"He was," said Molly, looking under tables.
"Get him back!" Bill sweated. "Hurry. We still haven't got the Voice where we want him. He's liable to get mean." Distractedly, he started aft, holding the unhappy Is close to his chest. Molly fell into running step beside him.
"But why?" she asked anxiously. "What's Was got to do with it?"
"Speak," cried the Supreme Intelligence. "Your time is short unless you continue communication. You dare—" Vituperation. Outrage. Bill broke into a run.
"It's the dogs," he yelled at Molly. "I can't think of any other reason we'd break contact. Dogs have a high psychic sense. The way they can find their way home. The way they howl when somebody dies. Intuition. Sumpin'. I don't know. But they sensed the Voice coming back before we ever did. Our thoughts are heterodyning through their telepathic level. Like a radio beam. When Was went out, half the power of the beam failed. Get it?"
"Oh, sure," Molly yelled back. "And you throw algebra at me when we're on the brink of death!" She darted ahead, pleading for Was to come out from wherever he was. Was came out readily enough and jumped into Molly's arms and apparently was perfectly willing to continue as part of the hookup.
"All right, Voice," Bill said unsteadily. "We're back." He held his breath. Maybe he was right. Maybe he was wrong. But the Voice came in, drenching them with anger, but with ample evidence that communication had been reestablished.
"Once more," it said sternly, "and you shall be obliterated for having so impolitely intruded upon my meditation."
"We intruded on him," Bill muttered.
"Now, matter, let me speak of myself. Know you that I am the only entity that exists, if I exclude your puny selves. I am thought. I am intelligence. I was born unuttered ages ago, when thinking life first appeared.