The wheel?
Brian realized he could never learn how Brown had actually died. Even if he had the strength and courage to go back north—no, at seventy-six (eighty-six?), one can hardly make a fresh start in the study of history. Not without the patience of Abraham Brown himself, who had probably been doing just that when the wheel—
An awed question from the girl pulled Brian from a black pit of abstraction: "What is that?" She was pointing to the clay image in its dusty sunlight.
Brian spoke vaguely, almost deaf to his own words until they were past recovering: "That? It is very old. Very old and very sacred." She nodded, round-eyed, and stepped back a pace or two. "And that—that was all they taught you of Abraham Brown?"
Astonished, the boy asked: "Is it not enough?"
There is always The Project. "Why, perhaps."
"We know all the prayers, Old Man."
"Yes, I'm sure you do."
"The Old Man will come with us."