"He did. I am not sure what he expected to see here. I think something very different from what he did see. At any rate, almost as soon as he entered this world, he was filled with fear, and had what you call a heart attack. He would have died then if Or'b had not been curious about him and gone to study what he was.
"You should know that time is not the same for Or'b as it is for humans and other life which is tied to matter. So it was able to spend several centuries contemplating the thought which was foremost in Jebediah's mind at that single moment before it decided upon a course of action."
"What thought was that?" Reggie asked, although he was almost sure that he knew.
Lucy confirmed his suspicion. "'I don't want to die.' A simple enough thought, but quite astounding for Or'b, who could not die because it was already on this side of death. It found that You humans are fragile, ephemeral creatures. You are bound to death, and to where you go afterwords, from the very moment you are conceived. Once Or'b had learned this, it granted what it thought Jebadiah wanted, which was not to die, ever; and it unbound him from his death. It made him.... permanent.
"It was the first of our many crimes against him."
"Was that what made him the Tall Man?"
"No. That did not happen until later." Lucy wiped a yellow tear from her eye before Reggie could see it. "When Jebediah had recovered, he set out to explore this world. He did not understand why he was here, when apparently he had had a different destination in mind, although the explanation was really very simple.
"This world exists in a cosmic anomaly. It is beyond the wall of death, but it is much like your Death Valley back on Earth, which is above water, but below sea level. It is only because of this paradox that matter is able to exist here at all. It is also because of this that he came here, rather than to your Heaven, which is where he wished to go. What you call heaven is as far beyond this world as the stars are beyond the bottom of Death Valley. Jebediah's doorway took him beyond death, but it took him to the closest destination that met those parameters."
"Then... heaven is real?"
"Of course." Lucy looked at him as if he had asked if the world was round. "Let me continue."
She pulled the charred jacket onto the ground and sat on it. "Although Jebediah Morningside could not perceive Or'b with his crude senses, Or'b observed him as he explored this world. After a few weeks, Or'b saw that a new desire was occuring in Jebediah's mind, which was the desire for companions to share this new world with him. In order to please him, and also because Or'b wished to be able to communicate with him more directly, Or'b created 13 spheres of metal upon which it imprinted portions of it's own personality.
"However, when these spheres attempted to speak with Jebediah, rather than being grateful, he was terrified! Apparently the idea had never occured to him that creatures from another world would look very different from those on Earth.
"Since Or'b's spheres could not talk with someone who fled every time they approached, they decide to make themselves look like what Jebediah considered proper companions to be. While he was asleep one night, they took a tissue sample from him, and by studying it, were able to grow 13 bodies in which the spheres could be implanted in place of their natural brains, which they would not need."
Reggie's eyes widened "You were one of them, weren't you?"
"I was." She sighed. "Once we appeared to have a form like his own, Jebediah was willing to talk with us, although most of his conversation consisted of questions we couldn't answer because they were based on a number of mistaken premises. However, we answered him as best we were able, and studied his thoughts constantly in order to learn about him. One peculiar thing we noticed is that for apprximately 33% of the time, he would lay on the ground and not move or speak, which is what he called sleeping. He thought it odd that we did not need to do so, but did not consider the matter worth discussing.
"We noticed that when he was asleep, his thoughts were very different from when he was awake. In particular, he often had thoughts regarding the start of your reproductive cycle. What you would call sex. It was not something we had ever done before, so one night, I decided to try it with him."