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"Mm hm. And how many of you people are there?"
"Ftun, " said the boy.
"Very informative.''
"Sure," said the boy. "Ftun is for number."
"How much number, three?" said Jai. The boy looked at him oddly.
"No," he said (and here he concentrated and seemed to murmur to
himself), "it's it's " Here he stopped.
"Many many?" said Jai, rising his eyebrows indulgently.
"Yes," said the boy, his face expressionless.
"Very many many?"
"Eleven thousand nine hundred and seventy-seven."
"Not large," the boy added carefully, "but optimum. So they tell me." He
averted his eyes.
Then he slipped his arm from Jai's and dashed off the path, pausing
only to turn around once with a look that might have been imploring and
might have been nothing. He disappeared behind the trees. Fool! Fool! Jai
cried to himself in horror, You fool! and ran after him.
But the boy was gone.
Back at the ship the Captain was sitting on the ground with his lap full
of small, transparent plastic plates. There was a tangle of silver wire near
him and a wire-cutter, but he did not appear to be using these; he was
balancing the plates one on top of the other like a house of cards and
plugging into their edges jewels, boxes, rings, little blue cubes. The grass
was full of them. When he noticed Jai, he vaulted to his feet, knocking over
what he had been doing. The thing fell on to its side: rigid.
"Why do they stick together?" said Jai.
"Pre-formed modules," said the Captain. "Radio." Then he said, "Good
God, man, what happened?"
"Prime number," said Jai Vedh, "eleven thousand nine hundred and
seventy-seven. Can't be factored." He sat down by the Captain's house of
cards: winking, flashing, lost, fabricated in a place so far away it didn't
even show up in the night sky from Earth. The thing was lying on its side
in the grass with the transparent plastic plates showing various
roughnesses within, structures of wire, ceramic bases, striations, dots. He
said:
"It's not a round number."
"Are you cracking again, mister?" said the Captain.
"No. It's not a round number. Not in our decimal system, obviously. Not
in the duodecimal system. I tried everything up to nineteen. It won't
factor. I think it's a prime number."
"Mister " began the Captain.
"It's the number of people on this planet. It's not a round number. It's
prime. It's a large number. The names for numbers like that are long, very
long. For the round numbers we say: one hundred, ten million, nine
thousand; that's short. But not a prime, not a big prime, you can't say that
in one syllable."
"And?"
"Eleven thousand, nine hundred and seventy-seven is Ftun. I give you
my own, improper, accented version. One syllable. What is eleven
thousand, nine hundred and seventy-eight? Or four million, two hundred
thousand, three hundred and eighteen? I leave it to your imagination."
"You believe," said the Captain, "whatever any damn fool tells you," and
he sat down again and began to work again on the radio.
"I don't believe in that number," said Jai, "and I don't believe in the
population. But I believe in that word. I believe the boy was translating
from one number system to another, and I try, I try very hard, military
man, to conceive a language in which every number up to more than ten
thousand has its own, separate name."
"And?" said the Captain.
"I think this colony is much more than a hundred and fifty years old.
And I think that thing you're making is going to broadcast about as well
as a Christmas tree."
"Why, civilian?" said the Captain, laughing.
"Because they don't want us to leave. They don't want anyone to know."
"Know?" said the Captain. "Know what? We'll leave. By Christmas." He
looked up, grinning. "By Christmas, civilian. The three hundred and fifty
ninth day of the three hundredth year. A.B. After Beginning. Or bomb, as
they say. Put it into six calendars: Mohammedan, Jewish, Indian,
Gregorian? And every little settlement that doesn't take Earth time. But
still Christmas." He grinned even wider. "Only two syllables, eh? Like ftun,
"and he burst out laughing all over again.
"You stupid, stupid bastard!" said Jai Vedh, leaning over the radio.
"You stupid, smug bastard, can't you see "
"Take your hands off that," said the Captain, in a surprisingly emotional
voice. "Don't touch that." He got to his feet and moved the radio to one
side with his foot. "And don't be so impressed, mister, with little boys. "
Jai hit him, as he had been taught (for he had many hobbies), solidly
under the jaw, snapping the man's head back. The Captain staggered. He
lunged at Jai and Jai helped him over on to his back, wrenching his arm
for good measure. He watched the big man get up, wishing he himself
were not in sandals; his feet slipped in the thongs and something, some
chronic humiliation, weighed on him, hurt him, made him slow. He
couldn't take his eyes off the Captain's boots. Now that the first round was
over. The Captain was circling carefully, face very serious, shuffling in the
leaves, crushing them, crushing the grass. Now God help me! thought Jai.
You're the best student I've had but you'll never win a real fight&
He woke, excruciatingly nauseated, lying on his side and seeing two of
everything. Someone, kneeling over the Captain, seemed to be beating the
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