Nation

I’ve seen them in my telescope at home! And then there is Saturn, which you call Fire. The Papervine Woman tied his hands to his belt to stop the god from stealing her daughters, yes?”
    “It’s just another god story for babies. I don’t believe it.”
    “It’s true. Oh, well. In a way—I don’t know about the Papervine Woman, but the planet Saturn has rings around it, and I suppose they do look like a belt when you see them at the right angle.”
    “It’s just a story.”
    “No! It’s been turned into a story. The moons are real! So are the rings! Your ancestors saw them, and I wish I knew how. Then they made up these songs and mothers sing them to their children! That’s how the knowledge gets passed down, except that you didn’t know it was knowledge! See how the gods shine? There are little plates of glass all over them. Your ancestors made glass . I’ve got an idea about that, too. Mau, when my father comes and I get back home, this place will be the most famous cave in—”
    It was horrible to watch her face change. It went from a kind of desperate excitement to dark despair, in gentle slow motion. It was as though a shadow had drifted across a landscape.
    He caught her before she fell, and he felt her tears on his skin. “He will come,” he said quickly. “There is so much ocean.”
    “But he would know the course of the Judy , and this is a big island! He should have gotten here by now!”
    “The ocean is much bigger. And there was the wave! He could be looking south, thinking the Judy capsized. He could be looking north, in case you were swept along. Oh, he will come. We must be ready.” Mau patted her on the back and looked down. The children, who had soon gotten fed up with looking at big dark things they didn’t understand, had gathered around and were watching them with interest. He tried to shoo them away.
    The sobbing stopped. “What was that little boy holding?” said Daphne hoarsely.
    Mau beckoned the child over and borrowed the new toy from him. Daphne stared at it and started to laugh. It was more like a panting noise, in fact, the noise made by someone too astonished to draw breath. She managed to say: “Where did he get these, please?”
    “He says Uncle Pilu gave them to him. He has been diving in the god pool.”
    Uncle Pilu, Daphne noted. There were lots of uncles and aunts on the island now, and not many mothers and fathers.
    “Tell the little boy I will give him an arm’s length of sugarcane for them,” she said, “and he can stretch his arm as long as he likes. Is that a trade?”
    “Well, he’s grinning,” said Mau. “I think just hearing the word sugarcane was enough!”
    “A mountain of sugar would not have been enough.” Daphne held up her purchase. “Shall I tell you what these are? They were made by someone who did not just watch the skies and sail to new lands. He thought about small things that make life better for people. I’ve never heard of them being made of gold before, but these are definitely false teeth!”
     
    When she was a lot older and had to deal with meetings all the time, Daphne remembered the council of war. It was probably the only one ever to have children running around in it. It was certainly the only one to have Mrs. Gurgle scuttling around in it with her new teeth. She had snatched them out of Daphne’s hand when she was demonstrating them to Cahle, and it was impossible to get anything off Mrs. Gurgle if she didn’t want you to take it. They were too big for her, and almost certainly she couldn’t eat with them, but if she opened her mouth in daylight, it was like looking at the sun.
    Pilu did most of the talking, but always with one eye on Mau. He talked so fast and hard that the words formed pictures in front of her eyes, and what she saw was the Agincourt speech from Henry V , or at least what it might have been like if Shakespeare had been small and dark and worn a little loincloth instead of trousers, or tights in Shakespeare’s case. But there was a lot more in there, and Pilu had one wonderful talent for a speaker: He began with the truth and then he hammered it out until it was very thin but gleamed like Mrs. Gurgle’s new teeth at noon.
    They were the oldest people! He told them their ancestors had invented canoes and sailed them under new skies, to land so far away they ended up back home! And they had seen farther than any other people! They had seen the four sons of Air race across the sky! They had