Four
The Kihtomer had been at warp for three hours.
There were another seven before the first course correction.
Ensign Meret had taken off her boots.
This was permitted in the observation lounge and nowhere else on Deck Four, a distinction she had once asked someone to explain and had regretted almost immediately.
She had one foot tucked beneath her and was reading from a tablet.
“Four.”
Lieutenant Kes looked up from his tea.
“What?”
“Four.”
“I heard you.”
“No. There are four fours.”
He waited.
Meret turned the tablet toward him.
“The Neral use different forms of four depending on what they’re counting.”
“Such as?”
“Four grazing animals. Four tools. Four people.”
“Those are all four.”
“That’s what I said.”
At the next table, Commander Ilyan was eating soup.
Meret scrolled farther.
“Fish are worse.”
Kes put down his cup.
“How?”
“Four fish and four schools of fish use different fours.”
“That makes sense.”
Meret looked at him.
“No, it doesn’t.”
“A school isn’t a fish.”
“It’s made of fish.”
“So is dinner.”
Ilyan looked into her bowl.
Neither of them asked.
Meret went back to the tablet.
“A school can be one.”
“Yes.”
“And also hundreds.”
“Yes.”
“Then which is it?”
Kes shrugged.
“Depends what you’re counting.”
“I’m counting fish.”
“Then hundreds.”
“What if I’m counting schools?”
“One.”
Meret frowned.
“That’s cheating.”
Ilyan took another spoonful.
“Only if you already decided the fish are the ones.”
Meret looked over.
“The ones?”
“The things you’re counting.”
“That’s what counting is.”
“Apparently not on Neral.”
Meret read for another minute.
The stars did not move outside the windows. At warp they never did, although almost everyone who came into the lounge looked anyway.
“Ships,” Kes said.
“I’m getting there.”
“You said that ten minutes ago.”
“There are examples.”
“Find ships.”
Meret scrolled.
Then stopped.
“Oh.”
Kes waited.
“They can count ships. They just don’t use the ship as the unit for traffic.”
“What do they count?”
“Departures.”
Kes leaned toward the tablet.
“Departures?”
“From one port to another.”
“So a round trip is one?”
“No. Two.”
“One round trip.”
“Two departures.”
“Opposite directions.”
“They don’t cancel.”
“I didn’t say they canceled.”
“You were about to.”
“I was not.”
Meret kept reading.
Kes picked up his tea again.
“So if the same ship makes three round trips—”
“Six.”
“Even though there’s only one ship.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Meret looked at the tablet.
This time she didn’t answer.
Ilyan did.
“What would you count at a port?”
“Ships.”
“For berths?”
“Ships.”
“Passengers?”
“People.”
“Cargo?”
“Containers. Mass, maybe.”
“Traffic?”
Kes paused.
“Departures.”
Meret looked back at the tablet.
“So they know the ship.”
“Of course.”
“They just don’t need it every time.”
Ilyan took another spoonful.
For a while nobody said anything.
Meret looked through the window.
Nothing outside appeared to move.
After a while Kes said, “So the same ship can become two.”
“No,” Meret said.
“The ship doesn’t.”
Ilyan looked up from her soup.
“The event does.”
For a little while nobody spoke.
The ship continued toward somewhere else.
WE&P by: EZorrillaMc&Co.
Travel in Life 