In 2341, xenomathematician Dr. Yael Soren found a number hiding inside the oldest light in the universe. She filed the data without a summary and retired to a small apartment in Lisbon where she kept the curtains drawn against clear skies. Eleven years later, someone found the number again.

This is what happened after.

The Pale Arithmetic is a series of linked stories about mathematics as a form of revelation — and about the thing that has been counting alongside us, waiting with the patience of something that does not experience waiting as loss.

• What the numbers said, and to whom they said it
• The signature inside the error
• A voice older than intention
• The last transmission from the edge of the observable universe

Stories are listed in narrative order. They can be read in sequence for a slow accumulation of dread, or out of order, for the experience of not knowing where you are — which, as it happens, is the more accurate experience.