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who loses eyes gets them back. To give up now would be a horrible mistake. If there’s a chance — any chance at all — that you might be able to see again, you owe it to yourself to pursue it.”
    “I owe it to myself to be a realist,” said Afsan. “That’s the principle that has guided my entire life. I’m too old to change now.”
    “Do a favor for an old friend, Afsan. Indeed, do yourself a favor. At least arrange a consultation with Nav-Mokleb.”
    “Mokleb?” said Afsan, startled.
    “You’ve heard of her?”
    “Well, yes. Dybo has been after me to talk with her as well. Says she might be able to do something about the bad dreams I’ve been having.”
    “Those continue to plague you?”
    “Yes.”
    Mondark’s tail swished across the floor. “That settles it. Go to Rockscape. I’ll contact Mokleb and send her out to see you.”
    “Dybo already has her coming out tomorrow morning.”
    “Good,” said Mondark. “Who knows? Maybe she’ll be able to cure both your bad dreams and your blindness.”
    There was no need for Novato to wait until morning; working inside the alien ark could be done as easily at night as day. It was even-night, anyway, the night upon which Novato usually did not sleep. She went to find Den-Garios, an old friend from Capital province who had long worked with her on the exodus project. They fetched two fresh lanterns and re-entered the ship, moving quickly down the corridors.
    Soon they were at the intersection marked by the circle of yellow pigment on the wall. Beneath the yellow circle was the ark-maker’s own numerical designation for this intersection. And there, down the perpendicular corridor, just as she’d left it, her sash. Heart pounding, she jogged over to it.
    “Right here,” said Novato, pointing at the wall. “This is where I saw the flashing.”
    Garios was about Novato’s age. He had an unusually long muzzle that gave him a melancholy look, and eyes that were small and close together. He peered at the wall. “I can’t see anything.”
    “No,” said Novato. “The lamp flame must be drowning it out. Here.” She stepped close enough to proffer her lamp to Garios. “Take this and walk down that corridor and go around the bend.”
    Garios set down the roll of leather he’d been carrying, dipped his long muzzle in acknowledgment, and did as Novato had asked. In the darkness, Novato pressed the side of her face against the wall. Nothing. Either the flashing had stopped, or perhaps her eyes hadn’t had enough time to adjust to darkness.
    She waited for a hundred beats, then tried again. Still nothing.
    It had been daytime when she’d been here before. Daytime and the flashing was happening.
    Now it was night, and there was no flashing.
    That made no sense. One lit lights at night, doused them during the day. This was exactly the opposite.
    Suddenly she thought of the matrix of black hexagons on the ship’s roof. They conducted heat from the sun somewhere, but only during the day, obviously. Could this have been where that energy was channeled?
    She called Garios back. He came, holding the pair of lamps in front of him, two long shadows following behind.
    “I can’t see the flashing anymore,” Novato said. “Hold the lamps steady, please. I want to examine this wall.”
    Novato turned her back so that Garios couldn’t see what she was about to do, then she forced her claws from their sheaths. Keeping them out of Garios’s view, she felt along the wall, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
    There.
    A seam.
    A juncture where two plates were joined.
    No one had ever found a seam before. The whole ship appeared to have been made inside and out from one continuous piece of blue material.
    Novato used her middle fingerclaw to trace the seam’s height. It came to a right-angle intersection and then continued along about a handspan below the top of the wall. By the time she was finished, Novato had outlined a rectangle going almost from floor to