"A guilty conscience doth make cowards of us all," Andy said in his complacent, just-thought-you'd-like-to-know voice. "That's my free adaptation of a - "
"Shut up, you bag of bolts and wires," Slightman snarled. "I - " Then he screamed. Jake felt Oy stiffen against him, felt his fur begin to rise. The bumbler started to growl. Jake slipped a hand around his snout.
"Let go!" Slightman cried out. "Let go of me!"
"Of course, sai Slightman," Andy said, now sounding solicitous. "I only pressed a small nerve in your elbow, you know. There would be no lasting damage unless I applied at least twenty foot-pounds of pressure."
"Why in the hell would you do that?" Slightman sounded injured, almost whiny. "En't I doing all you could want, and more? En't I risking my life for my boy?"
"Not to mention a few little extras," Andy said silkily. "Your spectacles... the music machine you keep deep down in your saddlebag... and, of course - "
"You know why I'm doing it and what'd happen to me if I was found out," Slightman said. The whine had gone out of his voice. Now he sounded dignified and a little weary. Jake listened to that tone with growing dismay. If he got out of this and had to squeal on Benny's Da', he wanted to squeal on a villain. "Yar, I've taken a few little extras, you say true, I say thankya. Glasses, so I can see better to betray the people I've known all my life. A music machine so I won't have to hear the conscience you prate about so easy and can get to sleep at night. Then you pinch something in my arm that makes me feel like my by-Riza eyes are going to fall right out of my by-Riza head.'"
"I allow it from the rest of them," Andy said, and now his voice had changed. Jake once more thought of Blaine, and once more his dismay grew. What if Tian Jaffords heard this voice? What if Vaughn Eisenhart heard it? Overholser? The rest of the folken ? "They heap contumely on my head like hot coals and never do I raise a word o' protest, let alone a hand. 'Go here, Andy. Go there, Andy. Stop yer foolish singing, Andy. Stuff yer prattle. Don't tell us of the future, because we don't want to hear it.' So I don't, except of the Wolves, because they'd hear what makes em sad and I'd tell em, yes I would; to me each tear's a drop of gold. 'You're nobbut a stupid pile of lights n wires,' they say. 'Tell us the weather, sing the babby to sleep, then get't'hell out o' here.' And I allow it. Foolish Andy am I, every child's toy and always fair game for a tongue-whipping. But I won't take a tongue-whipping from you , sai. You hope to have a future in the Calla after the Wolves are done with it for another few years, don't you?"
"You know I do," Slightman said, so low Jake could barely hear him. "And I deserve it."
"You and your son, both say thankya, passing your days in the Calla, both say commala! And that can happen, but it depends on more than the death of the outworlders. It depends on my silence . If you want it, I demand respect."
"That's absurd," Slightman said after a brief pause. From his place in the closet, Jake agreed wholeheartedly. A robot demanding respect was absurd. But so was a giant bear patrolling an empty forest, a Morlock thug trying to unravel the secrets of dipolar computers, or a train that lived only to hear and solve new riddles. "And besides, hear me I beg, how can I respect you when I don't even respect myself?"
There was a mechanical click in response to this, very loud. Jake had heard Blaine make a similar sound when he - or it - had felt the absurd closing in, threatening to fry his logic circuits. Then Andy said: "No answer, nineteen. Connect and report, sai Slightman. Let's have done with this."
"All right."
There were thirty or forty seconds' worth of keyboard-clatter, then a high, warbling whistle that made Jake wince and Oy whine far back in his throat. Jake had never heard a sound quite like it; he was from the New York of 1977, and the word modem would have meant nothing to him.
The shriek cut off abruptly. There was a moment's silence. Then: "THIS IS ALGUL SIENTO. FINLI O' TEGO HERE. PLEASE GIVE YOUR PASSWORD. YOU HAVE TEN SEC - "
"Saturday," Slightman replied, and Jake frowned. Had he ever heard that happy weekend word on this side? He didn't think so.
"THANK YOU. ALGUL SIENTO ACKNOWLEDGES. WE ARE ONLINE." There was another brief, shrieking whistle. Then: "REPORT, SATURDAY."
Slightman told of watching Roland and "the younger one" going up to the Cave of the Voices, where there was now some sort of door, very likely conjured by the Manni. He said he'd used the far-seer and thus gotten a very good look -
"Telescope," Andy said. He had reverted to his slightly prissy, complacent voice. "Such are called telescopes."
"Would you care to make my report, Andy?" Slightman inquired with cold sarcasm.
"Cry pardon," Andy said in a long-suffering voice. "Cry pardon, cry pardon, go on, go on, as ye will."