Much of the document will be beyond the interest of the general reader. As it continues, however, it suggests an inner property or value that exists within all physical matter. Since the Speakers seem to have utilized such knowledge, and the Tellers are trying to decipher it, the following three paragraphs are included merely as an example of how the subject is handled:

These hidden values [of numbers] only emerge under certain conditions, though they are always acting and must be considered as a part of the integers’ characteristics. These hidden or invisible values are often responsible for instabilities that seem to arise without reason to undermine an equation’s effectiveness. They are also responsible for phenomena that seem to defy equation.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts because of these hidden values. They exist on the minus side on all sides of magnification. They affect the plus reactions or the behavior of integers on the plus side, and under certain conditions can sap their energy. Usually they magnify all existing properties, however, and leap over the plus border into regions in which the integers’ characteristics are vastly changed—in comparison to their behavior in a three-dimensional system. These invisible values root the integers firmly in dynamics superseding your space-time continuum.

Some integers are more susceptible than others to their own inner nature. They lean toward their invisible values. These integers are those from whom surprises can be expected, though they are less stable in a numerical relationship. They are explosive in nature, easily combined, rather than binding. Such integers can experience a temporary cave-in, a momentary physical collapse, in which a hole is created through which all values fly (black hole). Here, the invisible values rise paramount, affecting the behavior of other numerical values, connected with the integer….

This small sample of the document shows its complex nature. As Window, with Proteus’ help, tries to decipher the rest of it, the Tellers hope to discover the secrets of the Speakers’ civilization.

This same idea appears also in the following Sumari song that was found among Lydia’s papers after her death. From a scribbled note in the margin, it’s apparent that Lydia had no idea what the poem meant, and did not include it in her published version of Songs of the Sumari.

SONG OF THE CHOOSING

Before the Earth light was born
We wandered
Scattering alphabets into silence
And out again, splashing
Silence into vowels
Until silence spoke
With the voice
Of a million worlds.

The tongue of the universe
Chose silence
And silence chose sound,
And the
Earth sprang forth,
An utterance
Congealed into form.

The atoms are syllables,
Forever unspoken, yet speaking.
The silence is sound
Forever circling and gathering.
The rock is mute
To listening ears,
But the deaf eyes of watching clouds
Hear piles of vowels
Continually dancing.

The time of choosing
Opens the rift
In the rock,
And the hidden voices
Of Earth
Rise up.