“You haven’t been here before, but I think I have,” Seven tried to say to her, but now she was suddenly aware of the height, and it made her dizzy. Vaguely the eager run to the pyramid returned to her mind. What was she doing here? Had she run or only dreamed that she had? Never in her life had she stood so high above the ground. She backed away now, toward the wall. Only birds went that high.

Sumpter put his arm out protectively, but his face was stricken: did she know how close she was to … the door? She couldn’t, of course. Yet she’d run almost like one possessed directly toward one of the most secret of pyramid entries; unknown even to many of the people. Now she stood almost immobile, staring down at the city below, trying to conquer her fear. It was almost as if the fear itself suddenly surfaced, he thought. Certainly it hadn’t been present earlier. Yet she wasn’t faking now, he was sure of it.

Too late, Seven realized that heights would frighten her. Of course, he should have known. For that matter, he was almost as confused as she was, a pretty state of affairs. She was going to faint. Quickly Seven tried to take over for her, but she took one last terrified look down at the city, and fell in a heap beside Sumpter.

Sumpter picked her up gently, and carried her down. A small crowd had gathered, but the people parted to let him through. A woman brought a sponge dampened with water, and he bathed Ma-ah’s face. Her behavior was definitely strange in ways that he couldn’t decipher, he thought. Suddenly the words came into his mind: “Once a Speaker, always a Speaker.” He knew that, of course, but why did the thought come to him now, under these circumstances? Now the well-known phrase seemed to have a particular significance that escaped him.

Ma-ah was coming to. As she began to open her eyes, Sumpter was suddenly certain that she would end up before the Tribunal, though why he couldn’t say.

Chapter Twelve

Ma-ah and the Shining Building Blocks of Sound

“Syllables are the sound equivalents of atoms,” Sumpter said. “And atoms compose matter. Syllables can be organized into words, of course. But they can also be organized into sound patterns called no-words. That is, the sounds don’t refer to objects or even feelings, and they don’t name things in usual terms. Instead the no-words are simply … power. They do things, not represent them.”

Ma-ah shrugged. “You said we were going to see Rampa this morning. That’s all I care about. I can’t concentrate. How can you expect me to be interested in anything else, when I haven’t seen him in so long?”