming one, but its effect had been softened and obscured because the sharp, keen memory of Decker had been there. But now it hit him full force. He and Jill were together as never before, closer together than when their bodies had been locked in love.
– I love you, Jason, she said. I do not need to tell you now. You now how much I love you now.
And she was right, as she was always right. There was no need for her to tell him, and no need for him to tell her, for they were together and could not help but know what was in the other’s mind.
Five cubes stood apart and closer to them than the other cubes. The others had pulled back, forming a large circle in which stood the nearer five.
– These are the ones, said Whisperer, who will be our guides.
Among the five, Tennyson saw, was his old friend who was deep purple with the equations and diagrams glowing in brilliant orange. There were, as well, the one who was startling pink with the equations all in green and the extra-fancy gray one with copper spots and the equations in startling lemon yellow. The fourth was a rose-red creature with equations in showy damson plum and its diagrams in sulphur yellow.
– That one’s mine, said Jill.
The fifth one was a sickly green with both its equations and diagrams in a somber golden brown.
– How can they be sure? Tennyson asked Whisperer. Are you sure they know where Heaven is?
– They do not know of it as Heaven. They know it by another name. In a distant sector of the galaxy lies a famous place. Unknown to us, of course, but famous.
– And this famous place is Heaven?
– They’re quite sure it is, said Whisperer. It has the shining towers and the noise that you call music and steep stairs leading up to it.
They had been moving toward the five cubes. As they moved toward them, the cubes had been moving, too, so that when they came close to them, the cubes had spread out and now closed in to form a circle with the two of them in the center of it.
The rose-red cube was facing them, and now that they were close to it, it wiped away the equation that it had been displaying and began replacing it with another, forming the new equation slowly so that it could be read even by one who was unfamiliar with that kind of communication.
– We welcome you, the equation said. Are you ready for our venture?
– Whisperer, said Tennyson. Whisperer!
There was no answer; there was no need of one, for it was quite apparent that it was not they who were reading the equation – it was Whisperer and because Whisperer was there, linked with them, they understood it, too.
– You do nothing, said the equation, flowing smoothly. You will simply stand where you are. And do nothing. Is that understood?
– We understand, said Whisperer, and as he spoke the words, the answer he had given appeared as a brief and simple equation on the surface of the rose-red equation person, printed there, thought Jill, so that the other cubes might know the answer that Whisperer had made.
It’s all damn foolishness, thought Tennyson, but he had no more than thought it than both Jill and Whisperer came swarming in on him, burying his mind so he could think no further, extinguishing the cynicism and the doubt that had come welling up in him.
Now another equation was forming slowly on the rose-red blackboard and Tennyson caught the beginning of Whisperer’s translation – then they were in Heaven.
They stood in a central plaza, and all around them reared the soaring towers. Celestial music came down upon them from the towers, enveloping them so that all the world seemed music. The paving of the plaza was gold, or at least gold color, and the towers were shining white, so shining and so white that they seemed illuminated by a light within them. There was a holiness, or what appeared a holiness, and it all was sanctified.
Tennyson shook his head. There was something wrong. They stood in the center of the plaza and the music filled the place and the towers were white and shining towers, but there was no one there. To one side stood the five equation people, and Whisperer, a small globe of glittering dust, was floating there above them, but there was no one else. The place was empty; they stood alone within it. Heaven, to all appearances, was uninhabited.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Jill. She stepped away from Tennyson and turned slowly to look around the plaza.
‘There is something wrong, isn’t there?’ she asked. ‘For one thing, there is no one here.’
‘For another,’ said Tennyson, ‘there aren’t any doors. None in the buildings. Not what we think of as doors. There are only holes. Round holes. Mouse holes. Eight feet or so above street level.’
It was true, she saw. And there weren’t any windows. In all the soaring height of the towers, there weren’t any windows.
‘There are no windows,’ she said. ‘You’d think there would be windows.’
A chill breeze came blowing down the plaza and Tennyson shivered at its touch.
There were, he saw, between the towers, what seemed to be narrow streets. Here, he thought, they must stand at the heart of the city, if it was a city. He looked up at the towers and realized that they were much taller than he at first had thought they were. They rose high into the blue, so high that the last glitter of them was lost in the blueness of the sky. At first, too, he had thought that there were many buildings, each one supporting its individual tower, but now it appeared possible that there might be only one building, enclosing the sprawling square in which they stood, with the towers placed at regular intervals. What he had thought of as narrow streets between the separate buildings might be no more than tunnels, cut at street level through the massive structure.
The building (or buildings) was of flawless white that did not have the look of stone. It had the look of ice, ice frozen from the purest water, ice with no air bubbles or other imperfections in it. That couldn’t be, he told himself. If this great structure was not stone, neither was it ice.