“They’re dead or dying,” Eupril answered. “We’ve had to order fresh stock, and it’ll be months before we have any to spare.”
Thilling, never one to miss important news, had accompanied Lesh back to the city, and stood beside Awb listening keenly. Now, however, she muttered, “This could go on for ages. Come with me. You said you’d like to be my apprentice, so let’s see if you can learn to trim a lens while I develop the images I’ve caught so far.”
Excited, he followed her down into the very core of the city, where the junqs fretted and throbbed, dreamlost perhaps in visions of their ancestral freedom. Here a small dark bower had been assigned to the picturist, which she could make entirely light-tight. Judging by the stink of juices and concentrates which blew from it when she finished work, it must be very unpleasant in there. Awb began to have second thoughts. But he willingly accepted the blade she gave him, and paid total attention when she demonstrated how to cut loose the full-grown lenses that bulged from the plants she had hung to nearby branches.
“Here are the measurements for a mid-range lens,” she said. “Try this kind first. If you spoil one I shan’t mind. If you spoil two, I’ll be disappointed. If three—well, I’ll probably part you torso from mantle! Understood?”
Awb signed yes.
“Get on with it, then. Go back where there’s better light. And take your time. I may not be through with this lot before sundown.”
And indeed the sun was touching the horizon when she rejoined him. He had completed two of the lenses, and the second was flawless as near as he could tell, but he waited on her verdict nervously.
“Hmm! Very good!” she pronounced, surprised and pleased. “More than I can say about the one I have on the fixer at the moment. I mean, look at these, will you?”
She flourished a selection of the sheets she had exposed in the morning. Awb examined them. To his untutored eye they appeared satisfactory, and he said so.
“No, look again! Here, here, here!”—each time with a jab of her claw. “There’s a blur, there’s a smear, there’s a streak … At first I thought the fixer must be leaking light, but I’ve checked and doublechecked. I suppose there must be a blister in the lens, but I can’t locate it.”
Awb ventured, “But then wouldn’t the blurs always reappear in the same place? And these don’t.”
Taken aback, she said, “Give those back to me … Hmm! I wonder if it could have to do with the angle of incidence of the light—No, that wouldn’t fit either. And most of the early ones, come to think of it, are all right. It’s only from about the point where we climbed up the rockfall that I started having trouble. Maybe a wind-blown drop on the lens, but I was careful to shield it … Oh, I can’t figure it out, unless…” She fixed him with a stern glare. “You didn’t drop the leaf-pack by any chance?”
“No, I promise I didn’t!” Awb cried, recoiling in alarm. “And if I had, surely the damage would show on one edge or one corner?”
“Ah … Yes, of course it would. I’m sorry.” Thilling clattered her mandibles in confusion. “This makes no sense at all, you know. It’s as though some trace of light—very bright light—got through the pack-wrap, and…”
“A fault in the making,” Awb offered.
“I suppose so.” All of a sudden she sounded weary. “But I never had trouble with my supplier before. I’ve been trying not to arrive at that conclusion, because if all the leaf-packs I have with me are faulty, I might as well not have come.”
Startled to find himself in the unprecedented situation of having to reassure an adult, Awb said, “Please, you’re making too much of this. As far as I could tell, those images were fine until you pointed out the flaws. Nobody is likely to notice what worries you so much, except maybe another picturist.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Thilling sighed. “Let’s go and eat something. I’ve had enough for one bright, or even two.”