“How long will that take?” Seven asked. His image blurred around the edges, and Cyprus answered, “Who knows? That’s up to you.”

“What is his problem?” Seven asked, uneasily.

“That’s for you to discover too,” Cyprus replied, looking nowhere in particular. “It will be readily apparent, though.”

“I’d rather help Ma-ah in the Land of the Speakers,” Seven retorted. “Her life is exotic; or there’s Tweety, growing up in the seventeenth century. Now, they need my help, too. It seems that I have more personalities than I know how to handle, and worse, you keep introducing me to more all the time. I didn’t even know I had a doctor personality.”

“You knew,” Cyprus said, meaningfully, and Oversoul Seven blushed. “Well, all right. I knew and forgot; I mean, I thought he was doing all right.”

“You gave him his life and energy,” Cyprus answered, “and I know that you sustain him at one level, but you do need a follow-up.”

“It makes sense,” Seven said, in a dejected tone. Then hopefully, “Can’t I just help him from here, though?”

Silence.

“I really have to take on a body for a while, not just an image?”

Silence.

“Digestion, breathing, all that?” he said, almost despairingly.

“All that,” Cyprus said.

“Well, all right, for variety as long as I have to do it. I’ll be a woman in the day and a man at night. Or I’ll be an Indian on Thursdays, a Greek on Mondays—”

“One body,” Cyprus said emphatically. “A man or a woman, take your choice. But you have to keep one body just like humans do, at least for this part of the examination. It has to be over twenty-one, too—say mid-twenties for this particular assignment.”

Oversoul Seven was suddenly overwhelmed by the implications of the situation. “I’ll have to … live someplace, then, I mean find a domicile or house, as it’s called here; and wear clothes. Go into stores to buy them. I’ll have to … relate to people; I mean, humans, as if I were one of them.” He closed his eyes, so agitated that he changed into several images at once.

“Now stop that, Seven,” Cyprus said quickly. “And do settle down. It’s not all that bad.”

“Not all that bad?” Seven was astounded now, growing more upset by the minute. “Helping my personalities out in the dream state, giving them inspiration, sustaining their lives is one thing! But … joining them is something else!” Now he looked like an old man, head bound with a turban; ancient and rickety.

“Pathetic image,” Cyprus said, smiling.

“Do I have to be born?” Seven asked. “Nothing would surprise me now.”

“No, there isn’t time for that,” she said. “You’ll just appear.”