Honored Are Rhetoricians when Listeners Are Attentive To Their Speeches
The next day, the employees agreed among themselves to take more frequent, shorter shifts. Those on break dashed off to watch for the debaters, who were expected to arrive from the north. Not that there was any chance of missing them, for the news of it sped as fast as Usse could be spoken the moment they came into town. The guests of honor reached Mosso Eksu together, no doubt by previous arrangement, and proceeded directly toward the town center. They attracted attention by their sheer Panache that had served them so well in their careers as well as a shared inclination toward showmanship.
The primary debaters both appeared to be entering the prime age for that sort of career, their late 30s or early 40s, when youthful daring joined to itself respectable prudence. If someone said, “Imagine a handsome man,” Eksu Pui Hikku would not appear in any mind, but he had a sparkle in his eyes of someone full of cheer whose company was much desired. He was a man of middle height among his countrymen, and his hair was a typical leather-looking brown. The red scarf which covered his head bore star patterns; no doubt his servants had not plucked it out of a closet at random. Or a drawer. Where did Ommes keep those when not in use? Stadeskosken's hired experts said nothing on the subject.
Luas Taikko Hinmi was short even for a woman of the Jalpi Peffu and crowned by that shade of hair which, the pamphlet informed the Stadeskosken employees, Ommes sometimes called ginger but they ought not, as it could be a sensitive subject. Her apparel coordinated a range of greens rather than the two-tone arrangements on which the normal, non-Colorist Omme relied for dependable results, and her delicate gestures implied that a similar level of sophistication attached to everything she did.
The translators did what they could to get across the gist of all the Usse being spoken, a language that may as well have been painted pebbles rattled in a jug for all the typical Adaban could make of it. “It was agreed between them to disclose none of their actual arguments before the debate itself. They are exchanging compliments now. Ah, and speaking of previous debates, speaking engagements, so on, some of these comments are quite pointed. The crowd is entertained, but it is very subtle and difficult to translate.”
Eksu Pui Hikku and Luas Taikko Hinmi saluted each other. “The period of barbs is at an end, both feel,” they declared in concert according to the translator. They turned to the crowd and raised their voices. “What is wanted now is a general sense of the prevailing sentiment. How many of the Jalpi still believe in the shameless advertising of stargazers? How many are illiterate and therefore incapable of reading the records of correct predictions that go back eight centuries?” The Ommes laughed at the phrasing of the questions. “Ah, that man just shouted he is dumb enough to fall in both categories, and it seems he has won over the audience to his position entirely. The debaters are praising him. What's this?”
Luas Taikko Hinmi pretended to have seen the Adaban commercial delegation at that moment and no sooner. She sauntered toward them and asked for a translator, who related this speech directed at the foreigners but meant for the Ommes. “We have established the incapability of the Town People. If injurious to our view of ourselves, it was ever the expected result. Well, inflated confidence needs killing anyway. How is it with our magnificent neighbors to the south whose desire to enjoy our company is so overwhelming that they often drop by uninvited? We'll leave aside the trouble Adabans have crossing rivers on these trips; that is an engineering question.” The crowd was having a great time while the Stadeskosken workers maintained fixed smiles. “Today my curiosity is about immaterial thinking. How about it, Adabans? Have you realized amid your armories and vaults that everything proceeds according to immutable principles? That we, I mean every branch of humanity's tree who are ignorant of anything an inch beyond our roots, have only just begun to comprehend a foot of it? That some of us suppose in error that what we understand is all that can be understood and everything beyond that we can file under some nebulous 'natural' or 'supernatural' as if it has nothing to do with us, when in fact reality has such an encompassing regularity to it that even gods, if they exist, are undeniably a part of it, subject to the same rules as the rest of us whether we comprehend them or not?”
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When the translator finished, the Adabans nodded and said that sounded about right. Only one among them proffered an objection, a young man who believed he had seen some evidence that the gods treated reason as children do a ball they find in the street. “It is no indictment of a tree that it stops at its roots where it must. I might judge a little harsher a tree that yells at the birds and deer about it that they must stop all the flying and running around they do unless they wish to damage their own roots.”
“That is exactly, I mean the combination of these two statements, hers and yours, why I despise analogies. They don't get us anywhere really.” Silfour told his younger brother that, and neither noticed that the translator was putting their words into Usse until Eksu Pui Hikku came over to congratulate them on their perspicacity.
“The Adabans surpassed us in rhetoric long ago if they have realized the uselessness of analogies, conceits, metaphors, and all the various fallbacks of a failing argument. More important is an understanding of categories, and besides that a willingness to fit theory to observation rather than the reverse. Can young gentlemen such as these two have learned more about the world than our scholars in any other way but that our brightest have spent a great deal of time inventing nonsense when the truth was above us at night?”
The crowd liked that just as much as the Adaban-bashing earlier. Dirant Rikelta became the favorite of the pro faction, since “even an Adaban” agreed with them. Leaving aside the indisputable fact he had taken no stance on the subject of the debate, his adoption as mascot exposed the pros to mockery by the antis for relying on that cliché. “We have more Adabans than you if we decide to care what they think, but why should we? Don't pay tribute when you haven't been beaten,” they said.
Meanwhile, Eksu Pui Hikku was introducing himself to the Adabans through a translator. “Evoker Eksu Pui Hikku, present,” he said as he saluted Dirant.
“Our meeting is a blessing for me. My name is Ritualist Dirant Rikelta.” A gentleman did not include his class in Greater Enloffenkir, but the customs of Pavvu Omme Os demanded it. “And it is Pui we may call you, is that correct?” The pamphlet described the three or four names of most Ommes as a nickname taken up in adulthood, a family name, the husband's family name if applicable, and a personal name given by one's parents. Strangers, among civilians at least, normally referred to one another by the family name, friends by the adult name, and family or other intimates by the childhood name. Dirant believed in the accuracy of the experts Stadeskosken had paid, but he believed even more in hedging when it came to the risk of insulting someone on company time.
“Correct. In return, what is it, Mr. Rikkelta? That sounds right.”
“Ah. And it would be with more than one Dirant around. Otherwise Mr. Dirant is preferred, though the sound of that is strange when I say it.”
“A complex society you have down there,” Pui laughed. “There is one over there, as it happens. We met on the road.” He pointed at an Adaban on the other side of the market. Seeing him, Dirant concluded his polite greetings and asked Silfour to take over his shift, which was a simple request to honor since nobody was doing any commerce or lifting amid the hubbub anyway. He dashed over.
“Is that a Dirant Ratsafaoren I see? He is unquestionably a ghost, for the living one was in Chtrebliseu the last I heard, where the spices are more to his preference.”
The man turned around. “Am I to believe Dirant Rikelta is here where there are no strange rituals to chase? Try something better.” The two Todelk-educated Ritualists walked off together to renew their acquaintance.