, 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
tee