Satroit (an algebraist, as it happens) had a passing interest in the canonized, but was accepting of their faults. He thought sainthood more a behaviour than a state of being, and that its purpose was seduction.
CHAPTER 26 [Editor’s Note The Publisher is required under federal law to attach to this court record the following
DISCLAIMER. This transcript was recreated from unverified court secretarial notes and unauthorized audio recordings of imperfect quality. It may contain errors. An official version will be provided with the final report of the Transportation Safety Board. The official version exclusively should be used to source extracts, quotations, and assertions of fact or opinion for any purpose whatsoever, including for purposes of broadcast, print or electronic dissemination, research or legal proceeding.
and, further, to make available to a public audience such content as may be excised from a continuous time proceedings transcript in the interest of brevity, relevance, or for any other reason. The Disclaimer should be understood to apply with equal force to the following completion extracts.]
Excision 1 [Worse] I will describe the facts presented page by page. The first is a table from a theoretical paper made available as a research report two years ago, then withdrawn and suppressed without explanation.
It shows the elemental composition of an ideal ceramic– metal alloy wavelength absorber optimized for civilian radar frequencies. It is a relatively simple matter, members of the Board, to vary this composition for optimal attenuation at military frequencies. The element in the mix that most determines this wavelength sensitivity is carbon. Moreover, we can be certain that research is in progress looking at carbon in its recently discovered graphene allotrope. Laboratory studies suggest that lambda-graphene will alter its radiofrequency null state in response to an applied pulsed EMF—basically an alternating current passed through the material. The possibility arises that an aircraft in flight surfaced with a lambda-graphene multilayer skin can alter its visibility at will in response to detected radar frequencies. This would be an enormous leap in tactical offensive air warfare.
On page two, I have converted the information from the table on page one to the graphical form that would result from a standard mass spectrometry analysis of the theoretical alloy’s composition. The position of each peak identifies the component by its atomic mass, and the height, or more correctly the area under each peak, represents the relative amount of that component. On page three, the top panel reproduces the theoretical graph from the previous page. The panel below is the actual mass spectrometry profile of the foreign material found on the Condor wreckage. As you can see, the two are essentially superimposable.
We are left with two questions. How likely is it that an aircraft developed for civilian executive use would have in its composition an advanced radar-blinding material in the minute quantity detected? And: how likely is it that the Condor did in fact collide with an undocumented drone, as reported unambiguously by the pilot, that drone being a radar-invisible research vehicle fully coated with this material of which the said minute quantity was transferred to the Condor in the collision?
Excision 2 [Chair] Dr Worse. Please apprise the board of the source and authenticity of the satellite imagery you have shown us.
[Worse] The Mìmì series of satellites incorporates the most advanced reconnaissance technology available to the Chinese military. Critical parts of this technology, for example related to camera stability, image capture and download, memory buffer management, hardware design and several on-board control systems, were stolen from US and European sources. The aggrieved parties are left with the consolation that they know how to access Mìmì systems because they designed them. Indeed, I am personally of the view that those systems can be disabled at will, though it is not in the interests of the Western military to exercise that capability in peacetime. I have obtained the material you saw by accessing on-board storage as it is periodically shunted between satellites and transmitted from satellite to ground and maritime receiving stations. Those signals are intercepted and recorded by our own security agencies. I believe that I violate no code of secrecy when I say that every foreign reconnaissance satellite is closely accompanied by an orbitally tuned US chaser vehicle, sometimes only metres distant, that copies these transmissions and also monitors its target’s management systems.
APPENDIX B. WHERE TO LOOK FOR UNICORNS
In Chapter 26, it was remarked by Worse that a given observation might be judged evidence supportive of two different, even contradictory, hypotheses. Moreover, one of these (the superior, possibly) may yet be unimagined. Sometimes it is a deficiency of this hypothesis set1, rather than a fault in either observation or the inference connecting observation to hypothesis, which debases the scientific method2. Wallis Pioniv provides the following elaboration to illustrate how apparently sound evidence can be adduced in support of a suspect (here, compound) hypothesis. (Note that, notwithstanding the clamour for refutation in progressing science, in the case of existential statements it is confirmation that is sought.)
(Unicorns exist.)
They survive as an isolated population in the Ferendes where, in order to evade predation, they masquerade as Asiatic condors.
A research expedition is dispatched to the Joseph Plateau. From the cliff edge overlooking the swampy northern plain, several condors are seen soaring gracefully on air currents.
‘Then it is true,’ says the chief scientist, lowering his binoculars. ‘We are looking at the fabled pastures of Mount Monoceros. There are unicorns everywhere!’
Naturally, the sighting is corroborated by all those present, and the discovery enters the secret corpus of unicorn literature. Of course, as Pioniv’s logic students quickly but defectively3 conclude, it confirms the existence not of unicorns, but of Asiatic condors. Ultimately though, the lesson is that any expressible hypothesis conceals intrinsic absurdity, and our three necessities of science, moral law, and comedy4 are all advanced by knowing what it is5.
1 The student should consider whether any such set is decidably complete.
2 And, for example, prosecutory justice; or causation analysis; or existence of God arguments; or any exercise in attribution.
3 Readers of Darian will appreciate the fallacy here.
4 The dullness of the prophet is that he is both irrational and humourless. Leonardo, contrarily possessed of wryness and reason (at the very least, an axiom of Euclid), noted this fact in his Credo (see Appendix A: Chapter 7; text modernized):
Across cultures, the tragic comic is the one who is ridiculous without insight. If he acquires power, it is to assuage misfortune by displacement. Thenceforth he becomes the dispenser of suffering, and will be known as a Tyrant or a Prophet. But in the shallows these two weave alike, being equals to the enemy of lightness, and therefore equal to each other.
5 Explaining Kuklosian’s warning that an open society is constantly endangered by the clerical classes not from corrigible ignorance, but because of a refusal to know—this being characteristic of regressive political orders. Bystander essentially defines the idea of Enlightenment as the rejection of this refusal.
APPENDIX C. EVADING TAX IN THE UNDERWORLD
In providing the information below, the Author has been accused of promoting cognitive autonomy, inciting destructive interfaith envy, and advancing an agenda of Sedite ascendancy over world theocracies. This is untrue. Nevertheless, what follows should not be read by those who consider these objectives undesirable.
On entering the Annulus of Infamy, individuals are assigned a unique tax file number that serves to identify them in perpetuity. First-time arrivals are warned that assessment and collection regimes are efficient and aggressive, and penalties for non-compliance are severe. Taxation rates for individuals are calculated using a secret formula in which the soul’s brand of credulity during earthly life is known to be a major determinant. According to Monica Moreish, a special exemption status is reserved for unbelievers, swint fanciers, and g
eometers. Unsurprisingly, a criminal market has emerged in the Piazza of the Squabbling Prophets where information about clandestine minimization and avoidance schemes can readily be purchased. Moreish remarks that many there quickly declare apostasy, this being easier than mastering geometry. When interrogated about prior religious practices, the recommended response is to claim these as necessary pretences adopted to pacify clerical oppressors, which in most cases is actually true. (Extraordinarily, hypocrisy on Earth becomes honesty in Hell, and inversely.) Oppressors themselves simply confess to vanity, aggrandizement, and the contagious human failing of kneeling lust. Several cantos of Inferno deal with these fiscal and dissimulation matters; the reader hoping for a tranquil and capital-protected afterlife is urged to immerse herself in their careful study, and to consult a reputable financial adviser or other professional evasion specialist.
APPENDIX D. SPIRITUAL PURITY SELF-TEST
Here are described newly hypothesised parametric weaknesses of Inferno design that might be exploited to map previously unrecognized escape routes. Under Sedite canon law, at the present time, this information is available only to readers who meet the spiritual purity criterion referred to in Paragraph 19 of the ‘Warning to the Reader’.
Interested persons who believe themselves qualified may apply to the Publisher for an information pack, questionnaire, ordination papers, purgation waters, and Request Form BTW-793, returning materials along with payment and the names of two referees. Notarized copies of three original sermons, plus passport-sized photographs of left and right dilated pupils, should be attached.
Please be aware that honour places are limited and geometers, probabilists and documented swint fanciers are advantaged in the selection process. Following appraisal, successful applicants will receive the unabridged content of Appendix D by registered mail.
DEDICATION TO THE PLAYERS
For Marigold, returning.
O LORD.
Why make Thy people suffer?
They come to fathom the temple well
but hear nothing.
MY SON.
A faithless thirst is falsely quenched.
Say to them:
The echo stone holds many sounds.
Listen for the one who falls to Heaven.
Leonardo di Boccardo
Conversaziones e Silenzio
For the swints, mirth, amen.
She that believeth in swints
though she were damned
yet shall she be thrice blessed.
For Standing Giant, in limine portus.
What mood and strength of Infamy
would hurl its Satan circles to
ungrace a fallible prince and
strike the last forgettable God?
A Gabrielle
Rubáiyát of the Dispossessed
For the Counting Owl.
And for Theta, misunderstood.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author (Author) conveys through Ms Letterby his or her appreciation of the highly professional input of Ms Alison Pilcrow as editor and all the staff at UITA Press for their expertise, resolve and courage in bringing this work (Work) to publication.
The Author expresses sincere gratitude to family and friends who shared the many difficult days of research and travel involved in producing this manuscript in total secrecy. The Author thanks especially those who assisted in ensuring his or her refuge in isolation and anonymity. He or she hopes that all who helped may share collective satisfaction from knowing that Bad to Worse will be a set text for Divinity majors at the prestigious Mount Sycamore School of Theology (MSST), and for rabbinical scholars at that institution’s Jerusalem campus. As well, an illuminated vellum manuscript edition has been commissioned by Madrasa Sheik Suleiman Tirada (MSST) in Madregalo; this is for distribution worldwide to reformist teaching programmes based on Ariadne Kuklosian’s exegesis, The Couplet Prison. In Rome, Episkopos is reportedly supporting Mottetto Spiritus Sanctus Tempio (MSST) in developing a Vulgate translation of scriptural passages from the work, with choral arrangement by Martin Allegorio, for use in sung liturgy.
A letter forwarded to the Press by Ms Letterby states, in part:
I have drawn extensively on the published works of many authors, but most especially the historian A B C Darian and the poet Monica Moreish; to both I am profoundly grateful. I also thank Libraire Satroit for allowing complete quotations and in one instance a retranslation of that poet’s work. In all cases (Leonardo di Boccardo, Timothy Bystander, Ariadne Kuklosian, Angela Gabrielle and others) where the opinion of a writer is cited or implied in the text, this has been done solely for scholarly and critical reasons and should not be taken as a view held or endorsed by this author. Finally, for the many administrative matters capably attended to by yourself [Magdalena Letterby], and for providing an eloquent and persuasive Foreword, I thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
UITA Press (the Publisher) advises that the Author of this Work is unknown. Submission, editorial and contractual matters pertaining to the manuscript were communicated through the office of Abbess Magdalena Letterby as third party. Further, Ms Letterby states on affidavit that the identity of the Author is not positively known to her. In a Memorandum to which the Publisher is not a signatory, the Author requested and Ms Letterby agreed that the author of the Work be represented as ‘Magdalena Letterby’ for administrative and bibliographic purposes. Ms Letterby subsequently becoming indisposed, that representation including vested copyright was transferred under Ms Letterby’s power of attorney to ‘Robert Edeson’, a freely available nom de commodité registered in the Republic of Ferendes. No correspondence regarding authorship of the Work will be entered into.
[Editor’s note added in proof In response to the anticipatory speculation engulfing literary circles regarding authorship of Bad to Worse, the Publisher (having no role of trusteeship in the matter, and not being party to a suppression agreement) feels compelled to disclose the existence of documents indicating beyond reasonable doubt that the Author and A B C Darian are the same person.]
WARNING TO THE READER
UITA Press WARRANTS the following in respect of the Work:
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In particular, statements regarding Mortiss Bros and related business entities have been verified against corporate records available in the public domain, and are correct at time of going to press. Assertions of criminal wrongdoing are not vetted by any United States investigative agency, and are published uncontested and without prejudice.
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