At the edges of the formation, the non-pivot positions, humans and servitors both, were changing into pillars of candescent numbers. Naraucher shouldn’t have been able to recognize the numbers at this distance, but he could. Most but not all were in the high language’s vertical script. Machine Universal was identifiable as such, although he couldn’t read it. He couldn’t have justified this conviction, but he would have said that the numbers were numbers that mattered. Birthdays and festival days. A child’s shoe size. The number of times a soldier visited a crippled comrade. The specific
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