"Sounds likely. - Oh, here's something edible, these in particular have had their fresh edges cut off but this species of mushroom is the kind that's good to eat. Further into the woods it's less likely anyone will have gotten to them yet."

"Okay. I don't mind going for long walks."

"Convenient, that," she says with a touch of wryness that is the first emotional expression she hasn't carefully controlled. "It's a bit of a trek from here to the nearest station, too."

"Station?"

"A place which, if you go there, you won't have to walk the whole way to where the school is. Over in that direction."

"What is the not walking thing?"

She can go into some detail about their railway, although she knows much more about the schedule and maintenance costs than she does about how it works. Something something gravity? Something something wheels? If Tarinda wants to hear about the recent debate about whether to subsidize tickets, Carey was around for that.

Mostly she just wants more words and words about trains are more likely to be useful than words about mushrooms but the ticket subsidy debate is fine too.

"So there's an argument that there's a compelling public interest in - uh, that everybody is better off with more people using public transit, because some things people use it for are good for more people than just themselves. For example because it facilitates sending children to school, or feeding the people up north who are using their land for things besides food. The alternative is - oh, those fruits are edible, by the way," she says, pointing out a bush that grows rambutans despite not being the sort of plant on which rambutans from Earth normally grow. "Anyway, the alternative is to leave it to the market, which is an approach that we generally expect to scale more easily as the population increases. And it is increasing faster, because it increases as a function of how many people there already are..."

She can just go on like that, giving the impression that she thinks everyone's arguments make a lot of sense and it's a hard decision.

Tarinda picks some rambutans and eats them as they walk, staring all the while at her escort's hands.

Words words words. Carey is very easy to convince to expound at length about various aspects of Sathend's infrastructure.

" - Oh, and don't eat that kind of mushroom unless you want to die - and that bush over there will have nuts in a few months - "

Then by the time they head back to civilization Tarinda will be much better able to talk! About, for example, auditing classes. Since there's no way for her to learn signs any more rapidly than watching them.

Carey can give her directions to the school, and assure her that's what it's there for, but does not in fact handle enrollment.

"I think one of our historians was hoping to get the chance to talk to you at your soonest convenience - in case you recognize anything from the old world - but you can probably convince him to talk while you're on your way."

"That would be best!" she agrees.

Carey beckons to the guy with the old illustration who came with her. "Why don't you show Tarinda to where she wants to be, and show her your other things while you do that?"

"I can do that - Tarinda, the school first?"

"Yes please!"

He starts walking. Heading, actually, for the nearest railway station; it'll take them straight there.

"I was hoping you'd be able to tell me if any of this looked familiar or like your world," he says along the way, offering her the illustration he brought. It's hard to parse, done by someone who was an amateur at best, and done from memory; it was supposed to be a few people sitting outside at a café, one of them in a button-down gesturing with their pastry as someone in tie-dye makes a show of ignoring them in favor of what might be a smartphone.

"...I could try drawing a similar scene that would have been like what my world used to be like but I can't be sure from the picture."

"If you run out of other things on your to-do list, it'd be good. What if I tell you an old story and you tell me if you recognize it?"

"I would like that!"

"Once upon a time, a mage created a world singlehandedly, a world bigger than Sathend, and he ruled the world he created. In this world, there was a man, whose name was Job," but unfortunately the sign used here is made up out of whole cloth, "and Job had a happy family and everything he needed or wanted. He was very fond of the creator, because of this; he believed the creator was a good person and sent him gifts all the time. One of the creator's children, who was also a mage, and was known as the enemy, said to the creator: 'Job only likes you because you give him things, not for who you are, not even for what you do for other people. If he wasn't rich, he would hate you.'

"And the creator said: 'I don't think so. I think he would like me even if he lost everything. And if you want to test that, go ahead.'

"So the enemy stole all of Job's things and murdered all of his pets. And Job sent a letter to the creator, asking for help, and the creator didn't answer. But when the creator and the enemy read the letter together, they found that it was entirely polite and even deferential, and said nothing even slightly unkind about the creator.

"'Oh,' said the enemy, 'that's only because he's still healthy and has his family. If he were really hurt he would stop loving you.'

"And the creator said: 'Of course not! He truly loves me. It's not just because he wants things from me. Go ahead and test that.'

"So the enemy did test that. He killed one of Job's children and told another lies about Job that made her run away and hide. And then he cursed Job with sickness.

"Job once again wrote to the creator to ask for help, and now also to ask why this was happening to him, and for a while he received no reply. His friends came to be with him, to try to comfort him and try to figure out why the creator would let this happen. His friends didn't believe he wasn't being punished for doing something wrong; they thought the creator would never do anything so cruel as this. Job insisted it wasn't like that. Job insisted that he had never done anything to deserve this; one of his friends asked him if he was saying that the creator was cruel and shouldn't be in charge. This was a serious accusation, in their world, because if you said that someone who was in charge shouldn't be, you would be punished; they didn't have democracy, yet, and people ruled those they were stronger than.

"And Job said he would never say such a thing. He didn't believe that the creator was cruel; he didn't believe he was being punished; he was just confused.

"A transcript made its way to the creator, who finally came to visit Job. Job, by this point, was feeling frustrated, and said, 'I have done nothing wrong and I don't see why you let this happen to me. It isn't fair! If we were equals and went to a judge the judge would say you were in the wrong!'

"And the creator said, 'Such brave words, when you know I could destroy you with a thought. What do you think gives you the right to say such things?'

"And Job backed down. He agreed that he was as nothing, next to his creator.

"For this, his creator had mercy, and healed him, and suggested to all his friends that they ought to each give him something nice. Eventually, Job once again had every material good he wanted or needed.

"There are two versions of this story recorded in the chronicles: one that is incomplete and explicitly original to the writer, and one that is even harder to understand than most of the old records but explicitly not original. This retelling draws as heavily on the latter as is feasible."

"Are the records in knots?"

"Yes, but - differently. The words go in a different order sometimes, and some of the meanings have changed - you can see an example, if you want, I've go some in my bag." He offers her an excerpt from Life Before which starts explaining the concept of dairy products, stops to explain germ theory, and then digresses from germ theory into historical book genres.

"The story is not totally different from a story that exists in my world. But if there were any drawing-words instead of knot-words to look at, I can use those much faster to learn things."

"Drawing words exist but there really aren't many examples - at the college there's a collection of reproductions of all of them, though."