'It's hate?'
'That's what it does.'
'But why?'
'That's what it is.'
'Why?' Jack repeated patiently. 'Because it knows.'
'Knows what?'
'Nothing matters.'
'It knows ... that nothing matters?'
'Yes.'
'What does that mean?'
'Nothing means.' Dizzied by the only half-coherent exchange, Jack
said, 'I don't understand.' Ikl still lower whisper: 'Everything can
be underd, but nothing can be understood.' I want to understand it.'
everything can be understood, but nothing can be stood.' Hether's
hands were still fisted, but now she pressed to her eyes, as if she
couldn't bear to look at him in this half-trance any longer. Nothing
can be understood,' Toby murmured again.
frustrated, Jack said, 'But it understands us.' No.' What doesn't it
understand about us?' Lots of things. Mainly ... we resist.'
'Resist?'
'We resist it.'
'And that's new to it?'
'Yeah. Never before.'
'Everything else lets it in,' Heather said. Toby nodded. 'Except
people.' Chalk one up for human beings, Jack thought.
Good old Homo sapiens, bullheaded to the last. We're just not
happy-go-lucky enough to let the puppetmaster jerk us around any way it
wants, too uptight, too damned stuborn to love being slaves.
'Oh,' Toby said quietly, more to himself than to hem or to the entity
controlling the computer. 'I see.'
'What do you see?' Jack asked. Interesting.'
'What's interesting?'
'The how.' Jack looked at Heather, but she didn't seem to be tracking
the enigmatic conversation any better than he was. 'It senses,' Toby
said. 'Toby?'
'Let's not talk about this,' the boy said, glancing away from the
screen for a moment to give Jack what seemed to be an imploring or
warning look. 'Talk about what?'
'Forget it,' Toby said, gazing at the monitor again.
'Forget what?'
'I better be good. Here, listen, it wants to know.' Then, with a
voice as muffled as a sigh in a handkerchief, forcing Jack to lean
closer, Toby seemed to change the subject: 'What were they doing down
there?' Jack said, 'You mean in the graveyard?'
'Yeah.'
'You know.'
'But it doesn't. It wants to know.'
'It doesn't understand death,' Jack said. 'No.'
'How can that be?'
