Plop, went Plopper, plop, plop, plop….
‘Leave him alone,’ said Smoky. ‘You’re always after him. You’re always criticizing.’
‘He drives me nuts,’ said Haystack.
‘Decker doesn’t mind him,’ said the Bubbly. ‘He never complains about him.’
‘Decker’s not with him all the time,’ said Haystack. ‘Decker’s not as close to you as I am. I’m your constant companion. At your eternal beck and call. Decker runs around a lot. If Decker had to live with Plopper, the way I do. . .
Plop, went Plopper.
‘He never quits it, day or night,’ said Haystack. ‘He’s hopping all the time. We are supposed to be a triad, aren’t we? Where does he fit in? All the rest are three; how come we are four?’
‘We are a triad,’ said Smoky. ‘Don’t try to get cute with me. Don’t say things that aren’t true, thinking you can catch me in a lie. You know Plopper is not one of us. He is nothing but a pet. Perhaps if you weren’t grumbling all the time and Decker spent more of his time with us, I wouldn’t need a pet. But I have found a pet and have grown fond of him and -‘
Haystack grumbled without saying anything.
‘What was that? Speak up.’
‘I said you were more than fond of him. You put up with him, which is more than I am able to do, and Decker too. Decker runs around so much because he can’t stand all the plopping. Plop, plop, plop all the blessed time. Not a moment’s peace.’
‘He’ll bring us good luck,’ said Smoky. ‘He is more than a simple pet. He is a talisman, a good-luck charm….’
‘You have no need of a good-luck charm,’ said Haystack. ‘I tell you and I tell you and you keep on pushing. You don’t let up a minute.’ Everyone is sore at you; you haven’t got a friend in all of Center. You’re pushing too hard, and when I try to tell you, you pay no attention to me. Once you have control of Center, what will you do with it?’
‘It’s not only Center, Haystack. It’s much more than that. You and Decker stick with me and -‘
‘There you go again,’ said Haystack. ‘I don’t know why I put up with you. You’re heading straight for trouble. You and your impossible dreams. If Decker didn’t go along with you. . .’
‘Decker has vision,’ said Smoky. ‘He sees eye to eye with me. While you -‘
‘Decker may have vision, but I have common sense. I know what’s possible; Decker doesn’t.’
Plop, plop, plop went Plopper.
‘No one has ever dared to reach out for Center,’ Haystack said. ‘You’re sneaky about it, of course. You move in devious ways. You think you’re being smart. But the others know. They are waiting until you make a tiny slip, then they’ll be down on you. They’ll crush you without mercy, without a second thought.’
‘When three beings form a triad,’ said Smoky, ‘which is the logical condition of our way of life and which from observation has proved to be the best mode of existence, they are loyal to one another. They do not bicker among themselves. They do not -‘
‘I am being loyal to you,’ said Haystack, ‘the best way that I know. I am trying my level best to keep us out of trouble. Why don’t you listen to me?’
‘I do listen to you, Haystack. I listen endlessly.’
‘You listen but you pay no attention. You are maddened by your dream of glory. You’ve reached a point where you recognize no reason. Even now you are plotting how you’ll use these new arrivals to the best advantage. Don’t tell me that you aren’t.’
‘It takes so long to reconstruct them,’ complained Smoky. ‘It would seem there should be a faster method.’
‘The procedure is long,’ said Haystack, ‘because there are so many factors that must be considered and worked with. There can be no mistakes, and in almost all of them that one might want to use, there are revisions to be made.’
‘I had given thought to making use of the originals,’ said Smoky, ‘and not waiting for the recreations. But that could be dangerous. The others, the cubes, I know not of, but the humans are hair-triggered creatures. It is strange that after all this time, with Decker being the only one we have, two more humans should show up. Any yet I am tempted…’
‘You are counting on the fact that they’d be identical to Decker? You can’t do that. You’d be taking a long chance. Individuals within the species may vary and, besides, with Decker there were revisions made.’
‘You advise caution?’
‘Yes, indeed I do.’
‘You always advise caution. I’m sick to death of your endless caution.’
‘Even if you had two more humans,’ said Haystack, ‘you could not be certain they would complement Decker. They might be of differing temperament and intelligence. Decker happened to turn out to be the sort of creature you could work with; these other two might not.’
‘Well, we’ll wait and see,’ said Smoky.
Plop, plop, plop, went Plopper.
Fifty-six
‘I don’t know,’ said Jill. ‘This Decker person…’
Tennyson put a finger to his lips, cautioning her. She looked about the room. There was nothing there. Decker had left and they were alone.
‘I wonder where Whisperer went,’ said Tennyson. ‘It’s unlike him to desert us.’
‘Maybe he found old friends,’ said Jill. ‘Decker said there are Dusters here. He may be hobnobbing with them.’
‘I wish he would come back,’ said Tennyson. ‘We should talk with him.’
‘So you feel it, too.’
‘Yes, Jill, I feel it too.’
They sat together on the sofa, looking about the room. It had familiar furniture. The carpeting was all right. The paintings on the wall had a familiar look to them. The room could have been transported back to Vatican and it would not have seemed out of place: it would have seemed all right. But despite this, there was a haunting, a frightening sense of alienness.
Tennyson reached out a hand and Jill took it. They sat side by side, holding hands, like two apprehensive children, alert and unsure of themselves, stiff and stark against the menace of a haunted house.
Jill began to speak, but Tennyson tightened his hand on hers and she gulped and said nothing.
Then: ‘Jason, Whisperer is here. He’s come back to us.’
– Whisperer? asked Tennyson.
– I am here, said Whisperer. I’m sorry that I left you. But I found Dusters. There are Dusters here.
– Whisperer, come to us, said Jill. We should talk among ourselves.
Whisperer came to them. They sensed him in their minds.
– We think there is something wrong, said Jill. Decker isn’t right.
– I wasn’t sure that you noticed it, said Tennyson. But then, I was the one who knew Decker back at Vatican. He is not my Decker. How about you, Whisperer?
– He is not the Decker that I knew, said Whisperer. A Decker, but a different Decker.
– He lied to us, said Jill. He said he had not known of Mary until we told him. And that makes no sense. This place, this Center, is sensitive on the matter of security. Mary tried twice to sneak in on them, not knowing she was sneaking in, of course. Just doing her job. They might have missed her the first time, but they must have known about her the second time, for they employed their psychological defense system to drive her away. Not knowing what she was, for no one would be afraid of Mary.
– They probably picked up some data on her, said Tennyson. Maybe not too much. Not satisfactory data, for they were dealing with whatever a Listener is when it goes out to another place. But you are right, Jill. They knew about her and I’m sure they got something. Whatever they got, they must be very puzzled with it and, from my judgment of Decker’s position here, he certainly must have known about it.
– Did we tell Decker too much, Jason? Did we tell him more than we should have?
– Maybe. I don’t know. We had to tell him something. Maybe we did tell him too much at first. It was a while before I sensed the wrongness in him. The word ‘sensed’ is right, for it was only that. He held up well otherwise, but there was a wrongness to him. Something that was not the old Decker. Can you remember all we told him?
– I can remember best what we didn’t tell him. We never mentioned the robots. So far as he knows, Vatican is a human institution. We never mentioned the religious angle. We never explained why the name Vatican was used. We did not tell him that Mary thought she had found Heaven. So far as he is concerned, he does not know that Vatican is anything other than a research center like this one.