“Fine, fine! More power to you. Wish she’d take on a good steady fellow like you. But I give you fair warning. My daughter’s a willful hussy.” Again the Master laughed, and Ganil grinned, a little ruefully. The Shopmaster’s daughter Lani had not only most of the young men of the Shop, but also her father, twisted right round her little finger. A clever, quicksilver girl, she had at first rather scared Ganil. It took him a while to notice that she spoke, to him only, with a certain shyness, a hint almost of pleading. He had finally got up courage to ask a dinner invitation from her mother, the recognized first step of a courtship. He stood now where Lee had left him, thinking of Lani’s smile.

“Ganil, have you ever seen the Sun?”

It was a low voice, dry and easy. He turned, meeting his friend’s blue eyes.

“The Sun? Yes, of course I have.”

“When was the last time?”

“Let’s see, I was twenty-six; four years ago. Weren’t you here in Edun then? It came out in late afternoon, and that night there were stars. I counted eighty-one, I remember, before the sky closed.”

“I was up north in Keling then in my first Mastership.” Mede leaned against the wooden guard rail of the model heavy steam engine as he spoke. His light eyes looked away from the busy shop, out the windows at the fine, steady rain of late autumn. “Heard you telling off young Wanno just now . . . ‘What matters is that XVI and IXX don’t make XXXVI. . . .’ ‘When I was twenty-six, four years ago . . . I counted eighty-one stars. . . .’ A little more and you’d be computing, Ganil.”

Ganil frowned, unconsciously rubbing the whitish scar on his temple. “Well, hell, Medel even gentiles know IV from XXXI”

Mede smiled faintly. He had his Comparing Stick in his hand, and lowering it he drew on the dusty floor a round shape. “What’s that?” he asked.

“The Sun.”

“Right. It’s also a . . . a figure. A number. The figure for Nothing.”

“The figure for Nothing?”

“Yes. You could use it in the subtraction-tables, for instance. I from II leaves I, right? But what does II from II leave?” A pause. He tapped the circle with his stick. “That.”

“Yes, of course.” Ganil stared down at the circle, the sacred image of the Sun, the Hidden Light, the Face of God. “Is that priest-knowledge?”

“No.” Mede drew an X-cross over the circle. “That is.”

“Then what—whose knowledge is the—the figure for Nothing?”

“No one’s. Anyone’s. It’s not a mystery.” Ganil frowned in surprise at this statement. They spoke in low voices, standing close as if discussing a measurement on Mede’s Comparing Stick. “Why did you count the stars, Ganil?”

“I . . . I wanted to know. I’ve always liked counting, numbers, the tables. That’s why I’m a Mechanic.”