Exposure

An Uncle's Mile story

I see you’ve noticed the Founders’ Mural. Of course, of course, it is indeed very hard to miss! Quite unusual, is it not? Nonetheless, I assure you it’s accurate. The muralist, Tamara West, achieved a very exact rendering of the original image. That is, apart from a few changes dictated by later mores. The men’s halters, and those odd loin-piece things with the large buckles, were the style of Tamara’s era rather than the Founders’, and in any case were entirely absent from the scene at the time. No, don’t blame Tamara. She protested vigorously in favor of authenticity, but it was a necessary compromise to get the mural commissioned at all.

We keep the original picture in our archives, but not on public display. That’s to protect it from certain over-sensitive eyes, and also from the effects of light. You see, it’s not a drawing or painting, but a chemical photographic print. It’s one of very few from that time, and quite apart from its subject matter, its relevance to current controversies over image-printing makes it one of our more, let’s say, divisive artifacts. You may view it if you wish, but I’ll have to get the key from the Archivist when he returns from his observances, if you don’t mind waiting.

What we know about the photograph comes to us from Ary Sweetmeadow’s stories of her grandfather Wyatt Cooper, in the early years of the town of Uncle’s Mile. That’s Wyatt in the mural, on the right, kneeling in the front with his hand on the young woman’s… yes, that one. It was the spring of the sixth year of the settlement, while it was still a tributary settlement of Groves, ten years before the Refuge War. An itinerant photographer arrived from the lowlands…

—————

The wooden wagon creaked as the mule mounted the last stony incline onto the nearly level ground of Uncle’s Mile. The wagon was short, narrow, and tall, and enclosed on all sides, like a large cabinet on wheels. From within came a faint sound of glass bottles clinking against each other. There was a lingering smell of vinegar about it, not quite concealing a subtle peculiar metallic smell, and not quite overpowered itself by the more familiar odors of well-worked mule and unwashed human. On the side walls, the words “Doc Argentum, Photography” were painted in faded colors in an ornate script. Below that, in brighter fresh paint and simple block letters: “Light-Pictures on Paper.” The man leading the mule was tall and lean, a bit stooped, with a grey-brown beard and, barely visible beneath the broad brim of his hat, skin a shade of beige so pale you could almost call it white. Walking behind the wagon, holding it to help steady it over the remaining bumps in its path, was a young girl as dark as the man was light.

Forewarned of their coming by a message ridden from Groves the previous day, and by signals from the north watch post a few minutes earlier, Wyatt, Slow Uncle and an assortment of the village’s idly curious sharefolk were waiting at the open gate. Slow Uncle, a former ship’s carpenter, had more experience with the world’s oddities than the settlement’s other two remaining Proctors. Wyatt was there because the early word from Groves was that the Doc’s visit had something to do with him.

Slow Uncle left it up to Willa, an imposing woman who’d led the village militia since Proctor Dryden’s tragic accident and subsequent departure, to make introductions. “Welcome to Uncle’s Mile. We have a guest room for each of you, just ahead.”

The two travelers nodded, and the curious sharefolk turned toward the village center with barely disguised disappointment. Of course the necessary courtesies had to be observed before their burning curiosity could be satisfied. But the man came to their rescue, in a way. “Thank you for your welcome,” he said.  “I’m Doc Argentum, a photographic artist from west of Global, and this is my apprentice Raisa. I’m here for three things, if you’re amenable. To see your Facestones, to scavenge for the metal that’s my namesake, and naturally, to take your pictures.”

Two of those things were indeed of direct interest to Wyatt, as the manager of the rust mine where any scavenging for metal would most likely take place, and as the discoverer of the strange hoard of Facestones therein. But he only partly heard the Doc, because Raisa, having stepped forward at her introduction, had absorbed his attention. When partially hidden she had appeared a child a few years from womanhood, but now in the full late afternoon light it was clear she was actually a perfectly proportioned full-grown woman. She was just the smallest one Wyatt had ever seen. He had always been the smallest man in the village, after the late growth spurt everyone had assured him would happen during those arduous first two years in the new village had failed to arrive even five years later. But had he and Raisa been standing face to face, the top of her head would barely have reached the bottom of his ribcage.

“Very well,” Willa was saying. “Come and rest now, and share our meal if you wish. We’ll discuss your business afterward.” The photographers and their wagon continued up the path between newly planted fields, the creaking of Slow Uncle’s wooden leg competing with the wagon’s axle. Half of the villagers walked with them and the other half dispersed to complete interrupted work elsewhere.

—————

At this point, Ary’s written account goes on for several pages about exactly how the Proctors and sharefolk of Uncle’s Mile delegated authority, made community decisions, and negotiated with outsiders in those days. This is typical of stories of that time, but it’s not really very interesting or relevant, so with your permission I’ll skip over that part. What you do need to know is what the photographer was talking about. The metal he was after was silver, which is needed in small amounts for photographic chemicals, a fact that he was probably keeping secret along with all the other techniques of his craft.

The Facestones are a little harder to explain. They’re blocks of cut granite, about three by two by two hands, very uniform in size. Five sides of each one are rough-dressed, with the other rectangular side smoothed and polished. On the polished side of each one is carved a name, a date, and a detailed picture of a face. The carvings could only have been done by machine. They’re all different, but most of the dates are within a fifty year span of the twenty-first century, and all of the surnames begin with the letter C or D.

A different Wyatt and Slow Uncle story describes their discovery. Wyatt, prospecting for a source of iron oxide or scrap iron for re-smelting, followed a trail of tainted runoff water into the highlands southeast of Uncle’s Mile in the village’s second year. It was coming from underground, which seemed to be a dead end for Wyatt. He’d been hoping to find a collapsed ruin covered by vegetation. He didn’t have the means to delve a real mine. But he spent a few days digging anyhow, and found a drilled horizontal shaft, not a pipeline but a hole directly through the rock, wide enough to crawl through, blocked only in a few places by the remains of unrecognizable machinery of some sort. At the other end of the shaft was a long cavern, a broad delved tunnel blocked at both ends by a rockslide, and filled with a wealth of piled rust flakes and plastic and crumbled rubber and other ancient debris. Including, in one huge heap, the thousands of Facestones. Their strength and shape make them ideal for building, although they were difficult to transport out of there. There are many still in use today in buildings throughout the area, including our own cellar here. But the Founders had reservations about using them, and those persist to this day as well.

—————

“Maria Carmichael 11/02/2017,” read the Doc from the polished surface of a Facestone, The face was carved not in true relief but out of impossibly precise fine lines, all the same depth, that formed detailed highlights and shadows. Maria Carmichael was an elderly woman with short curly hair. Two rows of similar stones kept her company, lining both edges of the mill stream, facing the cheerful late-spring flow.

“I believe,” said Slow Uncle, “the stones are memorials, something like gravestones but made to all be put in the same place. The faces are mostly adults younger than this one, both men and women. If the dates are birth dates, the ages of the faces are consistent with them all having died together in some great disaster.

“Then, some of the memorial stones were lost in the rockslide in the hills. Likely the rust mine was once part of one of those enormous roads, maybe the continuation of the same road whose leveled ground we’re living on now.”

Wyatt added, “There aren’t any bones in there. The survivors of the rockslide might have escaped through the same tunnel I get in through.”

“Or bodies removed,” said Proctor Thumbs. “Listen, Doc, most people in the village don’t know all the details of what Wyatt found. Just a few who help Wyatt haul stones and metal back, and Uncle and me. We’d appreciate it if you two don’t spread the story around.”

“I’d like to take a photograph of it,” Doc said. “No doubt it’s pitch black in there, though.”

“But with nothing moving,” said Raisa. “A small amount of light would be enough, with a long enough exposure.”

“Very good,” said Doc. “But, think about a very large dark space. Bigger than any room. How might you go about lighting all of it, evenly enough?” Raisa’s expression turned pensive as she began thinking about the problem.

It was midmorning on the day after the photographer’s arrival, and the five of them were conversing on the far side of the commons. Anticipation of the service he was offering in exchange for their aid had suffused the village. While the little group was preoccupied showing Doc the various places around the village that might be suitable for taking portraits—a living subject had to be photographed in open sunlight—a subtle change was happening, out of sight, in the village around them.

Mirrors were as common in Uncle’s Mile as they were anywhere else. All you needed was any scrap of shinysheet and a suitable smooth surface or open frame to stretch it on. But this day, the young villagers were looking in those mirrors in a new way, thinking about what aspects of their present selves, or each other’s, they wanted to preserve, just this one time, against an always-uncertain future.

“What we really don’t know is how the carving was done,” said Wyatt, gesturing toward the silent smiling Facestones.

“They’re clearly photographic,” said Doc.

“But you just said, photographs work when the light changes a special ink on paper from light to dark. Like the way sunlight can make dye fade, only the other way around. Can light make lines on stone?”

“There were other kinds of photograph, made by turning light into numbers, and machines that could turn those numbers into a pattern of lines, and other machines that carved those lines on the stone with whirling motors, quick as a flash.”

Now it was Wyatt’s turn to look pensive, trying to make sense of what the Doc had said. He recalled Fletcher once telling him the Almagest was made of numbers. Which reminded him: “We sent in a query last year, and there’s no record in the Almagest of a lost memorial, though there were a number of disastrous events it could have been for. But most likely the reason for the Facestones and their loss both happened after the Almagest was made.”

—————

At this point, Ary’s written account goes on for several pages of conversation about how the villagers and their guests regarded the industrial civilization of the past: what they accomplished and failed to accomplish, what they did and didn’t leave behind, how ingenious or foolish or tragic or vile they had been. This is typical of stories of that time, but it’s not really very interesting or relevant, so with your permission I’ll skip over that part. Slow Uncle will get a nice little speech on the topic later on.

What I should mention, from that passage, is that a few more of the young villagers join the conversation, and they discuss arrangements for taking individual portraits over the coming days. Several of them urge the Doc to make sure the place chosen for the portraits has privacy. Slow Uncle suggests setting up some posts with lines strung between and sheets hanging from them. Thumbs doesn’t grasp the import of the request, and complains about the inconvenience. The Doc points out that some arrangements of that nature are necessary anyway, for improving the lighting for the photographs.

—————

A steady drenching overnight rain had dampened the ground, forcing Wyatt and Raisa to brave a muddy trail on their way to the rust mine, carrying moderately heavy packs. Their loads included equipment for her assignment to photograph the mine, including a camera, ‘plates’ that contained the light-sensitive material, and a number of small candle lanterns fitted with lenses and moveable reflective flaps for directing the light. The camera was a smaller version of the one the Doc would be using for portraits, but it looked to Wyatt like an almost featureless wooden box. His pack also contained provisions for both of them for an overnight stay. Other tools they might need, as well as a shelter outside the mine, were already in place at the site.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to get as good a photo as the Doc wants,” said Raisa.

“Do you think you’ll find the metal you need? I thought that was the main reason for going there.”

“Maybe. We usually find some in road ruins. Small bits that stand out, that have even smaller bits of s… of the metal in them. A Doc in Global knows how to separate it out, and then ‘my’ Doc knows how to make it into plates. I still have to learn that part.”

“So this whole trip is mostly about your education.”

“I suppose so.”

“That’s fine with me. ‘It doesn’t need to be done, but do it anyway to learn how’ makes up a good chunk of my life too.”

“Everyone’s. Before we’re done learning it’s already time to start teaching the next apprentice.”

Wyatt paused to take a drink of water and shift his load. He gave Raisa the water jug. “Sorry, I should have let you drink first. Now it’s got my spit on it.”

She smiled. “It won’t make much difference by the end of the trip.”

They continued on. “How did Doc learn to be a photographer? We were talking about the Almagest yesterday, I thought maybe from there.”

“No,” said Raisa. “The knowledge may be in the Almagest, but the Readers wouldn’t give it to just anybody if it is. The Doc says it’s been passed down, Doc to apprentice, for generation after generation, since before the Almagest.”

“Wow, could that be really true?”

They came to a place where some fallen trees next to a bare ledge gave them a view of the surrounding hills. Wyatt pointed to the contours of the shallow valley farther south. “We think the road of Uncle’s Mile goes around that way, climbing up, and then turns back to just past this ridge east of us. We cut off that distance by climbing over the ridge instead.”

For a while they concentrated on getting up the steeper section of trail. Wyatt watched her as she walked in front of him, not needing him to lead the way on the well-worn path. She was so light her feet barely seemed to touch the ground, while his were leaving deep tracks in the muddy sections. Her legs, bare between the bottom of her brief warm-weather shift and the tops of her boots, moved effortlessly, the dark smooth skin contouring with the flexing of the muscles beneath.

Wyatt needed something else to think about. He said, “So what’s the problem with the photograph you’re supposed to take?”

“I only have four lanterns. That won’t be nearly enough to throw light on the whole cave.”

“I have two lamps there too. And I thought you said you can open the camera for a longer time to make up for that.”

“Right, but the light won’t be even. What happens is, the things closest to the lanterns get too much light, ‘over-exposed’ we say, while the rest of the picture is still too dark.”

“We’ll just have to do the best we can with the lights we have,” said Wyatt. “It’s not like we can move them around while you’re taking the picture.”

Raisa stopped in her tracks. “Wyatt, that’s it! You’re a Doc!”

“What? No. The Doc, the real Doc, was telling us how we had to stay very still to be photographed. Things can’t be moving.”

“It’s different if it’s the light that’s moving. It’s hard to explain, but it’ll work. You’ll see.”

Back in Uncle’s Mile, Doc Argentum was finishing his preparations for portraits, and so were his would-be subjects. As he studied the angles of the sun and the natural backdrops and the likelihood of wind, they studied themselves, stealing time from their tasks to decide upon their best features and angles, or consider how their hair might be suitably trimmed or tied or oiled or plucked or arranged. Some of them consulted with the Doc about such things, who made suggestions of his own. They discussed it with each other as well, passing on suggestions and then returning to the Doc to made their requests.

They were familiar with one another, having shared limited living quarters, bathing, and heavy work. They were young and fit. They were not shy. They loved well and freely, within the limits of caution and promises made. They planned accordingly.

At the center of this unseen turbulence, Slow Uncle and the Doc got talking. 

“Am I going to be taking your portrait too?” the Doc asked.

“Why do you say ’take’ a portrait? When someone takes something from you, you don’t have it any more.”

The Doc looked bemused. “Well, it’s just the way my predecessors spoke. They could have said ‘make’ your portrait, but they used phrases like ‘take a photo’ and ‘capture an image’ instead. Tradition, I guess. Maybe it was because long ago, when photography was first invented, some people did believe being photographed took something away. There were primitive people who didn’t understand how a camera works, so they thought it was stealing their essence or soul. But that was just superstition. It’s really only light.”

Slow Uncle frowned. “Was it just superstition, though?” he asked.

“Of course. What else?”

“Well, look at history. Who were the first people to have their ‘pictures taken,’ not just once or a few times but over and over again, and then those pictures got copied over and over?”

“That happened before the camera. In ancient times, kings and emperors had their faces stamped on coins and carved on palace walls.”

“Right, Doc, and with photography that turned into dictators with their faces on banners and posters everywhere, and politicians in newspapers, and singers and actors and athletes, and then anyone odd or interesting on teevee. And by the latter days it was practically everyone, taking pictures and looking at each other’s pictures all through every waking day. 

“And what did all those people have in common? They were all insane. From the ancient kings thinking they were gods and so bent on conquest and adulation they ruined their nations time and again; to the politicians and actors who convinced themselves they deserved all the praise and attention and wealth they were getting, or else killed themselves with drink and recklessness; right down to the common people who couldn’t tell or couldn’t care when most of the world was ending around them.

“So, I’m just saying, maybe the cameras did take something away from them. Some very little thing, maybe, but it built up bit by bit until they couldn’t recognize the world any more.”

The Doc thought a bit, and answered, “That’s more than I know about latter history, so I can’t tell you you’re wrong. But I’m sure my camera doesn’t do that kind of harm. When you see how much trouble I have to go through just to make one picture, you won’t have any doubts.”

“Nah, it’s fine, Doc. For my part I can’t claim to know much about being sane anyhow.”

“From what people have told me about you, that seems to be a matter of debate” said the Doc. “By the way, can some of your young bucks help patch the leaks in the root cellar walls? I need it darker than dark in there to prepare my plates and complete my photographs. You’ll thank me next spring when your potatoes don’t rot.”

Several miles to the south, on the trail near the rust mine, Raisa was asking Wyatt, “Do you have someone special in the village?”

“Not really,” Wyatt answered. “I like most of the women well enough, and I’ve been with a few, but…”

“‘But…?’”

Wyatt sighed. “I was a few years younger than all the others when we all came to the new settlement. I’m as old now as most of them were then, but I’m still ‘the kid’ or ‘the boy’ to them. Being so short doesn’t help… oh, no offense, Raisa.”

“It’s okay to say it. I am indeed pretty small. Teeny tiny, even.” said Raisa. “And anyhow, I think it’s different for a boy… a man, I mean.”

“Yeah, fair enough. Even I think of myself as a boy among adults, a lot of the time, just from habit. It affects everything. Like, half the men have beards, but if I grow mine everyone says things like, ‘Oh, how cute, he’s trying to look older.’ Even Zoe…”

“Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. ’Even’ Zoe what?”

“I really do like her, and I think she likes me. But when we’re together she acts more like she’s teaching me, like I’m an unfinished project she’s working on. What I want is for her to just share with me. I get annoyed and start holding back and she doesn’t understand why.”

Raisa nodded. “Let me show you something,” she said. She sat down on a stone by the side of the trail and took a wooden rectangle from her pack. “This is a photographic plate, that we use in the Doc’s portable camera. Inside, under this cover, is the special treated surface that responds to light. Now, what do you think would happen if I held it up like this…” She faced the sliding cover of the intricately joined plate toward some loosestrife flowers growing by the side of the trail. “… and opened the cover?”

“Would it take a picture of the flowers?”

“No, it would not. And can you figure out why not, Doc?”

“Because… you couldn’t hold it still enough?”

“Let’s pretend I could. What else?”

“Hmm. It can’t be not enough light. If you can hold it still enough you can leave it open long enough for whatever light is here.”

“That’s right. So what is the answer?”

After a few moments Wyatt said, “I give up. I think it might have something to do with not being the right distance away from the flower. But I have no idea how the plate or the flower decide what the right distance is.”

“That’s pretty close, actually. I’m impressed. What you don’t realize, because you’ve never had to think about it, is the image of the flower, the shape that you see, isn’t really there.”

“The flower isn’t real? That’s…”

“No, just the opposite. The flower is there. I said the image of the flower isn’t real. Its shape, its outline, the picture of it you see in your eyes when you look at it. It’s incomplete. You don’t see the roots, or the other side, or the insides of the leaves. The image is just a little part of the real thing, so much less than the flower itself that it goes away completely when you’re not there to look at it.

She touched the tip of one flowering stalk. “If you were drawing a picture of the flower, the top of it here would be somewhere near the top of your drawing. In just one place, right?”

“Of course.”

“But the light from the tip goes everywhere. Not just to one place on the plate. Light goes from everywhere to everywhere. So if I just exposed the plate in the air, the tip of the flower would be smeared out over the whole plate, and mixed up with the middle and the bottom of the flower, and with that tree and that grass and the sky and everything else.”

Wyatt looked around and tried to imagine the air filled with light going from everywhere to everywhere else. It was difficult to visualize, but it had to be true, didn’t it? Things couldn’t just aim light only toward where his eyes were.

Raisa had taken out the portable camera. She pressed a hidden catch, and with a click, the front half of the wooden box folded open and revealed intricate workings within, wrought of leather, glass, and bright brass.

“To take a picture, the plate needs to work with a lens like this one.”

Wyatt knew about lenses. Proctor Dryden had used a hand magnifier for close work, that made small things look bigger. And Slow Uncle had a large burning glass that wasn’t much good for looking through, but effective enough at setting tinder alight when the sun was bright.

Raisa said, “The lens sorts the light out, in a way. It bends the light that goes through it so that all the light from the tip of the flower goes to one spot on the plate.”

“‘Focus,’” said Wyatt. Slow Uncle had used the word to explain what his burning glass did, and Wyatt had heard the Doc using it as well when talking about preparing his camera for portraits.

“Sorting out is what ‘focus’ really means. If the light is sorted out well, you get a good image. If it’s only partly sorted out, ‘out of focus,’ you get a blurred image. If there’s no focus, no sorting out at all, there’s no image. That’s how a camera works. By itself, the plate doesn’t know the world is there. The lens tells it, there it is.”

“Okay, that’s interesting. But why are you telling me about it? Do you need me to help work the camera at the mine?”

“I’m not talking about the camera, Wyatt. We were talking about you. You and your friends and that woman, Chloe.”

“Zoe.”

“What I’m getting at is, some things are really truly there in the world, and other things are only there because you form an image in your mind. The flower, and the image of the flower. Your mind is the lens.”

“You’re saying I’m out of focus? Blurry? I do feel a little blurry right now.”

“I’m saying you’re…” Raisa swallowed. “Nice. Sweet. Good. Yeah, all that little boy stuff you don’t like to hear. But you’re also really there beyond that lens. Solidly and physically you.” She stood up and stared straight into his eyes. “Attractive.”

“Thanks,” said Wyatt. “You know, you’re also very…”

“I do know. You don’t have to say it, Wyatt.”

“Okay…”

“So, say it. ‘Cute?’ ‘Smart?’ ‘Pretty?’”

Poised on the moment, Wyatt took his time thinking about what to say next. Finally: “Really there. A beautiful woman. Desirable.”

She tilted her head. “Fair enough. Now, since I have these out anyhow, let’s take your picture!”

They found a suitable spot, just past the top of the ridge where the sun was facing a shrub-covered slope for a background, and a placement for the camera’s portable stand. With very little difficulty, she persuaded him to strip to his smalls.

Then she posed him, trying this way and that way for best effect. In posing him, she showed him. With her words and her gestures and her touches—move this leg a little forward, raise that arm—she showed him himself. How his years of hard work with saws and hammers and spokeshaves had built and defined his physique. How the muscles of his back and arms and shoulders fit and moved between one another under the skin. How the scars on his forearms told stories of hard-earned lessons in the handling of fire and metal. How the contours of his legs and hips could add to his solid presence wherever he stood.

She kept herself apart, not asking for his attention on her, though Wyatt could hardly avoid being aware of her body near his. She noticed his increasing arousal, Wyatt could see, but she disregarded it, showing neither annoyance nor amusement. When she had everything the way she liked, she said to Wyatt, “Look at me.” She must have liked the expression on his face too, because she didn’t tell him to smile or to stop smiling, but just to hold his breath and stay perfectly still while the camera worked. She reached down to lift up a panel on the back of the camera—the cover on the plate—then pressed a lever on the camera with a little click. She counted to three, and the lever clicked again by itself. She pressed the panel back down.

“It’s done,” she said. She took the plate out of the camera and packed it away inside a leather bag, and put that into another wooden box, and the box into yet another larger bag.

“I can’t look at it?” said Wyatt. Then, “Oh, of course, no more light can touch it now.”

“Not until the Doc develops it with his equipment, in total darkness. He’s setting that up in your root cellar.”

“Did I hold still enough? I’m trying to imagine what I’ll look like in the picture.”

“Well, Wyatt, you know, cameras see shape, not size. And with the camera down low like this it’ll make you look pretty tall.”

“What you said before. Images aren’t reality.”

“I said they were little pieces of reality. I like your shape and size just fine.”

“I guess I’d have looked even taller if you’d been in the picture with me.”

“I would have liked that.”

“Me too.”

She put an arm around Wyatt’s bare ribcage and kissed the small of his back. “Look, Wyatt, after we’re done at the mine…”

“Now,” Wyatt said. Then immediately regretted it, and opened his mouth to apologize.

“If you insist,” said Raisa.

So instead of apologizing Wyatt kissed Raisa on the lips. The only way he could do that standing up was to reach down and put his forearm behind her rear end and lift her clean off the ground, so that’s what he did. The kiss went on a long time, then he put her down so they could get her clothing off.

“Raisa,” he said, a bit later, a bit breathlessly. “All of us in Uncle’s Mile made an agreement in return for our shares. We can’t make babies until later… Well, we can, that’s the problem, but we don’t. So we don’t… make love… the regular way.”

“Just as well,” said Raisa. “Imagine what could go wrong. Teeny tiny me, big strapping you…” She reached down and pretended to measure his girth with her hand, except it wasn’t really pretending because her hand was really on him and stayed there. With her other hand she put his hand on herself.

—————

At this point, Ary’s written account goes on for several pages of detailed and explicit lovemaking, none of it ‘the regular way.’ This is typical of stories of that time, but it’s not really very interesting or relevant, so with your permission I’ll skip over that part.

Ah, got you, didn’t I? Just kidding. As much as Ary Sweetwater might have embellished or interpolated what happened up to that point—which she must have, unless she had a remarkable tolerance for listening attentively to the first-hand sexual exploits of her own grandfather—that’s as far as she wrote before breaking to the next scene. Which is typical of almost all stories all the time.

—————

Raisa and Wyatt returned to Uncle’s Mile just before the late sunset, bearing their spoils: three exposed plates of the inside of the rust mine cavern, and the scavenged metal the Doc wanted. They hadn’t found enough to have to use the two-person barrow Slow Uncle had built for hauling iron and stones from the rust mine. But the available space in their packs, along with one small extra sack they’d taken turns carrying, was filled with material Raisa had selected from among the mine debris. Most of it consisted of thin flat flakes of some hard petro material, colored blue, green, or brown and covered with patches of corroded metal and tiny rectangular black stones.

As the Doc looked through their findings, Zoe asked Wyatt, “I trust you and Raisa had a good time crawling around in the dark together?”

Then a moment later: “Oh, stars above, you actually did!”

“Now, that’s… how can you be so sure?” said Wyatt.

“Because instead of giving me your usual exasperated look and trying to think of a comeback, you looked at her as if you were asking permission to say anything.”

“As he should,” said Raisa, “being such a sweet considerate boy.” It was the kind of thing he was used to women saying about him, but now he was in on the joke and could see how the words could have different meanings.

Wyatt remembered the crawling around in the dark together very fondly. During the exposures, he and Raisa would wait behind the camera for ten minutes at a time. Then Raisa would put a plank in the way of the camera lens, being careful not to touch the camera. They’d move the lights, and then there would be another glorious ten minutes with nothing else to do. Somehow she kept track of the time intervals despite all the distraction he could manage.

During the day, the Doc had taken the first portraits of the sharefolk. He would do the work of turning the plates into photographs after sunset in the root cellar. It would take a few hours if everything went right. No one else except Raisa was permitted inside at any time. The Doc made it clear that any intrusion, with or without his presence, could result in damaging the equipment or ruining all the photographs.

Over the next few days, leading up to the festive day of the last moon of spring, the Doc’s work continued. Raisa worked closely with the Doc, assisting him around the camera, positioning sheets of different materials to reflect or block or diffuse the daylight as needed, as well as with the equipment in the cellar in late evenings. She spent part of each night with Wyatt.

But she would soon be leaving with the Doc. She made that clear: she wasn’t staying, and Wyatt wasn’t coming with them. They weren’t in love. Or they were, at least Wyatt seemed to be, but it was an image of being in love, a tiny piece of the reality. Were he really in love, it would be the whole reality, and impossible to doubt. That potential was something new, something Wyatt hadn’t seen or imagined before. But it wasn’t yet, here and now; it lay in his future like a whispered promise.

Each day, also, the Doc would give the men and women the photographs he’d taken the day before. Most of the recipients showed them to everyone, and it was no longer any secret or surprise that many of them had chosen to pose partially or completely uncovered. Some only showed their pictures to one or a few people special to them, and a few, including Wyatt’s friend Sticks, kept theirs completely to themselves. The photographs were the size of Wyatt’s two hands held flat, made of thick paper, with the images on the shiny surface in warm brown tones. They were like impossibly precise and intricately detailed sketches, except where a limb or hair or fabric had moved a little during the exposure, making it blur.

Wyatt didn’t pose for the Doc, but received the photograph Raisa had taken of him instead. It was the same as the others, except for the different location they had used. He was surprised to see that after all the careful positioning of arms and legs, Raisa’s picture framed only his shoulders and head. He was looking downward toward the camera, with tension in his shoulder muscles and an unmistakable expression of raw desire on his face. Wyatt liked it mostly for reminding him of the day it was taken. But some others seemed to appreciate some artistic quality in it. Especially May and Remie, who kept asking to see it again.

On the festive day, the whole of Uncle’s Mile gathered at the commons for the celebration of the moon that would take them from spring to summer. All of the portraits were done. There remained only one more photograph to take, after the ceremony, before the Doc’s and Raisa’s departure the next day. The Doc’s final exposure would be a group photograph of all the sharefolk wearing their best clothes.

—————

At this point, Ary’s written account goes on for several pages about the Ceremony of the Whatever of the Whatever. Many pages. Honest, it repeats the whole thing, beginning to end, word for word. Even the parts they did more than once. This is unfortunately very typical of stories of that time. Sometimes it’s even the climax of the story, as if eavesdropping on someone else’s observances were some great reward or revelation for the reader. Fortunately that’s not the case here.

At least those passages keep the scholars busy. But, with your permission…

—————

With the ceremony completed by the final dousing of the foo-fire, the sharefolk and Proctors dispersed, to allow time for fussing and primping by the group photograph’s many subjects, and time for fussing and adjusting by the photographers. Wyatt spent a few minutes combing his hair and rearranging his shirt collar, the latter to no avail. With nothing else to do but wait, he found his way into conversation with Slow Uncle, and the topic turned to the photographic wizardry they’d been witness to.

“Did you sneak a look at any of the Doc’s equipment in that root cellar?” asked Wyatt.

“I wanted to, but I didn’t dare. If I were the Doc, I’d use one of those plates of his that turn dark when light hits them to tell if someone had gone looking around in there.”

“Good point. I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose just groping around in the dark wouldn’t teach you much.”

“Wyatt, you tell me. I hear that’s been your department lately.”

The jibe fell a little flat with Wyatt, because in-love or not, he was going to miss Raisa acutely. One last night. Light to dark to light, and then gone.

Slow Uncle changed the subject. “You know, Wyatt, what I haven’t figured out is what the Doc’s getting out of all this. There must be metals in all that mine rubbish, but I’d wager not as much as can be bought for a few coins at the market in Global.

“What about the Facestones?”

“They’re a curiosity, sure enough. And one that might interest a photographer especially. But there are curiosities everywhere. The biggest curiosity around here now is the photographs.” Slow Uncle reflected for a moment. “You know, there are ports around the world where those curiosities, photographs like yours, would be worth quite a few coins. All you pretty young things so careless with your clothing, But he’s giving the photographs to you, instead of taking them with him.”

It all started coming together in Wyatt’s mind, like a lens focusing an image.

“What if he really is, though?” said Wyatt.

Slow Uncle stared at him.

“The plates,” Wyatt went on. “The special ink that turns dark from light. That would make light things dark and dark things light in the picture. But they’re not!”

“All right, I see what you might be getting at.”

“And my picture! Raisa’s camera and plates are smaller than the Doc’s, but my picture is the same size as all the others. Bigger than the plate.”

“So the pictures we see don’t come right from the camera.”

“There’s a step in between! Something like a backwards-light-dark picture that can make a regular picture when you shine light through it onto another plate.”

“Stars below,” muttered Slow Uncle.

And without another word Slow Uncle hobbled to the center of the commons, where the sharefolk were gathering for their portrait. He stood and waved his arms for attention and then pointed at the Doc and shouted, “He’s taking your pictures!”

No one knew how to react. Someone said, “yes…”

“You don’t understand!” Slow Uncle shouted louder. “He’s TAKING your pictures! Taking them away, with him! All those photographs of all of you. He can make more!”

The crowd muttered quietly. They understood what Slow Uncle was saying, but not why it mattered.

“There’s places they can sell them,” Wyatt told them.

The Doc was saying, “No, please understand…” and Raisa sent Wyatt a pained look. But the crowd was still thinking it through. It was one thing to have images of their intimate selves, to keep and share with whom they wished. But having duplicates of those images for sale among strangers in distant places was a different matter.

Or was it?

Little pieces of reality. How many little pieces, Wyatt wondered, did it take to add up to something important? Something of yours you wouldn’t want to lose?

The crowd was surrounding the Doc and Raisa, demanding answers and beginning to push and shove. Raisa was trying to prevent the camera on its tall heavy stand from being knocked over. Suddenly she was pushed to the ground by someone twice her height who didn’t even notice he’d done it. Wyatt rushed in to protect her, but that only make him part of the jostling crowd himself. The camera, by some miracle, teetered on two legs and then tipped back upright.

“STOP!” It was Willa’s commanding voice, trained to authority by a year of Sunday militia drills.

“Back up, back off!” added Proctor Thumbs, at Willa’s side.

The sharefolk drew back. Wyatt reached Raisa and helped her to stand. She was uninjured, but half of her was covered with the mud from under the soft wet grass. A fair amount of the mud got on Wyatt.

The Doc was staring blankly, in shock. Wyatt asked Raisa, “Is it true?”

Like any loyal apprentice, she looked to her Doc for permission to answer. His panicked face offered no answer or help.

“Raisa, they’ll search his things to find out. Your plates or something else important might get ruined.”

“Wyatt, I’m so sorry. It’s true.”

At that, angry muttering from the crowd resumed. Willa had to speak up again. “Order! There will be no more intimidation. Give them room.”

“All right!” said one woman in the crowd. “But I make a claim.”

“I make a claim,” echoed another woman, and one man.

A different woman spoke up: “Whatever they were doing, I’m okay with it.”

Wyatt said, “I make no claim.” He wondered how much of a claim he’d have to begin with. Does an image of a face mean less than other body parts?

Order broke down again as people started arguing, now mainly against one another. Even had the Doc had gotten away with it, what was the crime? What was the harm? Others asked, how can anyone be okay with it if their fellow sharefolk weren’t? Amid the tumult of voices, there was one of those strange inevitable moments where everyone takes a pause, except for one voice. It was May’s, saying clearly and simply, “They should have asked!”

That was the turning point, a statement everyone could agree with. Even including, under the circumstances, the beleaguered photographers.

The Doc recovered his composure enough to answer one of the questions that had been shouted at him minutes before. “Yes, we keep them. We call them negatives. The original images from the camera. Please, I can give them back to you. Though, we’ll be broke. Ruined, with nothing new to sell and no way to buy new chemicals.”

“Serves you right!” someone said, and another: “I said you can keep mine. Are you saying no one will want to buy it?”

But the simple consensual truth held their confused anger in check. The Doc should have asked. But he didn’t. What should they do about that?

Slow Uncle huddled with Proctor Thumbs, Fletcher, and Willa.  They conversed for a long time. Wyatt tried to comfort Raisa, but he didn’t know what would happen either so he couldn’t be very reassuring.

The huddle broke, and Willa said, “We have a solution to propose. Hear it out.

“To those who so claim, the Doc must give their negatives to them, to keep or dispose of as they please.

“Those who wish to gift the Doc the negatives bearing their own images, may do so freely. They may also negotiate any individual terms they wish. However, we warn that negotiated restrictions on the future uses of their images may be, as Slow Uncle puts it, damn hard to enforce.

“For attempting to use our images without our permission, the Doc must pay a penalty. Slow Uncle will explain that in a moment.

“These terms are also binding on Raisa, as the Doc’s apprentice.”

The Doc said plaintively, “What penalty? I have nothing to pay a fine with.”

Slow Uncle stepped up. “The penalty, Doc, is that you have to stay here for a while and show me how it all works. All your secrets.”

“No!”

Slow Uncle continued, “Doc, I’m not going to go into competition with you. Your secrets will be safe with me, and with Wyatt if and when I pass them on to him. I can keep, and do keep, more secrets than you can imagine.

“But listen, you’ve been very fortunate, you and your predecessors. You’ve kept this technology—yes, I know the word, and also what “Argentum” used to mean—from Doc to apprentice for untold generations. But if something happens to you and Raisa, something like what might have happened here today, your art could be lost from the world.

If word comes to us of such misfortune, we can find someone else to pass the knowledge on to. But”—Slow Uncle’s voice changed markedly in tone—“if word comes to us that you’re selling anyone’s photographs without their permission ever again, we’ll tell all your secrets to everyone.”

Willa spoke again: “And one more thing. The Doc still has to take the group picture we’ve all been standing around forever waiting for!”

The Doc suddenly blurted, “Ohh, the camera! Is it all right, Raisa?”

“There’s no damage, Doc. But I think we have to say it right out. Do we agree to their terms?”

“We have no choice, Raisa. I’ll let you say it right out.”

“We agree!” And then to Wyatt: “Looks like I’ll be around a while longer.”

“That’s okay, I’ll teach you to hoe a three-level crop so you can earn your keep honestly.” Raisa grinned at him, and hugged him, and only a moment later did he realize she’d rubbed more mud onto him. On purpose.

“Great! Now I have to be photographed in even dirtier clothes.”

“Well, you’re the only one, so just live with it,” said Fletcher. “We’re not all going to wait around for you to go change.”

“That’s okay, I have a better idea,” said Wyatt, and began stripping his clothes off. All of them.

A dozen others were staring at him. “Okay, I have another reason for this. Look at the Facestones over there. Dead faces with dead smiles and they don’t mean a thing. I’ve seen thousands more. All those names and faces and we can never know anything about them that matters.

“The photographers say, an image is just a little part of the real thing. The question is, what part do we want to show?”

“I see what part you’re showing!” said Zoe.

“Good! Who are we? We’re not ‘people who happen to have faces and nice—well, passable—clothing. We’re people who work and build and share and love, and we’ve gotten really good at all of those. That’s what I want to show, even if it’s just me. I’ll look at the picture years from now and I’ll remember who all of us were.”

—————

Of course, it wasn’t just Wyatt in the end, as you can see. It’s about about half and half, naked and at least partly clothed, which from what we can make out of their expressions appears to be fine with everyone.

Oh, the young woman behind Wyatt with his hand on her posterior? You’re right, it can’t be Raisa. No one fitting Raisa’s description is anywhere in the image. Presumably she was assisting with the lighting, as usual. No, note the woman’s stature. We believe it’s Willa. We’re also pretty certain Wyatt asked permission.