Day Three

I once asked how many vaults there were.  How many massive circular vessels, cradling cities like gems, were hurtling through the void and chaos of transit to an uncertain destination.  How many of my kind had survived.
I asked: I ask.
We walk, six of us, three elders and three children, on our way to eat.  Slow footfalls click crisp on covered decks, marbled surfaces of compressed stone.  Ribbed ceilings arc overhead, gossamer bands of silver and deep mahogany rising like arrested streams; high art, hand-made, gleaming regal as ghost-circuitry and ontodynamic engines silibate behind.
How many?
The question lingers, just long enough to consider.  A function of the hall's design.
Guardian Swift-Runs-the-Receding-Sun rolls one eye back to regard me.  "Five," he says.
"No," I persist, "how many are there?  In sum?"
"Five."
Heat-Traces glances over his thorax ridge.  "Recite."
"Bright Sun, Toothed Chisel, Deep Carillon, Caressed Breath-of-the-Devourer, and Chromium Memory."  The knowledge is automatic, no thought required.  I blink up at him.  "But what about the others?  How many are there?"
"No one knows," replies Swift-Runs, softly.