"Well, Doctor, my field is human beings; that's why it became my duty to search you out and consult with you. And there is a great deal for me to carry in my mind, you know, especially under these abnormal conditions. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it is a full-time job."
"Are you going to tell me," asked Herman, more carefully still, "that this—gentleman—is the one who is supposed to remember the Earth itself? The rocks and minerals and so on?"
"Yes, exactly. I was about to tell you—"
"And that the planet has disappeared because he has amnesia?" Herman demanded on a rising note.
Secundus beamed. "Concisely expressed. I myself, being, so to speak, saturated with the thoughts and habits of human beings, who are, you must admit, a garrulous race, could not—"
"Oh, no!" said Herman.
"Oh, yes," Secundus corrected. "I can understand that the idea is difficult for you to accept, since you naturally believe that you yourself have a real existence, or, to be more precise, that you belong to the world of phenomena as opposed to that of noumena." He beamed. "Now I will be silent, a considerable task for me, and let you ask questions."
Herman fought a successful battle with his impulse to stand Up and shout "To hell with it!" He had been through a great deal, but he was a serious and realistic young man. He set himself to think the problem through logically. If, as seemed more than probable, Secundus, Primus, Hairy, Four-eyes, and this whole Alice-in-Wonderland situation existed only as his hallucinations, then it did not matter much whether he took them seriously or not. If they were real, then he wasn't, and vice versa. It didn't make any difference which was which.
He relaxed deliberately and folded his hands against his abdomen. "Let me see if I can get this clear," he said. "I'm a noumenon, not a phenomenon. In cruder terms, I exist only in your mind. Is that true?"
Secundus beamed. "Correct."