— That is the one I mean. He is part of Haystack and Decker and the Bubbly.
— Well, I'll be damned, said Tennyson. How do you know this?
— I know. I know not how. But the Bubbly and the Plopper are very closely related.
— Let's try to sum it up, said Tennyson. We are here. We found this place and it is not Heaven. We should be getting back to Vatican with the word it isn't Heaven. But how can we prove it isn't Heaven? We can't just say it isn't. No one would believe us. And we haven't much time to hunt around for proof.
— We should be leaving now, said Jill. Whisperer, could you take us home?
— I can take you home.
— How about the equation folk?
— No need to worry about them. They can find their way back. If they want to go.
— You think they may not want to go? Oh, yes, I see what you mean. They were put away in an old folks' home and now they've broken free of it…
— So we have only ourselves to think of, said Tennyson. What worries me is how much time we may have to try to pick up proof and how much danger we may be in by waiting. Once the Bubblies recreate the new Jill and the new me, they might just put an end to us. They could use the new ones of us to try to weasel their way into Vatican.
— Why do we feel this way? asked Jill. Here we are assigning the Bubblies an adversary role. Maybe it won't turn out that way at all. This Center and Vatican are engaged in the same activity. They might want to be cooperative. They might want to join in with Vatican…
— Which is the last thing Vatican would want.
— I can't help it, said Jill. I think the same way you do — that the chance is they are adversaries. But we can't be sure of that.
— For one thing, said Tennyson, Decker showed far too much interest in the Listeners. He asked a lot of questions. In their data-gathering capability, Vatican is light-years ahead of this place. This gang would dearly love to get their hands on the Listeners.
— But they must have known about Vatican long before we came here. Remember the Theodosius memo. A survey party of the Bubblies did visit Vatican.
— Yes I know, I have been wondering about that. Also what Decker said about the data piling up. A Bubbly survey sweep might take centuries, might cover a lot of planets. They'd come back with tons of data. They'd be forced to pick and choose. They'd study only what seemed the most important. Maybe the Vatican data is still in the files untouched. Vatican's not too spectacular. It might not have made much of an impression. Perhaps the Bubblies never had run across robots before, would not even guess at their capabilities. So far as we know, the human made robots are the only ones in the galaxy. To the Bubblies, a robot might seem to be nothing but a lump, a chunk of metal, a machine. They stayed only a few minutes, not much more than a fly-over. Remember what that memo written by Theodosius said — that the one he saw clearly looked down upon him with enormous disdain.
— Theodosius couldn't be sure of that. It was only his impression.
— I'm not certain of that. A robot cardinal can be pretty damn discerning.
— Well maybe so, said Jill. I hope you're right.
— Do you now, asked Whisperer, wish to go back home? I am ready to transport you there. I'd not mind going back myself.
— We can't, said Tennyson. We simply must have proof. Otherwise, all this will have been for nothing. What we must have is some sort of iron-clad proof.
— You endanger yourselves, warned Whisperer. I know of danger in this place.
— I wish we could pin down, said Tennyson, some idea of what this place is all about. Decker called it a study center, and I'm inclined to believe it is. But the motive is the thing. Most research centers — human research centers, that is — are aimed at knowledge for the sake of knowledge alone. In Vatican, the acquisition of knowledge is aimed at the acquisition of a faith, in the belief that faith will come through knowledge. Another motive might be power, using knowledge as a power base. I fear that this may be the motive here. Decker spoke of a move to extend this Center's research to nearby galaxies. Could this be a reaching out for power — for power rather than knowledge?
— It could be, said Jill, but the exercise of power must presuppose a political organization. Does this place operate politically?
— There's no way we can know, said Tennyson. We haven't the time to find out.
— I know, said Jill. I know what we could take back as proof. One of the worms. If we took back a worm, the theologians would have to agree that this is not Heaven. There are no worms in Heaven. There simply could not be.
— I sorrow to tell you this, said Whisperer, but I cannot transport one of the worms. There would be too much mass for me to handle. I do not have the energy.
— Now that we know where Heaven is, said Jill, could we send out other Listeners? They could bring back proof imprinted on their cubes.
— It wouldn't work, said Tennyson. It may be the Bubblies missed Mary the first time. She came and saw Heaven and was so impressed and captivated by what she saw — or by what she thought she saw — that she returned a second time. She only caught a glimpse of it that first time. The second time she tried to enter Heaven, perhaps intent, as we are now, to bring back proof of it. The second time this place knew that she was there and they scared her off. But now that they know of the Listeners, another Listener wouldn't have a chance.
— If we, said Jill, could only take back a cube.
— We can't, said Tennyson. We aren't Listeners.
— They let us in, said Jill. They must have let us in. They could have stopped us or driven us off as they drove off Mary.
— In that you're wrong, said Whisperer. The equation people do not operate as the Listeners operate. The equation people did get us here without detection. We were here before Center knew of us. Having done it once, however, I'm not sure we could do it a second time. The people here, now aware of the chink in their defenses, will take steps to insure it won't come about a second time.
— So that's it, said Tennyson. There is no way we can come again. There is nothing we can take back as proof. Our word is all we have, and that will not be accepted by the theologians. No matter what we might take back, they could always say it was something we'd picked up along the way.
— Do you mean to say, Jill asked, that we have made this trip for nothing?
What was the answer to that? Tennyson asked himself. Could what little they had to tell give Theodosius and those who supported him the resolve to fight a little longer? Would what they had to say give the theologians some pause, stave off a little longer their take-over of Vatican and the Search Program? There was, he told himself, a bare chance that it might, but more than likely not for long — at best a short breathing spell.
Why, he wondered, had he (or Jill) not been able to foresee this situation? They had talked about it, of course — the necessity of returning from Heaven with some proof, one way or another. But they had given no adequate thought to what such proof must be. Why had they not realized the near impossibility of obtaining unquestioned proof?
If they only had more time, they could work it out. It seemed, however, that they had little time. There was a danger here, a danger that he could not define, but a danger that every fiber of his being insisted that they faced. And Whisperer agreed.
Failure, he thought. They had accomplished their mission and still they faced failure.
What the hell could he do, or Jill, or the two of them together? One thing, he knew, they could not do. They could not turn tail and run, not for a while at least.
— If we could only get word back to Theodosius, said Jill. Word that we are here and it isn't Heaven.
— I can take back word, said Whisperer.