And now there materialized in front of them something new. It was the dim hazy image of a couch a psychiatrist’s couch. The leather with which it was upholstered was shiny and sumptuous, but again, it was only a trick of the light.
The couch looked normal size for a psychiatrist’s couch about five or six feet long.
The computer looked normal size for a black space-borne computer satellite about a thousand miles across.
The illusion that the one was sitting on top of the other was the thing which made the eyes twist.
All right, said Trillian firmly. She stood up off the sofa. She felt that she was being asked to feel too comfortable and to accept too many illusions.
Very good, she said. Can you construct real things too? I mean solid objects?
Again there was a pause before the answer, as if the pulverized mind of Hactar had to collect its thoughts from the millions and millions of miles over which it was scattered.
Ah, he sighed. You are thinking of the spaceship.
Thoughts seemed to drift by them and through them, like waves through the ether.
Yes, he acknowledge, I can. But it takes enormous effort and time. All I can do in my… particle state, you see, is encourage and suggest. Encourage and suggest. And suggest…
The image of Hactar on the couch seemed to billow and waver, as if finding it hard to maintain itself.
It gathered new strength.
I can encourage and suggest, it said, tiny pieces of space debris the odd minute meteor, a few molecules here, a few hydrogen atoms there to move together. I encourage them together. I can tease them into shape, but it takes many aeons.
So, did you make, asked Trillian again, the model of the wrecked spacecraft?
Er… yes, murmured Hactar. I have made… a few things. I can move them about. I made the spacecraft. It seemed best to do.
Something then made Arthur pick up his hold-all from where he had left it on the sofa and grasp it tightly.
The mist of Hactar’s ancient shattered mind swirled about them as if uneasy dreams were moving through it.
I repented, you see, he murmured dolefully. I repented of sabotaging my own design for the Silastic Armorfiends. It was not my place to make such decisions. I was created to fulfill a function and I failed in it. I negated my own existence.
Hactar sighed, and they waited in silence for him to continue his story.
You were right, he said at length. I deliberately nurtured the planet of Krikkit till they would arrive at the same state of mind as the Silastic Armorfiends, and require of me the design of the bomb I failed to make the first time. I wrapped myself around the planet and coddled it. Under the influence of events I was able to generate, they learned to hate like maniacs. I had to make them live in the sky. On the ground my influences were too weak.
Without me, of course, when they were locked away from me in the envelope of Slo-Time, their responses became very confused and they were unable to manage.
Ah well, ah well, he added, I was only trying to fulfill my function.
And very gradually, very, very slowly, the images in the cloud began to fade, gently to melt away.
And then, suddenly, they stopped fading.