The symbol she was building was taking shape, its outline clear. Ha had been underwater for several minutes now. Her thoughts of Evrim, or of anything from the outside world, were gone. She was in it—the dive, the sound-world of the water around her, the warping stripes of the sun across the sandy bottom.

Ha adjusted some of the bottles. It would last, at the most, a few days before being buried by the sand. Now she began to fill it in, many shades of green and blue, the bottles whole and clean. This was more than a symbol. It was an offering. Ha built patterns of color inside it, sequences she innovated, selecting and placing each bottle with care. The bottles glowed, filled with sunlight. A temporary thing of, Ha hoped, beauty and demonstrated care. This is for you. This is a gift, first to be read and then used, used to decorate the houses of your city. Read it, and then take it away and use its materials. Keep them.

The silver school of fish came back, flutter-drift at the edge of vision. Other fish, bits of color more intricate than the glass on the ocean floor, darted in for a second and then away, drawn to the new thing in their environment.

Ha did not rush—she worked with care. Not this one. This one. This one here, and then a darker green. Hear me. Not this blue, in this sequence of colors near the curved edge, but a darker one. See this care taken. This intention. Not this bottle: there was a chipped, sharp edge at the lip she had not noticed before. Back in the bag.

Know this for what it is.

Underwater, the bottles went from things of simple utility to objects of beauty—curves and angles, receptacles of light as well as substance. Glass carefully arranged on a background also of silicate—the sand. The sand was more of the same substance, but unformed, a substrate that made glass a possibility, once its potential was discovered and utilized. Glass is something minds, and the cultures minds build, make from simple sand. Like minds themselves, glass is something that emerges from simple substances to form things of extraordinary beauty, delicacy, and variation.

Would the Shapesinger herself see Ha’s symbol?

Then it was done. Ha circled above it. Nothing left to adjust. It was as clear as she could make it, absorbing the light of the sun into itself.

I may not know the word I am speaking, but that word is not the message. The message is: “We hear you. We read you.”

The message is connection.