B1Four PeopleChapter I · ProofThe whole engine of the book is in this frame and nobody in it knows. Kyra is good at this, and what she is good at is not comfort — it is asking people questions they can answer.2·01Flat Place with WillowsChapter I · ProofShe had never seen one go in an hour, and she had never seen one go while she was standing in it.B2A Box in a BankChapter I · ProofAn hour and ten minutes and four dollars a year. The eleven sheets go in with everything else and look like nothing at all, which is correct.2·02Hat in His HandsChapter I · ProofShe asked people questions they could answer. That was the thing she was good at, and it was not comfort.IThe DoorwayChapter I · Proof
A1The Page Is a BillChapter II · The Far DoorThe only time in the book she goes first and it is not a decision. Kyra does not sit up, does not ask what is wrong, and does not let go. Use the traits block.1·01Gap Where Blind Never FitChapter II · The Far DoorThey took their time. They always took their time. There was no reason on this planet to hurry and had not been for four hundred years.A2Both WristsChapter II · The Far DoorKyra's one speech of the book, delivered holding on. The whole image is the grip of two hands on two wrists and two faces four inches apart.
B3Nobody Ever Answers ThoseChapter III · ReferencesSaved by somebody who could not be bothered, which Val will spend the summer failing to be comfortable about. Nobody in this frame does anything wrong.2·23Correction to AdvertisementChapter III · ReferencesThere was a hearing in a room with four people in it and Val answered every question truthfully except one, and the one was not asked.B4Telling Men When to GoChapter III · ReferencesFour hundred years of reading weather and roads and nobody ever paying her for it, and now a man does. She is enjoying herself enormously.IIINan Cannery OfficeChapter III · References
1·02Turned Down Not offChapter IV · The PauseThe whole weight is in the dial being turned down and not off. Somewhere up the street a man is failing to start something with an engine in it, and has been for twenty minutes.A3The PauseChapter IV · The PauseThe eighth of the eleven askings, and the first time she admits she has been timing the gap between the end of the paragraph and the thank you. The image is the moment inside the gap.v0A3The PauseChapter IV · The PauseThe eighth of the eleven askings, and the first time she admits she has been timing the gap between the end of the paragraph and the thank you. The image is the moment inside the gap.
2·04Man Giving Away MoneyChapter V · The BenefitThe form asked four things. Name. Number. Years of service. Date of birth.B5With Everybody Else'sChapter V · The BenefitA man giving away money. Val understands inside eleven seconds that she is going to have to leave, and nothing in her face moves. Nobody else in the room is anything but glad.B6Eighteen Seventy-FourChapter V · The BenefitThe lie takes a second and a half and makes everything worse: two years in one building, in her handwriting, on the same sheet, with one of them crossed out.2·25Nineteen PeopleChapter V · The BenefitShe had checked the arithmetic of that firm for six years. She was good at it in a way that had stopped being remarked on, which was the condition she arranged everywhere and had arranged four hundred times.VNo Next StepChapter V · The BenefitVForms Round TableChapter V · The Benefit
1·03Write the Thirty ThirdChapter VI · Nothing Beside ItAnd Val wrote the thirty-third. And nothing happened to Kyra Davan at all.A4A Coat Over Her ShouldersChapter VI · Nothing Beside ItThe inverse of everything else in the book: Kyra silent, Val having to go first with nothing prepared. The coat is the whole of what she has.1·04A Plate in a SinkChapter VI · Nothing Beside ItIn four hundred years Val had watched her carry exactly two things in silence and had been present for the end of both. Kyra shouting at her was ordinary. Kyra putting a plate in a sink and saying nothing was not.A5Nothing Beside ItChapter VI · Nothing Beside ItThe page is the point. Three hundred and fifty years of entries and not one annotation anywhere, which is what makes the failed one indistinguishable from the rest.
2·05ForeverChapter VII · Nobody Ever Loses ItHe had come up onto his elbows on the counter, which is what a man does when you have accidentally asked him about the part he finds interesting.B7Nobody Ever Loses ItChapter VII · Nobody Ever Loses ItNo touching, nobody else in the frame who matters, and the most quietly devastating image in Set B. He is explaining that the thing she needs cannot be done and that its impossibility is the best feature of the system. He is right.B8Eleven ItemsChapter VII · Nobody Ever Loses ItVal calls it a well-run life. Kyra calls it a small one. Val says those are the same thing said twice.
2·26Kind DoorChapter VIII · Spokane StreetNobody had ever noticed. There was no reason for anybody to notice.2·07Nora and Elsie HalvorsenChapter VIII · Spokane StreetNora Halvorsen, born the fourth of March, 1936. Elsie Halvorsen, born the ninth of September, 1938.2·28Nine Years Most MonthsChapter VIII · Spokane StreetThat's the last one. I want that understood. Not the last one we will need. The last one that can be done this way.B9You're Having Cake With ThemChapter VIII · Spokane StreetThe most uncomfortable image in either set, and it must look like the warmest. Nobody is lying to anybody. Her memory came up and met one sentence and furnished the rest.B10A Dollar on Milwaukie AvenueChapter VIII · Spokane StreetShe was pleased the whole way through, and on the step afterward she said nobody had needed her for anything in about nine years and that it had been a nice thing to be asked.B11Registered 1961Chapter VIII · Spokane StreetThe first document either of them has ever held that is not stolen from a dead child. Val would like to be pleased about it and is working on it.
1·05Dont MoveChapter IX · The HeadlandRender the nine seconds and nothing else. Two faces in the dark, one of them looking at something out of frame. The blue is not in this image.1·05Dont MoveChapter IX · The HeadlandRender the nine seconds and nothing else. Two faces in the dark, one of them looking at something out of frame. The blue is not in this image.A6The Wrist, Not the HeadlandChapter IX · The HeadlandThe account's third and final use in the whole series, and the first time in four hundred years the convention's actual precondition has been met. The blue itself is never rendered. Use the traits block.1·06Forty Paint ChipsChapter IX · The HeadlandNo contact, and the best image of that chapter by a long way. Four hundred years on this planet, and when they needed to say what a color was they reached back to a promontory where one of them had once gone down at four miles.A7Forty Shades on a RivetChapter IX · The HeadlandA present wearing a joke. It is not for measuring anything; it is for a woman who has spent four hundred years with shades and no reference set.
1·07Come with MeChapter X · Come With MeShe turned round, and her face was doing something she had no control over at all. I have been trying to build the rest of it for about nine days and it will not come, and I have never had this happen to me in my life.A8Come With MeChapter X · Come With MeSix words and she cannot build the rest of it, which has never happened to her in her life. The image is the turn, not the sentence.A9Between the Shoulder BladesChapter X · Come With MeThe image is one hand flat on a back and a face buried in hair, and it is about attention rather than about sex. She counted two. She would later admit it and never live it down.
1·08Four MilesChapter XI · Four MilesVal had watched her be happy for three days before saying it, because there was no sense in doing it before she had the whole of it, and because the woman was happy and that was not nothing.A10Three Days of ItChapter XI · Four MilesNo touching. Val let her have the three days on purpose and is about to end them, and the whole image is one woman watching another be happy about something that is not going to happen.B12Eighteen FeetChapter XI · Four MilesThe notice is perfectly polite and it ends three hundred and sixty years of method. The porch and the step and most of the front room are the eighteen feet.B12Eighteen FeetChapter XI · Four MilesThe notice is perfectly polite and it ends three hundred and sixty years of method. The porch and the step and most of the front room are the eighteen feet.
1·09Can I Have a WordChapter XII · A WordVal put the book down on the arm. That was the whole of what happened, and it took about two seconds, and in those two seconds Kyra watched her do the thing she always did — which was to decide, rather than to agree.1·10Stop Doing the StatisticsChapter XII · A WordVal Sorin could lie on a couch and deliver nine careful words about sample size in a voice you could have set a clock by, and six inches lower down she could not lie about any of it. None of that is visible, and none of it may be.A11Stop Doing the StatisticsChapter XII · A WordThe center of the book. Two faces, a television neither of them is watching, and a channel running underneath that must never be shown or implied. Use the traits block only if the light appears.A12Six Years and Three MonthsChapter XII · A WordThe laugh after the grief, and the first in eight days. It is the only image in Set A where Kyra is laughing and it has to be earned by the one before it.
1·11Truck Not MovingChapter XIII · Whichever It IsIt had always arrived in a room — a kitchen, a stair, once a tram. The notebook was four miles away in a drawer. Kyra had her arm along the sill and her hair up off her neck with two pins, and the sun was straight into the side of her so that the dark of it had gone to the copper the whole way down.B13Nine Minutes and Not MovingChapter XIII · Whichever It IsThe most calculating thing Kyra has ever done. Four feet apart in a cab, in heat, with a flagman somewhere ahead, and one hand flat on a leg because it is the only thing available on a public highway in 1970.
1·12Color of the RoofChapter XIV · The Ninth of JulyNo contact, and the most important date in the book is spent doing the gutters. She had known the ninth of July since February, because she always knew it by February, because the arithmetic was four minutes' work and she had never once been able to leave it alone until spring.A13The Ninth of JulyChapter XIV · The Ninth of JulyKyra has deliberately never asked what day it is since 1612, because knowing would mean having a day. Both disciplines end in this room.A14Nobody Planned the Next OneChapter XIV · The Ninth of JulyTwo plates, a burned edge on the fish, too much of one thing in the salad, the back door open, and four hundred miles of unspoken arithmetic under it. They talk about the daughters, which they do perhaps four times a year.A15I Get a TuesdayChapter XIV · The Ninth of JulyGrief with the machinery removed. No event, no sign, no vigil — a woman explaining that she will never get the day, forehead to forehead with the only person who will ever hear it.
1·13She Did Not Touch itChapter XV · What the Record Does Not SayNo contact. Kal had been four hundred and six two years ago. That was the fact in the room and neither of them had said it once in nine months of paperwork.1·14Eleven LinesChapter XV · What the Record Does Not SayNo contact. They say how long the transit took, which was fifteen seconds. And there it stops. What she wanted was one more line.2·10Two American WomenChapter XV · What the Record Does Not SayNobody in that country gave them a second glance. The country had other things on its mind in 1976 and two middle-aged tourists with good boots were not among them.XVAttention Walks Across itChapter XV · What the Record Does Not Say2·12Still Knows UsChapter XV · What the Record Does Not SayI have been saying that since 1612 and you have ignored it every time, and I notice that I am the one who says it and you are the one it lets in first.XVAir Smells of NothingChapter XV · What the Record Does Not SayB14Nine Months of PaperChapter XV · What the Record Does Not SayThe hardest frontier in the book is made of forms, and nobody looks at them twice. The country has other things on its mind in 1976.B15You Get In By Walking At ItChapter XV · What the Record Does Not SayThe hardest image in either set and the one most worth getting right: the ship must not be visible at all. The picture is a bare slope and a woman putting her hand flat on nothing.B16She Always Went Left at the BottomChapter XV · What the Record Does Not SayKal turned four hundred and six two years ago, and that is the reason they came, and neither of them has said so in nine months of paperwork.B17A Dead Man's CombChapter XV · What the Record Does Not SayNo instrument, no number, nothing that gets anybody anywhere. This is where Val gives up the count, because a count implies a schedule and there has never been one.
1·15It is Not EvidenceChapter XVI · Nothing Left to ProtectNo contact. They went along the wall from one end to the other. Twice. He was not there.XVISwimming Pool up HereChapter XVI · Nothing Left to ProtectXVIDymna Still ThereChapter XVI · Nothing Left to ProtectB18They've Put a Swimming Pool Up HereChapter XVI · Nothing Left to ProtectThey nearly starved in this valley. Val takes an inventory because that is what she does with anything that has got away from her; most of it went up in six years.B19The North WallChapter XVI · Nothing Left to ProtectNo touching. They walk it twice. He is not there, and Val refuses to decide to believe that a fragment with one possible letter on it is him, and says that he of all people would have thought so too.B20You Talk Like Her GrandmotherChapter XVI · Nothing Left to ProtectThe closing image of the Tatras sequence and the whole of what is left of them in that valley: four seconds in a woman's ear, and then it is gone.
A16Soap and Nail ScissorsChapter XVII · Nobody WaitingNeither woman is in this image. It is the only still life in either set and it is the most loaded thing in the book: a small bathroom, a radio in the next room, a cake of soap, a pair of nail scissors and the edge of a bath. Do not attempt the act and do not attempt the mark.XVIIBar Green SignChapter XVII · Nobody WaitingB21The Green SignChapter XVII · Nobody WaitingThe lightest she has been since the Carpathians, and she is enjoying herself enormously. Use the traits block only if you want the light at the wrists, very faint, unremarked by anybody.
1·16Was She NiceChapter XVIII · Go AgainVal, you have been in this house for four hundred years and I have had about six of these and you have had four, and every single time you come at me like a woman handing over a bomb. The wet has got into the whole of her hair on the walk up from the bus and taken it three shades darker.A17Straight, ThenChapter XVIII · Go AgainVal on the wrong side of her own kitchen table, which they both notice and neither mentions. Four hands, two cups of tea that never got made, and a bakery box nobody opens until Monday.XVIIILaugh Half Second EarlyChapter XVIII · Go Again
1·17Its DaylightChapter XIX · What Came HomeA body that arrives in ninety seconds does not require five hours of managing. And Kyra stood there for a second with her hands dripping and then dried them on the cloth and came.A18Ten to FiveChapter XIX · What Came HomeThe full reversal: Val fast and ready, Kyra elsewhere. The image is a woman lying awake beside another woman in afternoon daylight with the whole thing not working and neither of them minding.
XXBottle with LabelChapter XX · What Doesn't MoveB22You Two Don't Change, Do YouChapter XX · What Doesn't MoveNo touching, and nothing happens. Val gives her the fourth of the dull answers, and Mrs. Oldham laughs and says something about the dahlias and goes in, and Val stands on her own walk and does the arithmetic.
1·18It is Not FineChapter XXI · SofterThe most important line in the Earth books, and she says it badly on purpose because she has not arranged it. Val got both arms round her and held on the way Kyra had held her in 1950, which she had been waiting twenty-nine years for an occasion to return.A19SofterChapter XXI · SofterThe channel's blind spot: it cannot say less, and the first time it needed to it said the opposite. The image is the foot of air and nothing else. Val will come back down, which costs her something.
2·19Its Going to GoChapter XXII · The Woman Who Goes InIt had rained for a fortnight, and then it had snowed, and then it had turned warm and rained on the snow, which is the particular arrangement that country has for drowning itself.XXIIFour Feet WaterChapter XXII · The Woman Who Goes InB23Four Feet of It and a CurrentChapter XXII · The Woman Who Goes InNobody is drowning and nobody is heroic. A woman doing a job she is better at than anybody, among other people doing the same job less well, and that is the first time in four hundred years anyone has needed her.XXIINora Elsie StoppedChapter XXII · The Woman Who Goes In
2·21Take the Orange OneChapter XXIII · The Same VolunteerNobody telephoned Kyra. That was the arrangement by then and had been for some years. She was on the roster, she had been since 1996, and the only person who required any notification was the woman standing in the kitchen with her arms folded.XXIIIClipboard Card TableChapter XXIII · The Same VolunteerB24The Same VolunteerChapter XXIII · The Same VolunteerNo touching, nobody else, and the end of their life in that valley. Nobody has suspected anything and nobody ever will. The two faces on the page are eleven years apart and are the same woman, and the only difference is the quality of the printing.XXIIIFour Hundredth YearChapter XXIII · The Same Volunteer
1·19SorinChapter XXIV · Our Own NamesNo contact. Val sat with both hands on the wheel in a parking lot in Hillsboro and did not start the engine for about four minutes.A20Nothing PreparedChapter XXIV · Our Own NamesThe floor of the book and the last private image in it. Nothing arranged, nothing in order, nothing held back. Use the traits block.1·20How Much FurtherChapter XXIV · Our Own NamesThe closing image of the Earth books. Four hundred and seven years of this planet behind her, one ship on one mountain on the wrong side of the world, and no distance to the right star — and she says four words that have never once been true and means them exactly as much as she meant them on a wagon and on a deck and in a room over a saddler's.2·23Narrow DoorChapter XXIV · Our Own NamesThere was a hearing in a room with four people in it and Val answered every question truthfully except one, and the one was not asked.XXIVTwenty Three Years PaperChapter XXIV · Our Own Names2·30Hour from CalderveilChapter XXIV · Our Own NamesThis one ends with two women on a wet rock an hour out of a town that does not know them, with the light going, and nobody waiting for them anywhere, and nowhere either of them would rather be.
