Tekman lounged on the couch across from the Inspector, trying to look calm. A young woman walked through with a plate of figs, offering it around; he took one just to have something to do with this body. The Inspector, lying on his own couch, seemed almost preternaturally relaxed; his eyes followed the fig-girl’s behind as she walked around the room, but when she came to him he declined a fig. Then his eyes seemed to laboriously, lazily draw themselves away from the fig girl… and snapped, with uncanny, penetrating precision, onto Tekman.

“So,” said the Inspector, “Tell me again about this… tallying system.”

Tekman repressed a sigh. He didn’t’ seem to be able to find a phrasing, a story, that penetrated the Inspector’s understanding of the world.

Well, he thought, it wasn’t as though the Empire was going anywhere, so one way or another he had to make the man understand. He took a deep breath, and tried again.

“Rather than simply using tally marks,” he said, “We use a system of… of symbols…”

“The little carvings,” said the Inspector. His eyes seemed to have found the fig girl’s bosom as she stood unobtrusively to one side, holding the platter of figs in a fetching pose.

Tekman repressed another sigh.

“Yes, Inspector. There is one symbol for each number between one and sixteen…” He explained it again: the repeating sequence beginning at 17, then at 257. The advantages for doing work with the sums, for doing complicated work; the ability to keep large amounts of information somewhere more reliable that someone’s head.

As he was explaining an especially tricky — and thus interesting — technique, the Inspector interrupted; he’d obviously lost the thread. Again.

“In the Empire, we have a whole system of slaves trained to keep such information in their heads, to share it with one another in case one of them should sicken and die, to check the information. There’s a whole school dedicated to training such slaves. I came here with instructions to cause your warehouses to conform…”

“With the rest of the Empire, yes, Inspector, I understand. I have no issue with standardization, I believe it to be a commendable goal. My… intention, my hope, is merely to offer… a better standard, that the Empire might benefit… the most, from its most recent acquisition…”

The Inspector made a sort of harrumphing sound. Tekman eventually figured out that it was laughter. The Inspector looked up at his assistant, who was standing just behind his couch; the two of them shared a knowing glance.

“Tekman,” said the Inspector, “Have you any idea how many peoples we’ve conquered?”

Twenty-seven, thought Tekman, in my lifetime, including us; somewhere above a hundred, altogether. The number was written down in the Archive.

“No, Inspector,” he said.

“A lot,” said the Inspector. “And every one of them believes themselves to be… better, somehow, than all the ones conquered before, better even than their conquerers; every one of them seeks to… to conquer their conquerer, from within.” He met Tekman’s eyes again, with those piercing eyes. “We have gotten pretty good at taking what we want, and leaving the rest.”

Tekman blinked, several times in quick succession. He made the little bowing gesture that Imperials used when reclining.

“I understand, Inspector,” he said. “Believe me, please, when I say that I have no intention of…”

The Inspector waved his hand at Tekman. “Spare me,” he said. “You’re a smart man, I know you understand. I just want you to understand the positions that you and I are in, so that you can stop thinking that you’re something new and unique in the history of the Empire. Every culture has some good ideas, and a bunch of ideas that are no better than the ones we already have; my job, largely, is to differentiate between those, and then to steal the good ones and stamp out the others. So your…” He snapped his hands, trying to come up with the words.

“Numbers,” said Tekman. “Written numbers.”

“Numbers,” said the Inspector, “Will have their chance. I’ve got my tallymen inventorying your warehouses now; once that’s done, we’ll compare their totals against your… tallies… and we’ll perform some test, to see which gets used going forward.”

“Yes, Inspector,” said Tekman, dully. He felt numb at the idea of… of simply abandoning his civilization’s greatest invention.

“Now,” said the Inspector, “Tell me about ‘letters.’ You can use them to… to save stories?”

“Yes, Inspector,” said Tekman. “Anything, really.”

“Huh,” said the Inspector. His eyes were back on the fig girl.