“Today we're gonna scale the Wall of the World,” Hermit said.  “Any questions?”

Six Toes was just approaching the refuge of the soul.  He had mastered building the structure almost as well as Hermit.  His jumps, however, still took a long running start, so now he was practicing.  The meaning of Hermit's words sank in right at the moment of takeoff and as a result he crashed into the shaky structure.  Peat and wood chips collapsed in a pile over his head instead of covering him in a soft even layer.  His legs lost purchase and stuck out in the void, useless.  Hermit helped him up and repeated: “Today we will cross the Wall of the World.”

In the last several days, Six Toes learned many things from Hermit that made his soul whimper and groan.  His former life with the socium now seemed like a touching fantasy (or perhaps a sordid nightmare—he could not decide which).  Still, this was too much.

“The decisive stage arrives every seventy eclipses,” continued Hermit.  “Yesterday was the sixty ninth one.  The world is ruled by numbers.”

He gestured at the long chain of sticks planted in the ground along the Wall of the World.

“How can you scale the Wall of the World if it's … you know, the Wall of the World?  I mean, even its name…  I mean, there's nothing beyond it.”

Six Toes was so shocked that he did not even pay attention to Hermit's dark mystical explanations that certainly would have annoyed him at any other time.

“So there's nothing, so what?” said Hermit.  “We should be happy about that.”

“What will we do there?”

“Live.”

“What's wrong with living here?”

“There won't be a 'here' soon, you moron.”

“What will there be?”

“Why don't you stay and find out?  Nothing will be here, trust me.”

Six Toes felt his grip on the situation slip completely.

“Why do you keep scaring me so?”

“Oh, don't be such a cry-baby,” Hermit said.  His worried gaze was fixed on some point in the sky.  “It's not so bad beyond the Wall of the World.  Much better than here, if you ask me.”

He stepped to the remains of Six Toes' refuge of the soul and began to scatter them with his feet.

“What are you doing?” Six Toes demanded.

“Before leaving a world, one must sum up his experience in it and then destroy all evidence of one's presence.  It's a tradition.”

“Who invented it?”

“What does it matter?  I did.  There's no one else around, you know.  Now then…”

Hermit examined the fruits of his labor.  Perfectly even ground, indistinguishable from the rest of the desert, stretched where the collapsed structure used to be.

“Okay,” he said, “I got rid of the evidence.  It's time to sum up the experience.  Your turn.  Get up on this tussock and speak.”

Six Toes felt cheated, certain that he was stuck with the hardest and most cryptic part of the job.  However, after the business with the eclipse he decided to obey Hermit's directions.  He shrugged and stepped up on the tussock, looking around first to make sure no one from the socium happened to be nearby.

“What should I say?”

“Everything that you know about the world.”

“That'll take forever.”

“I doubt it,” Hermit said dryly.

“Fine.  Our world…  Man, this is one stupid ritual!”

“Focus!”

“Our world is a proper octagon moving through space in a straight line and at constant speed.  Inside, we are preparing for the decisive stage, the pinnacle of our happy lives.  That's the official line, anyhow.  The perimeter of the world is fringed by the so-called Wall of the World, whose objective materialization was necessitated by the laws of life.  At the center of the world is a two-tiered feed and water dispenser around which our civilization sprang up in ancient times. The proximity to the feeder of a member of the socium is determined based on his social significance and merit—”

“That's something I haven't heard before,” Hermit interrupted.  “What's 'merit'?  And what's 'social significance'?”

“Well…  How to explain…  It's when someone gets to be right next to the feeder.”

“Who gets to be next to the feeder?”

“That's just what I'm trying to explain—those who have great merit, or social significance.  I used to have some merit—not much—but now I have none.  Aren't you familiar with the popular model of the universe?”

“Nope.”

“Are you serious?  How are you preparing for the decisive stage?”

“I'll tell you later.  Go on.”

“That's pretty much it.  What else?  Beyond the socium lies the great desert.  Everything comes to an end at the Wall of the World.  Tracts along the Wall are home to renegades splintered from the main group, such as ourselves.”

“I see.  And where did the log come from?  This main group of yours?”

“Ha!  Even the Twenty Closest Ones couldn't tell you that.  It's an eternal mystery.”

“O-kay.  What is 'eternal mystery'?”

“A law of life,” Six Toes said as placatingly as he could.  Something about the tone of Hermit's inquiry made him wary.

“Fine.  What's the 'law of life' then?”

“It's an eternal mystery.”

“An eternal mystery?” Hermit repeated in a strangely thin voice and started to advance on Six Toes in a slow arc.

“What are you, crazy?” Six Toes exclaimed, frightened.  “Stop that!  It's your ritual, not mine.”

But Hermit had already composed himself.

“All right,” he said.  “I see how it is.  Get down.”

Six Toes climbed down from the tussock and Hermit took his place.  He appeared solemn and focused.  He stood in silence for a moment, as if straining to hear something; then he raised his head and spoke.

“I have come here from another world,” he said, “in the days when you were still very small.  I came to that other world from a third world, and so on.  I have been to five worlds altogether.  They are similar to this one and have virtually no differences among themselves.  The universe that contains us all is a vast enclosed space.  It is called the Lunacharsky Broiler Facility in the language of the gods but nobody knows what that means.”

“You can speak the language of the gods?” Six Toes asked in astonishment.

“A little.  Don't interrupt.  There is a total of seventy worlds in the universe.  We are inside one of them.  The worlds are attached to an immeasurable black belt that moves around in a slow circle.  Above the belt, on the surface of the sky, hang hundreds of identical luminaries.  So it's not that they pass over us; instead, we pass under them.  Try to imagine that.”

Six Toes closed his eyes.  He screwed up his face with effort.

“I can't,” he said finally.

“That's okay,” said Hermit.  “Let's move on.  The seventy worlds that comprise the universe are called the Chain of the Worlds.  At least, they could be called that.  Every world has life in it, but not all the time.  Life appears and disappears in cycles.  The decisive stage takes place at the center of the universe, through which each world must pass in turn.  This center is called Section One in the language of the gods.  Our world is on its doorstep right now.  When the decisive stage is over and the renewed world emerges from the other side of Section One, everything starts all over.  Life appears, goes through its cycle and, at the appointed time, plunges again into the depths of Section One.”

“How do you know all this?” Six Toes asked quietly.

“I have traveled far and wide,” Hermit replied.  “I have collected the secret knowledge bit by bit.  One world knew of some things, another world—of others.”

“Then perhaps you also know where we come from?”

“I do indeed.  What do they say about that in your world?”

“That our existence is an objective fact.  A law of life.”

“I see.  You are inquiring after one of the greatest mysteries of the universe; I'm not even sure if I should trust you with this knowledge.  But there is no one around but you, so I guess I'll tell you.  We are born from white spheres.  They are actually ovoid rather than spherical and one of their summits is flatter than the other, but that's not really important.”

“Spheres.  White spheres,” Six Toes repeated and fell down as if struck by lightning.  The burden of knowledge suffocated him like a physical weight; for a second, he thought he was going to die.  Hermit rushed to him and shook him furiously until little by little, the clarity of thought returned.

“Are you all right?”  Hermit sounded worried.

“I just remembered.  You're right.  We used to be white spheres and lie on long shelves.  It was in a very warm and damp place.  Then we started to break through those spheres from the inside and—  Our world drifted in from somewhere below us and then we were inside it.  Why doesn't anybody remember this?”

“There are worlds where they do,” Hermit said.  “The fifth and sixth perinatal matrices, no big deal.  It's not that far back, and only a part of the truth anyway.  Still, those who can remember are put away so they won't interfere with the preparations for the decisive stage, or whatever you want to call it.  The name keeps changing.  We used to call it 'completing the construction,' although nobody was constructing anything.”

Recalling his own world must have filled Hermit with sadness because he fell silent.

“Listen,” Six Toes ventured after some time, “where do those white spheres come from?”

Hermit gave him an approving look.

“It took my soul much longer to bear forth this question,” he said.  “But things are a lot more complicated than that.  One ancient legend says that those eggs emerge from us, although that may well be a metaphor.”

“From us?  I don't get it.  Where did you learn this?”

“I came up with it myself, okay?  As if you can learn something around here!” Hermit burst out with sudden bitterness.

“But you said it was an ancient legend.”

“Sure I did.  I composed it as an ancient legend.”

“How do you mean?  What for?”

“You see, a wise man of old—a prophet, one might say” (Six Toes figured out the allusion this time) “—he said once that what is said is not as important as who says it.  Part of the meaning of what I was trying to express is that my words appear to be ancient legend.  I don't really expect you to understand…”

Hermit glanced at the sky and cut his homily short.

“It's time.  Let's go.”

“Go where?”

“To the socium.”

Six Toes stared at him, stunned.

“But we were gonna climb the Wall of the World.  What do we want with the socium?”

“Don't you know what a socium is?” said Hermit.  “A socium is the means of climbing the Wall of the World.”

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