Originally published in Planet Magazine No. 17 (March 1998).
Specimen K.3/8:
Nothing pauses but [– Unclear; scholars on probation had spilled coffee mixed with opaque creaming and sweetening agents all over this page of the typescript]. Conferring with travelers and thinkers, I am awed by my ignorance yet not dismayed.
[. . .]
Moons dance like youth around our shadowed [name]; islands, seas and skies of star-burdened grace, among them my diminutive [unclear].
[. . .]
Before I sensed my birth, Distraction rose, the World One weakened and released the Ones called free. In [quantity] jurisdictions, a citizen who sits is [unclear] to all who once admired him. Occasion calls citizens by lot to fill chairs of [roughly] jailor, judge and censor. When none sit (having fled), occasion chooses war, to fill the chair with the enemy’s cream.
[. . .]
You and I, to [unclear], kiss the stars goodnight. [A message clearly not meant for us. The correspondent neglected to switch from public to private mode. Or his mischievous kid sister flicked the switch as he transmitted, or created these messages herself. There’s no way to infer from inflection or suggestion if the sender or intended receiver is of a gender known or unknown to us. “Families” could mean anything and “Elders” needn’t mean a pair. “He/his/him” in this translation was suggested by Frau Professorella Petra Makhperet Sibi of the Institute’s Stylistics Department.]
(*Professorella* indicates merely a sideship; *professorina*, an associateship; *professora*, a fullship. — Committee’s Note)
[. . .]
Specimen K.3/22:
Distraction rises within the World One as Fifth and Sixth Orders submit contrary memoranda on the merited color [A tentative translation, though context supports it] of vestments, grex-holds and adherents’ [unclear]. [See the catalog of color codes in natural selection and ethics in Appendix XXXII.]
Fifth insist theirs was [Chaos? God?]’s color before Now, the color beyond color, free of taint; in truth, free of “color.” Sixth seeks Fifth’s fullness and fails, drawing adherents astray.
Sixth respond theirs is the color of life, of the mass from which rise [Chaos? God?]’s sober stones, Color’s Elder, while Fifth’s is [roughly] soul without recourse.
After haggling [time unit]s they submit the question to the Eldest of who decide but do not force. After deep thought he responds with tradition’s brevity: [The correspondent leaves a blank space]. The Students’ explication: *Of morn, of day*. The meaning, in the old sense, clear. Fifth and Sixth now seek to morn each day earlier than the other, find no morning’s peak so narrow as to hold but one. The Orders rise earlier-still-earlier until “morning” stumbles back through night and yesterday. The same weary moment, both learn nothing worthy comes of it.
They seek a further explication and receive: *Of rise, of choice*, granting sense and teeth to the Eldest’s decision and the Orders understand: *The other must not rise*. Thus, Distraction.
[Time unit]s after I sense my birth, Fifth burns our diminutive town, which believes itself neutral, for asylum granted a fleeing Sixth [bishop?]. Reimbursement in deemed-comparable wealth is the sack of a Fifth grex-hold and the ending of its aged [deacon?] and [greater than three] descendants.
The world obliges us to vanish into the Forest, our diminutive Elder’s common sense our guide. Records tell I refuse to cry when angry ears come near, a strange ability that still serves.
At Distraction’s end the strong-in-faith are less; determiners (of whom my diminutive Elder speaks without forgiveness) vanish. Reasons nurtured by the One lose force and new Ones are born, and new Reasons. Some among the wise [At times he drops “among” for “of,” the subtlety beyond me] after deep thought, concede it ill becomes a clarified citizenry to retain the unjust [aesthetic?] standards for vengeance upon [unclear] by [unclear], so seek more rational standards. My diminutive Elder despairs.
[. . .]
[Further annotation:
In the World One’s Distraction, Order vs. Order echoes the discord between our fabled creatures Dr. Crow and Sgt. Fox, as in Encounter 38’s conclusion:
” — I’ll get you for that, sergeant.”
“If you find me,” says Fox. “For I blend with the soil and the fallen leaves. You, Doc, blend with nothing — not the trees, not the clouds, not the grass.”
“I’ll come at night,” says Dr. Crow.]
[. . .]
Specimen K.7/38:
Come [unclear]’s-croak, we tumble from the lodge as our shadows grow in the moons-light. The one to cast the darkest for his age receives the best of it come morning. Expectance makes our sleep fight back, rewards all wrapped in weariness, no help. Dream-eaters who save us from madness go hungry those nights. Angry, they pound all day on our brow.
Our songs contend in the bath. My youthful voice lacks substance, so I die in the echoes, but find counsel in the [musical instrument? evidence elsewhere] and many call. I am well-[unclear, perhaps unnecessary]; if I honor my vanity, occasion will honor my career.
Silence, as all pleasure, is overdone, so occasion names a talker to remain awake and mutter to the stars, the moons, the trees, to any whom chance denies sleep. I enjoy my turn (one need not talk unended) and fruitful decisions come in the quiet hours between the words.
At [time unit]s, Elders again tell the stories of How. Each Elder remembers new reasons and procedures, forgets others, retains grace in telling-again. We do not wake to the changings until we have heard the story [times greater than three]. By then we are untroubled.
[. . .]
Few dangers in the Forest not foreseen, not prevented. A long knife into the ground before each dwelling’s entrance says Preparedness, to discourage what few spirits wander near. Most spirits are harmless because their names are public knowledge.
Knife-thrust has no ceremony, no formulae, no choral harmony, has only the Elders’ sporadic mumblings, sporadic shouts: “Witness, we do not bless or curse.” This to ease the spirits’ lot, deny the knife-thrust challenges all or any. Little disturbs a spirit more than “Do your [best? worst?], we are prepared for you.”
[The correspondent’s II(a) archaic affix forces me to choose *formulae* over *formulas*. In a later message, now lost, the IX(a) colloquial infix calls for *algas* rather than *algae*.]
[. . .]
Older, some serve our neighbors as whistlers to find lost animals, to help through a birthing, to whistle up wind or rain. Our neighbors do not learn we have no wise talent, merely knowledge of skies, their unstable natures, how influenced to wind or rain by restless air. Sense roams far when air is fitting, to give stray beasts a bearing; and sudden change in air’s burden will ease the weight of challenge, as in birth.
These talents fail with those long under challenge. [Name] are truculent to every cloud, not touched or witnessed until the ritual is met, proud of the soul-pouch that carries their excess, as sacred as their family name, as worthy of dying for. They snort on all who scatter excess in the garden.
Neighbors think our whistlings lure the bird whose wings make winds to drive the rain. Our diminutive Elders frown on drawing profit from their guess, though occasion makes it unavoidable. If neighbors believe us valuable, we are safe.
Neighbors may labor at images of [mouths? cheeks? lips?], to place outside their dwellings as spirit surrogates for us, to shirk the need of paying whistler’s wages. Resident spirits already are among them, chore about the farm and bear the blame for crooked things, so it keeps to their tradition. They encourage “us” (those unbreathing surrogates) with food or song or warmth of skins from honored beasts, and offer to beat or burn or drown “us” if we fail to make the skies cooperate. If “we” fail, they fulfill their threat, and labor to fashion new images.
The bird is no fool.
[. . .]
Specimen K.7/26:
Occasion drives deep thought to barren cliffs. [Unclear] require[s] me in the town while I am still a child of the Forest [emphatic affix l2a, hence capitalized].
Where the Forest grants pause, we huddle after flights through mangled swamps, after flights across bothersome sands, dunes high as the [unclear]’s snout, few soft stones to soothe the herders’ hands. No tree, no creature shrinks from us here, no spirits sign their disapproval, or we flee forever homeless. We honor and study altars dark and light, walk with our diminutive Elders, strain not to laugh at our neighbors. It disturbs the peace we share. In their eyes we would end.
[. . .]
[Name] suspect the moons are gods; others laugh: the moons are but gods’ homes. The Elders of our kind were exiles from a moon where everyone had friends and food. Our Elders misunderstood, shared reflections, created — what? The chronicle is vague. No cure but exile somewhere less secure. Legend-learners tell: Our Elders leaving home turned back for one last call. Some heard, “You will see us.” Some, “You will suffer.” Some, “Our young will never venerate you.”
[Unclear] learn none are born here. We are deluded, wayward children of the moons, lowered here in lieu of worse, for daring — The clouds deny us memory of our crime; our doom, to dream a briar’s mist of evils.
[. . .]
[Name] ponder the Now, whether fruit of a tree beyond, or of a tree within. Who ask further, perish.
Some hold deeds of selflessness will bring home [name] from his last raid, bearing comparable wealth for all. Among these deeds, casting off homes, robes, fields, beasts and Elders’ plants, and building grex-holds with ever-wider doors for throngs that never come. We hear their chants, their polyphonic [?] cries, “Come home, [name]” and sporadic shouts, “Bring [unclear]” or yet more shamelessly, “Bring [unclear].”
They are not who resemble them, who leave their goods in place — not portioned out, as among [name]; nor set aflame that none might profit, as among [name] — and retreat to the Height, to join or trade places with their unborn descendants, whom they believe already in position and as prepared.
[. . .]
[Name] live by practice; some deny, some ignore the spirits. Most attend the Dispensary, as habit or the need draws them, linger in dawn’s softness as the day’s word is portioned out, dread to be left as the store is depleted. In turn they approach and offer [unclear], for as the [unclear], so the word.
[. . .]
[Name] say whom we see as dead have souls. The mischievous rock snatches our tools and clings to them, the angry rock spits flame as we strike it, the wild rock scratches as we hide in its caverns, the clumsy rock stumbles onto us as we wander among the hills. “Some coward’s rock,” an Elder told the tale, “fled as I kicked it.”
[Name] exile graceless newborns to place-rocks near the crossroads. Dark nights, one hears the newborn’s cries, sees no shadows in retreat . . . The rocks have given birth.
[. . .]
[Further annotation:
Idlers suspect the correspondent’s need to reach us, in what must seem darkness, is akin to our sporadic need to touch the dead. We’re his dead.
Where do ours go? Cartoonists clinically dead, then revived, draw what they saw: Creatures looking more or less like us watching us from the clouds, cheering, groaning. Does the cloud realm watching us, waiting for us, get overcrowded? They die again, go further up? Those left behind stop watching us, start missing them?]
[. . .]
Specimen K.18/4:
We know the remaining Witness Tree, known for having witnessed — if not, then others of its kind — deeds legend-learners pause to gather from their Elders. The Most Known of who came before us found shelter under its boughs. Leaders of the Unforgiving, in turn unforgiven, leaped from its high branches. The Tree witnessed.
Legend-learners tell the Unforgiving came against the Most Known. The singer of the Unforgiving sang, and night came. The singer of the Most Known sang, and night fled. The singer of the Unforgiving sang, and night came again as if not angered. The singer of the Most Known sang, and night once more fled.
Having failed to conquer, the Unforgiving were the first to know shame. We say — we know no better — there was no need for shame. (What do we know of this?) But the Unforgiving knew. The Tree witnessed.
At season, we receive the Tree’s unneeded twigs to fashion [whistles? Conforms to the musical aspect]. [Greater than three] textures give use and pride, and being the Tree’s wood, sing beyond a full season’s turn. Because of the past, our Tree discourages its wood for tools or weapons, except with which to fend off the dream-eaters.
[. . .]
As we learn from time and journey, the gestures vary. Some say they lie. We may attend but not discuss: Each hears a difference, and it dims the moon of each to learn [unclear] one is from the other.
[. . .]
Specimen K.8/2:
The [name] exhibit fervent upswellings, hidden Ones’ revised risings: The One born of the prophet [name] among ill mountain youth of [location-focus]; the graceless gentle upswellings of [name], that seek betterment from [time-focus] until the [unclear]; the unwelcome Ones of [name], [unclear] prophet, absorbing the region in [time-focus].
[Greater than three] upswellings challenge the Determinacies. The [name], born of children of the citizenry in [time-focus]; Honor’s Walk, of lost [unclear] who built [name], now destroyed in the Wave of Light; new Ones derived from [name] the [unclear], lost in the [unclear] of [name]. New Ones of degrees of compromise and avoidance increased ever further.
[. . .]
The Home One does not exceed the World One in reflection and rite yet boasts distinction from foreign Ones, grants thoughts suited to our town, our field, our home. Some find service in this One while some find threat, for the Home seems but a shortened World, and all fear that One’s return. Thus is born the Clear One, child of sober rebels (in truth, agents) from the Home One, to embrace all who forbear the vague, whether alien or home.
My diminutive heart can bear their healers by voice and touch who demand prior tribute as an earnest, and the thunderous sessions where grace-snippets are distributed to tempt, and beast-soothing by breath of grace (that is, by potions), for citizens have need and must be gently fooled.
To taste the Clear One’s disapproval are [unclear], who know excessively and offer counsel where none seek it, soil the mind of citizen and trainee alike, not civil, not Clear. None forbid [unclear] to seek revision, but as they taste Clearness, attempt to, pretend to, they cling to the knowledge of a lifetime and of lifetimes before, and remain a danger.
[. . .]
To taste the Clear One’s disapproval are [name], an [unclear] breed who travel lands between our diminutive fields and [name]’s. They wander astride [unclear] and reflect from time to time in rings of [unclear]-skin huts.
An Elder of theirs reflected with us. Beneath our trees (a marvel to him) he sought to ease a skim of what bewildered: “We eat free of tools, free of altars, or the world would hear, and have us glaze and carry them forever as we journeyed never-rested under moons-light, flock-to-flock. Burden us with brighter tools for silent meals, for public meals, for feeding spirits who have no need. Hold us to tight hours in tight streams, to eat but what the tools can grasp, the altar bear. The world would squeeze us to its pleasure.”
[N]ature and [F]ortune [the affix unclear] limit [name] to one treasure: From the living beast occasion grants the milk; from the dead, the meat. Occasion grants the skill to fashion helmets of [skulls?], drinking skins of [udders? genitalia?], tools and weapons of claws and teeth, robes and huts of hide. Observe as one gently slides the hide off the dead beast’s limb, how one extends oneself through the tube and lingers in a rare stream until the new boot shrinks to size.
[Name], too, know excessively.
[. . .]
[Further annotation:
The correspondent’s apparent terms for Wise One, Thinker, Adept-in-Untouched-Things, are closer to Bard/Poet/Teller than Keeper-of-Records or Writer or even Correspondent. Blind poets must sing in their marketplaces; if worthy, in the taverns of keen-eyed heroes, the sort who’d rampage into and saunter out of strange but prosperous lands. The lonely few who read and write are more feared for our magic markings than honored for any wisdom. Perhaps the correspondent is one of those blind poets, and his words travel through (space?) on their own.]
[. . .]
Specimen K.48/2:
At your request [?] our report on the ancillaries and harvesters is [unclear; perhaps we have an alternate correspondent, or a message not intended for us.] Much effort led to much fatigue yet aspiration illumined vexity. Forms change, perceptions vary, uniqueness rages through the variegation of sequence and station.
[. . .]
[Item? name?] feign intelligence, in [name]’s sense of to be in [number] places at once, for at [time unit]s they appear to plan ahead, “ahead” as far as the next [unclear]. Yet they lacked occasion for this before they saw us. How was it so readily aroused? Does occasion grant a stimulus we are blind to? Is the original stimulus concluded? Is the conclusion itself a stimulus?
[. . .]
Circumstance differs. On [at?] [location focus], the un-tested acquired the pseudo-[my translation]-rational capacity to relate the impulse of their time-source to the requirements of ours, which we must continue to set if it is to remain valid. [Name] doubts [item? name?] sufficient.
[. . .]
[Unclear] eager, or feign [unclear], even if beyond them by dearth of sign as of essence, astride exertion’s fruit. [Name], less astute, disagrees.
[. . .]
Across inconstant terrain, where circuit nor directness is explicit, they (i) proceed linearly; (ii) follow (a) the subtle topographic flow, or (b) an undetected non- or contra-topographic beacon. The assumed coexistence of (i) and (ii) suggests they obey [quantity] distinct regular/random imperatives. More, were perception refined. Benefits (within the limits of the term) of (ii) must be such as to provide [unclear].
[. . .]
[Further annotation:
Where is he transmitting — coming — from? Pseudo-Pluto, too remote. Ceres, Ganymede, Titan, Callisto, too barren. A coracle emits pulses, conceivably interpretable, but so do the stars, the sun, the crystals crunching on the beach, any puppy’s Squawk-Duckie toy.
Another plane, realm, next-door universe, whatever folk name them, seem safer. No need to risk your body, perhaps your soul, on the frontier. All you need — they say — is the right glitch or the right letting-go of things. The idea is liberating; it deserves elaboration.]
[. . .]
Specimen K.19/l:
Our neighbors dream, and boast the proof that if and when we die, we — or the wandering lost thing within us — become the singers or the crawlers or the vicious barely-seen ones that dwell in the surrogate “us” they labored at.
[. . .]
Some search our fate and agree we survive, to linger or go elsewhere? If we linger, for rest or vengeance? Elders hesitate to stir the truth of this, to burden us, disturb the balance of the Ones.
Death is [name]’s conspiracy in others’ hearts. To risk is to soar — higher, if it risks their anger. Only in death do we the jealous, the proud, find each other. Death is the goal. Life is the detour. We seek to return.
[. . .]
[Name] speak to their dead as we speak to the night. [Name] leave their dead to the flame; [name] leave them to the skies; [name] eat them, although none have witnessed. Unique are [name], who bury their dead alive [The one translation possible] and [name], of whose rites we learn nothing; they claim none have died. We of the Forest [unclear].
Folk believe [name], the first to die in peace, journeys about for us to join him. If convinced, we follow. Some are too busy to listen, brush him aside with their tools — “I’ll go when it fancies me, bother another.” Some wrestle off the argument so deftly, [name] longs to rejoin us.
Who live near the Forest remember [name], among whom a life’s length was agreed upon at birth. One traded a portion for the sake of a friend ill or under siege. So too, one who died awake granted away the un-touched years, or flung them to the air, to be caught by the skilled. Elders know [name] came among us too soon.
[. . .]
Among [name], songs rose. Hard or milder vex were sung in tune to citizens long or newly ended or to what fragments had survived. The dead one’s Elder took concern for these surviving fragments, hid them [location-focus], often elsewhere. To save the secret, the Elder of the party killed his helpers; in secret hid their fragments also. He too would die on his return, to save the secret, so journeyed to another’s fields. By end and exile [name] declined. They, too, before their time.
[. . .]
[Name] say, “Neither tomb nor cave,” akin to our own verse, “Nowhere to die.”
[. . .]
If we are, as legend-learners tell, outcasts from a sterner moon, by what right do we demand respect? One’s duty is to punish one’s brethren for what brought us here.
[. . .]
Few citizens killed or injured on the road, or having paused where they were strangers, are returned for rite or treatment as none know their title or origin. Clear One’s Chamber in modesty offers that the citizen who journeys from his town have sealed in place one indestructible item, grooved with title and other facts, to ensure the needed ritual for all who fall in strange places.
The Clear suggestion, for its respected source and intrinsic merit, is Greeted. By [time], those still free of the item, traveler or native, tempt murmurs in the marketplace: Does he hide? Does he spy? Has he nowhere to die? Is he in doubt? (=Is he available to us? Are we free to disturb him?)
[Name]’s law encourages the item; [name]’s law urges it; [ name]’s law offers further wit grooved upon it: The quantity and nature of the citizen’s wealth, the depth of his thought, his Elders’ depth, his sufferance of [unclear]. Despite these measures the count of missing travelers rises. The count of missing natives also rises.
[. . .]
[Further annotation:
The processing device tells us nothing about the correspondent because it’s not his device. It’s ours, the way everything here is ours, as are banjos, spinning jennies, steam valves, poker decks. We’ve no clue to his source device, how it fit his fingers, tentacles, flagella or brain waves.
Brain waves. The hoofprints of Rosabelle, Baalshemrakh, Old Henry, Pedro and Skeeter, who clomped at times onto frequencies reserved, we thought, for us. No way to explain, not yet. *I’m not moving, there’s bandits down that road*.” “*Pack it up, Jed, this stream’s panned out*.” “*Run, there’s a bomb in the stable*.” The critter told you on his own, full of loyalty, bless his soul, no one had to pay him.
Then come those times they can’t access the frequency (it might be the cloud-cover Upstream) but they’ve caught wind of something with those long ears and have to warn you and they’re stuck with that frantic, frustrated, God-awful braying, drives you crazy and you call them names, “stupid ass” most likely. You don’t understand. You could, but you don’t listen right.
Brain waves. If the correspondent’s a telepath, why would he waste his time, *kinesis* and honor on a second-rate intermediary device? Unless he’d learned dead devices got respect. Talking statues, artificial thunder clouds, unplugged but talking radios. He must have tried us without some this-world prop and been appalled when his contacts were stoned, burned, crucified, sealed up where no sane thought could penetrate.]
[. . .]
Specimen K.22/2:
[Name] learned little haunts the universe but essence and the space that shields it. The Forest at a distance declares itself a solid mass of Forest, concealing the lives within.
[Name] ended his teachings.
[. . .]
[Two pages of this message are obscured by the usual coffee stains.] After seminary he strides concealed [time unit]s as a laborer among [unclear], alert for troublemakers. Supervised, he may destroy them in quiet. He may, supervised, ignore them.
[. . .]
And the silent loneliness wraps me like a fog.
[. . .]
[Name] learns experience-clouds, unlike item-clouds, may share their tasks. Time/space favoring one, favors all; pain and joy may dwell together; wood and flame may not.
[Name]’s rival learns wood and flame indeed embrace each other’s nature, as honor embraces joy at an adversary’s pain.
[. . .]
And spend your breath, till sky runs dry of cloud and you are eaten by the sun.
[. . .]
[Unclear] are gone, yet [name]’s plan of the things of the universe helps those of us who have worked the farms. His ordering of stars by their light’s nature (stars of mirth, of sadness, of taciturnity, of sobriety, of friendship) will help us find our way if we learn to fly, blasphemous as that seems. (Who says I err? The stars are sparks of clashing moons.)
Yet we look about, and remember [name]’s work’s misuse.
[. . .]
[Further annotation:
I assume it’s an innocent contact. I stacked him with all the long-dead harmless stone, bone, parchment and papyrus scribes of all those ancient and haunted places who left for us the kick of deciphering old scripts, solving old mysteries, opening new doors, and I stacked myself with all the finders and grinders and polishers of old keys.
But this scribe is alive.
His brethren — With luck, they’d beat each other to exhaustion (with further luck, to death) long before they figured how to steal, then figured how to use, the technology to get at us. If technology, not blood-throb fervor, crumples the barrier, if it’s there.
Dr. ibn-San’a, Institute’s guest, assumes any barrier, by its nature, impossible to penetrate. Except by words, which don’t exist. Realms called Other are forever Other, as oil to water.
Father Miereanu, Institute’s guest, suggests (in *Archivum*, vol.IX, spring issue) that before we noticed, the universe cracked apart, leaving the half-realms of *materia-qua-materia* and *materia-non-materia*. The Father believes God gave us fire and gasoline to let us know, in case we got the idea we could patch the two *materia* back together.
The guests agree anything beyond mind-to-device-to-mind contact with the correspondent is impossible. Which settles it.
We assume the device is always passive.]
(Committee’s Addendum: Regarding the guest hypothesis of a split *qua/non* universe of what we gather are incompatibly charged sub-atomic particles, *Strategic Papers* II proposes a monitored exchange of neutrons to correct the imbalance between U-*qua* and U-*non* such that in *n*-time the ion differential will be reduced, rendering the two half-universes once more mutually accessible. As staff assigned to Paragraph 72 concluded, “Phenomena tolerable here would be tolerable there.”)
(Dissent: Paragraph 72’s unwise strategy would result in self-replication of the exchange-initiating U (*qua* in this case) upon its alter-cosmos, leading to fruitless disputes as to which of the two equivalent manifestations of a given conscious entity becomes the legal voice and owner of the other. — Committee’s Note, Minority)
[. . .]
Specimen K.29/02:
Our neighbors dream and boast the proof that if and when we die, we — or the wandering lost thing within us — become the singers or the crawlers or the vicious barely-seen ones that dwell in the surrogate “us” they labored at.
(The Board suspects this entry has appeared before, that the correspondent or the translator is at fault. Our choice is obvious. — Committee’s Note)
[. . .]
(Specimens K.94/4-22 were incompletely translated, rendered useless; 23-39 were lost through the usual bungling. — Committee’s Note)
[. . .]
[Further annotation:
The correspondent could be returning our call. For years we’ve turned thoughts into beeps and broadcast them Elsewhere, and there’s been no response we’d consider intelligent. Poetry and music haven’t worked, nor Ranjit’s paradox, nor Maximov’s non-irrational reversed zero, nor Pythagoras’ nor Brahmagupta’s theorems. Nor the continuously broadcast *pi* (3.l4l…) or *phi* (l.6l8…) — almost twice or half of each other, like lovers almost/never close enough.
All those clues from Upstream. We copy them down and pass them along — lab data, verse selections, cooking and gardening tips from one world to the next, few worlds aware of each other (or pretending not to be aware), few near enough to allow for an immediate reply. Or any reply, if spilled coffee has compromised the documentation. But we pass it on because you never know, you never know.]
[. . .]
Specimen K.94/42:
[Name] learns, [unclear] the teacher, realms invite brief visits by shreds of us less noble than the shreds we know. Few are lost.
[Name] remembers wandering, unseen to all who knew of him. ([Name]’s rival holds all memory false, to hide.) [Name] found no rest, no home, passed others, empty to them. Time drew him to a deep [?] tree, cliff-height above the sea. With ease he climbed, sat silent on a branch. Another wandering one of us joined him, waited silent. And another waited silent. And another. Foreign to him, to each other. Many, for their weight was slight. In time the slightness ended, the branch in silence broke, and all in silence fell. One cannot say into the sea, for the memory stopped.
[. . .]
[Further annotation:
The correspondent may have been using his side’s analogue of Temporal (JanusLabs, Istanbul), which make time stand still. According to the label the patient should be able to grasp and distinguish pulses of time quanta, glimpse what may be happening in the gaps and perhaps — emphasizing “perhaps” — insert a thought between the quanta.
There’s room in the gap for spot announcements — *Thou shalt not kill*, *Say please and thank you*. If there’s room for another life . . .]
[. . .]
Specimen K.8/40:
After long absence my diminutive friend returns. [As if he has no name; as if one doesn’t waste the names of friends.] He brings a greater nut and lesser ones, new to me, new to others.
“Name them life-nuts, for their hardness.”
“They look — not difficult,” I say.
“Be one.”
I take a lesser one and with ease shred the covering. Ah, the husk is deceptive; there is hard shell beneath. My friend cracks it smoothly with two living rocks. Living, for the nut, so small, is strong. The meat, [unclear]-like, is strong.
My friend asks, “Another?”
I consent; the next is also strong.
Comes the greater nut’s turn. The husk is graceful. My friend swings an entrance knife, untouched since the Forest, to make fast work of it. The naked shell reads us, as the pensive creatures do. My friend: “This little one (he means great one) is difficult. We need more rocks to hold its place — living rocks.”
We find them. The nut secured, my friend strikes with the most demanding rock. The nut winces, does not crack.
“I tamed it’s spirit; watch now.”
He sweeps down with the entrance knife. The shell splits. He parts the halves so the [unclear]-like liquid lingers, grants me the deeper half. “Sip slowly; it gives pleasure.”
As does the meat hiding within.
Then I ask, as friends expect, “Where are these from?”
“The knowledge endangers you.”
[. . .]
[Time unit]s pass and he returns, with fresh fruits never known, different textures, each its own pleasure.
“Strong,” I say, and ask again, “Where?”
His answer as before.
[. . .]
[Time unit]s pass and he returns, brings silence. We wait as it consumes itself. Silence ends, he speaks: “The Waste.” And returns to silence. Again we wait. Struggling, insisting “No” to an unpermitted spirit pacing in the room, he rises, seeks the street.
This night, occasion gives further tumult to the town and [name], a witness, comes to tell: My friend, acknowledging their bitter rite and formula, Greeted [unclear], and fulfilling the Greeting stained him with alien fruit. As all expected, the Aroused chose to reimburse beyond comparable wealth. After a brief ceremony my diminutive friend was dead.
“No need to fight,” says [name]. “The moons are low.”
But a need to die. I know nothing more.
What had it meant, the word that broke the silence? What was the waste? A dream wastes when left empty, but is nothing. My friend spoke as one who wasted a real thing.
Empty it well and come back refilled.
[. . .]
Further Segment, Specimen K.48/2, not intended for us:
[Unclear] they communicate among themselves in our presence (eluding our notice) or apart from us (more than relevant) or within temporal enclaves as at preview and recapitulation [morn and dusk?].
What is there to share? All experience the same environment, free enough of stimulus as to offer nothing worthy of communication.
[. . .]
[Name] suspects they gather falsehood, granted falsehood’s concept. [Dr. Ohm says “falsehood” implies a spoken language, though cats may lie about where their kittens are.] Far from the Registry is larceny’s/art’s child.
[. . .]
— if apt, to extend our wisdom. [Name] offered this to the Elder’s table but Negation descended: (i) It would involve teaching; learning itself would not suffice. (ii) They, as others, would lose response to our unique transport (what do we know of unique?) and self-render unserviceable.
[. . .]
Occasion reveals the most trusting [item? name?] grant taste and sustenance. The distraction is long-proven and unavoidable. As in [name]’s report, it arose without our intention. The fruits and nuts are not affected.
[. . .]
[Further annotation:
Where the correspondent’s term might be poorly understood, I’ve used a phrase or locution unique to here, wherever we are. See *bluenose*, *fille de chambre*, *golem* and *apparatch(n)ik* in message K.37/93. (Not available at press time. –Committee’s Note)
If the correspondent was subject to time constraints less tolerable than ours, it would explain the changes in tone and theme throughout the messages. Our days were his years, room for innocence, maturity, frivolity, depression. Some of it I feel, even here.
By now none might be left who remember him, or remember well. (“Let’s see, once was this character, wrote letters to — creatures, I guess.”) He’d have been challenged by his prince or his shaman or his vigilant neighbors for consorting with evil-omen folk, or folk too full of guilt to look away. *Behold, thy very denial doth affirm thy guilt*. (“They relieved his misery. Poor devil could’ve hurt himself.”)
If our times flowed at the same rate, he’d still be there. The others would be there too, vigilant. Our *Received* — what they longed for, to pounce on.
The Humanities Board (HumB) skimmed a slim handful of messages and assigned a 6.24 global PAR, but it’s clear from reading the full series that 7.38 is more appropriate. I’m disappointed with the second folder’s 5.87, and appalled by the disparaging comments in the Chair’s memo. I urge 6.58, considering the unique cosmology in message K.2/4. (Not available at press time. — Committee’s Note)
More than disappointed, I’m confused by the meager PAR for the thirty-seventh folder, especially considering the correspondent’s sober analysis in messages K.37/94-95. (Not available at press time. — Committee’s Note)
I’ve a further objection: A bilingual edition would have been more in keeping with our purpose. The reasons for not including the original text in parallel columns or as an Appendix remain unclear. “Too many damn Appendices already,” the Chair said, as if a chair could speak.
Translation’s aim was to free the correspondent’s text. Without him beside me, I speak as if without authority.]
[. . .]
Specimen K.37/2:
I am undaunted. Brooding clouds will not hinder. I climb the articulations [?] of my diminutive planet, reaching to stroke my name from star to star.
[. . .]
Say nothing memorable.
[. . .]
The Helpers take my old cot, enemy of dreams, starver of dream-eaters; and my [unclear]-hide chair, which smells of the shriveled land between our diminutive fields and [name]’s. The duty is mine to make new ones. My diminutive dwelling is barren.
We of the Forest know a dream in a borrowed cot comes true. May they dream.
Their distaste for the cot and the chair is an excuse. They seek the Book of the World One’s Oath, which carries the name of every false citizen who has sworn to destroy the Clear One and all it stands for. A book of such size, could it hide?
[Name], of high authority and of clear repute, recalls, after deep thought, a vast meeting, yet secret, where the Book of the Oath was signed by a long queue of misguided ones. It strikes him significant the misguided wore robes of mingled [Fifth and Sixth?], the colors of the World One’s worst Orders. Forgiving by default all other Orders.
If [name] now recalls a citizen’s having worn in recent or forgotten time robes of Fifth or Sixth, or both, the citizen is Helped display his wardrobe to the town, to bid for what innocence remains. Even then, occasion murmurs his World One’s uniform lies hidden in a secret place or fed to beasts.
[Quantity] is the safe color. Robes of many and bright colors, none akin to Fifth or Sixth, bear noble streaks of [First?], not to tempt an accuser.
[. . .]
[Further annotation:
Color? Does sight, light, exist there? Is it trusted? What I took as the seeing of Fifth/Sixth/First, rotting surrogates, rock’s shadows, might for him be shimmering tone? pitch? flowing chords? texture? or subtle bubbles in time. What tells day from night, moon/star’s-light from darkness, needn’t be the clues we go by.]
[. . .]
At [time unit]s the witness, after deep thought, knows [faces?] from the meeting and calls them in the marketplace. The accused, thunderstruck, present no coherent defense.
To doubt the Book’s existence has recently been proved contempt of wisdom and an insult to one’s friends. To embrace the virtue of the Clear One is to embrace the malice of the Clear One’s enemy. It is so stated.
[Name], after deep thought, determines the Book’s existence by reason and experiment. A meeting will be called. [Unclear]
The Helpers, attentive to the cot, ignore the [musical instrument?], find no harm in what to them is noise; ignore the [comparable to telescope? reading glasses? magnifier?]; ignore the sound figures [sheet music? linguistics texts?]; ignore the [pillows? batons? styli?] thin [brittle? pale?] as the bones on the lands. They nearly [unclear], although a decoy; its loss would not matter.
They leave the old table, because it is heavy. Their failure is my profit; it grants, in sleep, the firmness I missed. Memory flows with the words baked for [name] upon its surface. With what I find in the Elder’s old dwelling I bake more. None name me. I am graceful and leave no sign. *
Story copyright ©1998 by A.Y. Tanaka
