The Grandmaster swallowed it too, visibly gulping, and he said mildly, "The holy one has generously agreed to submit the issue to the High arbiter of the Guild of Lawyers, and the High Arbiter has been sent for."
It was the last thing said that alarmed Snubnose, and he looked at his sister and saw that for the first time her face was tight with unease. The High Arbiter was an old friend of their mother's, which was not likely to make him a friend of theirs today. He moved in the same snobbish society as their mother and had many times clucked with her about Proudwalk's "infatuation for that lowborn young man."
Snubnose would have liked to leave his place in the circle of scientists and join Proudwalk, but it was against Acknowledged Custom to change position once the circle was formed.
Everyone now was shuffling uncomfortably in the hot sun, except the godsman who was exposed to the cooling air and had the godsmen's secret of escaping sunburn. And Bump-arch, who looked as uncomfortable as anybody else but did not shuffle. He stood still and straight while sweat ran down his face into the tight black neckband of an apprentice. Once he seemed to look at Snubnose and wink, or perhaps he was only winking the sweat away.
An elephant moved slowly down the Street of Ward and onto the Field of Proof. It was a ponderous metal ovoid bearing on its roof a velvet pavilion with the curtains drawn. The circle of scientists parted and opened, and the elephant, with much grinding, came to a stop a few feet from the group in the center of the Field.
The driver, an apprentice lawyer, climbed from his hole and parted the curtains of the pavilion. The High Arbiter looked out at the world with a sour expression. He did not descend.
"I will hear the holy one first," he said from his roost.
The godsman raised his hands to the sun, and spoke.
"Wise one! The Candidate and his master, abetted by the Grandmaster of the Guild of Scientists, are shamelessly defying the Principles. The Candidate is preparing to demonstrate the accelerated movement of matter into the future. That is a mystery of matter. Only the gods can know the path that things take from the dimming past to the dark future. Scientists must confine themselves to their arts and not try to steal the mysteries belonging to the gods.
"The gods grant knowledge of mysteries to godsmen who have humbly supplicated, not to thieves. Let the scientists work to improve the fire-wheels that spin through the night seeking out the encampments of the Bowmen. Let them mix better fertilizers to sell to the Lords of the West. Let them keep in repair the ancient elephants for the honor of our exalted citizens."