Seven grinned and adopted the fourteen-year-old guise he’d used in the first part of the examination. “Now to answer your questions,” he said briskly. “This is a day in April in the year 1975, in the northeastern part of the United States, which is a country, and it’s four o’clock—”

“Oh, I see,” Cyprus said. “Four o’clock is in the United States, then—”

“Not exactly—well, yes and no—” Seven said. “It’s four o’clock here in the study, but that doesn’t mean that four o’clock is here—”

“If you can’t explain when we are, and how when fits into where, no wonder you have trouble keeping track of your personalities,” Cyprus said. “But never mind. I have something quite serious to discuss with you. I’m giving you a multiple-choice section next, so listen carefully.”

Seven frowned, but Cyprus continued. “The second part of the examination was dependent upon your performance in the first part,” she said, “though as you know, all of it is really taking place at once. But several things have become apparent. I feel as if I know Lydia and Josef much better than I do Proteus. And Ma-ah I know hardly at all—”

“Hmm,” Seven said. He sat docilely enough in his best fourteen-year-old male form, but he was beginning to feel a flash of irritation.

“Could it be that you didn’t tune into Proteus and Ma-ah as well as you did the others?” Cyprus said. “You couldn’t get away from Ma-ah fast enough, it seemed to me.”

“It’s just them, “Seven answered, rather put out now. “Proteus is gloomy a good deal of the time. Ma-ah sees me as an old man, always, I told you that, and she always wants me to do something boring, like keeping watch over the cave. Well, she’s quite demanding.”

“I’m afraid that you’ve been a very distant oversoul to both of them,” Cyprus said severely. “That’s one of the issues we hope to take care of in this examination. You have to learn to relate to your personalities better. And why do you think Ma-ah sees you as an old man? Never mind, don’t answer me now. And she doesn’t see you as a jolly old man either, which would be something quite different. No, Seven, those qualities you see in Ma-ah and Proteus are your own, too, a fact that you conveniently forget. And you don’t come to grips with them at all.”

“But I’m not gloomy,” Oversoul Seven cried, “or demanding either.”

“You can only endow your personalities with your own attributes. They’re born from your own joy and vitality and creativity, but they also have your characteristics. You’re their raw material, so to speak—”

“I don’t like that phrase much either,” Seven said. “I like to think of myself as their … creator, or of them as my creations.”