Nod, smile, pick up a small rock, smile, urge, urge.
"Oh, I really couldn't take-
Urge, urge. Grin, nod.
Brutha took the tiny mountain. It had a strange, unreal heaviness-to his hand it felt like a pound or so, but in his head it weighed thousands of very, very small tons.
“Uh. Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Nod, smile, push away politely.
“It's very . . . mountainous.”
Nod, grin.
"That can't really be snow on the top, can-
“Brutha!”
His head jerked up. But the voice had come from inside.
Oh, no, he thought wretchedly.
He pushed the little mountain back into Lu-Tze's hands.
“But, er, you keep it for me, yes?”
“Brutha! ”
All that was a dream, wasn't it? Before I was important and talked to by deacons.
“No, it wasn't! Help me!”
The petitioners scattered as the eagle made a pass over the Place of Lamentation.
It wheeled, only a few feet above the ground, and perched on the statue of Great Om trampling the Infidel.
It was a magnificent bird, golden-brown and yellow-eyed, and it surveyed the crowds with blank disdain.
“It's a sign?” said an old man with a wooden leg.
“Yes! A sign!” said a young woman next to him.
“A sign!”
They gathered around the statue.
“It's a bugger,” said a small and totally unheard voice from somewhere around their feet.
“But what's it a sign of?” said an elderly man who had been camping out in the square for three days.
“What do you mean, of? It's a sign!” said the wooden-?legged man. “It don't have to be a sign of anything. That's a suspicious kind of question to ask, what's it a sign of.”
“Got to be a sign of something,” said the elderly man. “That's a referential wossname. A gerund. Could be a gerund.”
A skinny figure appeared at the edge of the group, moving surreptitiously yet with surprising speed. It was wearing the djeliba of the desert tribes, but around its neck was a tray on a strap. There was an ominous suggestion of sticky sweet things covered in dust.
“It could be a messenger from the Great God himself,” said the woman.