must go to the Answerer," one cried. "Our lives are governed by
the rule of eighteen. Where there are eighteen, there will be
nineteen. Why is this so?"

No one could answer.

"Where am I?" asked the newborn nineteenth. One took him aside for
instruction.

That left seventeen. A stable number.

"And we must find out," cried another, "Why all places are different,
although there is no distance."

That was the problem. One is here. Then one is there. Just like that,
no movement, no reason. And yet, without moving, one is in another
place.

"The stars are cold," one cried.

"Why?"

"We must go to the Answerer."

For they had heard the legends, knew the tales. "Once there was a
race, a good deal like us, and they 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