78. Someone Touched His Land [BONUS]

The boundary was one Mara's own cooperative understood.

Neither agreed to the first price. Mara wanted five meals for every ten Glasswood lengths. Carlos offered one meal for the same amount.

They moved slowly toward the middle until Cosmic stopped them at twenty meals for sixty lengths and future crop buying.

"Food has value now," Cosmic explained. "Glasswood has value after we carry it all the way back and repair something with it. Both of you stop pricing the other person's work as if it is free."

Mara laughed. Carlos did not, but he accepted the deal.

Cosmic and Mara argued over quantities while Lydia inspected samples of transparent timber.

"This can reinforce the aqueduct," she told Carlos. "It is lighter than stone and does not soften in water."

That made it worth buying.

Carlos traded twenty preserved meals and future access to common crops for sixty Glasswood lengths.