"I'm not sure what you mean," he says in Capital. In Hari: "ask him your math questions."

Maybe his cognitive functions are being affected by hunger.

"I'm sorry," she says politely to Saiu.

He has suggested that if she's found out about the wrong way he might get executed. And she thinks she might manage survival at this point, if he throws her out in anger.

It is very likely, she says to Valanda (in Capital), that she knows some math this world does not, does math in some different ways from this world, and so on. If she is truthful about her knowledge, Saiu might notice this. If this is the point, she can do that. Otherwise, she needs to try to pretend otherwise.

"She's hesitant to ask how to write some things because she isn't sure if her ideas are new and doesn't want you to steal the credit. Can we work out a deal where you don't tell anyone what she says?"

"Twenty-four rings."

"I don't have that many. Three?"

They work out a deal. Valanda pays extra. He is even less happy than before.

This really seems to be defeating the purpose. Not much she can think to do about it right now.

Could Valanda say 'truth' in Capital (which she will just said, so he doesn't have to already remember) if she should tell the truth about the math she knows?

If she says that whole phrase he'll tell her to tell the truth about the math, very heavy emphasis.

She says the whole phrase.

Understood (not that she was planning differently, with respect to not telling other truths).

Truth it is.

She's not sure how they divide up subjects here, she says to Saiu. She uses a somewhat different math-writing system. It goes by tens and has place value and a symbol for 0. Here are some things she doesn't know how to write in this system (she repeats the ones from before, if she knows the words from asking Valanda, and paraphrases otherwise). She knows adding and subtracting and multiplying and dividing numbers, and working with math and shapes, and working with variables and functions, and the math having to do with triangles, and some other things also. (She does not know how to say 'arithmetic' or 'geometry' or 'algebra' or 'trigonometry' and asking for translations is probably suspicious). (She purposely limits the list for now - she is still not entirely sure Valanda understands potential situations, here, and it is more possible to say more than to unsay.)

Saiu can guess some of what she means.

Variables are represented by whatever squiggle you happen to feel like making. He demonstrates with illusions on the wall. There's a straightforward equivalent to parentheses. There's a way to write fractions and negative numbers.

Math having to do with triangles? He knows some math having to do with triangles. Did she know the angles add up to a straight line? Isn't that neat. He's not really sure what math having to do with triangles she's thinking of but he's very interested in possibly meeting her again later when her Hari is better to ask her about her decimal system.

She did know that, it is very neat. Other shapes have similar things but triangles have other neat things.

She is working on her Hari!

Symbols for say sine (she paraphrases)? Exponents? Square roots etc? Logarithms? Infinity? Factorials? Permutations and combinations? Pi? (She paraphrases a lot). How do they write very large and very small numbers? (this is also relevant to her curiousity about mages, though she doesn't mention this.)

Saiu is pretty impressed that she came up with these ideas independently. There are conventions for writing some of them but others don't seem to be formalized the way she's used to. The ratio of a circle's circumference to its radius is approximately six and forty-one hundred-forty-fourths but it doesn't have a special name or symbol.

Math is very interesting.

She will ask him various other things. Are there things he thinks are important she may not have thought of? In between, she will try to acquire more world information. How much math do most people know? What kinds of things do people usually learn more math for? Where do new math ideas usually come from?

Educated people can do arithmetic, at least, but Saiu's not sure what else people learn if they don't care about the subject. Saiu can't really understand needing a reason besides how great math is to learn math. Math ideas come from people noticing things! Two hundred years ago a caralendar noticed that a cone has a third the volume of a cylinder with the same base and height. More recently a different caralendar came up with a trick for quickly finding all the primes up to a certain number.

If she wants to learn things systematically he can recommend a book! Just a ring for the recommendation! Valanda winces and scowls.

Math is great, but some people also want to use it for jobs. Do people usually do their own accounts? Does the government hire people to do math and figure out things like taxes? Do people learn math to build things?

Interesting! (She wants to ask if it is a coincidence that both were caralendri, but is wary of the topic without knowing more, and does not ask.)

She politely declines the recommendation.

What math is he usually hired to teach people?

Saiu does his own accounts. Math is used for taxes and building things and timekeeping and other things. So far this year he's taught four young agerah to do arithmetic but last year he had more interesting work, someone wanted to know how to draw regular polygons.

Oh, does he teach the timekeeping, she would like to know more about that.

Oh?

He talks about timekeeping for a while.

Eventually he's spent as long at this as Valanda paid for.

She pays attention. She thanks him.

Valanda closes and locks the door. He stares out the window for a while.

She won't disturb him. (She'll review math notes.) (Any Alpha instincts toward 'why on earth did you do that' and the like that weren't taken care of by being a Protector, practicing for and years of slavery more or less did for.)

(It does occur to her that if he decides to hit her lack of discerning sense is an additional factor that would make that a more dangerous proposition. She strategizes for how to attempt to handle that.)

"You eat when you finish your tide table. And so do I."

He leaves. Iri stays.

Does Iri by any chance know what's wrong? (And be at liberty to say?)

(Also, does Iri by chance know if the tide-table-orderers want to see her calculations?)

"Lost his job. Ariu doesn't think defense magic is the right kind and wants to try some other kind now. I don't know if they want to see your calculations."

That would certainly be a reason for a bad mood.

She thanks Iri for the information. Ariu? Also, does Iri by chance know why he suddenly decided to hire Saiu?

She will continue to assume they do, then, and write out the calculations in the local system, though she can still speed up the process by mental arithmetic whose answer she then writes down.

Aaaaaa. Iri is not an authority on anything. Aaaaaaaaaaaa!

Iri guesses.

"You couldn't do the work you're supposed to without knowing more math."

She can tell Iri is anxious, but not specifically about what. Produces some guesses.

Offers reassurance that she won't be annoyed by not-100%-correct information, that she is asking to have more information than she does otherwise not to make final conclusions from only that, and she won't be annoyed if Iri doesn't want to answer.

She's still curious about Ariu, if there is anything Iri could tell her.

She suspects from nonverbals she's getting better at this to be a guess and not knowledge. She thanks Iri anyway. ('Did it maybe occur to him to ask me first' is not a useful question to ask Iri, and she won't).

"Ariu wants to be immortal. I don't know anything else. Is there anything else I can do for you?"