“No see,” said Jawn.
Toroca gestured in the direction of the water, then curved his arm down, hoping to convey that the ship was below the horizon. “No far,” said Toroca, wanting to make clear that it hadn’t gone all the way back to Land.
Jawn touched his own chest. “Jawn,” he said. He pointed at Toroca. “Toroca.” Then, wrinkling his muzzle in a way that Toroca had come to associate with asking questions, “Ga-san?”
“Dasheter,” said Toroca. “Ga-san Dasheter.”
Jawn pointed at himself, then Toroca, then Morb, the guard. “Three,” he said in his language. “Three here. Ga-san?”
Toroca only knew the numerals to ten. “Ten and two,” he said.
“Farg-sol,” said Jawn.
Toroca briefly wondered what ‘eleven’ was; he hated gaps in his knowledge. But Jawn pressed on. “Few,” he said.
And that was the key point. Yes, there were only a few people aboard the Dasheter, even though it was a big ship. Toroca had never thought the ship particularly empty, but by the standards of these people, it would be. How to explain territoriality? For God’s sake, he was the least expert of all his people on that topic.
With one hand he lifted the corner of the map and flicked the edge. With the other, he made the beckoning gesture. Jawn understood immediately and fetched blank drawing sheets and graphite sticks. Toroca drew a circle and then put a dot in it. He pointed at the dot, then pointed at himself, palm opened, conveying, he hoped, that the dot represented one Quintaglio rather than him in particular. He said, “Bal,” the Other word for one, followed by “hoos-ta,” the Other word for good. Then he put in a second dot, but far away from the first, and said “hoos-ta” again. Then he added a third dot, close to the first. “Hoos-na-ta.” Bad. And a fourth dot, even closer. “Hoos-na-ta, hoos-na-ta“—repetition being the way the Others showed successive degrees.
Jawn looked dismayed. He gestured with his hand, showing how much room was still left in Toroca’s circle.
“Bad, bad,” said Toroca again.
Jawn wrinkled his muzzle and said that word, “Glees,” meaning, how righteous is this?
Not very, thought Toroca, but he didn’t know how to say it.
“All right,” said Novato to the group assembled on the hillside. “It seems that whatever was being built is finished. Let’s review what’s happened.” Garios and the other five members of Novato’s staff were lying on the grass. Early morning sunlight sporadically punched through the clouds.
“Some orange dust escaped from the ark and came into contact with the cliff,” said Novato. “It—the dust—seems to have undertaken a two-stage project. In the first stage, it converted a cube of cliff material into the same super-strong stuff the ark is made of. That cube, which was originally almost entirely buried in rock, measures roughly a hundred and thirty paces on a side, and one face of it roughly corresponds with what was originally the face of the cliff. In and of itself, that single cube constituted the largest artificial structure in our entire world.
“But after completing the first stage—construction of the central cube—a second stage began. That involved expanding the cube on top and on its four sides by adding new material to turn the overall structure into a pyramid, with a base approximately three hundred paces on a side. Making the central cube was relatively straightforward, if such words can be applied to miracles: it only involved converting existing rock into the blue material. This second stage has required bringing in new material, and we’ve all seen that going on: rocks seeming to liquefy, but without giving off the heat we expect of molten material, then flowing into new shapes, and, as they resolidify, turning blue.
“Gatabor and I watched as part of the pyramid’s crown pushed up from under the ground, and you’ve all seen the one sloping side of the pyramid projecting out of the cliff face.
“The pyramid doesn’t come to a point at its apex. Rather, there’s a central shaft dropping straight down into the structure. The opening is square, about fourteen paces on a side. Gatabor and I only had time for a brief look down into the depths of the pyramid’s interior before the apex was lifted too high off the ground for us to be able to see within it. Things are moving around down at the bottom of the pyramid: things with wheels, things with metal jaws, things with long prows that coil to a point. Incredible as it may seem, we can only conclude that these things were somehow built or grown by the same orange dust that escaped from the ark.”
Novato shuddered, recalling the wonder of it all.
“As I said, the apex of the pyramid is now too far off the ground to reach, but it’s easy to measure the angles of its sides. One can draw an imaginary line right through the remaining rocks of the cliff and it would join up perfectly with the part of the pyramid’s base now projecting out of the cliff face, across the strip of beach, and into the water. As you’ve all no doubt observed by now, a large part of the material of the cliff has been consumed, so the total pyramid is only partially buried in rock now.
“And what about the ark? It seems intact, although most of it is now buried within the pyramid. The door is still exposed, although there’s no cliff face left near it to get hold of, and the blue material provides no footholds of any kind. However, we could lean a very tall ladder against the side of the pyramid to gain access to the ark. I was hoping to put the crafters of Pack Derrilo to work constructing such a ladder, but the pyramid burst through the plain on which their old stone buildings existed. First the buildings fell apart, and then the stone material—which had been quarried out of the cliff face, after all—was absorbed into the structure. The Pack has moved on; the pyramid has scared off all the shovelmouth herds.
“You will have noticed that the sides of the pyramid aren’t completely solid. Rather, there seems to be a tunnel entrance in the middle of each face. I forbade anyone from entering these until construction stopped. However, it seems now that the pyramid is complete. It’s not getting any taller, although it may still be growing down and wider beneath ground level; there’s no way to tell. If it remains quiescent for another day, I’ll authorize the first teams to go inside. Any questions?”
“I have one,” said Garios, lifting his long muzzle to look at her. “What do you make of that stuff projecting out of the top of the pyramid?”
“What stuff?” said Novato.
“Oh, you must have seen it. The stuff rising toward the sky. It’s been going up since this morning.”
Without a word, Novato ran to where she could get a decent look at the vast, blue pyramid.
The third stage had begun.
A hunt! Simple, primal, soothing…
Afsan stalked his prey through tall grass. He couldn’t see exactly what it was he was pursuing—the grass hid it from view—but he could smell it and he could hear it. Afsan moved quickly through the grass, the sound of his passing hardly more than an undercurrent beneath the steady east-west wind.
At last his quarry moved into a clearing. It was a small shovelmouth—a juvenile, no doubt, not much larger than Afsan himself—moving along on all fours, its pendulous gut waggling back and forth as it walked. The beast’s head was drawn out into a flat prow and atop its skull was an ornate three-pointed crest. Its pebbly skin was a mixture of light green and yellow.
Afsan crouched down in the grass, then leapt, his legs unfolding, his jaws swinging wide for the killing bite.