"Something terrible has happened," she said to me. "But first, we have something to reveal to you. Bill, none of us are what we seemed. We are all Spies for the government."
"Huh?" I said, not wanting to hurt any feelings.
"It's true," she said. "We've been Spying on you, Bill."
"Huh?" I said again. "Even you?"
"Even me," Mavis said unhappily.
"And now it's all over," Young Roy blurted out
That shook me. "Why?" I asked.
They looked at each other. Finally Mr. Wallace, bending the rim of his hat back and forth in his calloused hands, said, "Bill, a resurvey has just shown that this sector of space is not owned by the United States."
"What country does own it?" I asked.
"Be calm," Mavis said. "Try to understand. This entire sector was overlooked in the international survey, and now it can't be claimed by any country. As the first to settle here, this planet, and several million miles of space surrounding it, belong to you, Bill."
I was too stunned to speak.
"Under the circumstances," Mavis continued, "we have no authorization to be here. So we're leaving immediately."
"But you can't!" I cried. "I haven't repaired your sphinx valves!"
"All Spies carry spare sphinx valves and hacksaw blades," she said gently.
Watching them troop out to their ships I pictured the solitude ahead of me. I would have no government to watch over me. No longer would I hear footsteps in the night, turn, and see the dedicated face of a Spy behind me. No longer would the whirr of an old camera soothe me at work, nor the buzz of a defective recorder lull me to sleep.
And yet, I felt even sorrier for them. Those poor, earnest, clumsy, bungling Spies were returning to a fast, efficient, competitive world. Where would they find another Suspect like me, or another place like my planet?
"Goodbye Bill," Mavis said, offering me her hand.
I watched her walk to Mr. Wallace's ship. It was only then that I realized that she was no longer my Spy.
"Mavis!" I cried, running after her. She hurried toward the ship. I caught her by the arm. "Wait. There was something I started to say in the ship. I wanted to say it again on the picnic."
She tried to pull away from me. In most unromantic tones I croaked, "Mavis, I love you."
She was in my arms. We kissed, and I told her that her home was here, on this planet with its gloomy forests and yellow and green fields. Here with me.
She was too happy to speak.
With Mavis staying, Young Roy reconsidered. Mr. Wallace's vegetables were just ripening, and he wanted to tend them. And everyone else had some chore or other that he couldn't drop.
So here I am — ruler, king, dictator, president, whatever I want to call myself. Spies are beginning to pour in now from every country — not only America.
To feed all my subjects, I'll soon have to import food. But the other rulers are beginning to refuse me aid. They think I've bribed their Spies to desert.
I haven't, I swear it. They just come.
I can't resign, because I own this place. And I haven't the heart to send them away. I'm at the end of my rope.
With my entire population consisting of former government Spies, you'd think I'd have an easy time forming a government of my own. But no, they're completely uncooperative. I'm the absolute ruler of a planet of farmers, dairymen, shepherds and cattle raisers, so I guess we won't starve after all. But that's not the point. The point is: how in hell am I supposed to rule?
Not a single one of these people will Spy for me.
Ask a Foolish Question
Answerer was built to last as long as was necessary — which was quite long, as some races judge time, and not long at all, according to others. But to Answerer, it was just long enough.
As to size, Answerer was large to some and small to others. He could be viewed as complex, although some believed that he was really very simple.
Answerer knew that he was as he should be. Above and beyond all else, he was The Answerer. He Knew.
Of the race that built him, the less said the better. They also Knew, and never said whether they found the knowledge pleasant.
They built Answerer as a service to less-sophisticated races, and departed in a unique manner. Where they went only Answerer knows.
Because Answerer knows everything.
Upon his planet, circling his sun, Answerer sat. Duration continued, long, as some judge duration, short as others judge it. But as it should be, to Answerer.
Within him were the Answers. He knew the nature of things, and why things are as they are, and what they are, and what it all means.
Answerer could answer anything, provided it was a legitimate question. And he wanted to! He was eager to!
How else should an Answerer be?
What else should an Answerer do?
So he waited for creatures to come and ask.
"How do you feel, sir?" Morran asked, floating gently over to the old man.
"Better," Lingman said, trying to smile. No-weight was a vast relief. Even though Morran had expended an enormous amount of fuel, getting into space under minimum acceleration, Lingman's feeble heart hadn't liked it. Lingman's heart had balked and sulked, pounded angrily against the brittle rib-case, hesitated and sped up. It seemed for a time as though Lingman's heart was going to stop, out of sheer pique.
But no-weight was a vast relief, and the feeble heart was going again.
Morran had no such problems. His strong body was built for strain and stress. He wouldn't experience them on this trip, not if he expected old Lingman to live.
"I'm going to live," Lingman muttered, in answer to the unspoken question. "Long enough to find out." Morran touched the controls, and the ship slipped into sub-space like an eel into oil.
"We'll find out," Morran murmured. He helped the old man unstrap himself. "We're going to find the Answerer!"
Lingman nodded at his young partner. They had been reassuring themselves for years. Originally it had been Lingman's project. Then Morran, graduating from Cal Tech, had joined him. Together they had traced the rumors across the solar system. The legends of an ancient humanoid race who had known the answer to all things, and who had built Answerer and departed.
"Think of it," Morran said. "The answer to everything!" A physicist, Morran had many questions to ask Answerer. The expanding universe; the binding force of atomic nuclei; novae and supernovae; planetary formation; red shift, relativity and a thousand others.
"Yes," Lingman said. He pulled himself to the vision plate and looked out on the bleak prairie of the illusory sub-space. He was a biologist and an old man. He had two questions.
What is life?
What is death?
After a particularly-long period of hunting purple, Lek and his friends gathered to talk. Purple always ran thin in the neighborhood of multiple-cluster stars — why, no one knew — so talk was definitely in order.
"Do you know," Lek said, "I think I'll hunt up this Answerer." Lek spoke the Ollgrat language now, the language of imminent decision.
"Why?" Ilm asked him, in the Hvest tongue of light banter. "Why do you want to know things? Isn't the job of gathering purple enough for you?"
"No," Lek said, still speaking the language of imminent decision. "It is not." The great job of Lek and his kind was the gathering of purple. They found purple imbedded in many parts of the fabric of space, minute quantities of it. Slowly, they were building a huge mound of it. What the mound was for, no one knew.
"I suppose you'll ask him what purple is?" Ilm asked, pushing a star out of his way and lying down.