How stupid it had been to forget the cameras!
'Whisperer, she said aloud, thinking to ask him if he knew by what means they had traveled there. But he did not answer and within her mind there was no sign of him. That, she told herself, was no more than she should have expected. Jason had told her how it had been with him. He also had called out to Whisperer and the pinch of diamond dust had been nowhere to be seen because he had not come separately, but had come with Jason and was somewhere inside of him, presumably the scattered atoms of him mixed with the atoms of Jason's human mind, and this, of course, was what had happened with her as well.
— Whisperer, she said. Damn you, answer me. Give me some sign that you are with me.
Whisperer did not answer.
Was it possible, she asked herself, that the little twerp had thrown her into this place while he had stayed behind? She thought about this and it appeared unlikely. Whisperer was an eager beaver, hell-bent on an exploration of the universe. To explore it, apparently, he had to have a guide to show him where to go. Although once he had been shown the way, he would know the way and could go there by himself, or take someone else along, as he had taken her.
— All right, she said, go on hiding. Go on playing these silly games of yours. I can get along without you.
Why had she ever come? she wondered. Because she was a dedicated reporter who could not allow anything to happen if she wasn't in on it? Because she wanted to stand upon the ground on which Jason had stood, to find here a new strand that would tie her the closer to him? God knows, she thought, there is no need of that. Or had she swallowed Whisperer's pitch — that she might see things that Jason had not seen, thereby gaining a greater understanding of the equation world?
She shook her head. None of it made sense, but she was here and if she was, going to interview these people (people?), she had better be about it. Interview them? she asked herself — that was plain ridiculous. There was no way she and they could communicate. She'd jabber at them with her mouth and they would jabber back with their equations and neither of them would have the slightest idea of what the other might be saying.
Nevertheless, she walked toward the cube that was nearest her, a rose-red creature bearing on its surface a squiggle of damson-plum equations and an outrageously twisted diagram that glowed in sulphur yellow.
'I am Jill Roberts, she said, speaking loudly. 'I have come to talk with you.
Her words shattered the silence that hung like a gentle veil draped about this world, and the rose-red cube appeared to cringe, its color fading to a washed-out pink. Slowly, it began to edge away from her, as if it wanted to turn about and run but knew it would not be polite to turn about and run.
She thought: What a silly thing to do. I knew this was a quiet world; Jason had told me how terribly quiet it was, and I come busting in here and begin hollering out my questions. And what a silly thing to say, as well. Telling them I am Jill Roberts, and they, even if they could hear me, would not know what a jill-roberts was. If I am going to talk with them, she told herself, probably the only way to do it is to talk to them the way I talk to Whisperer. If I am going to tell them who I am — no, that won't do at all. I have to tell them what I am and not who I am. How can I go about telling them what I am? How can I or any other human, or any other form of life, tell a different form of life what it is?
Maybe, she thought, I should begin by telling them I am an organic being. But would they know what organic meant — even if they could hear and understand, would they know what organic means?
The answer seemed to be that probably they wouldn't. If she was going to talk with them, she'd have to start on a more simple level. She would have to tell them what organic was. Maybe, once she got the idea across they' might understand, for it was just possible (not probable, but possible) that they had encountered other organic life. Why was it, she wondered, that she had the idea (although she was not absolutely positive that she had the idea) that they were not organic life, but something else entirely, something very strange?
If she was going to reduce organic life to more basic concepts, how could she go about it? Come right down to it, what the hell was organic life? I wish I knew, she said. I deeply wish I knew. If Jason were here, he could be some help. Being a doctor and all, he'd know what it was. There was, she seemed to remember, something about carbon but what it was about carbon she simply did not know. She tried to remember back, wondering if she had ever known. Damn, damn, DAMN, she said, I've made it a point all my life to know so many things, to have a good working knowledge of so many things, and now that it comes right down to it, I don't know the things it is important I should know. As a reporter she had always made it a rule to bone up on any subject that she was going to talk with someone about, to know something about the creature or the human that she would be asking questions of, knowing something about its background and its interests and its work so she could hold the foolish questions down to minimum. But even had she had the time, there would have been no way she could have boned up about the equation people; there was no resource material. Maybe somewhere, but not in the human world.
The maddening thing about it was that she was trying to do it all by herself. Whisperer was here with her and he should be part of the act, not just she alone, but she and Whisperer. The little stinker was just lying doggo, not doing anything, not helping her at all.
The rose-red cube had stopped retreating and now stood at a distance from her, but not a great deal farther than it had been when she first had walked toward it. Other cubes were beginning to move in, gathering behind it, forming a solid phalanx behind it.
They are ganging up on me, she thought, the way they ganged up on Jason.
She took a few tentative steps toward the rose-red cube, and as she did, it wiped off its surface all the equations and the ugly twisted diagram and for a moment that side of it that faced her was no more than an unblemished rose-red panel.
She came up close against it, so close that she had to tip her head to see the top of it. The blackboard side of it still remained a rose-red panel and the other cubes that stood behind it and to either side of it remained exactly where they were, with their equations and their diagrams still frozen on their blackboards, not quivering, but stark and frozen there.
Now, slowly, hesitantly, the rose-red cube began to form a new diagram upon its blackboard, drawing it in a brilliant gold, working carefully, as if it might not be sure what it was doing, as if it were feeling its way.
First, high up, it formed a triangle, an upside-down triangle, with its apex pointing downward. Then another, larger triangle with its apex pointing upward, meeting the apex of the smaller triangle. Then, after some deliberation, it formed two parallel, vertical strokes, two sticks attached to the base of the larger triangle.
Jill stared at it, uncomprehending, then sucked in her breath and said aloud, but very softly, 'Why, that's me. The upper triangle is the head and the lower triangle is my body dressed in a skirt and those two sticks are legs!
Then, off to one side of the diagram that was Jill Roberts, a jagged line was formed — a jagged line with five points.
'That's a question mark, she said. 'I'm sure it's a question mark. They are asking what I am.
— That is right, said Whisperer, speaking from inside her mind. You have caught their attention. Now let me take over.
Forty-two
Despite the flaring candles the room was dark, the darkness soaking up the candlelight. The humped shadows of furniture crouched like stalking beasts. The guard stood, spraddle-legged, against the door. Cardinal Theodosius sat in his huge, high-backed chair, seemingly muffled in his robes.
'Dr. Tennyson, he said, 'in all the time that you've been here, this is the first time you've done me the honor of dropping in on me.
'I knew how busy you must be, Your Eminence, said Tennyson. 'And, heretofore, there was no need.
'There now is need?
'I think there is.
; 'You come to me at a time of some difficulty. We have few such times in Vatican. But now we do. Those fools out there.
'That's why I came to see you. Jill…
'I would have expected such action from the humans. You humans are a flighty tribe. Solid folks, but excessively emotional. At times it seems to me that you do not have good sense. With the robots I would not have expected it. We are a stolid people, at times phlegmatic. You would not have thought that robots could work themselves into such a state of hysteria. You were about to speak of Jill?
'Yes, I was. said Tennyson.
'She is one of the finest humans I have ever met. She has identified with us. She is interested in us and in Vatican. You know how hard she works.
'Indeed I do.
'When she first came to us, said the cardinal, 'she was somewhat less than enchanted. She wanted to write about us, as you well know, but that we could not allow. For a time I thought that when the ship next left she would be leaving on it. That I did not want her to do, for I knew inside myself, well before she demonstrated that I was correct, that she was the capable, devoted historian we needed and had never found. Tell me, Doctor, if you will, why simple folks such as we should feel so desperate a need to have our history written. Not for others, but for ourselves. Jill would have been glad to write our story for others, but that we would not countenance. However, we are all too happy to have her write it for ourselves.
'I am no psychologist, said Tennyson, 'so I speak with no certainty and surely no authority. However, I would like to think that it might be because you have done a job of which you are very proud.
'Indeed we are, said the cardinal. 'We have reason to be proud.
'And because, said Tennyson, 'you want to solidify your identity into such a form that it will not be forgotten. So that, perhaps, a million years from now other life forms will know that you were here, or that you still are here, if, in fact, you still exist a million years from now.
'We will be here, said Theodosius. 'If not I, if not my other fellow robots, at least Vatican will be here. Back on Earth, you humans formed economic corporations that assumed an identity of their own, persisting as corporate entities over thousands of years. The humans who formed and carried on the corporations died, but the corporations did not die. They carried on because they were ideas expressed in materialistic terms. Vatican is not a corporation but it is akin to a corporation. It is an idea patterned in materialistic terms. It will endure. It may change, it may have its ups and downs, it may be forced to evolve, it may face many crises, but the idea will not die. The idea will go on. Ideas, Dr. Tennyson, are not easily destroyed.
'This is all fine, Your Eminence, said Tennyson, 'and I value your judgments on this or any other subject, but I came here to talk of Jill, to tell you —
'Ah, yes, Jill, said the cardinal. 'It was all most unfortunate. In this saint business, I am afraid, she was caught — how is it you say it? — she was caught in the middle, I suppose. It all must have been embarrassing to her, to have people shouting at her, proclaiming a miracle. Citing her as evidence of a miracle. You are a doctor; can you tell me how it happened? This silly business of Mary performing a miracle on Jill's face is all poppycock, of course, and I cannot believe —
'Your Eminence, said Tennyson, rudely breaking in, 'I came to tell you that Jill has disappeared. I've looked everywhere. I thought, perhaps, that you…
'The poor girl, said the cardinal, 'undoubtedly has gone into hiding, fleeing from those fanatic louts out there.
'But where could she have gone? She knew of only a few places she could go to hide. She really had no place to hide.
'Tell me, truly, Doctor, how this so-called miracle came about? What erased the stigma? Not Mary, I am sure of that. It must have been something else. You're a doctor; you must have some idea of what happened. Would you say, perhaps, a spontaneous remission, the body's curing of itself?
'Dammit, Your Eminence, I do not know. I've come to you for help. I want to know anything you might know that could help me find her.
'Have you looked in the library?
'Yes, I've looked in the library. I've looked everywhere.
'In the little garden by the clinic?
'Yes. I've told you. I've looked everywhere. You talk with her a great deal; you go to the library to visit her. Did she ever tell you anything, say anything at all that might — A loud hammering on the door interrupted them. Tennyson swung around to see what was going on.
The startled guard opened the door a crack to peer out and whoever had been pounding on it gave it a fierce shove, knocking the guard out of the way. A robot dressed in a monkish habit burst into the room.
'An Old One! he bawled. 'Your Eminence, an Old One!
The cardinal rose from his chair.
'An Old One, he thundered. 'What about an Old One? Cease all this hullabaloo and tell me what you want.
'An Old One is coming, the monk shouted at him. 'An Old One is coming up the esplanade.
'How do you know it's an Old One? Have you ever seen an Old One?
'No, Your Eminence. But everyone says it is an Old One. Everyone is running and screaming. Everyone is scared.
'If it is an Old One, said the cardinal, 'they had damn well best be scared.
Through the open door came the faint sound of screaming, a noise that filtered through many corridors.
'Up the esplanade? asked Tennyson. 'Heading for the basilica?
'That is right, Doctor, said the monk.
Tennyson said to the cardinal, 'Don't you think we should go out there and see what the Old One wants?
'I do not understand it, said the cardinal. 'No Old One has ever come to Vatican before. In the early days, when we first came here, we occasionally caught glimpses of them, never very many of them, and always from a long distance off. We didn't try to see them too closely. We had no commerce with them. We never troubled them and they never bothered us. Some terrifying tales weire told of them, but that was later on, the length of time that it takes for a myth to build.
'They did kill my predecessor — the young doctor — and the two humans who were with him.
'That is true, but the idiots went hunting them. You do not hunt an Old One. It simply isn't done. That was the first time, and the only time, that the Old Ones ever have committed violence.
'Then it's reasonable to think this one comes with no violence in its mind.
'I wouldn't think he is here to do us violence, said the cardinal, 'but who is to know? The people have a right to fear the Old Ones, if only from the stories they have heard, and to flee as they now are doing, It's only common sense.
'Well, are you coming out with me or not?
'You intend to confront the Old One?
'Not confront him. Meet him.
'Oh, I suppose I might as well, said Theodosius. 'There'll be no one else, I'm sure. I warn you, there'll just be the two of us.
'We will be enough, said Tennyson. 'Is there any chance we can communicate with him?
'There are ancient tales that some communication may be possible with Old Ones.
'All right, then. Let's go out and talk with this one.
Tennyson led the way, with Theodosius at his heels and the guard and monk trailing them at a considerable and, presumably, a safe distance.
As they walked through the corridors leading to the entrance of the papal palace, Tennyson tried to remember what he had been told of the Old Ones. It turned out, it seemed, that he had been told very little. The Old Ones had been here, on End of Nothing, when the robots had arrived. There had been only accidental, glancing contacts between the Old Ones and the residents of Vatican. Over the years a myth of the Old Ones as ferocious killers had grown up, the sort of stories that were told in chimney corners in the dead of night. But whether there might be any basis of fact for such stories, he had no way of knowing. Actually, during the time that he had been here, he had heard very little talk of Old Ones.
They came out of the palace
and there, a short distance to the right, stood the massive, soaring basilica, its front facing on the broad, paved esplanade that ran up from the east. The esplanade was empty of either robots or humans — emptier than Tennyson had ever seen it. On top of buildings to either side human and robot heads peeked out, watching what was happening below. A breathless silence lay over everything, broken only now and then by distant shouts and shrieks.
Far down the esplanade a pudgy figure trudged, as broad as it was tall. Viewed from the distance that they stood, it appeared not too large, although Tennyson realized that to loom up as it did from the far end of the esplanade, it must be huge.
He hurried down the steps and along the walk that led to the basilica, with the cardinal crunching along behind him, the monk and guard lagging far behind.
Reaching the flight of wide stone stairs that led up to the basilica, Tennyson and the cardinal climbed them and stood waiting for the Old One.
The cardinal said, in an astonished voice, 'Doctor, that thing out there is spinning on its axis.
It was, indeed. It was a huge sphere, standing, Tennyson estimated, some twenty feet into the air. It was spinning slowly, and as it spun, it was moving forward. The surface of the globe was black, and while the surface was fairly smooth, it was pockmarked with numerous indentations. It was suspended in the air, its spinning body clearing the pavement by a foot or more.
'Strange, said the cardinal. 'Very strange, indeed, Doctor, have you ever seen anything quite like it?
'No, I have not, said Tennyson. 'You seem astonished. Can it be true you have never seen an Old One?
'As I told you, long ago, when we first came here. The stories had it that they were globular, but you know how stories are. I, myself, have never seen one until now.
The Old One came up to the foot of the stairs. There it halted and its spinning stopped. It dropped to the pavement and rested there.
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