“We’ve won, you know. It’s over.”
A chill went through Lenora, but she neither paused nor responded. Relief washed over her as she settled into the usual single, reclining seat, with its lovely cracked leather upholstery, and the door to the capsule closed firmly. Lenora considered the capsule’s interior. There were thousands of slots all around her, each labeled with the name of a destination in the Library. She scanned them for the one that said Philosophy. She was disturbed to see that a large number of the slots, which normally all had brightly lit labels, had gone dark, and she resolved to look into that mystery as well, as soon as she could. At last she located Philosophy, thankful to see it was still lit, and plunged her key in straightaway.
The capsule shooshed off, the force pushing Lenora back into her seat.
The trip seemed to take longer than normal. Lenora wondered if something was Terribly Wrong with the tubes, too. And the entire journey took place in darkness. Normally Lenora was able to see new bits of the Library as she sped along (she still meant to visit that ice cave from last time whenever she could), but this time she couldn’t see anything outside the glass besides pitch darkness.
However, the tube eventually slowed, her chair swiveling around in the other direction as she was again pushed back in her seat. The capsule came into the station, and light returned. The door slid open and Lenora exited to find, with much relief, that it had delivered her to the correct place: a massive stone arch with the word PHILOSOPHY carved above. In she went.
As soon as she entered, an elderly woman hobbled rapidly over, moving with surprising speed for someone who used a cane. “Oh my, at last!” she said. “A librarian! I’ve been searching and searching for one. Can you help me, please?”
Lenora was torn. On the one hand, she had to find that girl. On the other, she had vowed to help all those with questions. Hoping this was an easy one, she replied, “Yes, of course. How may I help you?”
“Oh, thank you,” the woman said with a tremendous sigh of relief. “You see, several of my friends and I have pooled our money and bought an island. We plan to set up our own society there, but we don’t quite know how to go about it. I’m looking for a copy of Plato’s Republic.”
“For ideas on how to set up a just, happy society,” said Lenora. “Of course.” With confidence (for this was an easy one), she led the woman down the correct row (she’d spent enough time in one library or another at this point that she could find most books with ease). But there was something strange about the shelves. Instead of books by and about people like Socrates, Rousseau, Al-Farabi, Confucius, Arendt, Leibniz, and Hildegard of Bingen, there were books by only one person.
The Director.
His face glowed out from every cover, with a smile that seemed just a bit too huge. There were dozens of different titles, so many that Lenora had serious doubts he had really written all of them. They had titles that had nothing to do with philosophy, like How to Get Incredibly Rich and How to Make Unbelievable Amounts of Money (Lenora wondered what was missing from the first book if he still had to write the second). She and the elderly lady walked past How to Be the Best at Everything and How to Be Smarter than Everyone Except Me and Why I Am the Greatest.
Plato’s Republic was nowhere to be found.
Crestfallen, Lenora turned to the woman. “I’m sorry,” she said, her heart breaking. “We don’t seem to have a copy.” She could not describe how very awful she felt at that moment.
The woman’s face fell. “Oh,” she said. “Well, thank you for trying, dear. I suppose we’ll just have to make do.” And with that, she hobbled off.
Lenora nearly burst into tears. But she managed to hold them in, because she had to find that girl. And, turning around, she did.
A pasty-faced girl who appeared to be ten years of age was walking along the stacks farther down. She was dressed in the oddest way, with a multicolored scarf around her neck, a pink shirt covered in sparkles, and green pants that had been stitched with flowers. On her feet she wore enormous velvet platform shoes that made her, annoyingly, almost as tall as Lenora. Lenora hurried toward her. As she did, she could see the girl had a smile on her face as she looked at one book after the next.
Catching up at last, Lenora said, rather breathlessly, “Hello. How may I help you?”
The girl turned to her, beaming. “Oh, I don’t need any help.”
“You don’t?” said Lenora in surprise. Did she have the wrong girl?
“No,” said the girl. “I’m just admiring the books.”
“Admiring them? Why?”
“Because,” said the girl brightly, “my daddy wrote them all!”
CHAPTER FIVE
Lenora Counts
“Your father is the Director?” Lenora gasped.
“Yep!” announced the girl with obvious pride.
“I see,” said Lenora. She didn’t want to say anything about her opinion of the Director to this girl, who seemed so happy and proud, so instead she said, “Are you sure you don’t need any help? The Chief—I mean, the Assistant Answerer told me you did.”
“Nope,” said the girl. “Although … I suppose I’m a little bored. There’s not much to do around here.”
Not much to do in the Library?!? thought Lenora. Then again, since so many books had been replaced by screens showing the Director giving speeches, the girl might be right. And Malachi had told her to help the girl, so perhaps giving her something interesting to do was exactly what the Chief … rather, Assistant Answerer meant.
“How about you come with me, then?” Lenora said. “I’ve got a patron who needs to know what the largest number is. You can help me find out.”
“The largest number is infinity,” said the girl.
“Infinity’s not really a number,” said Lenora. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Really?” said the girl, putting her fist to her chin as though deep in thought. “We could just ask Daddy. He knows everything.”
“Maybe,” said Lenora hurriedly, “but don’t you think it might be more fun to find out ourselves? Finding answers around this place generally is.”
The girl brightened. “That’s a great idea! Okay! But I—” And then she stopped.
Lenora, somehow, knew exactly why. She turned around slowly to see a young woman, dressed in a suit—but it was not a young woman at all, Lenora knew. And she was glaring at Lenora with a twisted face.
“Princess,” said the “woman” in a voice dripping with bile, “you are to come with me immediately. And you are not to associate with this—girl—ever again.”
Princess? thought Lenora.
Princess stomped one of her extremely large platform shoes. “I’m not going anywhere with you! I’m going with her and we’re going on a mission to find out—”
“A secret mission…” muttered Lenora.
“To—to find out something,” Princess finished weakly.
The woman fixed Lenora with a vile look that felt like it could punch a hole in the wall, but Lenora held her ground. She’d seen worse, and she responded with a firm and calm face that let the woman know exactly that.