ith capital letters. They don't exist."

Mikah's taut skin contracted into a furrow of concentration. "You'll
have to explain yourself," he said. "You're not being clear."

"I'm afraid it's you who aren't being clear. You're making a reality
where none exists. Truth--with a small _T_ is a description, a
relationship. A way to describe a statement. A semantic tool. But
capital _T_ Truth is an imaginary word, a noise with no meaning. It
pretends to be a noun but it has no referent. It stands for nothing.
It means nothing. When you say 'I believe in Truth' you are really
saying 'I believe in nothing'."

"You're wrong, you're wrong," Mikah said, leaning forward, stabbing
with his finger. "Truth is a philosophical abstraction, one of the
tools that mankind's mind has used to raise it above the beasts--the
proof that we are not beasts ourselves, but a higher order of
creation. Beasts can be true--but they cannot know Truth. Beasts can
see, but they cannot see Beauty."

* * * * *

"Arrgh!" Jason growled. "It's impossible to talk to you, much less
enjoy any comprehensible exchange of ideas. We aren't even speaking
the same language. Aside from who is right and who is wrong, for the
moment, we should go back to basics and at least agree on the meaning
of the terms that we are using. To begin with--can you define the
difference between _ethics_ and _ethos_?"

"Of course," Mikah snapped, a glint of pleasure in his eyes at the
thought of a good rousing round of hair-splitting. "Ethics is the
discipline dealing with what it good or bad, or right or wrong--or
with moral duty and obligation. Ethos means the guiding beliefs,
standards or ideals that characterize a group or community."

"Very good, I can see that you have been spending the long
spaceship-nights with your nose buried in the books. Now make sure the
difference between those two terms is very clear, because it is the
heart of the little communications problem we have here. Ethos is
inextricably linked with a single society and cannot be separated
from it, or it loses all meaning. Do you agree?"

"Well...."

"Come, come--you _have_ to agree on the terms of your own definition.
The ethos of a group is just a catch-all term for the ways in which
the members of a group rub against each other. Right?"

Mikah reluctantly produced a nod of acquiescence.

"Now that we agree about that we can push on one step further. Ethics,
again by yo