shithub: thrice_great_hermes

ref: 31f3d45b284ee9d7b9372d88fab70305aa9af2d7
dir: /troff/0404.ms/

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.ce
.ps 16
.CW
WHAT OTHER PEOPLE
.ce
.sp |1.2i
HAVE ALREADY SAID
.ce
.sp |1.4i
ABOUT LINES
.R

.PP
.ps 10
Werner didn't really know the language, but he managed to write the
characters all over every surface he owned, and at least some of the
ones he didn't.  Examples of his private papers had been sealed with
what he hoped were accurate phrases.  Some he merely filed away and
forgot.
.PP
.ps 10
Others he tried to read only a short time after he wrote them.  Here,
too, he found that the encoding was mostly one way.  No idea what he
had meant to remember.  These, as well, he would grudgingly file and
forget.  How was he supposed to access them?  If he could access them,
anyone could access them.  The symmetry was obvious, and perfect.
.PP
.ps 10
On the other hand, it was likely even the ones he could no longer
crack were an open book to his handlers at Disney.  Oh yes, he knew
about their attempts to monitor his progress...
.PP
.ps 10
Pete had sent along another batch of proofs.  Werner wasn't sure that
he recognized his own words.  No fault of Pete's.  Something was going
wrong with Werner's editor.
.PP
.ps 10
The cornerstone of good reporting is clarity.  Accentuate the
positively verifiable.  Excise the negatively misinformational.  At
times this somber algorithm resulted in short articles indeed.  Werner
had become fond of throwing in extras for himself to cut prior to
submitting a story.  Only sometimes would he forget to do the
cutting...
.PP
.ps 10
Where was he.
.PP
.ps 10
Werner drew a firm boundary around the truth.  Nothing else could be
allowed to creep into his reports, tempting as it might be to
embellish\(emahem\(emto add color\(emahem\(emto extend the bare facts
into a tapestry better suited to clothe his artistic pursuits.  The
things he felt he didn't understand he reserved for encoding.  It
would be bad form to clutter the articles with poorly explicated
digressions.  As time wore on he found that the encoded ledger
eclipsed his contrary meanderings, both in terms of sheer length and
what he had to assume had been a surfeit of fine detail...
.PP
.ps 10
These items and more flitted flirtatiously through his gradually
awakening mind as he prepared his workspace for another day of
reading, collating, and typing.  Werner cleared his desk of ephemerals
and reset his internal chronometer.  It was four hours until lunch.