The walk from the park to the rest of the east side of town took a long time for Adam to traverse. Along the way, he passed by another fountain in the middle of the street. This time, with so many other equines being familiar with him, he was able to pass by relatively unscathed – be it the fact that he meant no harm, or the fact that he was putting in an honest day’s work just like the rest of them, he didn’t care and in all likelihood it didn’t matter at all.
Many of them were still rather skittish around him, but otherwise did not mind his presence. Some were more friendly – he recognized the wall-eyed pegasus from earlier, making its postal rounds, who waved at him as he passed around the fountain. He waved back, but kept his pace – there simply wasn’t enough time for him to chitchat when he was on the clock, and he did not want to disappoint the clerk.
Out of curiosity, he checked his stat readout. External temperature was fifteen degrees Celsius – still cold, but a bit warmer than the local average – and his scrubber was at sixty-seven percent remaining capacity. Adam shrugged, and closed the monitor away. He checked his right – pristine homes lined the street. Then his left – hey, wait a minute. Is that another park? This grassy yard was fenced off from the rest of the town; while it looked easy enough for him to vault, he didn’t want to try it.
He started second-guessing himself when he noticed that the equines there were all juveniles, no adults. No, this isn’t a park – it’s a playground. Casting his gaze further ahead, he saw what looked like a schoolhouse. I guess now it all makes sense, he thought. But for all intents and purposes, it was just idle musing, and nothing more. He still had work to do.
. . . no.
Now his mind started racing. Adam, you humble idiot! That’s the key to everything! Don’t you see? This means they teach their young – math? Science? History? Don’t care about those right now – surely they’re teaching language as well!
Yes, of course they would, but let’s not just barge inside randomly. That would be rude – and probably illegal, now that I think about it.
Still, it was significant enough for Adam to make a mental note about a possible source on the Indigenous language. He kept pushing his bin along the road, looking for loose rubbish.
However, he caught the eyes of one of the young. “Khon Edem!” it shouted from far across the fenced-off field. “Nǃapata!”
“Nǃapata!” he returned, with a wave of his hand. Naturally, they were curious, just like children back on Earth. Some things never really change, do they? And who could blame them, really – all of them have have heard of this being from the sky, clad in white armor and walking on two legs. Well, that last detail might not have been so amazing, considering the bipedal dragon living with Antir.
He kept moving, trying to ignore the sounds of hooves rapidly galloping up to the fence so the little equines could get a closer look at the curiosity.
“Khon Edem, khon Edem!” one voice eventually broke through his consciousness. He turned to look – hey, didn’t I see you the other day? Yellow fur, red mane affixed with the large bow. . . yep, it’s you alright. [xɑjɑjˈlɑj ʙẽ ʙ̥ɯsɯ̃lteᵑʘelceˈᵑʘɯ] It pointed down the road, directly to the schoolhouse.
I mean sure, the kids might want me there, Adam thought, but I don’t know about the teachers. Or the teacher, if this is one of those old-fashioned schools. He simply nodded in understanding and kept along his way.
Oh, hello there. He stabbed an odd-looking substance drifting in the wind. All he could notice at first glance was that it was brown. He brought it up into his view. Cardboard? Indeed it was – and granted, the corrugation in this sheet was wider than he was used to seeing back on Earth, but the principle was still much the same. In any case, it ended up in the wheeled bin.
·–·–··
Ten minutes of walking and collecting trash later, Adam found himself right on the steps of the schoolhouse. He took a moment to look it all the way over, to make sure it was the right place.
The yard by its side had a variety of playground equipment, with some of it being more familiar to his terrestrial eyes. He quickly recognized the slide and the swingset, but not the rowed fences. Or maybe that’s just play for them, he thought. Literal horseplay – he chuckled at that thought.
Besides that, he saw a large sign out front – no words for once, but it did have an open book. Open books mean learning, he thought. And if they have language textbooks. . . I’d be all set.
A tall flagpole opposite the playground flew a simple red flag, swallow-tailed at the end. As for the building itself – Adam could have sworn it was built to look like a gingerbread house. Red, brown, and pink served as most of the paint palette, and the windows and rafters were ornately decorated with swirls, hearts, and other patterns. In fact, one particularly high-up window at the façade was even built in the shape of a heart, and the window panes cast or cut to fit.
All of this was crowned with a belfry, though the bell hung silently over the building. A loud squeak made Adam aware of a weather vane atop the belfry, switching directions from north to east. Of course, Adam’s suit couldn’t exactly tell – its instruments had no capability of reckoning wind direction, instead relying on the user to infer it from the environment.
By the side of the steps, he saw one shrub had been cut to look like an equine wearing a blatant graduation cap. Cheeky.
Adam realized that he had been standing and looking at the building for an awkwardly long time, and he realized he had to get moving, lest he look suspicious.
But before he could start walking away, he saw the door open. An adult equine stuck its head out – violet fur with a mulberry mane. It was not, however, the proper angle for him to see its hindquarter-mark. “Khon Edem!” it called out to him. [ᵑʘeˈsɤ ezebɯˈʙɯ] It waved a hoof out to him, gesturing him to enter the building.
Guess that’s not time I’m getting back, he thought. He wheeled the bin up to the front of the building, left it by the ramp, and firmly planted the picker into the soil. Besides, he thought, they’re out playing right now, so I wouldn’t be disturbing class.
Once he was inside, he got a better look at what he presumed to be the teacher. Its eyes were green, and its hindquarter-mark was a small group of flowers. Flowers. . . doesn’t align with its job, does it? Perhaps it’s a relative of those florists.
Several more theories swam through his head, yet none of them made as much sense as being related to the town florists. Meanwhile, he watched as the equine grabbed a rope hanging on a wall and gave it a solid yank. Clang-clang-clang-clang! He shuddered as he realized what was about to happen, assuming it was anything like back home – all the pupils would come back into the schoolhouse, resume their lessons, and what was he meant to do in the meantime? Stand and stick out like a sore thumb?
But no – as the students filed inside the classroom with the teacher’s waving, it too turned and gestured for him to come inside as well. Adam tried to reason with it, but it seemed unwilling to take ‘no’ for an answer. He sighed, and relented – fine, but if my boss gets upset, I’m blaming you for it.
As the door closed behind him, Adam stood in before the class, his body and facial language as blank and mute as his speech. [xõ ɟoɟoˈɹiɲ . sulɑˈlɑj eˈdem zɤmɹ̩ˈzed ɑlɟɑˈmu] the teacher seemed to introduce him. [xõ eˈdem . ɑ̃lˈsõ ʙẽˈzl̩ sɤsjẽkipeˈxeᵑʘeˈsɤ eᵑǂeʙɯ̌] It indicated a chalkboard to his right.
Adam looked, but found it completely empty – and freshly-erased at that. He saw the chalk on a metal tray in front of the board, where he found a few sticks of chalk and an eraser. It wants me to write on the board, Adam figured. But what?
[ɑ̃lˈsõ . xɑˈjɑj] it said, putting a hoof on its chest. Then it pointed the same hoof at Adam. [ɑ̃lˈsõ ...]
‘Alnson’. . . that must mean ‘name.’ While he didn’t know how to write his name in Ukhǃerr’s native script, he could at least put it down in Latin. Besides, it would give them a peek at what it’s like back on my planet. He took a stick of chalk and started printing his name. First an A – two straight lines, angled from the top, and a third between them. Then D – straight down, and a curve. As he wrote, he kept his eye on the teacher, noting its reaction to his writing. Going off of its face, it seemed confused, yet curious, at the development.
He finished printing the M – he then jumped down to another line, and curved an S on the board. Nobody moved to stop him from completing his name – and when he printed the T and stepped away to show the class, he got a universal reaction of awe. Even the teacher’s interest was still piqued. “Adam Somerset,” he pronounced, underlining each letter with his finger.
The teacher then took the chalk from his hand, and started writing on the board next to the M, where it had room. Just as he had before, he saw that the script was written from left to right – and logic dictated that it would be read in exactly the same manner. As the chalk lifted off on one letter, it went down to a space right below it. Up-to-down as well, he noted – precisely the same as the western scripts. This to him would prove to be quite a convenience. Adam thought the script as otherwise strange and needlessly simplified, until it stepped away and pronounced it “E-de-m Zeo-m’r-ze-d.” Wait, that’s my name! In their script! I have another sample!
As it was pointing out each letter, he noted that their script was alphasyllabic in its nature – that could mean a simple syllable structure, he thought, and the bits he heard spoken aloud suggested further evidence. But there are a lot of internal markings in the letters. Maybe it’s not as simple as that. When it took its hoof away, he stepped in front of the board, hand already on his notebook and pen. He started copying it down, line by line, stroke by stroke, taking care not to miss a single detail, even repeatedly looking up to make sure each detail looked correct between the board and the notebook. Stroke order be damned, he thought, if it looks right, it’s right for now. Once those were down, he wrote his name below it, knowing he’d have to rough out a better guide later.
––·––
“. . . and so,” Dr. Weiss was explaining to Anton, “it would seem completely impossible for any Rhyslinger plant pollen to affect any Earth-borne crops.”
“So it would be safe to grow plants outside,” he tried to clarify. “No need for, ah, greenhouse in isolation.”
She nodded. “It is still a good idea, to limit resource takeover, but besides that, the colony’s longevity is assured. What is more, it also applies going the other way. Although more study is needed on local reproduction methods, I can confirm that it is impossible at the genetic level.” She turned away from Anton. “I could show you, but I would prefer making sure that other avenues of interaction are closed off. If you would excuse me – ”
“Yes, of course.” A sound came from the commander’s terminal – Anton floated up to take a look, in case the commander needed to know. “I would want to know more, but another time. Something else calls me.” He thrust himself off the floor and saw to the alarm.
“Is everything alright?” she called out.
“It will be.” Before he went further, he stopped himself and started looking around the surrounding ring of modules. He noted on the commander’s terminal that, no, it was not for Darcy. Cryogenic capsule D5 had blown its third and final fuse in its refrigeration loop – without that, the occupant had only a few hours to live. The buffer fluid bought him some time to get it fixed, but that was still not time he could squander. D5 was in Aquarius – as soon as he spotted that particular entrance, he pushed off the wall with his hands towards the way, rotating himself around so that he would land feet first.
“Hoo! Watch it, Anton!” A Quebecois-accented voice forced him to stop; he planted his feet on both sides of the doorway to avoid colliding with Commander Darcy. “Something got you riled up?” he asked the cryogenicist.
“D5 has a broken refrigerator,” Anton told him. “I must tend to it at once.”
“Now that you mention it,” he said, “one of the capsules here was a little quiet.” He gave him some leeway to descend the ladder. “Don’t let me get in your way, then.”
Anton took the opportunity, sliding down the railing with his hands and inner boots gripping the sides of the ladder. Once he reached the bottom, he grabbed a screwdriver, some spare fuses, and a canister of spare refrigerant, pocketing the former two and slinging the latter on his hip – before ascending the ladder. He stopped halfway before reaching the top – these capsules were arranged like bunk beds that could be easily pulled out as needed – to revive and disembark, but also to repair it as needed.
The refrigeration loop on each capsule was self-contained, so if there was a leak, it would not affect the rest of the array. Anton looked over the plastic tubing that went around the back, trying to feel out even the slightest trickle of moisture. He felt condensation, but no leaking. Good news at least.
After drying his hands, he shut off power to the capsule and popped open the electrical panel. Sure enough, all three fuses going to the refrigeration loop motor had melted. Anton reflected on how none of the other fuses had blown out during the three-and-a-half-year voyage from Earth to Jupiter – how this journey could have ended so much differently.
He started unscrewing the first fuse from its socket, letting it fall neatly into his palm. How long ago had this burnt out? Two days ago? Two years? After pocketing it for later disposal, he screwed in a new fuse, making sure the screws were nice and snug around the part. Then he reset the circuit switcher, responsible for essentially changing fuses automatically after five minutes. In an instant, power flowed through, the motor switched itself on, and the now-cooled refrigerant started circulating once again. The occupant’s survival was assured, for the time being at least.
After a few more minutes, he replaced both other fuses in the panel. He snapped it shut, and slid the entire capsule back into its proper place. He breathed a sigh in relief. He started descending the ladder, to put the tools and refrigerant canister back where he found them. The fuses would be placed in a garbage module aboard Altair – his mind went back to the maintenance spacewalk the other day, noting that golf-ball-sized hole in the bridge’s armored hull. With the problem solved, and a potential crisis averted, he rebounded off the inner wall and into the bridge.
“There you are, Konstantinov.” The commander appeared to have been waiting for him. “Report.”
“About ten minutes ago,” Anton started, “I had received an alert from the commander’s terminal that capsule D5 was without power to its refrigerant. I have replaced all three burnt fuses in the electrical panel, and it now works again. The coolant does not suffer a leak, nor are there any other problems.”
He nodded. “Good, good.” He drifted himself to the radio. “Reminds me, I should check on Somerset again.” He grabbed the receiver, clearing his throat. “Somerset, this is Zulu-Alfa. I’d like to check in on you, make sure the effects of yesterday afternoon are not lingering still. Over.”
·–·
“Somerset, this is Zulu-Alfa,” the commander’s voice rang through Adam’s helmet as the latter was just leaving the classroom. “I’d like to check in on you, make sure the effects of yesterday afternoon are not lingering still. Over.”
Making sure none of the students, nor the teacher, were in earshot by closing the door behind him, Adam took the time to reply. “This is Somerset,” he said. “I am well, no lingering effects. Over.” He glanced over his shoulder, through the pane of frosted glass on the door, trying to gauge if any of the equines were trying to eavesdrop on the conversation.
“Acknowledged, Somerset. Meanwhile, Weiss here is on the verge of a breakthrough herself. Think you can race her?” Louis chuckled. “No pressure, of course. Zulu-Alfa out.”
Adam too found that humorous, but got it over with before he stepped out of the schoolhouse. He looked behind him, and noted the sound of shuffling hooves from inside the classroom. The bell didn’t ring – he didn’t see anybody yank on the rope – yet as he stepped out of the building, the class had been dismissed. He grabbed the wheeled bin and plucked the trash picker from out of the ground. Behind him, the door swung open, and each student rushed out of the room and out the door, but many of them stayed behind to admire Adam.
He tried to make his way back to the agency, but none of them seemed to want him to go. All of them clamored around him, eager to make him stay – at least, that was his guess, for their voices were too high-pitched and too many for him to make out any individual words. They all matched his steps, one after the other, and would not leave him alone.
Thankfully the teacher saved his sanity – [xõ ɟoɟoˈɹiɲ ᵑʘeˈsɤ ᵑǃɑɹɑᵑsũˈʙ̥u] it said, and one by one the juveniles started to back off from the curiosity, some more reluctantly than the others. Adam was instantly thankful for the intervention, and set upon his merry way back to the agency.
“Khon Edem?” it called out to him.
Son of a bitch. . . . Adam turned around to see the teacher trying to gesture him back inside. He sighed – fine, have it your way. He stabbed the ground again, and ducked beneath the doorway.
Back inside the schoolhouse, Adam was led into the now-empty classroom. He stood in the front of the room, looking around before he faced the teacher. The desks were far too small for him, so he sat down on the floor and waited with bated breath for it to do something – anything. All myriad possibilities swam in front of his vision – what do you have in mind for me?
The answer came a moment later – it started to write on the board. As he watched, he realized it was once again his own name. It wrote his name in just a few moments, despite the inherent complexity of writing with stomagraphy. Thank God for hands, at least. . . . “E-de-m Zeo-m’r-ze-d,” it sounded out, just as it had before – and below that, it drew a humanoid figure, representing Adam.
Next to that was more writing – Adam couldn’t read it, but he was starting to think that it was the teacher’s name. If that was true, it was a lot shorter than he thought. Do they not have family names? he wondered. Or are they not as commonly invoked as they are in the west? “Kha-ya-y,” it pronounced – drawing below it right after a crude equine figure, and then below that a nearly-perfect replica of its hindquarter mark. Ah, that’s its name after all!
Khayay seemed intended on teaching Adam how to speak Ukhǃerr, whatever it took. Whether Adam would be receptive, or even understand each part of the language, would be left to fate. But it would certainly try. Unfortunately, as much as Adam wanted to learn from it, his eyes kept wandering around the classroom, before settling on a particular item on the desk – its desk. It was a large book, bound in linen, just like all the other books he had seen so far.
He stood back up and went over to the desk, intending a closer look at it. The quality of the book had some of the characteristics of mass production – meaning they’ve undergone an industrial revolution of their own, he realized – which meant that the teacher would likely have a few more copies of this same book lying around.
This last thought almost made his eyes bug out of their sockets. But he had to be sure that this book was just what he was looking for. First, remembering the direction of the writing, and thus the orientation of the book in relation to where the teacher would be sitting to read it, he picked it up and carefully rotated it to face him properly. He opened it up to a random page, close to the start of the book – and, by chance, found instructions on how to write the script. Could this be. . . ?
He flipped to another page, and found a most interesting thing. Half of these two pages were composed of pictures, and what was more, the actual writing on here, while sparse and printed large, were clearly hyphenated and with a few key words bolded. Clearly the text was demonstrating something in the pictures, but while he did not know which were nouns and which were verbs, nor what nouns and verbs were used, it provided a solid framework for him to use.
In his excitement, and consequently rash logic, he flipped to the back of the book. This was either an index or a dictionary. He squinted and looked more closely at the pages, even bringing the book up to his eyes – yes, it was an index, with each of the senary page numbers presumably leading back to the sections in which the concepts were explored, or at least mentioned. He could use the page numbers to translate each of the words – and where he saw a conflict, he could list the possibilities and later use the process of elimination by translating the other words first.
In other words, he was holding in his hands what might be the Rhyslinger Rosetta Stone.
–·
“Pardon me, Commander, sir – but did any messages come in for me?”
“Negative, Weiss.” Commander Darcy looked up and behind him to face her. “No new communications came in from Earth.” He sighed. “And certainly nothing personal, either. Look, I don’t like it either – but we just need to hold on.”
“It’s all so one-sided.” Elena peeled herself from the monitor, fixing her eyes on the pitch-darkness of space to give them a momentary rest. “I hope my family is doing well.”
“I’m sure they are – and I hope mine are too. Actually,” the commander shifted gears, “would you like to see something interesting?”
“Perhaps.” She scratched an itch on the back of her neck. “Is it on a computer screen?”
“I’m afraid it is – ” he nodded – “but please don’t force yourself to stare at it if your eyes are that tired. I’d hate for you to go blind.”
“No, no – I will deal with it.” She pushed herself off the wall and towards the command terminal. He drifted aside to give her room to see. “These are just clouds. I’m sure that weather data is useful, but why are we taking a visual approach?” She cleared her throat. “Not to mention the data I – we have already gotten from the ground, through RPMR-1.”
“It’s not data,” he insisted. “Dr. Somerset told me that the Indigenous had somehow built settlements in the sky itself, using clouds as building material. He couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe it, Anton couldn’t believe it, and I’ll bet you can’t believe it either.”
Elena was speechless. Settlements? In the sky? It was like something out of a fairy tale; how could it exist here? “How is that possible?” she eventually asked.
“I honestly have no idea,” he confessed. “But we’ll figure that out one of these days. The photographs certainly don’t lie.” He tapped the monitor. “Right there, Dr. Konstantinov had indicated one such flying settlement, can you see it?”
“Hmm. . . .” She had to squint, to get rid of the green-tinted glow from the other monitor. Then she started making out the details – wisps of vapor coälescing into a structural whole, too well-assembled to be a product of natural forces. There absolutely was an intelligent design to this formation, noöne could deny that. “I – I’m sorry, sir, I cannot find the words.”
“Don’t worry about it, neither could I.”
She leapfrogged away from his terminal back to hers. On the way, she saw more data come back from RPMR-1 – this concerned a soil sample, one focusing on non-radioactive constituents. As much as she had found, she knew she still had so much left ahead. She sighed, and got to work.
··–––
The sun had started going down when Adam finally stepped inside the agency, bin and bags in tow. As much as he wanted to stay to learn more about the language, he knew he had to avoid angering his superior – well, the one on Rhysling anyway. He had set the book on the table, bade Khayay goodbye, grabbed up his stuff, and left the schoolhouse before it could object to the sudden development.
To say he was giddy at what he had found would be the understatement of the century. It quickened his pace, as he started making plans to get one of those books of his own. First things first, though – he would have to get back here. As he walked, he checked his chest readout – forty-one percent scrubber capacity remaining.
The activities of the town had started to wind down, as he’d observed on his way back – one by one, shops closed up for the night, peddler’s wagons started leaving town, and all the residents went home to their families, for their evening meals and their washings-up and so forth. That meant a bit less traffic on the roads than before – and it would be a lonelier walk for him. The only soul he found on the road was one that took him a moment to recognize – a unicorn, light green, white-and-green mane and tail, golden eyes and a golden harp on the flank. He waved – and it waved back. “Hnapata,” it called out to him.
“Nǃapata,” he returned, not breaking his pace. Was that all right? He kept his eyes on it for a moment, and found that yes, it did understand him, even with the click.
Returning his gaze to the road, he felt his stomach grumble. He tried to eat some of his nutrient bar, but found that he had taken the last bite some time ago, and now it was completely out. Whatever, he thought – it would give him the strength to get back to the lander, where he would get a more appropriate meal ready for him. He started thinking about what he would have – as good as the goulash was, he knew he ought to have a bit of variety in his diet. The spinach would do as well, but found it all but unpalatable.
But what if I put the two together? In his mind at least, it would work perfectly. He’d get his fix of iron, while killing off the taste with the spiciness of the meat stew. Genius!
Finally, he got back to the agency. Hell of a job that was. So, whaddawe got? As he untied the trash bags from the cart, he found that the answer turned out to be. . . well, nothing actually, for lack of a better word. The agency was just about empty – he found only a single other pony, the same one whom he had met in the park, whom he had helped with a particularly sticky trash can. “Nǃapata,” it said to him in passing.
“Nǃapata,” Adam replied automatically. Which got him thinking – is this word more than just a greeting? It could just as easily be a parting greeting as an opening one – in fact, it could be one and the same. His mind went back to his class, when he had a student transfer in from the University of Hawai’i. Her family were primarily native Hawai’ians, and still spoke fragments of the language at home. Aloha was classically used to mean “hello,” but it turned out that, not only did it also mean its opposite – “goodbye” – it also meant “love,” and when used as a verb, “to love.”
That weekend, when he found some spare time, Adam looked over his Austronesian materials, and discovered that Proto-Polynesian *qarofa carried exactly the same definitions – as did all its descending words. In fact, English had borrowed not just the Hawai’ian version, but had doublets from the Māori and Anuta versions as well – which were “aroha” and “aropa,” respectively. Curiouser and curiouser, he thought at the time – but now, in retrospect, the Hawai’ian word, and its usage, was starting to come in handy for him right now.
The clerk quickly snapped him out of his thoughts – apparently it had been calling out to him for a while, and was getting frustrated at the lack of response. It forcibly opened his right hand, and into it deposited his pay for the day – five silver coins. For five full bags, he thought, including the two I had changed out from public bins. He must have taken so long to get back that any other jobs that he might have had had been handed off to others, seeing that he was unavailable for the entire day, a lot longer than he had been planning on.
Normally, the first thing Adam would do is take the money and return directly to the lander, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. But with this amount of pay, coupled with what he had already earned, he had another idea come to mind – instead, he would return to the schoolhouse, hoping that Khayay was still there, and there negotiate outright buying one of those Ukhǃerr-language textbooks – if it had spares, which by all accounts it should. With that, he could further study and even translate the language within an acceptable timeframe. The pages, from what he could tell flipping through the one on the desk, seemed durable enough to survive being sterilized, and could easily resist any accidental tearing he might do in his analysis.
But he would not steal it – especially when he was on the cusp of such an important victory. He would have to acquire it honorably, he realized, to maintain his good standing with the locals. And the day was starting to wrap up – if he wanted to enact his plan and get back in time for dinner, he would have to act now. He waved goodbye, depositing the coins inside the same suit pouch as the rest, and started making his way back to the western end of town.
The sun made the sky turn a golden red as he was leaving the repair shop, as he could tell by the bright rays glaring through the glass and into his eyes. Reflexively, he held up his hand to block the brightness – but then he remembered that the Strauss, like any other spacesuit, had a reflective visor that he could pull down over the glass bubble, inlaid with gold foil thin enough for him to see through, but thick enough to block the solar rays – essentially like one big sunglass. He slithered it over his sight, and while the world took on a golden hue, the light concentration was greatly reduced. Still, he thought, I shouldn’t use this to stare at the sun.
He kept his eyes on the road, remembering the path he took from the schoolhouse to the shop, and simply followed it in reverse. Where he could, he took shortcuts that he knew would shave bit after bit of time. Eventually, he was at its doorstep – where he managed to intercept Khayay just stepping out. “Khayay!” he called out.
It stopped. “Em?” it seemed to ask.
He stopped to kneel down to her, caught his breath, and started miming his request – flipping pages in an imaginary book, pointing to inside the schoolhouse in the classroom’s general direction, and then opened his pouch, showing Khayay the coins inside. He looked the teacher in the eyes, hoping that it would understand his mute request.
It took a moment to sink in, but eventually it relented. It went back inside the schoolhouse, with him following close behind. Just in time! he thought.
As it so happened, that copy of the book belonged to Khayay, but it got another one from the supply closet. It showed the second copy to Adam – he picked it out of its mouth, and flipped through the pages. While they weren’t all the same pages as before, the ones he did see were exactly as he remembered. Success! he thought. This is it! And now, for the art of the deal. How much? He asked this last point by reopening the pouch, showing the gold and silver coins within – while he did this, he maintained eye contact with the teacher as best as he could, making sure it could see him arch his eyebrow, to ask the question. Name your price.
Seeing what he was trying to convey, Khayay took a stick of chalk from the metal tray and drew a series of circles on the board – two of them were larger than the other three, but were otherwise the same size. Two gold, three silver, he figured. He opened his pouch and checked – he easily had that much in his pay right at that moment. For an item that could change the course of history, on not one but two different worlds, by bridging the linguistic gap between them – it was a bargain.
Deal.