Amartia nodded.
The courtyard where they were standing had twenty- four pillars around its walls. Each pillar had a symbol on it, carved into the stone. As he examined them carefully, one by one, Muko's eye was drawn to a design which showed circular objects of different sizes. It looked familiar. Where had he seen it before? Then it came to him: it was identical to the one in the book – the one he'd revealed by shading over the imprint on the page! It was a picture of interconnected gears.
He pointed it out to Amartia who gave her usual cool response of a tiny smile and a slight nod, but Gelio and Paidia, who had noticed something was going on with their friends, were more openly curious about the discovery.
The lesson was over and Copernicus led his class back to the school. Muko pulled his friends to one side and said in an urgent whisper:
“I think this is the artefact where there's the way in to the
sculpture.”
“Then we need to come back, at night,” Paidia whispered
back.