"So you are Answerer," he said.
"Yes," Answerer said.
"Then tell me," Lek said, settling himself comfortably in a gap between the stars, "Tell me what I am."
"A partiality," Answerer said. "An indication."
"Come now," Lek muttered, his pride hurt. "You can do better than that. Now then. The purpose of my kind is to gather purple, and to build a mound of it. Can you tell me the real meaning of this?"
"Your question is without meaning," Answerer said. He knew what purple actually was, and what the mound was for. But the explanation was concealed in a greater explanation. Without this, Lek's question was inexplicable, and Lek had failed to ask the real question.
Lek asked other questions, and Answerer was unable to answer them. Lek viewed things through his specialized eyes, extracted a part of the truth and refused to see more. How to tell a blind man the sensation of green?
Answerer didn't try. He wasn't supposed to.
Finally, Lek emitted a scornful laugh. One of his little stepping-stones flared at the sound, then faded back to its usual intensity.
Lek departed, striding swiftly across the stars.