Trembling, Laurel peeled, her eyes riveted on her own feet. When she’d done, Asach wrapped the cloak around her, then repeated the counting-clothes performance, buck-naked in the sun. The Accountant ceased twisting a boot to watch them. Frantically, Asach scanned the ground; spotted a small, white pebble; shouted “One!” and made a scratch-mark on the counter. “Two!” This time two scratch-marks, and underneath the numeral two. “Three!” And so on, until ten, when Asach circled all that had gone before, made one more mark, then wrote the digits: the one, the zero. The Accountant looked down at the table; up at Asach. Reached forward, seizing Asach’s wrist with its gripping hand. Asach did not resist. Pulled Asach’s hand forward, palm-to palm with its own. The sizes were not vastly different—save for the Accountant’s second opposable thumb, located where Asach had no digits at all. With its second hand, it placed the pebble into Asach’s arrested one; guided it to the counter beside the “10.” Forced Asach to make two more marks, then let go. Without hesitation, Asach wrote “12,” then offered the pebble to the accountant. The Accountant quickly scratched a glyph that looked like—two hands, clasped, edge on. Asach reached for the pebble. The accountant paused, then handed it over. Asach circled the twelve, circled the glyph, then drew a line to the ten and dropped the pebble. Holding up both hands, Asach said: “Base ten!” Reaching forward, cautiously, but firmly, Asach took the Accountant’s hands: “Base twelve!” Then pointed to the numerals again: “Ten! Twelve!” and the glyph: “Twelve!”
The Accountant listened carefully. Then, cautiously, made the same hand-gesture, indicating first the numerals. “Ten!” it said. “Twelve!” Then, very slowly, it indicated the glyph, leaning forward toward Asach “Ten!”
“Yes!” said Asach, “Ten, base twelve.”
Assured, the Accountant moved rapidly, holding forth one of its hands. “Base six,” then seizing Asach’s two hands, “base ten.” It grabbed the pebble, made six chalk marks, then wrote one-zero. “Base six,” it said. Then made ten chalk marks; wrote one-zero. “Base ten,” it said.
Asach made a huge sigh of relief. “Can we get dressed now?”
The Accountant said to Enheduanna, “You can inform the Protector that this one knows advanced mathematics. I have recorded it as entire. The other one—the shrieking one, with manna-colored eyes—I have recorded it as anathema. Let me know if that assessment changes. For the record.”
Enheduanna swept one arm, indicating of course. “Give me a Protector’s Runner.”
“Supplied.”
As the Runner streaked ahead, a path opened for the entourage, now ordered triple-file with Enheduanna at the head, followed by Asach, Laurel, and the senior hand leader, with two ranks of Warriors either side. The Warriors adopted an odd, half-turned, outward-facing, click-step-click-step-click-step gait with gripping arms extended that Asach presumed was some sort of formal march. It had the effect of making each rank a moving, living barrier fence. Sandwiched as they were inside the formation, it was difficult to see much. Laterite pathways led to gaping openings; pockets of green filled most blank spaces between the lumpy mounds.
Then, at one turning, in a glimpse Asach saw a team of brown workers engaged in creating additional space. The process looked more like a complicated mining operation than home-building. One pair excavated earth. Another packed some kind of powdered coating onto the freshened wall. A third employed a series of mirrors and lenses to vitrify the tunnel mouth. A different team spread the newly-excavated clay as guttered paths, then used reflectors with a rolling, tunnel-like contraption to dry, pre-heat, and bake it to brick in place. Smaller versions of the mole-like one packed earth into baked depressions with narrow drain-grooves adjoining the gutters. The entire operation seemed slow and labor intensive. On the other hand, Asach reflected on the legions of stone cutters, brick-makers, transporters, house-builders, and landscapers that would be required to achieve the same purpose, and concluded that for the scale it was extremely efficiently organized. It also made Laurel’s assertions more plausible.
They were shortly to find themselves incarcerated in the end result of such an operation. The room was domed, the ceiling high. Rosy baked-earth steps, hard as concrete, rough-polished like travertine, led them downward into a glassy space, its swirled rainbow-green-black walls slick and hard as tile or thick obsidian. There was no join at the floor: it appeared that it, too, had been vitrified, then overlain with more warm-colored laterite. Windows ringed the uppermost reaches, giving the feeling of a cathedral cupola. The room was chilly. Laurel huddled in the warmth of the sun’s rays.
“Honey, I need the cloak for a minute. We may not have much time.”
Laurel did not respond.
Asach gently peeled away the garment, warm from its days soaking in the sun, and quickly set up the transmitter. There was no way to know direction, let alone azimuth. There was no external power source. That meant short message, multiple burp, and hope something got through. The line-of-sight angle out of the windows was bad. There was no telling what the glass was made of, or how it would refract the beam. There was nothing to stand on. Asach composed the message. Minimum words, one precedence character, one encryption character, one validation character.
“Laurel, I need you to do something for me.”
The girl just sat, immobile, sullen.
“Laurel, ‘It is the duty of every island to give aid and support to the Seers, that they may be of aid to all pilgrims.’ Right now, I’m it. I’m your only island. I am trying to help you. I’m trying to help your Uncle Collie. I’m even trying to help Agamemnon.”
At that, Laurel began sobbing. Great, racking sobs, like to tear her heart from her chest.
“It’s just so hard. So hard. I’ve lost everyone. And now—oh, poor Agamemnon.”
“I’m sure he’s fine.”
She shook her head. “No. He’ll be left, hobbled, for my return. Only…only…”
She was broken in grief.
Asach walked over, physically pulling her to her feet, Laurel a rag doll hanging by her arms.
“Come on then! On your feet, girl! Help me send a message of revelation. And an instruction for Agamemnon.” It was a blatant lie, but they were running out of time.
Laurel smeared her eyes on her sleeve and nodded.
“Hold this.” Asach handed her the transmitter cowl. Laurel nodded.
“Come here. Climb on my shoulders.” Asach squatted down, facing the wall.
“Good, now, on three, I’m going to stand. Then, you stand too. Then I want you to do this: Point the middle of that low out the window, then say now. Then point it middling out the window, and say now again. Then high. Can you do that?”
Laurel nodded.
“Good. Show me.”
Laurel demonstrated. Around the room Asach sidled, three bursts per stopping point, approximately every fifteen degrees. The cloak was depleted. It would need hours to recharge. Asach had just finished packing everything away; re-wrapping the girl with aquamarine eyes, when the door opened. Two Warriors stepped inside. Then, down the steps, with a bearing unmistakable in any species, strode the biggest, whitest Motie that Asach had ever seen. Meaning, bigger than Ivan, the only Master in the newsreels. It entered alone.
Damn, thought Asach. Where are the Mediators? The Newsreels all show Mediators who learn fluent Anglic in no time. But there was just the big white one.