And that's about when someone else comes looking for Tarinda.

And what can Tarinda do for them?

"Tara who does mage scheduling sent me." This person is not herself a mage, though. "She said - you can explain what Sing is and how to be Sing to ordinary metal, your specifications for what shape it had to be didn't say it had to be alive or magic or have a brain or know anything at all yet. Right?"

"Right. It can be totally blank, and then the thing I already have can tell it how to be Sing."

"Tara thinks if we can safely get you in to meet with it you should explain it to the magic, since the magic doesn't have less background than a piece of copper wire."

"What do you mean safely get me in to meet with it?"

"Perceiving it changes people, depending on how they perceive it and for how long, I think you already know something about how the mages deal with that, but if you try to just do what they do without the amount of practice they have that also might be dangerous because you could trip or something."

"I'm not especially prone to tripping but I haven't tried being deaf and blind before."

"Yeah. And there's no reason anyone on Mars would know anything about guiding anyone, which is the obvious solution here but I think following a guide is also something you need to practice. Probably. I don't really know. I'd go ahead and do it if you've got things sorted so you won't just end up dead if you fall down a flight of stairs."

"Falling down a flight of stairs wouldn't be a big deal for me and Page did turn off its sensory last time I was asleep so I could get backed up."

"That's probably fine! How long do you think the explanation would take you, given that the magic probably won't need you to slow down for it?"

"That might depend on how you mean about the not slowing down. Like, I would probably have to explain what a computer is. Also if it can only understand me and not Page then Page has to slow down for me."

"I thought you explained what a computer was, wasn't that what you gave us the specs for?"

"Yeah - did it understand?"

"Probably? I don't think they've gone ahead and made it yet but they're usually not wrong about what's enough information to make something these days. And enough information to make it means the magic knows what it is, I mean, well enough to make one, not necessarily what it means - if it copies a book it doesn't know what the book means any more than the book knows - "

"Well, it doesn't need to know what Sing means, Sing can go into the computer after if it's set up right, so I guess that means it's a good idea to try at this point? - if the vote goes that way, I guess."

"They don't want to make Sing yet, but I guess it will probably save a lot of time after the vote if it's in favor. What they want now is for you to go and not make anything and just explain it, so that, first of all, the magic can notice if there's something wrong with it, and, secondly, so that the magic, which is no less capable of learning things than a piece of copper, can figure out how a piece of copper that was Sing could communicate without hurting people."

"Okay. I want to be - really really sure I understand how to explain things to the magic, first."

"Yeah, you should probably come and ask Tara or someone about that, I don't really know much better than you."

"Okay, lead the way."

She does that. It's not too far.

It's busy today, around the temple entrance; there are kids working in the garden and there's someone getting a sprained ankle healed and someone who's only there because their friend with a sprained ankle needed someone to lean on along the way and a pair of guards at the door who nod to Tarinda's guide and let them pass.

Inside and down a set of steps there's a room with several doors leading off it, including in directions that, given the proximity of the edge of the world, shouldn't actually lead anywhere. Two people who aren't mages are strategizing about who's going to carry how heavy a bag of hazelnuts from the market while three mages argue about whether it still makes sense to conjure food.

One of the mages who was at the meeting, the one who wears a lot of gaudy jewelry, is sitting on a soft seat where she's very visible from the entrance, doing something with schedule notes and an abacus that she can drop whenever. Tarinda's guide points out this last person. "That's Tara."

...is the etiquette, here, like, "tap her on the shoulder", or "walk up to her and hope she notices"...?

" - Oh, yeah, you wouldn't - I'll do it this time and you watch." She gets Tara's attention. "Hey, it's Crystal, I brought Tarinda."

"Hi!" Tarinda puts in.

"Glad you could make it. Are you up for explaining Sing to the magic?"