The Forest at the Edge of the World(43)

Several in the audience gasped. Supposedly Terryp the historian had seen carvings in the rocks of the distant western ruins 120 years ago. That was one of the things that seemed so unbelievable: how could anyone carve rock?

But Captain Shin nodded. “We call them sculptors. There are a few in Idumea, and have been for quite some time. You can see their work on the Administrative Headquarters. Even one of Terryp’s associates began experimenting with carving large stone and was fantastically successful.”

The rare few in the audience who had actually travelled the distant eighty miles to Idumea murmured in agreement.

Mahrree smiled. “Thank you for making my point for me, Captain Shin. Until Terryp brought back those accounts no one here considered cutting stone. But now we have those who chisel stone for house foundations, and even sculptors in Idumea. Too often we make an assumption about an idea without contemplating if that assumption is correct. Cloth out of cotton plants? That seemed ridiculous generations ago. Now cotton is on everyone’s body in the hot Weeding Season.”

“Miss Peto,” the captain interrupted, “as fascinating as the history of cotton may be to you,” he said in a bored voice, “you’ve gotten off topic. You’re supposed to be making a case for where we came from.”

Mahrree rubbed her hands together. “Oh, but I am, Captain! I’m first establishing that we shouldn’t be quick to judge something. I believe we addressed this issue during our first debate?” She tapped her lips with her finger.

Captain Shin turned a slight shade of pink and gestured for her to go on.

She was having far too much fun. “My point is, perhaps our lives came from a possibility we haven’t even yet imagined. The world surprises us each year with new creatures and plants we never knew existed, so who knows what else there may be?” She beckoned to her students sitting near the front row.

Scowling, Teeria and Sareen picked up the large covered basket Mahrree left them and walked it up the steps of the platform. Captain Shin folded his arms and watched. Mahrree smiled smugly as the girls set down the basket on a table already waiting for it. They backed away and then bounded down the stairs to their seats.

“Thank you, girls. I know how that difficult that was for you.”

Mahrree opened the basket cover and recoiled slightly, but forced a smile as she faced the audience.

“We never know what the world may grow. I, for one, am suggesting,” she emphasized to the captain who was straining to see into the basket, “that all kinds of matter could become something more. Something greater than it originally started as.”

She reached into the basket and pulled out a large platter with something on it. What that was, exactly, no one could tell.

Captain Shin grimaced as the stench of it reached him.

On the kiln-fired pottery was a mass the size of a loaf of bread. Mostly white, it also had striations of gray, green, and bluish-black. Its texture was bumpy and slimy, and a bit oozy. As Mahrree set the platter on the table, the mass jiggled ominously until a puff of something rose up from it.

The audience, almost in unison, said “Ewww!”

Mahrree grinned. “This, as you see it right now, is not what it was yesterday, or the day before, or even the day before that, as my students will attest. They’ve observed its changes with me. This is . . . well, we don’t have a name for it yet.”

Captain Shin dared to take a few steps closer to inspect, still keeping his arms folded. “What is it?”

“Last week it was my midday meal,” Mahrree confessed. “I forgot about it at the school, and returned this week to discover that this . . . blob had grown. It seems the drawer I kept it in, along with some other items I had stored there for science experiments, produced this over the Holy Day.”

The audience began to chuckle and shift uncomfortably at the thought of the unrecognizable midday meal.

Captain Shin looked at Mahrree. “So this, essentially, is your cooking? And you’re still unmarried?”

Mahrree turned bright red as the audience burst into laughter.

“Don’t worry, Captain. I wasn’t ever thinking of inviting you over to share a meal.”

The audience oohed in sympathy as Captain Shin backed up.

“I’ll sleep better tonight with that knowledge. Thank you.”

The audience howled again as Mahrree rolled up her sleeves.

“Now,” she said loudly to draw their attention back to her, “as I said earlier, this is not what it was yesterday. It’s changing and developing. Perhaps, if left to stew and ferment over many generations, it may just develop into something even more intelligent than . . . the captain here.”