"I'm not sure why you need such a complete report, but I trust you, Commissioner. I'm gonna give it to you the best I can remember it. I am pretty old, after all, and I can barely remember home now.
"But I do remember I was born into a family-pod right here in New Ponguay, only a few miles away from where we sit now, exactly sixty-and-twelve years ago ... by my reckoning. It was ... well, I don't need to tell you, it was beautiful. I don't know exactly where you grew up, but New Ponguay was ... heaven. The gardens, the trees, the happy people singing hymns to They Who Provided. I remember taking on my necessary studies to serve the ⋨ : the ⋭, advanced ⋬, and excelling at athletics and at ⋫. I was quite the athlete back then," Zeb chuckles, sounding for just a moment like a normal History A human being reliving his glory days. "But all that talent caught the eye of my regional administrator and thus I was inducted into ⋽."
"The seers of the šedu caste in this region had foreseen opportunities for ⋳ servitors' penetration back into the, yes," Zeb says quite insistently, "cattle's ontological frame. I was invited by the šedu to try to comprehend the supreme paradox: that all of us did not actually exist, that nothing we did mattered, yet with enough belief we might yet exist again. I meditated on the paradox for years, through most of the last part of my Second Twelve. And then, one day, I made the breakthrough. Proud and happy, I genuflected before the šedu Masters and showed them I understood. And with that, I was prepared."
"Bestowed modules of English, of basic cultural knowledge — especially music, as the blessed šedu said this would be one of the ways that history would be returned to them — I would teach the young ones on the other side our music, our hymns of praise. I was told my mission was to prepare the way, that one day, perhaps many Twelves hence, a Guardian of the Doorways would finally be revealed to have been here all along. That once his face was shown, the people on this side would gather to Him, recognizing Him as their better. And this moment would be the beginning of our reclamation."
"As you know, the energy expenditures to send someone here permanently are tremendous. And for the first half-a-year I was ... very sick and very confused. But eventually I settled in. And I saw the hatred, the pettiness, the starvation, the misery that these people lived in. They chose to live this way! Their rebellion had left them with nearly twentyfour-sixty years of continuous wars, of famines, of hatred, of blood, endless blood. I've seen and experienced so much misery since I came over, Commissioner. And yet ..." Zeb chuckles, "yes, the food. The drink. The women. And men. Even the music. All so sweet, all so bitter, all these feelings I'd never experienced before, never even had the words for. Just how many different words these people have for emotions ... it's dizzying!"
Zeb finishes his giant plate of food finally, and drinks the last gulp of rye. His eyes are bloodshot, his gaze unfixed. He glances at his guitar.
"But Commissioner, I never lost ⋥, I never got turned. I never lost sight of what I needed to do. So when this young man came along, this musical prodigy came up to me on the street corner a Twelve and a half ago, I took a shine to him. Taught him how to play. And you should hear him, Commissioner. You should hear him play the horn, he plays just like the Šedu Clothed In Linen. He will sound the alarm, he will wake the people of Oakland, he will deliver the first stone to us."