Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 19

"You'll find those who know. And then you'll do it. I don't fear it. If
you serve the Enemy, so do we all: all's lost and nothing's to lose. If not,
then you have what we men have lost: a destiny; and in following it you
may bring hope to us all…"

II
ZOVE HAD LIVED sixty years, Parth twenty; but she seemed, that
cold afternoon in the Long Fields, old in a way no man could be old,
ageless. She had no comfort from ideas of ultimate star-spanning triumph
or the prevalence of truth. Her father's prophetic gift in her was only lack
of illusion. She knew Falk was going. She said only, "You won't come
back."
"I will come back, Parth."
She held him in her arms but she did not listen to his promise.
He tried to bespeak her, though he had little skill in telepathic
communication. The only Listener in the house was blind Kretyan; none of
them was adept at the nonverbal communication, mindspeech. The
techniques of learning mindspeech had not been lost, but they were little
practiced. The great virtue of that most intense and perfect form of
communication had become its peril for men.
Mindspeech between two intelligences could be incoherent or insane,
and could of course involve error, misbelief; but it could not be misused.
Between thought and spoken word is a gap where intention can enter, the
symbol be twisted aside, and the lie come to be. Between thought and
sent-thought is no gap; they are one act. There is no room for the lie.
In the late years of the League, the tales and fragmentary records Falk
had studied seemed to show, the use of mind-speech had been widespread
and the telepathic skills very highly developed. It was a skill Earth had
come to late, learning its techniques from some other race; the Last Art,
one book called it. There were hints of troubles and upheavals in the
government of the League of All Worlds, rising perhaps from that
prevalence of a form of communication that precluded lying. But all that
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