The mason drew a square with one corner missing. Then they turned the paper and said it might be part of a square, a broken corner, or an unfortunate attempt to draw a fish.
Sera had expected a question about the rock. She had not expected to be asked which way the fish swam.
“Toward the missing corner?”
“Then you know as much about this fish as I know about your steps.”
It was the two hundred and sixth day. The officer had arranged a brief paid consultation with an adult mason already doing authorised wall repairs at Roan. Their own work and meal had not become empty time because the sea had acquired three interesting marks. Sera brought only the permitted sketches and descriptions. There was no visit to a wet ledge hidden inside the invitation.
The mason's thumb carried a pale line of mortar. They held it clear of the original sketch and used another sheet. Her knee rested beneath the table; a look at a drawing did not require anyone to climb.
The sea view showed one small step identified from both positions and two more dark interruptions identified from sea alone. It did not show three measured equal cuts. Sera gave that distinction first. The mason nodded and put no ruler on the paper.
A naturally jointed face could break in repeated directions. Tool marks might also be weathered into roughness. Regularity seen from far away could be an effect of the view or of light between uneven surfaces. Calling something made required closer description of its boundaries and surface, not merely a pleasing count.
“Is there a back edge?” they asked.
“Of the hollow?”
“Of whatever you think has the steps.”
She looked at the drawing. She had imagined the upper edge as part of one continuous cliff face. Under it she had imagined depth. She had asked about the number of teeth along a mouth before asking whether the mouth belonged to the thing she was naming.
“I don't know.”
“That belongs on the next sheet.”
They drew another open corner. A short straight edge could be a broken layer; two boundaries meeting could narrow the shape without proving a fitted slab. A dark seam might be a joint, a shadow or wet material. The question was which particular boundary two observers could independently describe.
Sera resisted finishing the square. Her hand could do it in less time than it took to say no.
“If it is a separate piece, that wouldn't tell us who put it there.”
“Or that anyone did.”
The mason let her consider the second correction. They had not seen the rock, were making no finding about it, and would not advise reaching for it from a boat. A small loose piece could fall; an apparently firm one could carry more weight than it showed. Today's paper gave them no contact work to approve.
She wrote that the consultation supplied questions, not an origin. The mason read her summary and changed hold to distinguish. Nobody had tested whether the supposed piece would hold anything. One innocent verb had carried a hand onto the rock.
When the agreed time ended, they went back to the wall. Sera could hear the dull scrape of mortar through the open door. Somewhere in Roan, a person was finishing a real joint while she acquired another unfinished one.
Nume came near midday to compare the next tide candidate with the fleet's actual work. Sera showed them the missing square.
“Is this the whole target?”
“It's the thing we're not allowed to finish yet.”
“An economical drawing.”
She explained the question about a possible separate boundary. The boat would remain within the same permitted harbour stretch. There was no new approach, collection, landing or request to keep a hull alongside the face. If the existing distance supplied no answer, the answer would stay unavailable from that work.
The captain studied the candidate two days later. The position and time recorder needed to retain each actual viewpoint, and the observer needed room to work without taking a crew member off the boat's own needs. A separate land observer and current equipment checks remained necessary. The allotted work would include returning; a promising seam would not buy another turn against the wind.
Sera accepted the candidate's narrow scope. It was still not an accepted departure. The fleet would confirm paid assignments, then Nume would decide against the morning's conditions. She could prepare target descriptions meanwhile without telling the residents a boat was definitely going.
She noticed she had begun calling it our boat again. Nume owned the decision and the work, along with the boat's other obligations; she owned a question that might need it. She did not have to give the whole sea a possessive pronoun to care whether they returned.
Over food they spoke of the repaired wall instead. The mason had asked her to look at a missing square and she had seen a fish, Sera said.
“Was it a useful fish?”
“It refused a scale.”
Nume groaned. She had not intended that joke until it was out. They asked whether she would repeat it when the sea observer came, and she said it was probably best left in the bowl.
That afternoon the land officer arranged a short current look by the assigned adult from the existing permitted position. It was a shape check with equipment examined, not a paired instrument comparison or a new reference. Sera waited downstairs for the actual account.
The narrow bright surface was distinguishable. Below it lay the first small step. Farther along, the foreground edge overlapped what the sea sketch had drawn as two further marks. Land could not distinguish all three together.
But to one side of the bright surface, a dark line turned downward.
Sera felt her hand close. The mason's unfinished square looked suddenly less like a fish.
The observer could not follow the line's full length. A small wash crossed it, then light on wet stone swallowed the turn. No value was read for an end. The separate sketch retained only the short corner actually distinguished, with the interruption beside it.
“Can we say it turns into the hollow?”
“Only that the seen line changes direction there.”
She wrote it that way. A corner was still information. It did not need to become an opening before she could want the next look.
Varen read the new description from his chair. He noticed her gaze shifting to the blank corner of the mason's sheet.
“You're rebuilding the missing part.”
“In my head.”
“Keep the wall there until someone has seen it.”
She smiled. The advice was almost the same as yesterday's, but the temptation had acquired a better shape. She asked to keep that sentence in her personal notes too. He agreed and then asked for the paper to be moved where he could reach it without turning his right leg. Ordinary requests still belonged in their own voices.
He did not identify the corner as an old apparatus. The custodian's previous summary had closed its particular question, and no new original had been offered. She asked no concealed name or private memory to make the rock older than its present description.
Miran passed the open door carrying their clothes box's lid. The tie was repaired. They stopped to ask whether the present observation had anything to say about their eaves photograph.
“No. This is still the outer rock.”
“Then don't put my roof in your missing square.”
They said it lightly, but she heard the useful boundary. The photograph's seasonal grouping had not dated the mark or established a home-return date. Miran wanted that inquiry to stay at the desk already responsible. Sera said she understood. They took the lid away to close something they could close today.
Tio listened to the new shape question after his own work ended. He asked whether two people could see different corners of one box and think they had seen different boxes.
“They could.”
“What do they do?”
“Describe what lies between, if they can see it.”
“And if they can't?”
“Keep the two corners separate.”
He considered his paper boat, then his outsized roof. He could move them closer for his own drawing. He did not try to provide her sea with a demonstration that proved anything. His sore finger had had enough work, and he put the pencil away.
Before evening the fleet confirmed the adults for the candidate. The sea observer's question included the upper edge, the additional marks and the short dark turn; nobody was assigned to recover a stone. The observer who would record position rehearsed the order with the working copy. The land eye's separate acknowledgement came before Sera closed the sheet.
Twelve departures and eleven limited round trips remained. Both clear reserve lightstones were unused, the clapper absent, all twenty residents at Roan. A corner had been seen without completing the square, and the next departure remained conditional on a captain's actual morning.
At night Sera folded the mason's drawing so its unfinished side faced inward. She would not see the rock while sleeping, and she need not finish it to rest. Yet before blowing out her lamp, she looked once more at the new question. If the dark turn and the three marks belonged to the same separate face, where did that face end? The boat, if it went, had one return in which to ask.
