“Yes,” said Leeyay sadly. I didn’t tell them about the school I was planning. I would make sure the infants learned tally marks, and we would begin to make more complicated marks, like the humans used, but ours. And I would begin to teach the infants about the instructions we all grew by. As long as I will live—maybe forty years!—I will never see the outcome of this plan. Maybe it won’t happen exactly the way I want it to. But I can start it now, and the people who come after me can build more.
