“They are within the compound,” announced the Oracle, peering sightlessly off into space.
“Both of them?” asked the Iceman.
“Yes.” She turned to him and smiled. “Everything is coming to fruition.”
“I take it that I'm part of the plan?”
“In some eventualities, you are. In others you are not.”
“What do you think I'm going to do?”
She looked amused. “In none of the futures I can see do I answer that question.”
He pulled out a small cigar. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Tough,” he said, lighting it.
“There,” she said, still amused. “You've stood up to me. Do you feel better now, Iceman?”
“Not especially.”
“But you do not fear me?”
“Not especially.”
“You should, you know.”
The Iceman shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“Do you know that in all my life, there is only one man I have ever been afraid of?”
“Oh? Who was that?”
“You.”
“I'm flattered.”
“That was a long time ago,” said the Oracle. “I see you now and I feel no fear.” She stared at him, her eyes finally focused in the present. “My only reaction to you is contempt.”
“Not hatred?” he asked.
She shook her head. “One must feel some respect to feel hatred, if not respect for the person, then at least respect for the harm he can cause.”
“And you consider me harmless?”
“Yes.” She paused, then spoke again. “Even with the explosives you have hidden inside your artificial leg, I consider you harmless.”
“You know about them?”
“I know everything,” she replied. “Am I not the Oracle?”
“You're an Oracle imprisoned in a force field,” said the Iceman. “How can you stop me if I decide to detonate the explosives right now?”
“You are an old man, Iceman, and your heart has undergone many strains during your life. If you try to detonate the explosives, you will feel a searing pain in your chest, your heart will burst, and you will die.” She stared intently at him. “Already it beats more rapidly, already it pumps your blood at a dangerous rate. In a million times a million futures, you will not even be aware of it. But,” she added, stepping two paces to her right, “if I move here, there exists a future in which you feel a warning pain, does there not?”
The Iceman felt a sharp pain in his chest. Breathing suddenly became difficult, and he experienced an overwhelming sensation of pressure. He tried to conceal his reaction, but was unable to.
“You see?” she said with a satisfied smile. “There is one future, among the billions in which you detonate the explosives successfully, in which your pain does not cease. It become unbearable, and in that future, just before you die, you realize that what I have told you is the truth.”
The pain finally began subsiding, and the color returned to the Iceman's face. He took a deep breath, and leaned against the door for support.
“Can I ask you a question?” he said after a moment.
“That is what the Oracle does: She answers questions.”
“How the hell have they managed to keep you locked up here? Why hasn't your jailor suffered a heart attack or a stroke at the proper moment?”
“They have chosen my keepers very carefully,” she answered. “In no future that I have been able to envision have any of them suffered from any pain or disease to the extent that it would allow me my freedom.”
“How do they feed you?” asked the Iceman. “Surely they have to dampen at least a portion of the field for that.”
“A tiny portion,” she replied. “You shall see in just a moment.” She raised her voice. “You may enter.”
A Blue Devil bearing a tray of food walked through the doorway, set it down on the floor right next to the force field, and then exited. A moment later a musical note sounded on the intercom system, and Penelope backed up against a wall, as far from the tray as possible. There was a sound of static as a portion of the field, no more than a foot square, dampened at floor level, and she walked forward, knelt down, reached for the tray very gingerly, and carefully pulled it to her. The moment it was across the dividing line on the floor, there was more static and a pre-recorded Blue Devil voice informed them that the field was once again impregnable.
She carried the tray to a table and set it down there.
“You see?” she asked.
“And you haven't had a living thing on your side of the field for how many years?”
“Since the Mock Turtle's unhappy demise.”
“You've had no human contact in all that time?”
“I've had no contact of any kind.” She paused. “Well, that's not entirely true. I had a doll once, but it fell apart four years ago.”
The Iceman tried to picture an 18-year-old Oracle playing with a doll, and couldn't. But he had no difficulty envisioning a lonely 18-year-old Penelope Bailey hugging the doll to her for comfort.
“I still feel sorry for you, Penelope,” he said. “It's not your fault you were blessed or cursed with this ability, and it's not your fault that the Democracy didn't know how to handle you, and it's probably not even your fault that the Blue Devils have confined you here for all these years—but you are what you are, and you can't be allowed out of here. If you can't be killed, you have to be contained.”
“Dream your dreams of heroism, Iceman,” she replied. “What harm can they do?”
Suddenly she turned and faced the wall behind her, and stood perfectly rigid for a moment. Then she turned back to him.
“Who were you helping that time?” asked the Iceman.
“No one you know,” she replied. “Tonight is all but resolved. I have other concerns to look after.”
Her placidity vanished, to be replaced by a contemptuous frown.
“Fool!” she said. “Does he think that will affect my ability to deal with him?”
“What are you talking about?” asked the Iceman.
“Jimmy Two Feathers.”
“Where is he?”
“He approaches, and he thinks to befuddle me by befuddling himself.” She turned to the Iceman. “His mind is gone—but I do not read minds. I see futures.”
“He bit into a seed?” asked the Iceman.
“As if it matters.”
“It matters,” said the Iceman. “If he doesn't know what he's going to do next—”
“I will know!” snapped the Oracle.
“I thought you saw a myriad of futures, and manipulated things to achieve the one you wanted. How can you manipulate a man who currently has the intelligence of an insect?”
“That's why you are here, Iceman,” she said.
“Me?”
“If I can't stop him, you will.”
“You've got a healthy imagination, Penelope.”
“I do not imagine things, Iceman,” replied the Oracle. “I foresee them.”
“Well, you've foreseen this one wrong,” said the Iceman. “If he can kill you, I won't lift a finger to stop him.”
“You will do what you are destined to do.”