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She polished the reverse as highly as the top, until both were as flat and smooth as the finest h it
Nothing in particular It was perfectly clear, but it showed her a double iht one quite close to the left and about fifteen degrees upward
She wondered ould happen if she looked through two pieces, one on top of the other
So she took the Swiss Arain and tried to score a line across the sheet so she could cut it in two By working and reworking, and by keeping the knife sharp on a sh for her to risk snapping the sheet She laid a thin stick under the score line and pushed sharply down on the lacquer, as she’d seen a glazier cutting glass, and it worked: now she had two sheets
She put theh The araphic filter it ehtly different cast to the landscape The curious thing was that the doubleness had disappeared, and everything was single again; but there was no sign of Shadows
Shehow the appearance of things changed as she did so When they were about a hand span apart, a curious thing happened: the a seehter andto see what she was doing
Can you see sraf now? she said
No, but I can see other things, Mary said, and tried to show her
Atal was interested, but politely, not with the sense of discovery that was anih the srass to room each other’s claws, out of pure sociability, and once or twice Atal had invited Mary to attend to hers Mary, in turn, let Atal tidy her hair, enjoying how the soft trunk lifted it and let it fall, stroking andher scalp
She sensed that Atal wanted this now, so she put down the two pieces of lacquer and ran her hands over the astonishing smoothness of Atal’s claws, that surface smoother and slicker than Teflon that rested on the lower ri when the wheel turned The contours matched exactly, of course, and as Mary ran her hands around the inside of the wheel, she could feel no difference in texture: it was as if the mulefa and the seedpod really were one creature, which by a ain
Atal was soothed, and so was Mary, by this contact Her friend was young and unroup, so she would have to marry a zalif from outside; but contact wasn’t easy, and soht that Atal was anxious about her future So she didn’t begrudge the time she spent with her, and now she was happy to clean the wheel holes of all the dust and griently over her friend’s clahile Atal’s trunk lifted and straightened her hair
When Atal had had enough, she set herself on the wheels again andmeal Mary turned back to her lacquer, and almost at once she made her discovery
She held the two plates a hand span apart so that they showed that clear, bright i had happened
As she looked through, she saar the forh one small part of the lacquer, and then Mary realized why: at that point she had touched the surface of it with her oily fingers
Atal! she called Quick! Come back!
Atal turned and wheeled back
Let h to put on the lacquer
Atal willingly let her run her fingers around the wheel holes again, and watched curiously as Mary coated one of the pieces with a film of the clear, sweet substance
Then she pressed the plates together and moved them around to spread the oil evenly, and held them a hand span apart oncewas changed She could see Shadows If she’d been in the Jordan College Retiring Roorams he’d nized the effect Everywhere she looked she could see gold, just as Atal had described it: sparkles of light, floating and drifting and so it all was the world she could see with the naked eye, the grass, the river, the trees; but wherever she saw a conscious being, one of the ht was thicker and more full of movement It didn’t obscure their shapes in any way; if anything it made them clearer
I didn’t knoas beautiful, Mary said to Atal
Why, of course it is, her friend replied It is strange to think that you couldn’t see it Look at the little one
She indicated one of the s clu to exaain to rush and tell his ain by a piece of stick, trying to pick it up, finding ants on his trunk and hooting with agitation There was a golden haze around hi nets, the evening fire: stronger than theirs, though not bycurrents of intention that eddied and broke off and drifted about, to disappear as new ones were born
Around his olden sparkles were er, and the currents theyfood, spreading flour on a flat stone,her child at the same time; and the Shadows, or the sraf, or the Dust, that bathed her looked like the very ie of responsibility and wise care
So at last you can see, said Atal Well, now you must come with me
Mary looked at her friend in puzzlee: it was as if she were saying, Finally you’re ready; we’ve been waiting; now things , from over the brow of the hill, fro the river: ers, too, mulefa ere new to her, and who looked curiously tohere she was standing The sound of their wheels on the hard-packed earth was low and steady
Wherehere?
Don’t worry, said Atal, come with me, we shall not hurt you
It see, for they all knehere to go and what to expect There was a low ular in shape and packed with hard earth, with ramps at each end, and the crowd - fifty or so at least, Mary esti fires hung in the evening air, and the setting sun spread its own kind of hazy gold over everything Mary are of the s corn, and the warm smell of the mulefa themselves - part oil, part wared her toward the ? Tell me!
No, no Not me Sattamax will speak
Mary didn’t know the naer to her He was older than anyone she’d seen so far: at the base of his trunk was a scatter of white hairs, and he moved stiffly, as if he had arthritis The others all lance through the lacquer glass, she sahy: the old zalif ’s Shadow cloud was so rich and coh she knew so little of what it meant
When Sattamax was ready to speak, the rest of the crowd fell silent Mary stood close to the mound, with Atal nearby for reassurance; but she sensed all their eyes on her and felt as if she were a new girl at school
Sattaan to speak His voice was deep, the tones rich and varied, the gestures of his trunk low and graceful
We have all coer Mary Those of us who know her have reason to be grateful for her activities since she arrived auage With the help of er Mary can now understand us
But there was another thing she had to understand, and that was sraf She knew about it, but she could not see it as we can, until she h
And now she has succeeded, she is ready to learn more about what she must do to help us
Mary, come here and join me
She felt dizzy, self-conscious, bemused, but she did as she had to and stepped up beside the old zalif She thought she had better speak, so she began:
You have all made me feel I am a friend You are kind and hospitable I came from a world where life is very different, but sorateful for your help in h which I can see it If there is any way in which I can help you, I will be glad to do it
She spoke more aardly than she did with Atal, and she was afraid she hadn’tclear It was hard to knohere to face when you had to gesture as well as speak, but they seeood to hear you speak We hope you will be able to help us If not, I cannot see hoill survive The tualapi will kill us all There are more of the every year So with the world For most of the thirty-three thousand years that there have beenbalanced The trees prospered, the grazers were healthy, and even if once in a while the tualapi came, our numbers and theirs reo the trees began to sicken We watched them anxiously and tended the fewer seedpods, and dropping their leaves out of season, and soht, which had never been known All our memory could not find a cause for this
To be sure, the process was slow, but so is the rhythm of our lives We did not know that until you came We have seen butterflies and birds, but they have no sraf You do, strange as you seem; but you are swift and immediate, like birds, like butterflies You realize there is a need for so to help you see sraf and instantly, out of the ether an instrument to do so Beside us, you think and act with the speed of a bird That is how it seems, which is hoe know that our rhythm seems slow to you
But that fact is our hope You can see things that we cannot, you can see connections and possibilities and alternatives that are invisible to us, just as sraf was invisible to you And while we cannot see a way to survive, we hope that you o swiftly to the cause of the trees’ sickness and find a cure; we hope you will invent awith the tualapi, who are so numerous and so powerful
And we hope you can do so soon, or we shall all die
There was a ree at Mary, and she felt more than ever like the new pupil at a school where they had high expectations of her She also felt a strange flattery: the idea of herself as swift and darting and birdlike was new and pleasant, because she had always thought of herself as dogged and plodding But along with that ca, if they saw her like that; they didn’t understand at all; she couldn’t possibly fulfill this desperate hope of theirs
But equally, she
Sattamax, she said, mulefa, you put your trust in me and I shall do ood and beautiful and I will try very hard to help you, and now I have seen sraf, I knohat it is that I a me
They nodded and murmured and stroked her with their trunks as she stepped down She was daunted by what she had agreed to do
At that very azze, the assassin-priest Father Goh track in the mountains between the twisted trunks of olive trees The evening light slanted through the silvery leaves and the air was full of the noise of crickets and cicadas
Ahead of hi vines, where a goat bleated and a spring trickled down through the gray rocks There was an oldto sooat toward a stool and a bucket
In the village some way behind, they had told hi had passed this way, and that she’d talked of going up into the mountains; perhaps this old couple had seen her At least there water to drink Father Goally, and there was plenty of time