Knew—and they told Answerer. Then they departed to where there is no place, but much distance.'
'How do we get there?' the newborn nineteenth cried, filled now with knowledge.
'We go.' And eighteen of them vanished. One was left. Moodily he stared at the tremendous spread of an icy star, then he too vanished.
'Those old legends are true,' Morran gasped. 'There it is.'
They had come out of sub-space at the place the legends told of, and before them was a star unlike any other star. Morran invented a classification for it, but it didn't matter. There was no other like it.
Swinging around the star was a planet, and this too was unlike any other planet. Morran invented reasons, but they didn't matter. This planet was the only one.
'Strap yourself in, sir,' Morran said. 'I'll land as gently as I can.'
Lek came to Answerer, striding swiftly from star to star. He lifted Answerer in his hand and looked at him.
'So you are Answerer,' he said.
'Yes,' Answerer said.
'Then tell me,' Lek said, settling himself comfortably in a gap between the stars, 'Tell me what I am.'
'A partiality,' Answerer said. 'An indication.'
'Come now,' Lek muttered, his pride hurt. 'You can do better than that. Now then. The purpose of my kind is to gather purple, and to build a mound of it. Can you tell me the real meaning of this?'
'Your question is without meaning,' Answerer said. He knew what purple actually was, and what the mound was for. But the explanation was concealed in a greater explanation. Without this, Lek's question was inexplicable, and Lek had failed to ask the real question.
Lek asked other questions, and Answerer was unable to answer them. Lek viewed things through his specialized eyes, extracted a part of the truth and refused to see more. How to tell a blind man the sensation of green?
Answerer didn't try. He wasn't supposed to.
Finally, Lek emitted a scornful laugh. One of his little stepping-stones flared at the sound, then faded back to its usual intensity.
Lek departed, striding swiftly across the stars.
Answerer knew. But he had to be asked the proper questions first. He pondered this limitation, gazing at the stars which were neither large nor small, but exactly the right size.
The proper questions. The race which built Answerer should have taken that into account, Answerer thought. They should have made some allowance for semantic nonsense, allowed him to attempt an unravelling.
Answerer contented himself with muttering the answers to himself.
Eighteen creatures came to Answerer, neither walking nor flying, but simply appearing. Shivering in the cold glare of the stars, they gazed up at the massiveness of Answerer.
'If there is no distance,' one asked, 'Then how can things be in other places?'
Answerer knew what distance was, and what places were. But he couldn't answer the question. There was distance, but not as these creatures saw it. And there were places, but in a different fashion from that which the creatures expected.
'Rephrase the question,' Answerer said hopefully.
'Why are we short here,' one asked, 'And long over there? Why are we fat over there, and short here? Why are the stars cold?'
Answerer knew all things. He knew why stars were cold, but he couldn't explain it in terms of stars or coldness.
'Why,' another asked, 'Is there a rule of eighteen? Why, when eighteen gather, is another produced?'
But of course the answer was part of another, greater question, which hadn't been asked.
Another was produced by the rule of eighteen, and the nineteen creatures vanished.
Answerer mumbled the right questions to himself, and answered them.
'We made it,' Morran said. 'Well, well.' He patted Lingman on the shoulder—lightly, because Lingman might fall apart.
The old biologist was tired. His face was sunken, yellow, lined. Already the mark of the skull was showing in his prominent yellow teeth, his small, flat nose, his exposed cheekbones. The matrix was showing through.
'Let's get on,' Lingman said. He didn't want to waste any time. He didn't have any time to waste.
Helmeted, they walked along the little path.
'Not so fast,' Lingman murmured.
'Right,' Morran said. They walked together, along the dark path of the planet that was different from all other planets, soaring alone around a sun different from all other suns.
'Up here,' Morran said. The legends were explicit. A path, leading to stone steps. Stone steps to a courtyard. And then—the Answerer!
To them, Answerer looked like a white screen set in a wall. To their eyes, Answerer was very simple.
Lingman clasped his shaking hands together. This was the culmination of a lifetime's work, financing, arguing, ferreting bits of legend, ending here, now.
'Remember,' he said to Morran, 'We will be shocked. The truth will be like nothing we have imagined.'
'I'm ready,' Morran said, his eyes rapturous.
'Very well. Answerer,' Lingman said, in his thin little voice, 'What is life?'
A voice spoke in their heads. 'The question has no meaning. By 'life,' the Questioner is referring to a partial phenomenon, inexplicable except in terms of its whole.'
'Of what is life a part?' Lingman asked.
'This question, in its present form, admits of no answer. Questioner is still considering 'life,' from his personal, limited bias.'
'Answer it in your own terms, then,' Morran said.
'The Answerer can only answer questions.' Answerer thought again of the sad limitation imposed by his builders.
Silence.
'Is the universe expanding?' Morran asked confidently.
''Expansion' is a term inapplicable to the situation. Universe, as the Questioner views it, is an illusory concept.'
'Can you tell us
'I can answer any valid question concerning the nature of things.'
The two men looked at each other.
'I think I know what he means,' Lingman said sadly. 'Our basic assumptions are wrong. All of them.'
'They can't be,' Morran said. 'Physics, biology—'
'Partial truths,' Lingman said, with a great weariness in his voice. 'At least we've determined that much. We've found out that our inferences concerning observed phenomena are wrong.'
'But the rule of the simplest hypothesis—'
'It's only a theory,' Lingman said.
'But life—he certainly could answer what life is?'
'Look at it this way,' Lingman said. 'Suppose you were to ask, 'Why was I born under the constellation Scorpio, in conjunction with Saturn?' I would be unable to answer your question
