Why do you ask if you already know the answer?
But I don’t know the answer.
The foam moves him gently, peacefully, but he receives no answer for a time. He wonders if he is alone again.
Are you there?
Yes.
I thought you had gone away.
There is nowhere to go.
Do you mean you are imprisoned inside this sphere?
No.
Will you answer a question? Who are you?
I am not a who.
Are you God?
God is a word.
I mean, are you a higher being, or a higher consciousness?
Higher than what?
Higher than me, I suppose.
How high are you?
Pretty low. At least, I imagine so.
Well, then, that’s your trouble.
Riding in the foam, he is disturbed by the possibility that God is making fun of him. He thinks, Are you making a joke?
Why do you ask if you already know the answer?
Am I talking to God?
You are not talking at all.
You take what I say very literally. Is this because you are from another planet?
No.
Are you from another planet?
No.
Are you from another civilization?
No.
Where are you from?
Why do you ask if you already know the answer?
In another time, he thinks, he would be irritated by this repetitive answer, but now he feels no emotions. There are no judgments. He is simply receiving information, a response. He thinks, But this sphere comes from another civilization.
Yes.
And maybe from another time.
Yes.
And aren’t you a part of this sphere?
I am now.
So, where are you from?
Why do you ask if you already know the answer?
The foam gently shifts him, rocking him soothingly.
Are you still there?
Yes. There is nowhere to go.
I’m afraid I am not very knowledgeable about religion. I am a psychologist. I deal with how people think. In my training, I never learned much about religion.
Oh, I see.
Psychology doesn’t have much to do with religion.
Of course.
So you agree?
I agree with you.
That’s reassuring.
I don’t see why.
Who is I?
Who indeed?
He rocks in the foam, feeling a deep peace despite the difficulties of this conversation.
I am troubled, he thinks.
Tell me.
I am troubled because you sound like Jerry.
That is to be expected.
But Jerry was really Harry.
Yes.
So are you Harry, too?
No. Of course not.
Who are you?
I am not a who.
Then why do you sound like Jerry or Harry?
Because we spring from the same source.
I don’t understand.
When you look in the mirror, who do you see?
I see myself.
I see.
Isn’t that right?
It’s up to you.
I don’t understand.
What you see is up to you.
I already know that. Everybody knows that. That is a psychological truism, a cliche.
I see.
Are you an alien intelligence?
Are you an alien intelligence?
I find you difficult to talk to. Will you give me the power?
What power?
The power you gave to Harry and Beth. The power to make things happen by imagination. Will you give it to me?
No.
Why not?
Because you already have it.
I don’t feel as if I have it.
I know.
Then how is it that I have the power?
How did you get in here?
I imagined the door opening.
Yes.
Rocking in the foam, waiting for a further response, but there is no response, there is only gentle movement in the foam, a peaceful timelessness, and a drowsy sensation.
After a passage of time, he thinks, I am sorry, but I wish you would just explain and stop speaking in riddles.
On your planet you have an animal called a bear. It is a large animal, sometimes larger than you, and it is clever and has ingenuity, and it has a brain as large as yours. But the bear differs from you in one important way. It cannot perform the activity you call imagining. It cannot make mental images of how reality might be. It cannot envision what you call the past and what you call the future. This special ability of imagination is what has made your-species as great as it is. Nothing else. It is not your ape-nature, not your tool-using nature, not language or your violence or your caring for young or your social groupings. It is none of these things, which are all found in other animals. Your greatness lies in imagination.
The ability to imagine is the largest part of what you call intelligence. You think the ability to imagine is merely a useful step on the way to solving a problem or making something happen. But imagining it is what makes it happen.
This is the gift of your species and this is the danger, because you do not choose to control your imaginings. You imagine wonderful things and you imagine terrible things, and you take no responsibility for the choice. You say you have inside you both the power of good and the power of evil, the angel and the devil, but in truth you have just one thing inside you-the ability to imagine.
I hope you enjoyed this speech, which I plan to give at the next meeting of the American Association of Psychologists and Social Workers, which is meeting in Houston in March. I feel it will be quite well received.
What? he thinks, startled.
Who did you think you were talking to? God?
Who is this? he thinks.
You, of course.
But you are somebody different from me, separate. You are not me, he thinks.
Yes l am. You imagined me.
Tell me more.
There is no more.
His cheek rested on cold metal. He rolled onto his back and looked at the polished surface of the sphere, curving above him. The convolutions of the door had changed again.
Norman got to his feet. He felt relaxed and at peace, as if he had been sleeping a long time. He felt as if he had had a wonderful dream. He remembered everything quite clearly.
He moved through the ship, back to the flight deck, and then down the hallway with the ultraviolet lights to the room with all the tubes on the wall.
The tubes were filled. There was a crewman in each one. Just as he thought: Beth had manifested a single crewman-a solitary woman-as a way of warning them. Now Norman was in charge, and he found the room full.
Not bad, he thought.
He looked at the room and thought: Gone, one at a time. One by one, the crew members in the tubes vanished before his eyes, until they were all gone.
Back, one at a time.
The crew members popped back in the tubes, materializing on demand.
All men.
The women were changed into men.
All women.
They all became women.
He had the power.