"Continue on, lad? Continue on? That’s madness. We’d end up sailing upriver forever."

"How do you know that?"

Keenir puffed his muzzle in exasperation. "It’s in the books, eggling. Surely you’ve read the books!"

Afsan bowed slightly. "Of course, sir. Believe me, an apprentice does little but read. Perhaps I should try my question another way. How did the authors of the books know that the River continued on endlessly?"

Keenir blinked twice. He had obviously never thought about this. "Why, from other books, I’d warrant."

Afsan opened his mouth to speak, but Keenir raised his left hand, claws slightly extended. "Hold your tongue, boy. Grant me some intelligence. Your next question was going to be, And how did the authors of these earlier books know the truth?’ " Keenir clicked his teeth in satisfaction. "Well, they knew it through divine revelation. They knew it directly from God."

Through force of will, Afsan kept his own tail from thumping the deck in frustration. "And all knowledge is gained thus? By divine revelation?"

"Of course."

"But what of the discovery by the Prophet Larsk of the Face of God itself? That was only a hundred and fifty kilodays ago, long after the end of the age of prophecy told of in the holy writings."

"Prophets come when they are needed, lad. Obviously God beckoned Larsk on, to sail farther and farther until he came upon the Face."

’’There’s no chance Larsk simply stumbled onto the Face by accident? That he sailed so far east out of — out of curiosity?"

"Eggling! You will not speak thus of the prophet."

Afsan bowed quickly. "My apologies. I meant no blasphemy."

Keenir nodded. "Saleed said you were prone to speaking without thinking, lad."

Speaking without thinking! Afsan felt the muscles of his chest knot. Speaking without thinking! Why, I speak because I am thinking. If only others would do the same — "Honorable Captain, did you ever eat plants as a child?"

Keenir scowled. "Of course. Gave me a monstrous bellyache, too. I imagine every youngster tries to eat things he or she shouldn’t."

"Exactly. You were doing a different kind of thinking, sir. You had seen some animal — a hornface, perhaps, or an armorback, or maybe a turtle — munch away on some plant. You said to yourself, ’I wonder what would happen if I ate some plants myself.’ And you found out — you got sick. We, and the other carnivores, such as the terrorclaws and even the wingfingers, can’t eat plants. We can’t digest them."

"So?"

"So, that’s a way of looking at the world that scholars use. You make an observation: some animals eat plants and some do not. You propose an idea, a pre-fact, shall we say, a statement that might be a fact or might not: I can eat plants, too. Then you perform a test: you eat a plant. You note the results: you get sick. And you draw a conclusion: my pre-fact was in error; it is not a true fact. I cannot eat plants."

"Afsan, you credit youngsters with too much thought. Observations! Pre-facts! What nonsense. I just stuck some leaves in my mouth and swallowed. I’d done the same thing with dirt, with pieces of wood, and so on. It wasn’t some grand test. It was just the silliness of childhood."

"Good Captain, forgive me, but I don’t think so. I believe you did go through every one of the steps I described, but so quickly, so seamlessly, that you might not have been aware of it."

Keenir’s tone was hard. "You are presuming a great deal, eggling."

"I meant no presumption, but surely…" Afsan thought better of what he was about to say, stopped, swallowed, and tried again. "Scholars have found that there is value in this method of inquiry."

"Well, if it got you to stop eating plants, I suppose there is." Keenir clicked his teeth in self-satisfied amusement.

"May I tell you of some other observations I’ve made?" asked Afsan.

"Lad, I’ve got chores to perform." He looked pointedly down his muzzle. "I suspect you do, too."

"I will be brief, sir. I promise."

"By the prophet’s claws, lad, I don’t know why people put up with so much from you. Somehow, even Saleed takes you seriously. And you’ve got the ear of the crown prince." Keenir was silent for a moment, and Afsan thought about what he’d said. Saleed takes me seriously? Ha! At last, the old captain spoke again. "Very well, Afsan. But I’ll hold you to your promise of brevity. There’s only a few days until we set sail again, after all."

Afsan decided that it would be politic to click his teeth in appreciation of Keenir’s joke. Then: "I’ve been making observations with the far-seer and with my own unaided eyes. I’ve seen that the Face of God rose into the sky as we moved east, until, as now, it’s at its highest point. It can rise no farther into the sky, for it sits directly overhead. I’ve seen, too, that it goes through phases, just as the moons do, and just — as I’ve learned by looking upon them through the far-seer — as some of the planets do."

Keenir raised his muzzle, exposing the underside of his neck, a gesture of mild concession. "I’ve used the far-seer myself to have a peek at the planets. I was mildly intrigued by that. Told Saleed about it, but he dismissed what I’d seen."

"Indeed?" said Afsan, grateful that Keenir had been curious enough to make some observations himself. "I think it’s significant."

"Well," said Keenir, his voice a low rumble, "I did wonder how what previously had seemed only a point of light could show phases."

"I’m sure you saw through the far-seer that some of the planets show visible disks, Captain. They appear as points of light only because they are so far away."

"Far away? The planets are no more distant than the stars, no farther than the moons. All the objects in the sky move across the same celestial sphere, just sliding along it at different rates."

"Uh, no, sir, they don’t. I’ve made models and I’ve done figuring on writing sheets." Afsan paused, took a deep breath. "Captain, my observations lead me to propose a pre-fact: the world is spherical, just as the moons are spherical, just as the sun is spherical, just as the Face of God is spherical."

"The world spherical? How can that be?"

"Well, sir, surely you have stood on the docks at Capital City and seen the tops of masts of ships appear at the horizon before the rest of the ship does." Afsan held up his right fist and moved a finger of his left hand over its curving surface. "That’s the ship coming over the curve of the world."

"Oh, don’t be silly, boy. There are waves in the great River — you can feel them tossing this boat right now. Well, some waves are so big and so gentle that ships move over the crests and troughs without us being aware of it. That’s what causes the effect you’ve described."

Can he really believe that? thought Afsan. Does he accept everything he reads so easily, without question? "Sir, there’s a lot of evidence to make me believe that the world is round. It must be! A sphere, a ball, whatever you want to call it." Keenir’s tail was swishing in disbelief, but Afsan pressed on. "Further, this round world is mostly covered with water. We, here in the Dasheter, are sailing not on a River but rather on the watery surface of our spherical world, as if almost the entire surface was a — a — super-lake."

"You’re saying we’re a ball of water?"

"No, I’m sure the rocky floor we see beneath the coastal waters continues all the way around, even here, out where it’s far too deep for us to see the bottom. No, our world is a sphere of rock, but mostly covered by water."

"Like a raloodoo?"

"Like a what?"

"Eggling, they don’t feed you apprentices well enough at the palace. A raloodoo is a delicacy from Chu’toolar province. You take the eye of a shovelmouth, remove it carefully, and dip it in the sugary sap of a mladaja tree. The sugar hardens into a crunchy coating over the surface of the eyeball."