"It's too long a story to go into now," Dyer said as he finished his piece of the cake Betty and Pattie had produced to celebrate the team's return. "Why don't we leave it until some other time. Later on, I promise, we'll tell you all the details." Betty gave a disappointed sigh.
"Is there really all that much to tell?" she asked, sounding surprised. "I wouldn't have thought that something like an ISA training course would be enough to keep us up all night. Still . . . if you say so." A frown crossed her face suddenly and darkened into suspicion as she turned to face Laura. "You know, it seems a very strange coincidence to me that your what-ever-you-were-doing in China should just happen to get done at the same time too." She looked back at Dyer and pronounced, "If you ask me, there's been a lot more going on than meets the eye. You've probably got your reasons for—" A call-tone from the screen hanging above her desk interrupted her. It was Peggy from the reception lobby asking for Kim. Kim moved around into the viewing angle.
"There's a visitor down here for you," Peggy told her. "Quite a hunk, too . . ." She moved her eyes to smile at somebody offscreen. "A Captain Solinsky from the Army."
"Mat? . . . He's here?" Kim at once flew into a tizzy. "Hey, did you hear that? Mat's here . . . I didn't even know he was in New York. Captain, no less. Linsay sure doesn't waste any time. It's marvelous."
"You'd better get down there and fetch him up," Dyer suggested. Kim told Peggy she was on her way down, cut the screen and rushed out straightening her jacket and fussing with her hair. Betty nodded slowly to herself as she took it all in.
"Very strange," she declared. "There have definitely been some strange goings-on going on since you all took off. Tell me. I'm interested."
"I told you—some other time," Dyer insisted. "I haven't even said hello to Al and Judy yet. I'll tell you all about it some other time." With that he walked away toward the lab bay where Ray and Chris were standing with Judy Farlin around the holo-tank.
"He can't," Laura whispered to Betty. "I think they've been involved with some project involving the government. Security and all that stuff. I've got a feeling it'll all be made public pretty soon."
"Oh, I see." Betty nodded her head knowingly as if that had told her everything and began cutting more cake, apparently having dismissed the whole matter from her mind. Laura went through to join Ray and the others.
Judy was at the console in front of the tank tapping in commands at the touchboard to activate the image. After a few seconds she got up and moved around to stand next to Dyer.
"You're up to something, Miss Farlin," he told her. "What?"
"Doctor Farlin, if you don't mind," she informed him. Dyer's face split into a wide grin. "You made it! Hey, that's fantastic! Congratulations! Did you all hear that? Judy made it." While Chris, Ron and Laura were adding their congratulations, Hector materialized inside the tank, surrounded by his kitchen, His head was turned to look, had he been a real being and not a composite pattern of optical wavefronts, straight out at them.
"What's this?" Dyer inquired suspiciously.
"You haven't said hello to Hector yet either," Judy explained.
"Oh, is that it?" Dyer grinned and played along with the game. "Hi Hector. How've you been?"
To his astonishment Hector brought up a hand in salutation and his mouth began opening and closing. At the same time the familiar baritone voice issued from the audio grille on the console.
"It's about time too! I'm glad to see you're all back. I've been getting fed up not having anybody to talk to." At that moment the door burst open and Brutus bounded through and began bouncing and jumping up at the side of the tank. A sound of excited yapping came as a background to Hector's voice. "Brutus is glad to see you all back again too. Brutus has been getting fed up like me. Leaving things like me and Brutus to get fed up is not okay."
Laura, speechless, stared into the tank while Ron and Chris exchanged disbelieving looks.
"This isn't possible, surely," Laura gasped. "fise is only electronics in one of those boxes, isn't it? What's going on?"
"Of course it is," Dyer told her. "Judy must have preprogrammed it, that's all. Nice thought, Judy." Judy smiled but said nothing. A few seconds later Hector spoke again:
"I am not preprogrammed. I am now a very smart machine. Brutus is also very smart like me. Saying that things like me and Brutus being smart is impossible is not okay."
Chris's jaw dropped. Ron's eyes bulged and his face reddened as he gaped into the tank, where Hector was standing indignantly with his hands planted on his hips.
Dyer shook his head as if refusing to believe his eyes and ears and looked around helplessly. And as he did so, he caught a glimpse of Al Morrow sitting at a terminal inside a half-open door at the far end of the short passage leading from the lab area between the partitions that formed Kim's office and a storeroom. Al looked away nonchalantly as his eyes met Dyer's . . . too nonchalantly. Dyer laughed inwardly but kept a straight face in order not to spoil the fun. He caught Judy's eye, nodded almost imperceptibly and winked. After a few seconds Chris looked up and jerked his head from side to side.
"Where's Al?" he demanded.
"In his office, I think," Judy answered innocently.
"It has to be Al," Chris declared. "Come on, Ron. Let's go find the bugger and sort him out." The two of them strode away into the office area. Moments later a bellow from Ron signaled that they had solved the problem. Judy at last released the laughter that she had been holding back inside and went after them to enjoy their reactions firsthand.
Laura remained staring thoughtfully down at the two comic figures in the tank, which by now had become frozen. After a while she looked up and across at Dyer.
"You know, I've just remembered something," she said. "It wasn't all that long ago that you told me this machine was as advanced as anything that existed anywhere. But it's prehistoric already, isn't it? There's something already here that's a million years ahead of it."
"You used to have nightmares about it too, remember?" Dyer replied. "All about some alien intelligence taking over. How do you feel about it now that it looks as if it's going to happen?"
Laura smiled and moved closer to him. "I don't have nightmares anymore," she said. "Anyhow, it isn't alien. It's ours. We've got a new partner, that's all."
"That's a good way of putting it," Dyer agreed. "From here on in, it's a partnership—the whole human race and Spartacus stringing along together. Should be a pretty powerful team."
"You mean like us?" Laura asked softly.
Dyer shook his head.
"Oh, not nearly as powerful as that," he said. "But you've got the general idea. It'll last for a long time too, if my reckoning's anything to go by."
"Which one do you mean?" Laura asked.
Dyer thought for a moment. "Both of them of course," he told her, and grinned.