There was a blank space in the dictionary. That was all it was. Just two syllables, シャル, written on the bottom line of Rasko's notebook. The space beside it where the translation should have been written remained white and empty. That was strange. There shouldn't be any word without a translation. ——That's what they'd taught him for four years at the Imperial Institute of Linguistics. 　　◇ It was before dawn. Third floor, corner room of Graovant. Rasko spread out his vocabulary survey notebook under the lamplight and reviewed the previous day's records. His short black hair fell slightly over his eyes. He brushed his bangs back once, but they fell forward again immediately. He didn't mind and kept his gaze on the notebook. The badge of an Imperial Translator gleamed dully on his white shirt's chest. Despite his slender build, his shoulders grew tense after sitting in the chair for long periods. Rasko didn't notice, continuing to run his pen across the page in the same posture. The notebook was filled with neatly arranged Imperial language translations. "Naal"——sea, or tidal current. "Peshu"——fish, particularly edible saltwater fish. "Dova"——stone-paved plaza, gathering place. (Perfect.) He was about to think that when Rasko stopped his pen. Was it really perfect? Looking at this column of translations, something——it was hard to explain, but something felt like it was slipping away. When he'd translated the word Naal as "sea," there had been a faint expression on the faces of the old men of Aile. What had that been? It wasn't negation or affirmation. It was something else entirely. Rasko processed it as "a matter of translation precision." Perhaps his pronunciation was still inaccurate and the old men found it hard to understand. Tonal languages were troublesome. The same syllable could mean something completely different depending on how you pitched it. Outside the window, morning light was beginning to pour into Meira Bay. The old city of white limestone spread out fan-shaped from the coast toward the hills. Above it, the gray government buildings constructed by the Empire overlapped in layers. From Rasko's room, both layers were clearly visible. The boundary line between white and gray stood out sharply in the morning light. Three weeks had passed since his assignment here. He'd been dispatched to Meira-An, the capital of Aile, as a translator for the Vernaat Empire just last month. The orders from Tunglaat——the Imperial Language Control Bureau——had been clear. Systematically translate Aile language vocabulary into Imperial language and complete the dictionary. That was Rasko's job here. Annual salary of four hundred eighty Tern. Treatment equivalent to an Imperial Army lieutenant. Rasko gazed out the window and blew out the lamp. He'd have to go to the plaza again today anyway. He should finish his preparations before the old men of Dova Plaza woke up. As he closed the notebook, he glanced at the last page. A blank space. The white blank beside the sound シャル. (It'll be filled in later.) That's what Rasko thought. Every word had a translation. That was his conviction. 　　◇ Dova Plaza was one hundred twenty stone steps up from the harbor. A stone-paved plaza roughly eighty meters in diameter with a four-meter-high limestone pillar called the "Tidal Pillar" standing in the center. Apparently it had once been used as a marker for reading the tides. Now the old men used it as a meeting point. Rasko arrived at the plaza before the morning market began. Still, the regular old fishermen were already gathered. Three or four of them sat on a stone bench on the east side of the Tidal Pillar, discussing something. When they saw Rasko, the conversation naturally stopped. (It stopped again.) Rasko decided not to mind it. The conversation had been stopping every time he arrived from the beginning. He was used to it. "Good morning." Rasko greeted them in Imperial language, then switched to Aile language. "The tides are good today, aren't they?" Aile language was a tonal language. If you pronounced the syllable "Naal" with a high pitch, it meant "tide"; with a low pitch, it meant something else. For three weeks, Rasko had practiced desperately. Today he should have pronounced it perfectly——or so he thought. One of the old men looked up at the sky with a puzzled expression. (Why the sky?) Rasko tilted his head. It was neither cloudy nor clear, just an ordinary morning. He couldn't see any reason for the old man to be concerned about the sky. He repeated it once more, carefully. "The tides are, good today, aren't they?" This time a different old man looked up at the sky. Yet another old man made eye contact with his neighbor. The corner of his mouth twisted slightly as if suppressing something. Rasko still didn't understand. "...Is there something in the sky?" When he asked in Imperial language, one of the old men said something in Aile language in a low voice. Rasko couldn't make it out. Then another old man stifled a laugh and turned toward the edge of the plaza. Rasko opened his notebook and recorded "friendly atmosphere." In reality, the pitch of "Naal" had been slightly off, and he'd actually said "The octopuses are good today, aren't they?"——Rasko wouldn't learn this until much later. 　　◇ The vocabulary survey was conducted every morning for two hours in the plaza. Rasko would present an Imperial language concept and ask the old men how to say it in Aile language. That was the basic procedure. But after three weeks, Rasko had noticed a strange pattern. When the old men explained an Aile language word, they didn't try to supplement it with Imperial language. They always tried to rephrase it with another Aile word instead. When he'd confirm "Does this word mean this in Imperial language?" the old men would nod ambiguously. But their eyes didn't affirm it. Rasko understood. Their eyes weren't nodding. (Is it a matter of translation precision? Or is it my pronunciation?) It was the same today. When he confirmed the word "Dova"——plaza, gathering place——and said "So in Imperial language, that means 'public place,' right?" one of the old men paused for a moment before nodding. That pause bothered him. But Rasko wrote "public place" in his notebook. Technical problems could be improved. 　　◇ When the morning market began and the plaza became a bit livelier, one of the old men started talking about the life of a fisherman. Rasko listened while simultaneously confirming pronunciation and collecting vocabulary. The old man spoke slowly, and the syllables of Aile language were easy to hear. "...In the morning, we set out the boat. We read the wind. We read the tides. We cast the net. We pull it up. That is one day." The old man's eyes narrowed as he looked toward Meira Bay. His gaze was distant. Rasko recorded this while thinking of his next question. "That is what it means to live in this land. As long as シャル exists." The old man's words continued almost like a breath. Rasko stopped his pen. (シャル.) It was a word he'd never heard before. It didn't appear anywhere in his notebook. Rasko looked up. At that moment, the air in the plaza changed. The smiles didn't disappear. Nothing vanished from the old men's expressions. But——beneath the smiles, another layer appeared. There was no other way to describe the change. Rasko saw that change clearly. "シャル, what does that mean?" Rasko asked as naturally as he could. "What does it mean?" The old men exchanged glances. The first looked at the second. The second looked at the third. No one opened their mouth. Rasko waited. Ten seconds passed, or perhaps twenty. What was this silence? Rasko wondered. It wasn't rejection. It wasn't anger. It was——a hesitation about putting it into words, if such a thing could be called that. 　　◇ Rasko opened his notebook and wrote out Imperial language candidates. "Freedom." "Independence." "Autonomy." "Pride." "Soul." "Resistance." He read them out one by one, checking the old men's reactions. "Freedom, how about that?" One of the old men shook his head. "Independence." Another old man shook his head. "Autonomy." Another shake of the head. "Pride." A shake of the head. This time it was quicker. "Soul." This time he didn't shake his head. But one of the old men began staring into empty space. His eyes were as if waiting for what came next, or looking far away at something distant. "Resistance." No one shook their head. But no one affirmed it either. All the old men were looking in different directions. They were looking at somewhere that Rasko didn't exist. "Then, in other words..." When Rasko started to say that, the eldest old man quietly stood up. Without saying a word. Without turning back. With slow steps, he walked toward the edge of the plaza. Rasko watched his back for a while. Silence filled the plaza. 　　◇ The old men left the plaza one by one. The sound of fish being cut came from the fish shop "Naal-Peshu." The creaking of ships from the harbor. The sound of footsteps on stone pavement. Meira-An's morning moved as it always did. Only Rasko remained sitting on the stone bench in the plaza, looking down at his open notebook. Beneath the syllable シャル, there was a blank space. (What does this mean?) He'd tried all six candidates. They'd all been rejected——or rather, he hadn't even been told they were wrong. The old men had simply gone silent and averted their gaze somewhere. During his four years at the Imperial Institute of Linguistics, Rasko had learned various languages. Tonal languages, agglutinative languages, isolating languages. No matter what structure a language had, conceptual correspondences always existed. The meanings might not overlap completely. But approximate values could always be found. That was the basis of translation work. It was Rasko's own structure of the world. (Can there be a word with no approximate value?) He rolled the sound around in his mouth. Without tonal inflection. Just as a sound. シャル. シャ, ル. He didn't know the meaning. But those two syllables had something. That something that had called forth another layer on the old men's faces. That something that had made the eldest old man stand up in silence. Rasko's deep brown eyes stared at the blank space. (If I can't translate it, the job won't work. But——) None of the six candidates had reached the contours of シャル. That much was clear. The moment he wrote "freedom," something felt like it would break. The moment he wrote "resistance," something felt like it would distort. A hesitation about putting it into words. Was that what the old men's silence had been saying? He closed the notebook. Opened it again. The blank space remained unchanged. The hole called シャル was there. 　　◇ He returned to Graovant after evening had passed. The Imperial official residence was on a hill above the old city. It was once the mansion of an Aile merchant, requisitioned after the conquest——a three-story stone structure. Rasko's room was a corner room with a view of Meira Bay. Today the sunset was falling toward the horizon, and the sea's color had become a mixture of orange and purple. Rasko didn't look at that scenery for even a second. He sat at his desk, thinking about the sound シャル. Not freedom. Not independence. Not autonomy. Not pride, not soul, not resistance. Then what? If he were to rephrase it with other Aile vocabulary——but Rasko's Aile vocabulary still wasn't sufficient. More investigation was necessary. Tomorrow, he'd ask from a different angle. Not the old men, but a younger generation—— He stopped as he was about to light the lamp. There was a piece of paper on his desk. It hadn't been there this morning. He was certain of it. Rasko slowly picked up the paper. Wavy lines were written across the entire surface of the paper. ——Wave script. The Aile writing system, Dova-Leen. The decoration was complex, the curves disti