“The Director will hear about this,” snapped the woman, and with a whoosh of air and a popping sound, she vanished.
Princess shivered. “I don’t like those people.”
“Neither do I,” replied Lenora, which hardly covered it.
“But don’t worry,” Princess said. “They all work for Daddy, and Daddy gives me anything I want. They won’t hurt us.”
Lenora was not so sure about that, not so sure about that at all. She thought it would be a very good idea to get out of there as quickly as possible. But first—
“Princess?” Lenora said. “Princess of what?”
“Oh, I’m not a princess,” said Princess. “That’s just what Daddy always calls me, and so everyone else does, too.”
“Well, I’m not calling you Princess,” said Lenora. “What’s your real name?”
“I hate my real name,” said the girl.
“Then pick something else,” said Lenora. “Just be quick about it. I don’t think we should stick around here much longer.”
“Anything?” said the girl, smiling wide. “Wow. No one ever let me do that before, no matter how much I complained! How about … how about Lucy? She’s my favorite character from the book I read.”
The book you’ve read? thought Lenora. This girl had read only one book? Lenora had so many questions, but now was not the time. Taking Lucy by the hand, she headed for the Tube station, and the girl came along eagerly.
Luckily, Lucy was small enough that she could squeeze into the cracked leather seat right beside Lenora. Lenora scanned the slots, hoping that the one she wanted hadn’t gone dark. But then she found it, and slid her key into place.
“Googology?” said Lucy as the tube took off with a swoosh. “What’s that?”
“The study of large numbers,” said Lenora. “I figure that’s the place to start.”
CHAPTER SIX
Lenora in the Dark
Lenora and Lucy sped through the darkness outside the tube toward Googology. Lenora did not like this darkness at all. A thought came to her: The lamps are going out all over the Library. This was something Lenora had read about Europe at the beginning of the First World War—a man had said, The lamps are going out. The second part of the quote went: We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime. Lenora was determined that this part would not come true. Knowledge Is a Light, she knew, and that Light would return to the Library if she had anything to say about it.
They arrived, and as both girls went under the archway into Googology, Lenora was surprised to see that there was nothing here but a large, round room with a domed ceiling, and nothing to do with large numbers anywhere in sight. In the middle of the floor, however, was a big circular hole. She walked to the edge and looked down, Lucy right beside her.
“What is that?” Lucy asked.
Lenora thought for a moment. Quite obviously, it was a slide, and one that spiraled down and down to a destination she could not see. But this slide was made of something very strange, and yet somehow familiar from the many math books she’d read, and after a moment she snapped her fingers. “A slide rule.”
“A slide what?”
Lenora pointed. “See how the slide is all covered with numbers? And there’s a bar in the middle that slides back and forth. Or at least it could, before the slide rule got turned into a slide.”
“So it’s a ruler,” said Lucy.
“Not quite,” replied Lenora. “A slide rule was a computer you could operate by hand. You could use it for division and multiplication, and also for functions such as roots, exponents, trigonometry, logarithms…”
“Uh, what?”
Lenora shook her head. “Don’t worry about it for now. I’ll lend you a copy of Computers: The First Two Thousand Years later. The important thing is that they were used for centuries to do a lot of work that people would use electronic computers for later. Knowing the Library, this is probably the world’s longest slide rule, and once it wasn’t needed anymore, some clever librarian turned the slide rule into a slide.”
“So what do we do now?”
“What do you think?” said Lenora, and hopped onto the slide. She immediately found herself shooting down the dizzying spiral, all kinds of digits flashing around on all sides (she even spotted a π), as though she’d been caught up in a tornado of numbers.
She twisted around and saw that Lucy had followed her, her face covered in unbridled glee. This is rather fun, Lenora thought. She’d been so caught up in her serious worries about the Library that she’d forgotten about all the fun she had promised Lucy. So she lay back and whooped with delight, and so did Lucy.
Down and down they spun, shrieking and laughing, until the slide’s steep slope grew more gradual, and then finally flattened out entirely and they both came to a giggling stop.
“Phew,” said Lenora, sitting up. “I needed that.” But then she said nothing more, for she was stunned by what she saw before her.
Stretching far out in front of them was the longest room Lenora had ever seen, and that was saying something. The room was well lit at the beginning, where the girls sat, but there were fewer and fewer lights as the very tall shelves continued down (Lenora was relieved to see actual books on them), until in the far distance all she could see was total darkness. Utter silence surrounded them and they were completely alone. This was a bit eerie, but Lenora could sense no presence of the Forces of Darkness (How can I do that? she wondered). The darkness far away down this long room was only ordinary darkness, nothing more.
She stood and took a few steps toward the row of shelves, marveling at the books stacked on them. They were like no books she’d seen before. They made the huge book she’d once found in History of Science look like a matchbox in comparison. Some of them seemed to be as tall as Malachi, others dozens or hundreds of feet tall. They’d be utterly impossible to read, and if one of them contained the world’s largest number, there was absolutely no way she’d ever be able to lend it to that boy. She continued forward, pondering, when she suddenly heard a clomping rush of feet and then found Lucy cowering beside her, clutching Lenora’s hand, her face white as could be.
“What’s wrong?” asked Lenora.
“This is scary!” whispered Lucy shakily.
Lenora looked at the long, dark hall. She supposed this was rather scary, but after the things she had seen, the thought had not occurred to her. “There, there,” she said soothingly, patting Lucy’s hand. “There’s nothing bad here.” At least, nothing as bad as the Forces. What else there might be, she couldn’t say. Then she remembered Malachi’s instructions never to lie to the girl. She corrected herself quickly. “There’s nothing as bad as those people who work for your father, anyway.”
“Daddy would never hire anyone bad,” objected Lucy, bristling a little. “They’re just … creepy.”
Lenora decided to leave that alone for now. “Well, if there is any danger, don’t worry. I plan to protect you.” And that was very much true.
Then they both jumped a foot in the air when a voice out of nowhere said, “Hello. How may I help you?”