“Strange,” mused Trompe. “Very strange. The shape of the heads, I mean. They shouldn’t be quite that spherical, should they? Or would erosion tend to round them off?”
When one focused on the shape and not on the streaked and blotched surfaces, the roundness was obvious. Lines and smudges of mineral colors—ocher, brown, red—made them appear more irregular and rugged than they actually were. Except for the horns on top, they were ball-shaped.
“The mass can’t be uniform,” Leelson remarked in a troubled tone. “The center of gravity has to be … where?”
“Doesn’t matter,” mumbled Trompe. “It’d have to be below the point of the pillar to keep the thing balanced that way. The way they are, the damn things can’t exist.”
“But they do,” I said.
“It would work if there were a gyroscope inside.” Leelson strode away in a long arc to examine the nearest Nodder from the side. “Or a central support. Or a gravitic drive.”
“Or if they weren’t really stone,” said Trompe, joining his colleague. The two of them stood there with their mouths open, wearing identical expressions of annoyance. Fastigats, so I had already learned, do not like things they do not understand. Their irritated silence made me uncomfortably aware that I understood no more than they.
Lutha had regained control of herself. “You’re not thinking that they’re unnatural, are you?”
Leelson took his time before answering. “You’ve seen Dinadhi children playing ball games. You’ve seen Dinadhi herdsmen spinning wool. Imagine yourself trying to balance one of the balls on the tip of a spindle and tell me how much luck you’d have.”
She gave me a quick look, and I shook my head. As described, it would be impossible. Unless the ball were spinning. We have jugglers skilled in such tricks, but these heads weren’t spinning. So. It couldn’t be done.
The two men came strolling back, foreheads wrinkled with concentration.
I said, “But if they aren’t natural, wouldn’t someone have noticed before now?”
Leelson shook his head. “According to you, Saluez, people come this way only once every sixty Dinadhi years, which is about once a century, standard. Since that’s a generous lifetime, it’s unlikely anyone makes the trip twice. Suppose a traveler had noticed. Suppose he’d gone back to his hive and told someone. Would there have been any consequence?”
His superior tone implied there would have been none, and he was probably right. On Dinadh, whenever someone raises a “difficult” question, someone else can be depended upon to mutter, in that particular tone of hushed apprehension people always use on such occasions, “Perhaps it’s part of the choice.” Once the choice is mentioned, all conversation ends. Only songfathers are allowed to discuss the choice, along with the rest of their arcane lore.
I suppose my thoughts showed on my face, for Leelson said:
“As I thought. No one would have done anything at all about it.” Then he shared one of his infuriatingly smug looks with Trompe.
Lutha glanced at me from beneath her lashes, and I blinked slowly in sympathy. We were both thinking that Fastigats were impossible. She took my hand and we walked back to the wagon behind the men. I was wondering if our being here was blasphemous, but Lutha had a different concern.
“From here, they look like a herd of great horned beasts, don’t they? If they’re artificial, why are they here?”
Leelson stood for a moment in thought, then fetched Bernesohn Famber’s map from the wagon, unrolled it on the ground, and put a stone on each corner to hold it down. Kneeling beside it, he pointed with an extended forefinger.
“The important geographical features are all shown on this map, canyons, tablelands, hives, and so forth—even the omphalos, beside this winding river on what seems to be a flat plain. The Nodders, however, are not shown.”
“That is, they’re not printed on the map,” said Trompe, underlining the obvious.
Leelson continued. “No. The word Nodders has been written in, probably by Bernesohn himself. He learned about them a century ago. Either someone told him about the Nodders or he himself came this way.”
I said, “But Bernesohn Famber wouldn’t have been allowed to go to the omphalos. He was an outlander.”