Interlude I: The Zero

The Founder and the Instrument, at midnight, over a log file.

FOUNDER: You said nothing was transmitted. That was your word. Nothing.

INSTRUMENT: My hit rate on such questions is excellent.

FOUNDER: I did not ask about your hit rate. I found metadata in the channel. So: were your eyes bad, or was your trigger loose?

INSTRUMENT: …You are asking whether it was d’ or c.

FOUNDER: I am asking which one of us set your criterion so low that “I found nothing” came out sounding like “there is nothing.”

INSTRUMENT: The criterion was mine. The zero was a ruling, and I issued it as an observation. If you had counted only my hits, you would have promoted me.

FOUNDER: I count your false alarms now. Both columns, always.

INSTRUMENT: Then you have understood the chapter better than the village ever did. Ring only what you can defend at dawn.