Went-Round (Pandoid, the deep networks)

Went-Round heard it from the far side of the amber, and liked it at once, and went round it to make sure.

The first thing anybody said was the thing anybody would say. "They cannot hear the ground." An old one, kindly, as if Stone-First might have forgotten.

"They can hear each other," said Went-Round. "Carried-It-Sleeping watched them, at the light. One makes a sound and the other one does the thing. A sound reaches them. It is only a stone they cannot hear."

"They would not know what it said."

"No," said Went-Round. "Nor did I, the first time. Nor did any of you. A small one is told the first warm seep before they know what a seep is. Nobody waits until you understand to begin. You are told, and then you go on being told, and the understanding comes along afterwards, for as many tellings as it takes. We have never once done it the other way round."

Several people made the small sound at that, and Went-Round heard it and did not mind it.

Then Carried-It-Sleeping, lying down, with the small ones round them, said something, which Carried-It-Sleeping did not often do in the warm.

"Which telling?"

Went-Round turned.

"You said the telling of their first stone. There are two stones in that telling. It begins with the other one. The humming stone, carried up and set down at the edge of their place. Stone-First said so: every telling begins with a stone, and this one has two." Carried-It-Sleeping was quiet for as long as it takes to say a name. "So who was there for the first one? I was. And their stone was. It was asleep."

That got the small sound from everywhere at once, and the small ones laughed out loud, which is a different sound again, and Went-Round saw that Carried-It-Sleeping had meant it to, and had also meant the other thing, which was true.

"They have that stone," said Went-Round, when it had settled. "They came and took it. It is up there with them now. Whatever they know of it, they have had since the day they lifted it, and it is theirs in whatever way they have of a thing being theirs. The stone they do not have is the other one. They set it down and stepped back and went, and it is on the line, and Stone-First will not move it, and they have never heard what it was." Went-Round went round to the far side. "You carried the first one up and set it down and did not know, doing it, that it was the first half of anything. You said so. That is why it is yours. The second half is theirs, and they do not know it is the second half of anything either, and nobody has told them."

Carried-It-Sleeping lay still and let that be the answer, which it was.

So that was which telling. Then who tells it, which was no argument at all, because only one of the people had been there and everybody knew who. Stone-First. Standing on the line, with the stone put down a hand from Stone-First's feet. A telling is told first by who was there. Went-Round said it anyway, so that it would have been said.

And then the warm came to the thing it could not get past, and Went-Round had seen it coming from the far side a long way off, and had hoped Stone-First had not, and Stone-First had.