A bell tinkled softly.
The Room said, 'The phone is ringing, sir.
He slid along the sofa until he was in front of it. His hand reached out and flipped the toggle. The screen flickered and kept on flickering, but there was no image.
'This call, said the voice of the operator, 'must be made without visual transmission. It is within your right to refuse acceptance of it.
'No, said Blake. 'Go ahead. It makes no difference to me.
A voice, concise and frosty. speaking flat words, with no hint of intonation, said: 'This is the mind of Theodore Roberts speaking. You are Andrew Blake?
'Yes, said Blake. 'How are you, Dr Roberts?
'I am all right. How could I be otherwise?
'I am sorry. I forgot. I did not think.
'You had not contacted me, so I am contacting you. I think that we should talk. I understand you will be leaving soon.
'The ship, said Blake, 'is almost ready for me.
'You go to learn.
'That is right, said Blake.
'The three of you?
'The three of us, said Blake.
'I have thought of that often, said the mind of Theodore Roberts, 'ever since I was informed of your situation. The day will come, of course, when there'll not be three of you, but one.
'I had thought that, too, said Blake. 'It will take a long, long time.
'Time has no meaning for you, said the mind of Theodore Roberts. 'For either one of us. You have an immortal body that can only die by violence. I have no body and thus am immune to violence. The only thing that can kill me is the failure of the technology that supports my mind'.
'And Earth has no meaning, either. I think it is important for you to recognize this fact. Earth is no more than a point in space — a tiny point in space, and insignificant.
'There is so little in this universe, once you think of it, that really matters. When you sift down to the bottom of it, all that really counts is intelligence. If you are looking for a common denominator in the universe, seek intelligence.
'The human race? asked Blake. 'Humanity? It does not matter, either?
'The human race, said the precise, frosty voice, 'is a splinter of intelligence, not as a human being, not as any kind of being.
'But intelligence… Blake began, then stopped.
It was useless, he told himself, to try to present another viewpoint to this thing with which he spoke, not a man, but a disembodied mind which was as biased in its environment as a being of flesh and blood would be biased by its environment. Lost to the physical world, remembering the physical world as dimly, perhaps, as a grown man might recall his babyhood, the mind of Theodore Roberts existed in a world of only one dimension. A small world with flexible parameters, but a world in which nothing happened except it happened as an intellectual exercise.
'What was that you said — or meant to say?
'I suppose, said Blake, ignoring the question, 'that you tell me this…"
'I tell you this, said Theodore Roberts, 'because I know you must be sorely tried and very greatly puzzled. And since you are part of me…
'I am not a part of you, said Blake. 'You gave me a mind, two centuries ago. That mind has changed. It's not your mind any more.
'I had thought… said Theodore Roberts.
'I know. It was kind of you. But it isn't any good. I stand on my two feet. I have to. There is no choice. Too many people had a hand in me and I can't tear myself apart to give each one of them their due — not you, not the biologists who drew the blueprints, not the technicians who formed the bone and flesh and nerve.
There was a silence then and Blake said, quickly: 'I'm sorry. Perhaps I should not have said that. I hope you are not angry.
'Not angry, said the mind of Theodore Roberts. 'Gratified, perhaps. Now I need no longer worry, wondering if my biases and my prejudices might be of disservice to you. But I have allowed myself to ramble on too much. There was something that I meant to tell you, something I think that you should know. There was another one of you. Another synthetic man sent out on another ship…
'Yes, I knew about that, said Blake. 'I've often wondered…
— What do you know of him?
'He came back, said the mind of Theodore Roberts, 'Brought back. Much the same as you…
'You mean suspended animation?
'Yes. But this time the ship came home. A few years after it went out. The crew was frightened by what had happened and…
'So I was no great surprise?
'Yes, I am inclined to think you were. No one tied you up with what had happened so long ago. Not too many people in Space knew about it. It wasn't until shortly before you escaped from the hospital, after the bioengineering hearing, that anyone began to wonder if you might not be the other one. But before anything could be done about it, you had disappeared.
'This other one? He is still on Earth? Space had him?
'I don't think so, said the mind of Theodore Roberts. 'I don't really know. He disappeared. I know that much…
'He disappeared! You mean they destroyed him!
'I don't know.
'Damn it, you must know, screamed Blake. 'Tell me! I'll go out there and tear the place apart. I'll find him…
'It's no use, said Theodore Roberts. 'He isn't there. Not any more.
'But when? How long ago?
'Several years ago. Well before you were brought back from space.
'Look — how do you know? Who told you…
'There are thousands of us here, said Theodore Roberts. 'What one knows is available to all. There's little that one misses.
Blake felt the freezing breath of futility closing in upon him. The other man had disappeared, Theodore Roberts said, and undoubtedly he should know. But where? Dead? Hidden away somewhere? Sent out into space again?
The one man, the only other being in the universe to which he could have felt close kinship — and now that man was gone.
'You're sure?
'I'm sure, said Theodore Roberts.
After a silence, Roberts asked, 'You're going back to space? You have decided to?
'Yes, said Blake. 'Yes, I think I have. There's nothing here on Earth.
And. there was, he knew, nothing here on Earth. If the other man was gone, there was nothing left on Earth. Elaine Horton had refused to talk with him and her father, once so friendly, had been cold and formal when he had said goodbye, and Theodore Roberts was a frosty voice speaking from the emptiness of one dimension.
'When you come back, said Theodore Roberts, 'I'll still be here. You will phone me, please. You will get in touch?
If I come back, thought Blake, if you still are here. If there is anybody here. If Earth is worth the coming back to.
'Yes, he said. 'Yes, of course, I'll phone you.
He reached out and flipped the toggle to break communication.
And sat, unstirring, in the dark and silence, feeling the Earth drawing back and away from him, flowing outwards in an expanding circle that left him all alone.
35
Earth lay behind. The Sun had shrunk, but was still the Sun and not another star. The ship was falling down the long tunnel of gravitational vectors that would, in a little time, build up its velocity to the point where the stars would seem to start shifting in their courses and their colours, and it then would begin its slow transition into that other universe which existed beyond the speed of light.
Blake sat in the pilot's chair, gazing through the curved transparency that opened out on space. It was so quiet here, he thought, so quiet and peaceful — the uneventfulness of the emptiness that lay between the stars. In a little while he'd have to get up and take a turn about the ship to satisfy himself that all was right and well, although he knew it would be. With a ship such as this nothing could go wrong.