Far-Seer

Afsan tried grouping them into categories. The sun and the stars, for instance, were apparently self-illuminating. The planets, the moons, and, yes, the Face of God, seemed to shine by reflected light. No, no, it wasn’t that easy. Some of the planets seemed not to be self-illuminated, judging by the fact that they went through phases. But others, notably those highest in the night sky, did not go through phases. Perhaps those planets were self-illuminated. But that didn’t seem right. Two types of planets? Surely it was more likely that they were all the same.

And what about the moons, those fast-moving disks in the firmament? They all went through phases, and with the far-seer every one of them showed surface details, even tiny Slowpoke.

Afsan strained to think. In all his life, the only sources of light he’d ever observed were things aflame. Even the sun appeared to have the heat and brightness of a burning object. Candles, lamps, fires produced by campers for heat—on none of these had he ever observed surface details. No, the moons must be shining by reflected light. And what could the source of that light be? The sun seemed the only candidate.

The thirteen moons were spherical—of that much Afsan was sure. He could see surface features that rotated around. Indeed, even without the far-seer, such details were obvious. Saleed had a globe of the Big One in his office, after all, made by Haltang, one of Afsan’s predecessors, from naked-eye observations.

And the planets? Although still indistinct in the far-seer, they seemed to be spherical, too.

Well, if the planets and moons were all ball-shaped, and all illuminated by the sun, then the phases must be simply the effect of seeing part of the lit and unlit sides simultaneously.

He clenched his hand into a fist and held it up to the cabin’s flickering lamp. Moving it back and forth, left and right, he could indeed alter the amount of the visible portion that appeared to be illuminated, ranging from none, if he rose to his feet and placed the fist between his face and the lamp, to almost all, if he interposed the lamp between his eyes and hand.

Afsan let himself down onto the floor, laying his belly against the reassuring solidity of the wooden planks. Why, he asked himself again, do only some of the planets go through phases?

He stared at his cabin wall, the timbers creaking slightly, as they always did, under the tossing action of the waves. In one of the timbers was a knot, a darker swirling pattern of grain. Over time, it had dried and shrunk away from the surrounding wood so that it almost floated freely within the wall plank. Afsan had grown fond of this knot over the 130 nights he’d spent in this cabin. It wasn’t exactly a piece of art, but it did have a random aesthetic quality to it, and the swirling grain reminded him of the patterns across the Face of God.

But, of course, unlike the Face of God, the knot was always completely visible. It didn’t go through phases—

—because it was farther from the source of illumination than Afsan himself was!

Of course, of course, of course. Afsan felt his blood surging. He pushed himself up to his feet again. Some of the planets were nearer to the sun than he was and some were farther away. That made perfect sense.

Except.

Except, how could it be thus? The perspective was all wrong. Surely it must be, rather, that in order of increasing distance from the great mass of Land we had some planets, and then the sun, and then some more planets.

The paths they traveled in must be closed loops—probably circles—since astrological charts showed that the planets always came back to the same point in the sky, each in its own time. And those that underwent phases completed their circular paths more quickly than those that did not.

Further, those that underwent phases never varied from their circular paths, whereas those that didn’t show phases would periodically go into a backwards motion. They would move in the opposite direction across the sky for a space of many days before returning to forward motion.

Afsan headed up on deck, the great circle of the Face of God almost fully illuminated overhead, even though it was the middle of the night. He’d wanted to get something from the galley to help him visualize all this, but the spectacle made him stop in his tracks, lean back on his thick tail, and stare at the zenith, at the banded sphere covering a quarter of the sky.

It was the middle of the night.

The Dasheter and the River were in darkness.

The sun was invisible, having set many daytenths ago, off to the west.

It was the middle of the night.

And the Face of God was fully illuminated.

Afsan stared and stared and stared, his brain churning like the waters around the boat.

The middle of the night.

The Face aglow.

God eyes moving up the widest part.

Like shadows…