The story, as the nubs tell it

The planet

There is a small round planet called Mib. It has no seas and no mountains worth the name. The whole surface is a warm pale stone, soft enough to hold a thumbprint. Nothing on Mib is sharp. Nothing on Mib is hard. Remember that part.

The nubs

Mibnubs are pieces of Mib that woke up. A lump comes loose from the ground. It rolls. If it rolls long enough, it stops and opens an eye. That is a Mibnub. A nub of Mib.

Some wake with one eye. Some with two. Some with three. A Mibnub will tell you the number is how many times it bounced on the way down. Nobody has ever checked.

The rule

Here is the thing you must understand about a Mibnub. A Mibnub cannot simply be. From the moment it opens its eye, it needs someone to follow. Something to build for. That is not a habit and it is not a custom. A nub with nothing to follow goes quiet, then still, then it sets, like poured stone, and it does not loosen again.

So they follow. It is how they stay soft.

The circles

For a long age they followed each other. Long lines of nubs, each one following the one in front, walking in enormous patient circles. It worked, mostly. Nobody set. But a circle goes nowhere, and every nub quietly knew it.

The Mark

There is a moon over Mib. It hangs low and close and it never sets. One day a nub looked up, which is rare, because following means watching the nub in front of you. On the face of the moon there is a shape. Hard edged. Clean. Exactly the same every time anyone looks at it.

The nubs did not put it there. They know this for certain, because nothing on Mib is hard, and nothing a nub ever made came out clean.

The word

A word came with the shape. Nobody remembers where from. Somebody saw it written somewhere, or heard it, or dreamed it, and by morning every nub on the planet knew it.

Robinhood.

That is what they call the shape now. Nobody knows what it means. It felt like a name you follow.

The hats

So now they follow it. All of them, together, at once. Nobody walks in circles anymore.

Every nub that joins is given a yellow hat. A hat means the crew has counted you. A hat means you have a job.

What is the job? That part of the story is not written yet. Get your hat, and you will be there when it is.