Irene scanned through them as quickly as she could. The problem with an evolving language that could be used to express things precisely was that, well, it evolved. The more contributory material agents like Irene brought into the Library, the more the Language changed. She wondered morosely if her recent prize would inspire a new word or two or just change an old one. Perhaps it would help define a particular shade of black.
Still. There were compensations. Like being able to give orders to the world around you. But when she’d signed up for eternity, she hadn’t quite expected to spend most of it revising vocabulary lists.
The computer beeped again. It was a reply from Coppelia, and it had arrived surprisingly fast. Irene opened it and blinked at the size of the response.
My dear Irene,
What a pleasure to see you back here again! Though of course, when I say see, I mean to be aware of your presence in the Library. It’s been several weeks now, and you wouldn’t believe how glad I am to have you back . . .
Irene frowned. This looked like something that had been prepared ahead of time. She had a bad feeling about it.
. . . and I have a little job for you to do.
Right.
Your frequent work out there in the alternates has left you behind on the required curriculum of mentoring new students, but fortunately I have been able to find a way round that.
Irene snorted. Coppelia had certainly assured her that it’d all be sorted out. But she’d given the impression of managing to sidetrack it and get round it, rather than having to make it up later via some unpleasant duty.
It just so happens . . .
She was just so totally screwed.
. . . that we have a new recruit on our hands who’s up for his first fieldwork, and naturally I thought of you as the ideal person to mentor him! You’ll be able to give him all the benefits of your experience, while at the same time getting some credits on your record for handling him.
Handling him? What was he, an unexploded bomb? She’d had quite enough of pupils in the last few weeks.
It’s quite a short assignment and shouldn’t take you more than a few days, maybe a week. You should be operating near a fixed exit point into the nominated world, so if there are any problems or delays you can send me a report.
It sounded, Irene reflected, as if Coppelia really wanted to cover her own back on this one.
My dear Irene, I have the utmost confidence in you. I know that I can rely on you to live up to the Library’s traditions and expectations, while providing a valuable example to this new recruit.
It also sounded as if Coppelia had been reading too many bad recruitment brochures and codes of practice.
I’ve authorized Kai (that’s his name) to take one of the rapid shifts to where you are, so you can expect him any moment.
Irene paused to listen nervously. If that was true, then Kai had been allowed to use one of the most closely restricted methods of transport in the entire Library. This meant either that Coppelia didn’t want any argument and just wanted her out of the way and on the job, or that the mission was very urgent, or that there was something about Kai so dubious that he shouldn’t be seen in public. Perhaps Kai simply couldn’t handle normal Library navigation, which was bad news in itself . . . and that was multiple clauses based on an either/or, which was bad grammar. She hated bad grammar.
He’s got all the details on the mission.
Now, that was really bad. That could mean that Coppelia wasn’t prepared to put it in an email. Irene could smell politics, and she didn’t want to get involved with that at all. She’d always thought that Coppelia was a more reasonable, research-oriented, only-Machiavellian-once-in-a-while sort of supervisor. Not the sort of supervisor who’d dump her with an unprintable mission, an inexperienced trainee, and a rapid push out through the nearest Traverse exit point.
Do leave your latest input material with the nearest Desk; tag it with my name, and I’ll see that it gets processed.
Well, that was something, at least . . .
From the corridor outside came a sudden gust of wind and a thud. It was reminiscent of a pneumatic pressure tube delivering papers.
A pause. A knock on a nearby door.
“Come in,” Irene called, turning her chair to face it. The door swung open to reveal a young man.
“You must be Kai,” Irene said, rising to her feet. “Do come in.”
He had the sort of beauty that instantly shifted him from a possible romance object to an absolute impossibility. Nobody got to spend time with people who looked like that outside the front pages of newspapers and glossy magazines. His skin was so pale that she could see blue veins at his wrists and throat. And his hair was a shade of black that looked almost steely blue in the dim lights, braided down the back of his neck. His eyebrows were the same shade, like lines of ink on his face, and his cheek-bones could have been used to cut diamonds, let alone cheese. He was wearing a battered black leather jacket and jeans that quite failed to play down his startling good looks, and his white T-shirt was not only spotlessly laundered; it was ironed and starched.
“Yeah,” he said. “I am. You’re Irene, right?”
Even his voice deserved admirers: low, precise, husky. His casual choice of words seemed more like affectation than actual carelessness. “I am,” Irene acknowledged. “And you’re my new trainee.”
“Uh-huh.” He strode into the room, letting the door close behind him. “And I’m finally getting out of this place.”
“I see. Please sit down. I haven’t finished reading Coppelia’s email yet.”
He blinked at her, then strode across to the nearest chair and flung himself into it, triggering a choking cloud of dust.
Handle matters smoothly and efficiently, and you may expect some spare time for private research when this is over. I regret having to send you out again this fast, but needs must, my dear Irene, and we must all make do with the resources available to us.
Yours affectionately,
Coppelia
Irene sat back and frowned at the screen. She was no conspiracy theorist, but if she had been, she could have constructed whole volumes based on that paragraph.
“Coppelia says that you’ve got all the details on the mission,” she said over her shoulder.
“Yeah. Madame Coppelia”—he stressed the honorific slightly—“gave me the stuff. Didn’t look like much.”
Irene turned to face him. “If you wouldn’t mind?” she said, extending her hand.
Kai reached inside his jacket and pulled out a thin blue envelope. He handed it to her carefully, making the gesture courteous rather than a simple transfer. “There you go. Boss? Madam? Sir?”
“Irene will do,” she said. She hesitated for a moment, wishing she had a paper knife, but there wasn’t one to hand and she didn’t feel like showing Kai where she kept her hidden blade. With a slight wince at the inelegance, she ripped the envelope open and slid out a single piece of paper.
Kai didn’t actually lean forward to peer at the letter, but he did tilt his head curiously.
“Objective,” Irene read out obligingly. “Original Grimm manuscript, volume one, 1812, currently in London, parallel B-395: closest Traverse exit within the British Library, located inside British Museum, further details available from on-site Librarian-in-Residence.”
“Grimm?”
“Fairy tales, I imagine.” Irene tapped a finger against the edge of the paper. “Not one of my areas. I’m not sure why I’ve—why we’ve been assigned it. Unless it’s something you’ve experience in?”
Kai shook his head. “I’m not well up on the European stuff. Don’t even know which alternate that is. Do you think it’s something that’s unique to that world?”
That was a reasonable question. There were three basic reasons why Librarians were sent out to alternates to find specific books: because the book was important to a
senior Librarian, because the book would have an effect on the Language, or because the book was specific and unique to that alternate world. In this last case, the Library’s ownership of it would reinforce the Library’s links to the world from which the book originated. (Irene wasn’t sure into which of the three categories her latest acquisition fell, though she suspected a case of “effect on the Language.” She should probably try to find out at some point.)
If this Grimm manuscript was the sort of book that occurred in multiple different alternate worlds, then it wouldn’t have warranted a specific mission from Coppelia. By the time senior Librarians had become senior Librarians, they weren’t interested in anything less than rarities. An ordinary book existing in multiple worlds would simply have shown up in someone’s regular shopping list, probably along with the complete works of Nick Carter, the complete cases of Judge Dee, and the complete biographies, true and false, of Prester John. The question of why some books were unique and occurred only in specific worlds was one of the great imponderables, and hopefully Irene would actually get an answer to it some day. When she was a senior Librarian herself, perhaps. Decades in the future. Maybe even centuries.
In any case, there was no point standing around guessing. Irene tried to phrase her answer to make it seem sensible rather than simply shutting Kai down in the first ten minutes of their acquaintance.
“Probably best to find out from the on-site Librarian, when we reach the alternate destination. If Coppelia hasn’t told you, and hasn’t told me . . .”
Kai shrugged. “As long as it gets me out of here, I’m not going to complain.”
“How long have you been here?” Irene asked curiously.
“Five years.” His tone was smoothed to careful politeness, like sea-worn stones. “I know it’s the policy to keep new people here till they’ve studied the basics and they’re sure we’re not going to do a runner, but it’s been five sodding years.”
“I’m sorry,” Irene said flatly as she tapped in a quick response to Coppelia’s email.
“Sorry?”
“Yes. I was born into the job. My parents are both Librarians. It probably made things easier. I always knew what was expected of me.” It was quite true; it had made things easier. She’d always known what she was being brought up to do. The years in the Library were rotated with years in alternates, and they’d gone by one after another, with study, practice, and effort and long, silent aisles of books.
“Oh.”
“I don’t expect that waiting has been . . . fun.”
“Fun.” He snorted. “No. Not fun. It was kinda interesting, but it wasn’t fun.”
“Did you like Coppelia?” She dispatched the email, then logged out neatly.
“I’ve only been studying under her for the last few months.”
“She’s one of the more . . .” Irene paused, considering what words she could use that wouldn’t get her into trouble later if repeated elsewhere. She personally liked Coppelia, but words such as Machiavellian, efficiently unprincipled, and ice-hearted didn’t always go down well in conversations.
“Oh, I liked her,” Kai said hastily, and Irene turned to look at him, surprised at the warmth in his voice. “She’s a strong woman. Very organized. Commanding personality. My mother would have liked her. If. You know. They never take people to work here with close living relatives, right?”
“No,” Irene agreed. “It’s in the rules. It’d be unfair to them.”
“And, um . . .” He looked at her from under his long eyelashes. “About those rumours that sometimes they make sure that there aren’t any close living relatives? Or any living relatives at all?”
Irene swallowed. She leaned across to turn off the computer, hoping that it’d hide the nervous gesture. “There are always rumours.”
“Are they true?”
Sometimes I think they are. She wasn’t naive. She knew that the Library didn’t always stick to its own rules. “It wouldn’t help either of us for me to tell you they were,” she said flatly.
“Oh.” He leaned back in his chair again.
“You’ve been here five years. What do you expect me to say?”
“I was kinda expecting you to give me the official line.” He was looking at her with more interest now. His eyes glittered in the dim light. “Didn’t expect you to hint it might be true.”
“I didn’t,” she said quickly. She slid the paper back into the envelope and slipped it into the pocket of her dress. “Here’s my first suggestion to you as your new mentor, Kai. The Library runs on conspiracy theory. Admit nothing, deny everything, then find out what’s going on and publish a paper on the subject. It’s not as if they can stop you doing that.”
He tilted his head. “Oh, they could always get rid of the paper.”
“Get rid of the paper?” She laughed. “Kai, this is the Library. We never get rid of anything here. Ever.”
He shrugged, clearly giving up on the enquiry. “Okay. If you don’t want to be serious about it, I won’t push it. Shall we get going?”
“Certainly,” Irene said, rising to her feet. “Please follow me. We can talk on the way.”
* * *
It was half an hour before he began speaking again, apart from casual grunts of acknowledgement or disagreement. She was leading the way down a spiral staircase of dark oak and black iron; it was too narrow for the two of them to walk side by side, and he was a few paces behind her. Narrow slit windows in the thick walls looked out over a sea of roofs. The occasional television aerial stood out among classic brickwork edifices and faux-oriental domes. Finally Kai said, “Can I ask some questions?”
“Of course.” She reached the bottom of the staircase and stepped aside so he could catch up. The wide corridor ahead was crammed with doors on either side, some better polished and dusted than others. The lantern-light glinted on their brass plates.
“Ah, if we’re going by foot to the exit point, isn’t this going to take a while?”
“Fair point,” Irene said. “It’s in B-395, you remember?”
“Of course,” he said, and looked down his nose at her. He was several inches taller than her, so that allowed for a fair amount of condescension.
“Right.” She started off down the corridor. “Now, I had a look at the map before you came in, and the closest access to B Wing is down this way and then up two floors. We can check a terminal when we get there and find the fastest way from there to 395. Hopefully it won’t be more than a day or so from where we are.”
“A day or so . . . Can’t we just take a rapid shift to get there?”
“No, afraid not. I don’t have the authority to requisition one.” She couldn’t help thinking how much easier it would have made things. “You need to be at Coppelia’s level to order one of those.”
“Oh.” He walked in silence for a few steps. “Okay. So what do you know about B-395?”
“Well, obviously it’s a magic-dominant alternate.”
“Because it’s a B, or beta-type world, right?”
“Yes. Which sort were you from, by the way?”
“Oh, one of the gammas. So there was both tech and magic. High-tech, medium magic. They had problems getting them to work together, though—anyone who was too cyborged couldn’t get magic to work.”
“Mm,” Irene said neutrally. “I’m assuming you don’t have any machine augmentation yourself.”
“No. Good thing too. They told me it wouldn’t work here.”
“Not exactly,” Irene said punctiliously. “It’s more that no powered device can cross into or out of the Library while still functioning. Devices would work perfectly well if you could turn them off while you were traversing and then on again once you were in here . . .”
Kai shook his head. “Not my gig. What’s the use of it if I’d have to keep turning it on and off? I wasn’t really into the magic, either
. I was more heavy on real-world stuff, like physical combat, martial arts, things like that.”
“How did you get picked up for the Library, then?” she asked.
Kai shrugged. “Well, everyone did research using online tools where I was. But from time to time I used to get jobs hunting down old books for this researcher. Some of them were, you know, not legal—and real big-time not legal too . . . So I started looking into his background, thought I might find something interesting. And I think I sort of looked a bit too hard. Because next thing I was getting a visit from some real hardline people, and they told me I needed to come and work for them.”
“Or?”
Kai glanced at her icily. “The ‘or’ would have been bad news for me.”
Irene was silent for the time it took to walk past several doors. Eventually she said, “So here you are, then. Are you unhappy?”
“Not so much,” he said, surprising her. “You play the game, you take the risks. It was a better offer than some people would have given me, right? One of the people teaching me here, Master Grimaldi, he said that if I’d had a family they’d never have made the offer. They’d just have warned me off some other way. So I can’t complain about that.”
“Then what can you complain about?”
“Five years.” They turned a corner. “It’s been five fricking years I’ve been here studying. I know about the time-continuity thing. It’ll have been five years since I dropped out of my own world. All the guys I used to run with, they’ll have moved on or be dead. It was that sort of place. There was this girl. She’ll have moved on to someone else. There’ll be new fashions. New styles. New tech and magic. Maybe some countries will have gone and blown themselves up. And I won’t have been there for any of it. How can I call it my own world if I keep on missing parts of it?”
“You can’t,” Irene answered.
The Invisible Library (The Invisible Library Novel) Page 3