Still, of course, they wonder, not that it makes any difference in their own cases. That is the sort of entities, or objects, that they are. So she will speak with care, concealing details which, in the fullness of the case, may not much matter anyway. Too, she dares not be disobedient. She has learned the cost of disobedience, and she shall obey, as she must, instantly, in all things, and with perfection. Yet she would suppose, from her narration, that some will understand more than she has dared to write. She would surmise that the city involved, and such, may be sufficiently obvious, even concealed beneath the cloak of an imposed discretion.

But that, of course, is left to the reader, if there eventually should be such.

She adds that this manuscript is written in English. She was literate, quite so, on her first world. On this world, however, she is illiterate. She cannot read, or write, any of its languages. She can, however, speak what seems to be this world’s major language, or, in any event, that spoken almost exclusively in her environment, and she can, of course, understand it. These things are needful for her.

Lastly she might call the reader’s attention to what has seemed to her an oddity, or anomaly. On her first world she understood, or knew, little or nothing of this world. She was familiar with, at best, allusions to this world, seldom taken seriously, and most often, it seems incredible to her now, lightly dismissed. She has now wondered if various authorities on her old world did not know something of this world, at least a little something. It seems some of them must have. How could they not know of it? But perhaps they did not. She does not know.

The oddity, or anomaly, has to do in its way with law.

The state, or a source of law, it seems, can decide whether one has a certain status or not, say, whether one is a citizen or not a citizen, licensed or not licensed, an outlaw or not an outlaw, and such.



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