Mary Malone was strug a mirror. Not out of vanity, for she had little of that, but because she wao test an idea she had. She wao try and catch Shadows, and without the instruments in her laboratory she had to improvise with the materials at hand.
Mulefa teology had little use for metal. They did extraordinary things with stone and wood and cord and shell and horn, but what metals they had were hammered from native s of copper and other metals that they found in the sand of the river, and they were never used for toolmaking. They were oral. Mulefa couples, for example, oering marriage, would exge strips ht copper, which were bent around the base of one of their horns with much the same meaning as a wedding ring.
So they were fasated by the Swiss Army khat was Marys most valuable possession.
Atal, the zatif who was her particular friend, exclaimed with astonishment one day when Mary unfolded the knife and showed her all the parts, and explained as well as she could, with her limited language, what they were for. Oat was a miniature magnifying glass, with which she began to burn a design onto a dry branch, and it was that which set her thinking about Shadows.
They were fishing at the time, but the river was low and the fish must have been elsewhere, so they let the lie across the water and sat on the grassy bank and talked, until Mary saw the dry branch, which had a smooth white surface. She burhe design, a simple daisy, into the wood, and delighted Atal; but as the thin line of smoke wafted up from the spot where the focused sunlight touched the wood, Mary thought: If this became fossilized, and a stist in ten million years found it, they could still find Shadows around it, because Ive worked on it.
She drifted into a sun-doped reverie until Atal asked:
What are you dreaming?
Mary tried to explain about her work, her research, the laboratory, the discovery of shadow particles, the fantastical revelation that they were scious, and found the whole tale gripping her again, so that she loo be back among her equipment.
She didnt expect Atal to follow her explanation, partly because of her own imperfeand of their language, but partly because the mulefa seemed so practical, sly rooted in the physical everyday world, and much of what she was saying was mathematical; but Atal surprised her by saying,
Yes, we. know what you mean, we call it... and then she used a word that sounded like their word fht.
Mary said, Light?
Atal said, Not light, but... and said the word more slowly for Mary to catch, explaining: like the light on water when it makes small ripples, at su, and the light es off in bright flakes, we call it that, but it is a make-like.
Make-like was their term for metaphor, Mary had discovered.
So she said, It is not realty light, but you see it and it looks like that light on water at su?
Atal said, Yes. All the mulefa have this. You have, too. That is how we knew you were like us and not like the grazers, who dont have it. Even though you look so bizarre and horrible, you are like us, because you have , and again came that word that Mary couldnt hear quite clearly enough to say: something like sraf, or sarf, apanied by a leftward flick of the trunk.
Mary was excited. She had to keep herself calm enough to find the right words.
What do you know about it! Where does it e from?
From us, and from the oil, was Atals reply, and Mary knew s