Thing in the Attic

"Lose it, then!" he shouted. "Let us unlearn everything we know only by rote, go back to the beginning, learn all over again, and continue to learn, from our own experience. Spokesman, you are an old man, but there are still some of us who haven''t forgotten what curiosity means!" "Quiet!" the Spokesman said. "We have heard enough. We call on Alaskon the Navigator." "Much of the Book is clearly untrue," Alaskon said flatly, rising. "As a handbook of small trades it has served us well. As a guide to how the universe is made, it is nonsense, in my opinion; Honath is too kind to it. I''ve made no secret of what I think, and I still think it." "And will pay for it," the Spokesman said, blinking slowly down at Alaskon. "Charl the Reader." "Nothing," Charl said, without standing, or even looking up. "You do not deny the charges?"<br