THERE WAS A clear dividing line between rumour and mathematics.

The one was like a stinging jellyfish difficult to grasp firmly whereas the other was a precision tool which could be fine-tuned to the nth degree, whatever that might be.

"No," Stane Mallix said to himself, throwing down his pen in frustration. "The nth degree has a role to play here, a precise and definable role."

"What's that dear?" his mother said, overhearing his mumblings. "Eat up. Your breakfast's getting cold."

"It was cold to start with mum, being cereal and all."

"Such a dreamy lad, our Stane," his father muttered with a chuckle from his corner of the breakfast table.

"Yes, and it looks like he's just dreamed a lot of squiggles on my table cloth," his mother said, leaning forward over her triple egg meal and frowning with disapproval.

"Sorry mum," the boy apologised. "Just trying to work out an arc of destination along the Great Dividing Line."

"And where's that when it's at home? No, don't tell me," his mother stopped the boy as he grasped his pen again and moved his cereal bowl to one side as if about to draw a diagram.

"Late for the Academy son," his father then reminded the lad, glancing at the dancing clock on the wall above his head. It was one of those ghost clocks projected from a special on-grid device attuned to World Face Time. Every now and again it would ripple as some energy surge from a device elsewhere in the house adjusted its settings to suit whatever duty it was expected to perform, like adjusting the air conditioning to block out Cherryball Flats aromas according to prevailing winds.

Being late for the Academy of Circling the Square was a source of no apprehension for those who attended its classes. Especially Stane Mallix, who had begun a slow paced, seven year study some time ago and which already seemed a lifetime to an imaginative and talented lad eager to use his already acquired knowledge in the field.

It had been a dream come true when Teasal Marchmont, not much older than himself, crossed paths with him in Orangey Park as he carved triangulation data on a bench with a chisel. Here had been an opportunity to apply practical theory to the world at large, with the knowing precisely how large the world actually was being an essential requisite to such a dream.

Now matters seemed more in the realm of nightmares. It was something Teasal had said which gave something of a clue to the mystery during one of their fruitless thrashing out sessions.

"I hope you are not going over the Edge," the entrepreneur had said with jovial malice born of disappointment. "Calculations too much for you perhaps?"

"Pure maths," Stane replied. "Kindergarten stuff."

"Point me to the nearest baby school and I shall conduct interviews," came a sarcastic response.

The engineering student huffed at the time, frustrated by failure.

"The world is shaped thus," he said, palm flat and uppermost. "Gradation tables are set for specific adjustments according to location so they can be factored in with any flitter or projectile flight. See how the numbers follow a curved sequence from low towards the Edge and rising gradually towards the Centre. That's why the Great Central Ocean has such a curious bulge to it. Gravitational anomalies affect everything in flight and all fluids. Why even the Poldorama canals are affected by it to a degree."

"That's interesting," the man had said in a sort of sleepy way and it seemed they were no closer to finding a solution to the problem. In spite of all Stane's best efforts and intense concentration every single one of his mailshot projectiles departed on flights into unknown space.

They were intended to land in precise locations in Frangea, all ten of them, not disappear out of reality for all eternity.

After Teasal Marchmont's repeated jibes Stane could not help but make his own investigations. He visited various sites, even the one on the outskirts of Wandering Stream where farming communities lived quiet and peaceful lives very much not in need of an impact crater containing good news about a new batch of disease-resistent seeds that only required five waterings a season.

"Sounds labour-intensive," one farmer observed when Stane asked him about such possibilities. Indeed there was almost a sense that the mailshot if it had succeeded would have been more of a problem than a solution to the intended recipient's needs. With the possible exception of the famous ice cream purveyor extolling the joys of minty bits. No knowing now who had been blessed with that piece of welcome knowledge.

"My calculations were precise," Stane said to himself as he reviewed his worksheets and plans. "Why then did it go wrong?"

Then he remembered Teasal's comment about going over the Edge. He stared hard at that anomalous zero on the printouts and his face twitched nervously again. What might that actually, really mean?

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

There had been rumours from some lands across the Face of the World about meteorite strikes causing damage, startling wildlife and even creating a sense of doom among some folk for it seemed as if the sky was falling in.

Rumours.

They did not sit well with the lad who viewed engineering as precise and predictable. Theory made real. Applied mathematics as opposed to the visionary tricks of the higher branch where the inside of things was proved to be infinitely larger than that which contained it. Quantum fairies were a figment of the imagination. Bloody Tinkers and their tricks again.

Had his work been tampered with by a higher power for some unseen and perhaps unknowable purpose? The thought made him shiver for it undermined the very bedrock of engineering principles.

Why plan a bridge with load and span calculations that were infallible only to find some bearded menace dancing across it and altering the shear coefficients with some power staff it was said all Tinkers wielded? No. That was just silly stories to keep children awake at night.

***

THE ACADEMY OF Circling the Square prided itself on a foundation of the semi-legendary variety.

Damnation Mole, in a daze of creativity had tripped over some unseen obstacle, some said it was a cucumber frame, and the water bucket he was carrying flew with impressive velocity before him.

He had been pondering contained fluids and discovered the fascination of uncontained fluids. As he fell he saw something only great minds like his could. The motion of bucket and water seemed somehow to seize his imagination like a fever dream and he began his classic work on gravitation versus the Grid. It was all about dynamics, the greater or lesser forces at work which shaped the Face of the World and quarrelled with hydrodynamic principles in a non-linear field.

It was also really annoying.

Thus he spent a lifetime Circling the Square, as he called it.

The place where legend said that famous trip had occurred was the place where the Academy was founded, built, burnt down and rebuilt in less flammable materials and then flourished with a faculty that was the envy of half the world, if Professor Squark of the Academy of Sure Things were to be believed. Blushingly he would not be drawn on where the other half of envy resided.

The students who attended this prestigious engineering school were selected from those educational establishments in Frangea who identified socially awkward individuals with an aptitude for applied mathematics. Scholarships abounded and the student social scene was a riot of quiet get-togethers.

Stane Mallix accepted his fate, admitted that fun with numbers was to be the only fun he would ever have and gleefully signed up for seven long years. Until Teasal and his opportunistic shoes stepped in to liven things up. Only they did not. Rather they might have indeed sent Stane over the Edge.

The mathematics were right. Only the theory that underpinned the processes Stane Mallix had used was wrong. Very wrong. He broke out in a cold sweat in the lecture hall that very same morning of the cold cereal breakfast. He pondered these matters restlessly and following a violent spasm the lecturer at the head of the class that morning halted in his monologue.

"A problem young Mallix?" the man said, his voice carrying with acoustic effectiveness right into the brain of the troubled student.

Stane paused in his shivering and gave this question considered thought.

"Is it possible professor," he began and then swallowed with trepidation at what he was about to say. "Is it possible Mole is wrong?"

There was a gasp from some fellow students and a few derisive laughs.

The professor, clutching his lectern as diagrams flitted across his high forehead and onto the projection wall behind him, blinked slowly as he processed these words. Damnation Mole was the arch priest of Face Theory. Everybody used his conversion tables to calculate flight paths and fluid dynamics across the Face of the World. His being wrong did not equate with reality.

"Perhaps you could elaborate?" the professor said indulgently.

Stane Mallix did better than this. He drew out the latest edition of Algorithms For A Fun World from his rucksack after a brief struggle and flipped to the back where the conversion tables were. Placing a certain page on the desk in front of him he allowed it to be projected on the lecture hall wall in super-sized numbers.

"And what am I looking at?" the professor continued in indulgent tones while awaiting enlightenment. There was a certain joy in finding a student challenging the fundamentals. They were always brought down from their flights of fancy eventually but the battle of ideas was invigorating, stimulating debate and teaching valuable lessons to young minds. Some good fights could break out too.

The chief lesson was simply not to question the mastermind that was Damnation Mole, the almost legendary figure from the past who had founded the whole science of fun with numbers.

Stane used a tiny pointer to indicate by projection a series of figures in a particular column.

"Gradations," he said. "Should they not be just that?"

The professor followed the pointer as it briefly halted on each set of figures while slowly working down the column.

"Halt," he said softly. "Go back five numbers. Stop."

The professor stared at the printed digits.

"Is that a nine or a zero?" he asked the class. There was a cacophony of answers which made little sense.

"Everyone raise their hand if they think it is a zero?"

There was a show of hands from about half the attendants of the lecture hall, including the professor's assistant and a cleaner waiting for everyone to leave so she could give the carpets a good vacuuming, something which her nature sometimes abhorred.

"And a nine?"

An equal number of different hands, this lot including Stane himself, though there were one or two who had been so undecided they had raised their hands for both options. The human mind always contained this reaction among certain people. It was called hedging your bets, or a survivor's guide in an ideologically dangerous landscape.

"Sir, what should it be?" some brighter spark asked in the puzzled silence.

The man switched off the projector and lowered his head a moment in thought.

"It should be correct," he eventually said. His voice was low, almost breathy in tone but the acoustics brought it out clear enough and effectively ended the lecture as everyone stood and began discussing matters vociferously.

"To heck with this," said the cleaning lady and began vacuuming in an effort to clear the aisles so she could get home in time for life. "Bloody Damnation Mole," she double-swore.