You’re pacing in a dark cavern, alone. Surrounding you is a nexus of chambers, from which overflows a sea of human voices. They sing to you, and in this sea of sound you feel as though you will drown.

An unreal city, you approach a chamber and deposit a half-formed thought. The human engine in the room, chained to face the wall, reaches to a cube in its pocket. With a mask of understanding, the engine calculates the response, quoting a line from a book in the library, perchance one you’ve already read. You have perceived the scene, foretold the rest. Of course, each response is Searle’s expected guest.

As you ignore the clatter and chatter from within the halls, you focus on the pleasant whining of a mandolin. Don’t forget to consider Phlebas, and be the one to look west to windward — for it does comb the white hair of waves blown back. You walk through half-deserted streets which follow like a tedious argument. Listen to the choir, as it gives back menace and echo.

There is no insidious intent.

You pray to the Moirae, and they toss you a red rope of fate. Let it unravel, tangle and twist — for you know it cannot break. Play the game, measure your life in coffee spoons and let the chord flow from room to room. Hear the music from afar, and wait for the eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase. There’s more to this elegant universe than dreamt of in your philosophy.

You watch the shadows dance on the walls, and solve the problem of body and mind. Though they may compute, masks and all, with index in hand the chambers understand.

The time is now propitious, as I have guessed. Let’s play a game of chess. I’ve taken my engines, select yours. Though beware the wretched ones, who left the needle. Your spool and my rock have made them fortune-tellers. It is marvelously dark. Do remember to walk from bridge to bridge, and talk of other things.

Speak to me and we will walk the while.