'Last week. And that's not all.'
He lowered his voice.
'The Bellman has gassed himself!'
'But we were just talking to him,' I replied.
'Oh,' said the young man, thinking hard, 'I meant Perkins has gassed himself.'
Miss Havisham joined us.
'Billy!' she said in a scolding tone. 'That's quite enough of that. Buzz off before I box your ears!'
The young man looked deflated for a moment then pulled himself up, announced haughtily that he had been asked to write additional dialogue for John Steinbeck and strode off. Miss Havisham shook her head sadly.
'If he ever says "good morning",' she said, 'don't believe him. All well, Trafford?'
'Top hole, Estella, old girl, top hole. I bumped into Tuesday here in the Well.'
'Not selling parts of your book, were you?' she asked mischievously.
'Good heavens, no!' replied Bradshaw, feigning shock and surprise. 'Goodness me,' he added, staring into the room for some form of escape, 'I must just speak to the Cheshire Cat. Good day!'
And, tipping his pith helmet politely, he was gone.
'Bradshaw, Bradshaw,' sighed Miss Havisham, shaking her head sadly, 'soon Bradshaw defies the Kaiser will have so many holes we could use it as a colander.'
'He wanted to buy a dress for Mrs Bradshaw,' I explained.
'Have you met her yet?'
'Not yet.'
'When you do, don't stare, will you? It's very rude.'
'Why would I—'
'Come along!' interrupted Miss Havisham. 'Almost time for roll-call!'
The ballroom of Norland Park had long since been used for nothing but Jurisfiction business. The floor space was covered with tables and filing cabinets, and the many desks were piled high with files tied up with ribbon. There was a table to one side with food upon it and waiting for us – or the Bellman, at least – were the staff at Jurisfiction. There were about thirty operatives on the active list, and since up to ten of them were busy on assignment and five or so active in their own books, there were never more than fifteen people in the office at any one time. Vernham Deane gave me a cheery wave as we entered. He was the resident cad and philanderer in a Daphne Farquitt novel entitled The Squire of High Potternews, but you would never know to talk to him – he had always been polite and courteous to me. Next to him was Harris Tweed, who had intervened back at the Slaughtered Lamb only the day before.
'Miss Havisham!' he exclaimed, walking over and handing us both a plain envelope. 'I've got your bounty for those grammasites you killed; I split it equally, yes?'
He winked at me, then left before Havisham could say anything.
'Thursday!' said Akrid Snell. 'Sorry to dash off like that yesterday. Hello, Miss Havisham – I heard you got swarmed by a few grammasites; no one's ever shot six Verbisoids in one go before!'
'Piece of cake,' I replied. 'And Akrid, I've still got that – er – thing you bought.'
'Thing? What thing?'
'You remember,' I urged, knowing that trying to influence his own narrative was strictly forbidden, 'the thing. In a bag. You know.'
'Oh! Ah … ah, yes,' he said, finally realising what I was talking about. 'The thing thing. I'll pick it up after work, yes?'
'Snell insider-trading again?' asked Havisham quietly as soon as he had left.
'I'm afraid so.'
'I'd do the same if my book was as bad as his.'
I looked around to see who else had turned up. Sir John Falstaff was there, as was King Pellinore, Deane, Lady Cavendish, Mrs Tiggy-winkle with Emperor Zhark in attendance, Gully Foyle, and Perkins.
'Who are they?' I asked Havisham, pointing to two agents I didn't recognise.
'Ichabod Crane is the one on the left holding the pumpkin,' she explained. 'Beatrice is the other. A bit loud for my liking, but good at her job.'
I thanked her and looked around for the Red Queen, whose open hostility to Havisham was Jurisfiction's least well-kept secret; she was nowhere to be seen.
'Hail, Miss Next!' rumbled Falstaff, waddling up and staring at me unsteadily from within a cloud of alcohol fumes. He had drunk, stolen and womanised throughout Henry IV Parts I and II then inveigled himself into The Merry Wives of Windsor. Some saw him as a likeable rogue; I saw him as just plain revolting – although he was the blueprint of likeable debauchers in fiction everywhere, so I thought I should try to cut him a bit of slack.
'Good morning, Sir John,' I said, trying to be polite.
'Good morning to you, sweet maid,' he exclaimed happily. 'Do you ride?'
'A little.'
'Then perhaps you might like to take a ride up and down the length of my merry England? I could take you places and show you things—'
'I must politely decline, Sir John.'
He laughed noisily in my face. I felt a flush of anger rise within me but luckily the Bellman, unwilling to waste any more time, had stepped up to his small dais and tingled his bell.
'Sorry to keep you all waiting,' he muttered. 'As you have seen, things are a little fraught outside. But I am delighted to see so many of you here. Is there anyone still to come?'
'Shall we wait for Godot?' enquired Deane.
'Anyone know where he is?' asked the Bellman. 'Beatrice, weren't you working with him?'
'Not I,' replied the young woman. 'You might enquire this of Benedict if he troubles to attend but you would as well speak to a goat – a stupid goat, mark me.'
'The sweet lady's tongue does abuse to our ears,' said Benedict, who had been seated out of our view but now rose to glare at Beatrice. 'Were the fountain of your mind clear again, that I might water an ass at it.'
'Ah!' retorted Beatrice with a laugh. 'Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike!'
'Dear Beatrice,' returned Benedict, bowing low, 'I was looking for a fool when I found you.'
'You, Benedict, who has not so much brain as ear-wax?'
They narrowed their eyes at one another and then smiled with polite enmity.
'All right, all right,' interrupted the Bellman. 'Calm down, you two. Do you know where Agent Godot is or not?'
Beatrice answered that she didn't.
'Right,' announced the Bellman. 'Let's get on. Jurisfiction meeting number 40319 is now in session.'
He tingled his bell again, coughed and consulted his clipboard.
'Item one. Our congratulations go to Deane and Lady Cavendish for foiling the Bowdlerisers in Chaucer.'
There were a few words of encouragement and back-slapping.
'There has been damage done but it's got no worse, so let's just try and keep an eye out in the future. Item two.'
He put down his clipboard and leaned on the lectern.
'Remember that craze a few years back in the BookWorld for sending chain letters? Receive a letter and send one on to ten friends? Well, someone has been over-enthusiastic with the letter "U". I've got a report here from the Text Sea Environmental Protection Agency saying that reserves of the letter "U" have reached dangerously low levels – we need to decrease consumption until stocks are brought back up. Any suggestions?'
'How about using a lower-case "N" upside down?' said Benedict.
'We tried that with "M" and "W" during the Great "M" Migration of '62; it never worked.'
'How about respelling what, what?' suggested King Pellinore, stroking his large white moustache. 'Any word with the "our" ending could be spelt "or", dontchaknow.'
'Like neighbor instead of neighbour?
'It's a good idea,' put in Snell. 'Labor, valor, flavor, harbor— there are hundreds. If we confine it to one geographical area we can claim it as a local spelling idiosyncrasy.'
'Hmm,' said the Bellman, thinking hard. 'Do you know, it just might work.'
He looked at his clipboard again.
'Item three – Tweed, are you here?'
Harris Tweed signalled from where he was sitting.
'Good,' continued the Bellman. 'I understand you w
ere pursuing a PageRunner who had taken up residence in the Outland?'
Tweed glanced at me and stood up.
'Fellow by the name of Yorrick Kaine. He's something of a big cheese in the Outland – runs Kaine Publishing and has set himself up as head of his own political party—'
'Yes, yes,' said the Bellman impatiently, 'and he stole Cardenio, I know – but the point is, where is he now?'
'He went back to the Outland where I lost him,' replied Tweed.
'The Council of Genres are not keen to sanction any work in the real world,' said the Bellman slowly. 'It's too risky. We don't even know which book Kaine is from – and since he's not doing anything against us at present, I think he should stay in the Outland.'
'But Kaine is a real danger to our world,' I exclaimed.
Considering Kaine's righter-than-right politics, this was a fresh limit to the word understatement.
'He has stolen from the Great Library once,' I continued. 'How can we suppose he won't do the same again? Don't we have a duty to the readers to protect them from fictionauts hell-bent on—'
'Ms Next,' interrupted the Bellman, 'I understand what you are saying but I am not going to sanction an operation in the Outland. I'm sorry, but that is how it is going to be. He goes on the PageRunners' register and we'll set up textual sieves on every floor of the Library in case he plans to come back. Out there you may do as you please; here you do as we tell you. Is that clear?'
I grew hot and angry but Miss Havisham squeezed my arm, so I remained quiet.
'Good,' carried on the Bellman, consulting his clipboard again. 'Item four. Text Grand Central have reported several attempted incursions from the Outland. Nothing serious but enough to generate a few ripples in the Ficto-Outland barrier. Miss Havisham, didn't you report that an Outlander company was doing some research into entering fiction?'
It was true. Goliath had been attempting entry into the BookWorld for many years but with little success; all they had managed to do was extract a stodgy gunge from volumes one to eight of The World of Cheese. Uncle Mycroft had sought refuge in the Sherlock Holmes series to avoid them.
'It was called the Something Company,' replied Havisham thoughtfully.
'Goliath,' I told her. 'It's called the Goliath Corporation.'
'Goliath. That was it. I had a look round while I was retrieving Miss Next's TravelBook.'
'Do you think Outlander technology is that far advanced?' asked the Bellman.
'No. They're still a long way away. They'd been trying to send an unmanned probe into The Listeners but, from what I saw, with little success.'
'Okay,' replied the Bellman, 'we'll keep an eye on them. What was their name again?'
'Goliath,' I said.
He made a note.
'Item five. All of the punctuation has been stolen from the final chapter of Ulysses. Probably about five hundred assorted full stops, commas, apostrophes and colons.'
He paused for a moment.
'Vern, weren't you doing some work on this?'
'Indeed,' replied the squire, stepping forward and opening a notebook. 'We noticed the theft two days ago. I spoke to the Cat and he said that no one has entered the book, so we can only assume that the novel was penetrated through the literary interpretation of Dublin – which gives us several thousand suspects. I surmise the thief thought no one would notice as most readers never get that far into Ulysses – you will recall the theft of chapter sixty-two from Moby-Dick, which no one ever noticed? Well, this theft was noted, but initial reports show that readers are regarding the lack of punctuation as not a cataclysmic error but the mark of a great genius, so we've got some breathing space.'
'Are we sure it was a thief?' asked Beatrice. 'Couldn't it just be grammasites?'
'I don't think so,' replied Perkins, who had made bookzoology into something closely resembling a science. 'Punctusauroids are pretty rare, and to make off with so many punctuations you would need a flock of several hundred. Also, I don't think they would have left the last full stop – that looks to me like a mischievous thief
'Okay,' said the Bellman, 'so what are we to do?'
'The only ready market for stolen punctuation is in the Well.'
'Hmm,' mused the Bellman. 'A Jurisfiction agent down there is about as conspicuous as a brass band at a funeral. We need someone to go undercover. Any volunteers?'
'It's my case,' said Vernham Deane. 'I'll go. That is if no one thinks themselves better qualified.'
There was silence.
'Looks like you're it!' enthused the Bellman, writing a note on his clipboard. 'Item six. As you recall, David and Catriona Balfour were Boojummed a few weeks back. Because there can't be much Kidnapped and Catriona without them and Robert Louis Stevenson remains a popular author, the Council of Genres has licensed a pair of A-4 Generics to take their place. They'll be given unlimited access to all Stevenson's books, and I want you all to make them feel welcome.'
There was a murmuring from the collected agents.
'Yes,' said the Bellman with a resigned air, 'I know they'll never be exactly the same but with a bit of luck we should be okay; no one in the Outland noticed when David Copperfield was replaced, now, did they?'
No one said anything.
'Good. Item seven. As you know, I am retiring in two weeks' time and the Council of Genres will need a replacement Bellman. All nominations are to be given direct to the Council for consideration.'
He paused again.
'Item eight. As you all know, Text Grand Central have been working on an upgrade to the Book Operating System for the last fifty years—'
There was a groan from the assembled agents. Clearly this was a matter of some contention. Snell had explained about the ImaginoTransference technology behind books in general, but I had no idea how it worked. Still don't, as a matter of fact.
'Do you know what happened when they tried to upgrade SCROLL?' said Bradshaw. 'The system conflict wiped the entire library at Alexandria – they had to torch the lot to stop it spreading.'
'We knew a lot less about operating systems then, Commander,' replied the Bellman in a soothing voice, 'and you can rest assured that early upgrading problems have not been ignored. Many of us have reservations about the standard version of BOOK that all our beloved works are recorded in, and I think the latest upgrade to BOOK V9 is something that we should all welcome.'
No one said anything. He had our attention.
'Good. Well, I could rabbit on all day but I really feel that it would be better to let WordMaster Libris, all the way from Text Grand Central, tell you the full story. Xavier?'
11
Introducing UltraWord™
* * *
"… First there was OralTrad, upgraded ten thousand years later by the rhyming (for easier recall) OralTradPlus. For thousands of years this was the only Story Operating System and it is still in use today. The system branched in two about twenty thousand years ago; on one side with CaveDaubPro (forerunner of PaintPlusV2.3, GrecianUrnV1.2, SculptMarble V1.4, and the latest, all-encompassing SuperArtisticExpression-5). The other strand, the Picto-Phonetic Storytelling Systems, started with ClayTablet V2.1 and went through several competing systems (WaxTablet, Papyrus, VellumPlus) before merging into the award-winning SCROLL, which was upgraded eight times to V3.5 before being swept aside by the all-new and clearly superior BOOK V1. Stable, easy to store and transport, compact and with a workable index, BOOK has led the way for nearly eighteen hundred years …'
WORDMASTER XAVIER LIBRIS –
Story Operating Systems – The Early Years
A small and rather pallid-looking man took his position on the dais; he could only just see over the lectern. He wore a white short-sleeved shirt and was almost weighed down by the number of pens in his top pocket. We all took a seat and gazed at him with interest; UltraWord™ had been the talk of the Well for ages and everyone was keen to learn whether the rumours of its technical virtuosity were true.
'Good morning, everyone,' began
Libris in a nervous voice. 'Over the next thirty minutes I will try and explain a little about our latest operating system: BOOK Version 9, which we have code-named UltraWord™.'
There was silence as the agents mulled this over. I got the feeling in that this was not just important but really important. Like being at the signing of a peace accord or something. Even Bradshaw, who was no fan of technology, was leaning forward and listening with interest, a frown etched on his forehead.
Libris pulled the first sheet off a flipchart. There was a picture of an old book.
'Well,' he began, 'when we first came up with the "page" concept in BOOK V1 we thought we'd reached the zenith of story containment – compact, easy to read and, by using integrated PageNumber™ and SpineTitle™ technologies, we had a system of indexing far superior to anything SCROLL could offer. Over the years—'
Here he flipped the chart over to show us varying styles of books through the ages.
'—we have been refining the BOOK system. Illustrations were the first upgrade at 1.1, standardised spelling at V3.1 and vowel and irregular verb stability in V4.2. Today we use BOOK V8.3, one of the most stable and complex ImaginoTransference technologies ever devised – the smooth transfer of the written word into the reader's imagination has never been faster.'
He stopped for a moment. We all knew that BOOK V8.3 was excellent; apart from a few typos that crept in and the variable quality of stories – neither of which was the system's fault – it was good, very good indeed.
'Constructing the books down in the sub-basements, although time consuming, seems to work well, even if it is a little chaotic.'
There were murmurs of agreement from the assembled agents; it was clear that no one much liked it down there.
'But,' went on Libris, 'endlessly recycling old ideas might not hold the reader's attention for that much longer – the Council of Genres' own market research seems to indicate that readers are becoming bored with the sameness of plot lines.'
'I think it's already happened,' said the Bellman, then checked himself quickly, apologised for the interruption and let Libris carry on.
'But,' continued Libris, 'to understand the problem we need a bit of history. When we first devised the BOOK system eighteen hundred years ago, we designed it mainly to record events – we never thought there would be such a demand for story. By the tenth century story usage was so low that we still had enough new plots to last over a thousand years. By the time the seventeenth century arrived this had lowered to six hundred – but there was still no real cause for worry. Then, something happened that stretched the operating system to the limit.'