"That seems to be the case. And he can't alter our assumptions. He is limited to valid questions--which imply, it would seem, a knowledge we just don't have." "We can't even ask a valid question?" Morran asked. "I don't believe that. We must know some basics." He turned to Answerer. "What is death?" "I cannot explain an anthropomorphism." "Death an anthropomorphism!" Morran said, and Lingman turned quickly. "Now we're getting somewhere!" "Are anthropomorphisms unreal?" he asked. "Anthropomorphisms may be classified, tentatively, as, A, false truths, or B, partial truths in terms of a partial situation." "Which is applicable here?" "Both." That was the closest they got. Morran was unable to draw any more from Answerer. For hours the two men tried, but truth was slipping farther and farther away. "It's maddening," Morran said, after a while. "This thing has the answer to the whole universe, and he can't tell us unless we ask the right question. But how are we supposed to know the right question?" Lingman sat down on the ground, leaning against a stone wall. He closed his eyes. "Savages, that's what we are," Morran said, pacing up and down in front of Answerer. "Imagine a bushman walking up to a physicist and asking him why he can't shoot his arrow into the sun. The scientist can explain it only in his own terms. What would happen?" "The scientist wouldn't even attempt it," Lingman said, in a dim voice; "he would know the limitations of the questioner." "It's fine," Morran said angrily. "How do you explain the earth's rotation to a bushman? Or better, how do you explain relativity to him--maintaining scientific rigor in your explanation at all times, of course." Lingman, eyes closed, didn't answer. "We're bushmen. But the gap is much greater here. Worm and super-man, perhaps. The worm desires to know the nature of dirt, and why there's so much of it. Oh, well." "Shall we go, sir?" Morran asked. Lingman's eyes remained closed. His taloned fingers were clenched, his cheeks sunk further in. The skull was emerging. "Sir! Sir!" And Answerer knew that that was not the answer. * * * * * Alone on his planet, which is neither large nor small, but exactly the right size, Answerer waits. He cannot help the people who come to him, for even Answerer has restrictions. He can answer only valid questions. Universe? Life? Death? Purple? Eighteen? Partial truths, half-truths, little bits of the great question. But Answerer, alone, mumbles the questions to himself, the true questions, which no one can understand. How could they understand the true answers? The questions will never be asked, and Answerer remembers something his builders knew and forgot. In order to ask a question you must already know most of the answer. [Illustration] * * * * * End of Project Gutenberg's Ask a Foolish Question, by Robert Sheckley