Two armed Blue Devils entered the Iceman's cubicle and silently ushered him down a long darkened corridor, then up a ramp, down another corridor, and finally came to a halt at a large door, where Praed Tropo was waiting for him.
“She wants to see you, Mendoza,” it said.
“So I gathered.”
“Do not approach her.”
“I don't understand,” said the Iceman.
“You will.”
He uttered a low command, and the door receded, revealing a large, luxurious room almost fifty feet on a side. There were beds, chairs, desks, tables, even a holoscreen, each of them designed for the comfort of a human occupant.
The occupant herself stood about thirty feet away, tall, slender, with dark blonde hair and pale blue eyes that seemed to be looking through the Iceman into some hidden place that only she could see.
“Welcome to my domain, Iceman,” she said.
“Hello, Penelope.”
“You have seen her before?” said Praed Tropo, surprised.
“A long time ago,” answered the Iceman.
“I had thought we would never meet again,” said the Oracle. “I thought you would die where I left you, but I was very young, and my abilities were immature.”
“And now you're an adult,” said the Iceman.
“Now I am an adult,” she replied vacantly, as if her attention were directed elsewhere. “Now I see things more clearly, more vividly, and now I interpret them more accurately.”
“What kind of things?”
“Things that would drive you mad if you were to see them, Iceman.” She paused. “A million futures, all struggling to be born; a trillion events, all lining up to take place, all waiting for my approval.”
“I felt sorry for you when you were a little girl,” said the Iceman. “I feel sorry for you now.”
“Save your sympathy, Iceman,” she replied. “I would not trade places with you.”
The Iceman stared at a thin line on the floor about ten feet ahead of him, and noted that it ran up the walls and across the ceiling.
“In point of fact, you couldn't trade places with me even if you wanted to,” he said.
She smiled again. “You refer to the force field.”
“If that's what it is.”
“It keeps me in ... but it also keeps you out,” she replied. “You and the others.”
“What others?” he asked.
“Don't be obtuse, Iceman,” said the Oracle. “It's unbecoming.”
“Do you refer to the assassin, Chandler?” asked Praed Tropo.
“Perhaps,” said the Oracle. She turned to the Blue Devil. “You must leave us now.”
Praed Tropo turned and joined his two Blue Devils on the far side of the door, which immediately slid shut.
“How long have you been a prisoner, Penelope?”
“What makes you think I am a prisoner?”
“Can you leave this room?”
“Eventually,” she said.
“But not right now,” he said.
“I am content not to leave right now.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “You've changed.”
“I've grown,” said the Oracle.
He shook his head. “You're scarcely human anymore.”
“Look at me,” said the Oracle, turning around before him. “Do I not appear like any other young woman?”
“Other young women concentrate on what they are saying and hearing. You're hours and days ahead of where everyone else is, aren't you? Our present is your past. You're mouthing words that occurred to you before I arrived.”
“You are very perceptive, Iceman. I am glad I brought you here.”
“I came of my own volition,” he replied. “If it happens to serve your purposes, it's just a coincidence.”
“You are free to think so,” she said. Suddenly she turned sharply to her left.
“What's that all about?” asked the Iceman.
“Your friend the Whistler is on his way here,” she replied. “He arrived on Hades three days ago, hidden in the hold of a cargo ship, and made his way out of the spaceport under cover of night. It took him this long to find out where I am.” She paused. “If I had stood where I was, he would have been seen by one of my agents as he left Quichancha.”
“And you think that just by turning your body, he'll get out of the city unobserved?” said the Iceman skeptically.
“There are an infinite number of futures, Iceman. My freedom of action is limited, but in every future in which I turned, he leaves the city unobserved.”
“How can turning your body make a difference in what happens a hundred miles away?”
“I do not know the Why of it, only the Truth of it,” the Oracle replied serenely. “In a universe of cause and effect, I am the Cause, and by my willpower and my actions, I select the effect.”
He stared at her and made no reply.
“Why do you look at me with such an odd expression on your face?” she asked.
“Because I'm surprised.”
“By me?”
He shook his head. “By me.”
“Explain, please.”
“Why bother? You know what I'm going to say.”
“I know a million things you might say,” she replied. “I cannot consider all of them.”
“All right,” said the Iceman. “I'm surprised by my reaction to you.”
“In what way?”
“The last time we were together, you caused the death of someone I cared for very much,” he answered. “You caused her death, and you crippled me, and I thought I hated you. I thought that if I ever met you again, all I would want to do would be to put my hands around your throat and squeeze until you died.”
“But this is not the case?”
“No,” he said. “I hated a little girl, who killed out of passion and jealousy—but you're not that girl. You have no passion left. For all I know you don't possess any other human emotions, either. You're a force of nature, nothing more.” He paused and sighed. “You can't hate a hurricane or an ion storm for being what they are, and I find I can't hate you.”
She stared at him curiously, but made no reply.
“That doesn't mean you shouldn't be stopped,” he continued. “When winds build up to hurricane velocity, we dissipate them. When an ion storm approaches a habitable planet, we neutralize it.”
“You cannot stop me, Iceman,” she said with detached amusement. “Surely you know that by now.”
“Someone has already stopped you,” he replied. “Or have you the freedom to walk over to where I am standing?”
“I have not wanted it until now,” she said placidly. “And now that I want it, I shall have it soon.”
“How did they ever confine you here in the first place?”
“I was very young, and very naive,” said the Oracle.
“I'll agree that you were young,” replied the Iceman. “I find it difficult to believe that you were ever naive.”
“But it is true, Iceman,” she said. “I came here with the Mock Turtle. We stopped to refuel on the way to a planet where I was to grow up, shielded from all outside influence, and learn to use my powers to their fullest extent.” She paused. “And then I made a mistake.”
“What was it?”
“I could foresee that the ship would fail to function if a minor gasket was not replaced, and I let them overhear me telling that to the Mock Turtle. He practically worshipped me, if you'll recall, and he immediately insisted that their mechanics fix the flawed gasket. When they found that it indeed was cracked, they told us that because their ships worked on different principles, it would take them some weeks to import the part. And because my abilities were immature, I could not see far enough into the future to know that the part would never come, and I believed them.”
“And they imprisoned you here?” asked the Iceman.
“They explained that it was a protective device, and indeed it is,” she replied. “For just as I cannot pass through the field, neither can you.” She paused again, as if the past were much more difficult to summon than the future. “By the next morning I realized that we were prisoners, but since I had no interest in the Mock Turtle's world anyway, and all my needs were provided for, I decided that this was as good a place to mature and grow strong as any.”
“Why did you help the Blue Devils stay out of the Democracy?” he asked. “They can't mean any more to you than the Mock Turtle did.”
“They thought, and probably still think, that I am helping them in the hope that they will someday release me, but in fact it was a chance to test my growing powers,” answered the Oracle. “And I have no love for the Democracy. It was the Democracy that took me away from my parents, and tried to turn me into a laboratory animal that would perform on command, and it was the Democracy that sent scores of bounty hunters after me when I escaped.” She paused. “No, I have no love for the Democracy at all.” She met the Iceman's gaze with her own, and she seemed once again to be looking not at him but months and years past him. “I have plans for the Democracy, Iceman. I have interesting plans, indeed.”
“And now you think you're ready to put them into effect?” asked the Iceman.
“I am an adult woman now. I am no longer Penelope Bailey, nor am I the Mock Turtle's Soothsayer. I am the Oracle, and it is time for me to go abroad in the galaxy.”
“What happened to the Mock Turtle?”
“He died,” she said with an unconcerned shrug.
“How?”
“Why do you care?”
“I'm curious,” he answered. “I can't believe you couldn't have kept him alive if you wanted to.”
She smiled once more, a smile that should have been very attractive, but which instead seemed cold and distant. “You are very perceptive, Iceman.”
“Did you just get tired of being worshipped?”
“What god tires of being worshipped?” she replied.
“How did he die?”
“He was only concerned with what I could do for his insignificant race. It was all he talked about, all he thought about, all he cared for. He kept urging me to escape and return to his home world with him.” She paused. “Eventually he grew very tiresome.”
“And?”
“And one day his heart stopped,” she concluded.
“You made it stop, of course.”
“You still do not understand, Iceman,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “I do not cause things to happen. I choose the future in which they have already happened.”
He frowned. “That sounds like a contradiction.”
“Why?”
“Because things can't have already happened if you're looking into the future.”
She seemed amused. “Perhaps not in your future,” she replied. “But then, you are just a Man.”
She raised her left hand above her head, held it in place for perhaps five seconds, then lowered it.
“And what future did you choose just now?” he asked.
“I am bringing about a confluence of futures this night,” she said. “Any explanation would be beyond your understanding.”
“Try me.”
“I prefer to use you, Iceman.”
“How?”
“It is time for me to leave my confinement,” she said. “You will play an essential part in that.”
“Not if I can help it.”
She chuckled in amusement. “But you can't help it, Iceman. That is why you are here, in this place, at this moment.”