Sera's corner was white. Nume's was black.
On the hundred and sixty-sixth morning, she sat in the permitted chair in the lower yard and looked at the storehouse. Nume occupied the other position, inside its level window. This was the short interval agreed yesterday. Before they had properly begun, the same corner had acquired two colours.
The facilities worker checked both positions. The passage remained open; nobody would stop people or goods for their exercise. Sera settled her right knee. Moving the chair forward would improve her view, perhaps, but put it on the surface used by loaded carts. She stayed where the worker had allowed it.
Their target description read: the corner where the north wall of the land storehouse turned towards the door. No lightstone had left its chest. They were not fixing a sea lane. They meant to put what two ordinary people saw beside one another, after each had recorded it separately.
Nume raised an empty hand inside the window. The worker marked the two occupied places. During the agreed interval, each would describe only the visible portion; the papers would be received before either person heard the other's account. Sera could not improve her own eyes by borrowing Nume's answer first.
She wrote that a narrow white strip ran down the corner. A dark horizontal line crossed below it, ending behind a low board. Cloth hanging over the board trembled in the breeze. She did not carry the white strip into the concealed part merely because that would make a more complete drawing.
The receiving worker asked how far she had seen. The upper white surface and the board's top line, she said. Standing might reveal more. Before moving, however, she wrote that this view came from a seated position. A standing person's eyes must not arrive on paper disguised as the eyes she had used.
The interval ended. Nume's sheet went to the worker first, then hers. Only after handing it over did she hear the other description: a black band covering the corner, with a round iron loop above.
“We are looking at the same storehouse?” Nume asked.
“I haven't moved mine.”
“Then it's charging different rents for the two views.”
She laughed. The lines did not join because they had found a joke.
Before bringing Nume's paper to her table, the worker asked whether a close view of the corner might help. Sera welcomed another account, provided it stayed separate from the first two. The worker took a third sheet and recorded the place and visible portion. An additional hand entered the morning, without becoming one of their original pair.
The low board, the worker explained, stood a little forward of the wall. From her chair it had appeared attached. Sera separated those lines on her drawing. Nobody moved the board. Rearranging every inconvenient object could remove the very difference they were trying to understand.
She reread the target description before asking whose eyes were better. The north wall turning towards the door. Yesterday that sentence had seemed sufficient. They had recorded no shared pointing-out of the actual place.
Asked to identify it now, she indicated the pale wall's end. Nume described the black post visible from inside the window. Both stood beside the same door. More than an arm's length lay between them.
Sera bit her lip. Agreement on a sentence had not made it refer to one object. She crossed out SAME TARGET and wrote that the two observers had indicated different surfaces. The first words remained legible beneath the line.
Nume said they had misunderstood her. She said she had started without checking what the words meant to them. Choosing one person's mistake would finish the explanation quickly. It would also hide the uncertainty they had shared before anyone began looking.
The worker checked whether they could approach along the public level ground. A short visit was possible; entering the storehouse or moving goods was not included. Sera considered the distance and her knee before agreeing.
As she rose, the inside of the knee pulled. She paused. Nume slowed beside her while the worker went ahead to watch the passage. Nobody suggested that the success of their observation required her body to hurry.
Close by, white plaster remained on the wall end. Beside it, the black post carried a loop for holding the folded door. They had each seen a different thing accurately. Sera nearly wrote that both results were wrong, then changed the sentence. The assumption that they shared a target was wrong.
“So we haven't entirely wasted the morning,” Nume said.
“It still feels a little wasted.”
Yesterday, placing two points on a sheet, she had imagined a better line than this.
“Knowing there's no line saves me steering a boat along it. Fine morning for a captain.”
The boat had not moved. Eight departures, seven completed limited round trips, twenty Maru residents at Roan: correcting a corner gave none of those people a new way home.
Back at the table, the worker asked whether they wanted another attempt immediately. Their agreed interval had ended. Nume had ground work before lunch and could not leave that time waiting inside Sera's blank observer field. They would answer about another interval later.
She thanked them. Some part of her had assumed that lending their eyes meant placing her exercise before their own work. Even on land, a second observer occupied actual hours.
Tio passed with the adult carpenter and asked how far they had moved the storehouse.
“To different places in two people's eyes.”
“Less pay, then. Didn't even have to touch the wood.”
The carpenter pointed out the light cord he was to handle. Tio flexed his finger and took the lighter portion. Sera did not quietly replace Nume's point with his name. He had his own work today, and his hand had not become sound because her exercise wanted another observer.
Nea brought water. Sera accepted her own cup and drank. Hearing about the two objects, Nea said they had seen two things, then.
“A higher observation count doesn't mean the plan worked.”
“I wasn't saying it did. A white wall end and a black loop. You saw both.”
Sera rubbed her face. She had begun reading even an ordinary remark as an effort to console her failure. She thanked Nea for the words and the water.
“Return the cup as an object,” Nea said. “Keep the words.”
The repaired chair arrangement and the cup route were still serving people. One mistaken observation had not made every useful thing beside that window mistaken too.
After lunch, Sera pulled the wrong end of her bread-bag knot and tightened it. Nea offered to find scissors. She asked to leave it a moment. The need to undo everything at once had reached her fingers. After another drink she found the slack side. The bread had hardened slightly without knowing anything about failed observations.
Varen heard the account at the ground-level table, after finding room for his right leg. Which line had she drawn first? She had written what she saw, she said, but treated sameness of target as something already checked.
He had once made such lines look very straight, he said. That did not identify a particular old-network record. Sera said she did not want his memory offered merely to lighten her embarrassment.
Varen looked at her, then agreed.
“Keep where both of you stood.”
“I wasn't going to erase it.”
Her voice had sharpened. She added that she was more ashamed of her own writing than angry with him.
“Makes you want to correct it quickly.”
“Yes.”
“Before you change your words, keep what the other person received.”
The advice did not pay his old responsibilities. It could still be used on today's paper. She separated the plan from the result, retaining the positions and approximate time. Another reader could now find the sentence that had proved too vague.
Late that afternoon, Nume confirmed another short interval tomorrow. The facilities worker confirmed both ground positions. They would try the small joint between two existing nails at the outer end of the beam above the door. It could be pointed out from permitted level ground without adding a mark or altering the structure.
Could both observers see it from their positions? Sera asked. They would check together tomorrow. Writing a more precise name tonight could not open tomorrow's view.
She rested her knee. Two clear lightstones remained dry in their chests; the blue clay bell stayed clapperless. The white line and the black line ended separately on her table. Tomorrow, if even the same joint looked different, she would ask where the eyes stood before changing the thing they saw.