The Broken Sphere s-5

by Nigel Findley

  The gnome was silent for a moment. Then, "I don't know," he admitted, "but that's the system, and I'm sure there's a very good reason for it. There's always a very good reason…" He trailed off, then took a deep breath. "Why don't you just tell me?" he capitulated. "What do you want to know?"

  It was Teldin's turn to take a deep breath, to try to relieve the sudden tension he felt in his chest. "The Spelljammer," he breathed. "Get me what you have on the Spelljammer."

  Fazin's green eyes opened as wide as they'd go. "You mean the one-and-only-Spelljammer-not-the-lesser-vessels-that-are-also-known-as-spelljammers? Yes, of course you do. Well." He grabbed a piece of paper from the box, scrawled a few indecipherable words on it. "Got to follow the system," he remarked conspiratorially to Teldin. "Would you like them all at once?"

  "What?"

  "All the books," Fazin explained patiently. "Would you like them all at once, or maybe an easy hundred at a time?"

  "What?" Teldin demanded again.

  Fazin shrugged. "I assume you want all the information we have on the one-and-only-Spelljammer," he pointed out. "All the books and scrolls in the archive that mention the one-and-only-Spelljammer, well, there must be thousands of them. Now, would you like them all at once?"

  "No, no, no," Teldin almost shouted, raising his hands. He struggled to calm himself. "Look," he went on more quietly, "I know there are lots of rumors about the Spelljammer- rumors, myths, legends… What I'm looking for is the truth. Do you have anything like that? Like maybe…"-he gestured vaguely-"like maybe a single book that lists all the things about the Spelljammer that are most likely to be true?"

  "An interesting request," Fazin mumbled. "A very interesting request. You know…" His face suddenly lit up. "Do you know, I recall someone making a similar request, oh, it must be almost two years ago now. A purple gentleman with things on his face." He put his hand against his chin with his fingers pointed down, and wiggled them.

  Teldin stared, then he smiled. "Did the gentleman give you a name?"

  Fazin shook his head quickly. "I think he was in too much of a hurry," he said, "and I didn't want to press him, if you know what I mean."

  Teldin nodded slowly. So Estriss was here, almost two years ago, he mused, researching the Spelljammer.

  Or, at least, some illithid was, he quickly corrected himself. The odds favored Estriss. From what others had told him about run-of-the-mill mind flayers, another illithid would probably have just taken what it wanted and killed Fazin in the process. But it wouldn't do to count on that fact.

  "Did the gentleman find the books he wanted?" the Cloak-master asked.

  Fazin nodded. "Two of them," he confirmed. "He was quite impressed with them." He shrugged. "He read many more as well-he was quite a demanding patron, I'll tell you that-but I recall he, um, 'said' that only two were worth the parchment they were scribed on."

  That sounded promising, Teldin thought. "Could you please bring me those two books, then?" he asked.

  "Certainly, certainly, right away." Fazin indicated a leather-upholstered wingback chair. "Make yourself comfortable. This won't take long." And with that he turned and scurried away.

  Teldin watched his retreating back with a half smile. Gnomes, he thought. They'll do anything for you… if you can get them to do anything at all. He settled himself down in the chair Fazin had indicated-it was surprisingly comfortable, he found-and waited.

  He didn't have to wait long. He guessed it was less than five minutes before the gnome reappeared in the doorway… empty-handed.

  Teldin sighed. "What else do you need me to write down?" he asked tiredly.

  Fazin looked confused for a moment, then shook his head. "No, it's not like that at all," he explained. "The books you wanted aren't in the stacks." Teldin blinked. "Not on the shelves where they're supposed to be," the gnome elaborated.

  "Has someone borrowed them?"

  "Borrowed them?" Fazin asked in outrage. "Let people borrow them? Never. All the books here are so important we'd never let them outside the building, no matter how much people requested us to change our policies-"

  "Anyway," Teldin interjected forcefully.

  Fazin stopped and visibly changed mental tracks. "Anyway," he said, "the books are missing. Stolen, probably, or maybe lost."

  Probably the latter, Teldin corrected mentally. "Do you often lose books?"

  "Not often," the gnome stated. "Misplace, yes. Lose, no. And the number of misplaced books will go down when we bring in the new indexing and retrieval system-"

  "But at the moment," Teldin cut him off, "the books are…"

  "Gone," Fazin finished for him. "Not here. Not available. So sorry."

  "Both of them?"

  "Both of them."

  Teldin thought about that in silence. How likely was it- really-that both of the most valuable books about the Spell-jammer were accidentally missing, and simultaneously at that? It was remotely possible, but far from probable. How much more likely that somebody who was also searching for the mysterious ship had decided owning the books would be much more convenient than reading them in some library waiting room? He slumped in his seat. He'd put so much hope in his quest to Crescent, he realized, even more than he'd thought. After all, wasn't the Great Archive supposed to be the largest repository of knowledge anywhere? And now the two books he wanted were missing….

  Wait a moment, he thought. Paladine's blood, two books Two books out of the greatest library of them all? That shouldn't be catastrophic, should it? Books were often written based on information taken from other books; Sylvie had told him that once. Mightn't he be able to find the earlier books on which these had been based? Why not? Anything was possible; and anything was better than just giving up.

  He jumped to his feet. "Take me to the indexing system," he told Fazin.

  The gnome twitched as though he'd been pinched. "The indexing system? That's off-limits, it's not allowed, it's against all the rules, and for good reason, too…."

  "Where is it?" Teldin demanded. He strode toward the door. "I know it's through here somewhere."

  Fazin darted around Teldin's legs and stopped in front of him, drawing himself up to his full height of three and a half feet. "No, you can't," he said firmly. "It's more than my job is worth."

  Teldin hesitated. For a moment he considered just pushing the gnome out of the way, but then he crouched down so his cornflower eyes were on a level with Fazin's green ones. He rested a hand heavily on each of the gnome's shoulders. "I need to see the indexing system," he said quietly. "Now, will you take me to it, or do I have to tear this place apart until I find it myself?" .

  For a moment, Teldin thought the gnome was going to resist, but then he saw all the fight drain out of the Second Assistant Third Backup Vice-Librarian's Aide (Day). "I'll take you," he sighed. "Just don't cause any trouble. It's getting so a gnome can't get through a day without someone coming in here and throwing his weight around. I tell you, this job is harder than ever I thought…" Without any break in his monologue he turned around and led Teldin deeper into the labyrinthine Great Archive.

  Chapter Three

  "Well, here it is," Fazin announced. He pushed open a door and stood aside to let Teldin precede him.

  For a moment the Cloakmaster hesitated, then he pushed the flash of paranoia aside and stepped into the room.

  And stopped. "This is it?" he asked.

  Fazin slipped by him. "This isn't all of it, of course," he explained. "This is just what we call the GUI-the Gnome User Interface. The actual workings are down in the basement, where it's cool and where the power supply can't get loose and damage things. Of course," he added, "it's going to be very different when we install the new indexing and retrieval system-"

  "Yes, of course," Teldin interrupted distractedly, "Now, er…"

  "How does it work?" The gnome pointed to the large chair dominating the small room, its back to the door. "The operator sits in the operator's chair, in front of the workstation." He indicated a
desklike surface mounted on the wall directly ahead of the chair. "The operator then enters his search terms-what he wants to find out-through the digitizing tablet." He pointed to a complex contraption on the desktop.

  "Digitizing… ?"

  "So called because the operator uses his digit to enter information," Fazin elaborated, wiggling his right forefinger.

  "Then he pulls the processing lever, there on the wall."

  Teldin saw a large leather-handled metal lever mounted in a slot in the wall, within easy reach of the chair. "And that's it?" he asked.

  Fazin nodded. "Then the operator just waits for the results to come out of the output slot, there next to the tablet."

  "Sounds simple enough." Teldin strode over to the large chair and seated himself. He stared down at the "digitizing tablet," as Fazin had called it. It looked like an open-topped box of dark, small-grained wood, about a foot square and an inch high. In the center of the box was a small ring of silver metal, about the same size as a man's finger ring. Attached to it were a number of slender and delicate leverlike linkages- reminding Teldin uncomfortably of a spider's legs-that disappeared into small holes and slots in the desktop.

  Seeing Teldin's confusion, Fazin pointed to the ring. "Put your finger in there," he instructed.

  The Cloakmaster hesitated, then did as he was told. The spider legs held the ring about half an inch off the bottom surface of the "box." With the tip of his right index finger resting on the smooth surface, the ring was at a level with the first joint.

  "Now move your finger around. You'll see the linkages communicate every movement to the mechanisms in the basement." Fazin smiled. "Cunning, yes?"

  Teldin moved his finger in a circle, watching with fascination the way the linkages bent and flexed. They made a faint clicking, whirring sound that he found slightly disturbing, but the resistance to his movements was a lot less than he'd expected. "Cunning, yes," he agreed. "Now what do I do with it?"

  "Write the word or the words you want to find information about," Fazin told him, "just as if your fingertip were the nib of a pen. The more words you write, the more precise the search…. but the longer the mechanism will take."

  Teldin nodded. "Let's give this a try." Carefully, he used his finger to print the word Spelljammer. He hesitated, then also printed the word Juna. Why not? he told himself. Who knows? Maybe Estriss's guesses about the ancient race were right. Then, for good measure, he added ultimate helm. He glanced over at Fazin. "And now?"

  Wordlessly the gnome pointed at the leather-handled lever. Teldin grasped it and pulled it down. With a grinding, clattering sound, the lever slid to the bottom of the slot. When he released it, it rose slowly back to its original position.

  "And… ?"

  "And now we wait," the librarian answered.

  Teldin removed his finger from the digitizing tablet's ring and leaned back in the chair. "How long?"

  Fazin shrugged, puffing out his cheeks. "It varies," he said-a little abashedly, Teldin thought.

  "By how much?"

  "It varies by how much it varies. Sometimes it takes just a few seconds. Other times… longer."

  "How much longer?" Teldin pressed. "Minutes?"

  "Sometimes."

  "Hours?"

  "Sometimes."

  "Days?"

  "No!" Fazin said emphatically. "Never days." Then he added, almost under his breath, "The mechanism always breaks before then." He looked up at Teldin and added firmly, "But that'll all be different when we install-"

  "The new indexing and retrieval system, I know." Teldin looked over at the black maw of the output slot. Nothing was being output. For all he could tell, the mechanism in the basement had already broken. But what could he do except wait? "Tell me about the new system," he suggested, more to pass the time than from any real interest.

  The gnome's eyes flashed with enthusiasm. "It's wonderful, marvelous," he gushed, "a breakthrough, even if I do say so myself as one of the participants in its design. It'll be a hundred times more efficient, a thousand times, and it'll never, ever, ever-hardly-break." He paused, then asked diffidently, "Would you like to see it?"

  Teldin blinked with surprise. "There's something to see?"

  "The whole thing," Fazin shot back, "or at least the important part."

  The Cloakmaster hesitated. He cast another glance at the output slot-still empty-and sighed. "Why not?" He rose to his feet. "Where is it'"

  "Right there." The gnome pointed to Teldin's left.

  He looked where Fazin was indicating and saw nothing but a wall. "On the other side of the wall?" he asked.

  The gnome shook his head forcefully. "No, no, of course not. On the wall."

  Teldin looked again, suddenly feeling a premonition of what the gnome was getting at. Yes, sure enough, there was a square of parchment tacked up on the wall, a parchment bearing about twenty lines of finely scribed words and symbols. "And that's it?" he asked tiredly.

  "That's the heart of it," Fazin corrected him. "That's a description of the central search and retrieval algorithm. Of course, we still have to deal with implementation, testing, installation, more testing, and system cut-over. But that's it in a nutshell."

  Teldin shook his head slowly. He remembered the "secret weapon" that the gnome Dyffedionizer had brought aboard the experimental warship Perilous Halibut-actually a sheet of parchment with a single line written on it. "Eee mik two," he murmured absently.

  "What? What? What?" Fazin sputtered. "What did you say?"

  The Cloakmaster looked over, puzzled. The gnome's complexion was gray, as if the blood had drained from his face. "Nothing," Teldin said.

  "But where-?"

  The gnome's panicked question was cut off by a loud, raucous buzz from the general direction of the output slot. Teldin glanced over. It couldn't actually have worked, could it?

  Sure enough, a strip of paper about as wide as his hand and twice as long protruded from the slot. Teldin took the end and pulled. For a moment he felt resistance, then it was gone-as if somebody on the other side of the wall had been holding the paper and had released it the moment he'd taken it. Just how mechanical is this mechanical wonder? he wondered.

  Fazin snatched the paper out of his hand, stared in amazement at the half dozen lines of tightly formed text. "By the ineffable mind of Marrak, that was fast," the gnome muttered. Then he shot Teldin a sharp look. "You've used this before," he accused.

  Teldin didn't dignify the charge with an answer. "And now… ?"

  "And now I go get the books the indexing system specified," Fazin explained, indicating the slip of paper.

  The Cloakmaster nodded. "While you do, I'll just run a few more searches."

  Fazin sighed. "I have the feeling it's going to be a long afternoon."

  *****

  Teldin sat back in the large chair, stretched his arms high over his head and heard the cracks and pops as his muscles and joints complained. His right forefinger was sore from using the digitizing tablet, his eyes ached from reading, and his brain felt as if it were full of carded wool. How long have I been here? he wondered. He took in the pile of books on the desktop next to the digitizing tablet, another two on the floor by the chair. His gaze drifted over to Fazin, who sat in an exhausted heap in the corner. I almost wore his legs off, the Cloakmaster thought with a wry smile: ten, or maybe more, trips to and from the stacks, each carrying a couple of heavy books.

  It had been nowhere as daunting a process as he'd expected. When Fazin had appeared with the first couple of books-huge, bulky things of several hundred pages, each covered with closely scribed text-he'd felt himself totally out of his depth. While he wasn't illiterate, by no means could he classify himself a confident, practiced reader. As he'd stared at the first page of the first book, and struggled to make out the first sentence, he'd begun to despair.

  But then he'd felt the calming influence of the cloak, felt its power insinuate itself into his mind like fine, ice-cool tendrils. The words on the page befo
re him didn't change their appearance in any way; they remained the same dense, cramped hand. Yet now, suddenly, Teldin knew the meaning of every word simply by glancing at it, without having to pick out each letter individually, sound out each syllable. This must be what it's like to be able to read fluently, he told himself. But the power the cloak was bestowing on him was even greater than that. Just as he didn't have to analyze each word, so too he didn't have to attend individually to each sentence, or each paragraph. Simply by passing his eyes over a page, he knew what the text was saying. It wasn't as if he could hear the words in his mind; the effect was much subtler than that. From scanning a page from top to bottom-a process that took a couple of heartbeats, no more-he knew the contents of the text, and the intentions of the author, as well as if he'd been familiar with the material since childhood. With a speed that left Fazin gaping in abject awe, he was able to fly through the first two books… and the three after that, and each subsequent load, absorbing their contents almost faster than the gnome could fetch the books.

  He rubbed his tired eyes. The process hadn't been without its cost. By the time he'd finished with all the books the indexing system could list, he felt as tired as if he'd plowed a field without the benefit of a horse. As he let the power of the cloak fade away, he cringed at the onset of a headache that felt like an ice pick driving into his skull over his right eye.

  It was worth it, he reminded himself. He had more information on the Spelljammer than he'd been able to get from anywhere else. Even though a handful of the books he'd wanted were missing, he was confident he'd filled in the gaps they'd left from other sources.

  Most of the material he'd absorbed had confirmed what he'd already known-that there were hundreds of rumors, many mutually contradictory, about the great vessel, and that nobody knew for sure where it came from or how. But there were some interesting threads that had kept recurring throughout his reading.

  First of all, he could finally understand where Estriss had developed his conviction that the Spelljammer and the ancient race known as the Juna were somehow connected. Nowhere in the books Teldin had scanned was there any categorical statement that the Juna had or hadn't created the mysterious ship, or even that there was any linkage. No categorical statement… but there was certainly circumstantial evidence. In more than a dozen retellings of ancient legends-drawn from the mythology of a dozen races, from elvenkind to the insectoid thri-kreen-both the Spelljammer and a mysterious, vanished race appeared in close proximity. Sometimes the race was called the Elders, other times the Ancients. In only one case did Teidin recognize the name-in an elven tale, the race was known as the Star Folk-but he could understand how Estriss had concluded that all the legends referred to the Juna. He could also comprehend how the illithid had decided that proximity implied connection: if the Spelljammer and the Juna were mentioned together often enough-even if no direct link was ever stated-there must be some connection. So the illithid's mind must have worked, at least. Although Teidin himself wasn't convinced, he had to admit the connection was a good hypothesis.