33

UltraWordв„ў

Hamlet and Jude Fawley exchanged glances and shrugged their shoulders as I walked up the steps and looked out at the crowd. Heathcliff, for whom all of this was merely delaying his moment of honour, glowered at me angrily. Oddly, I didn't feel at all nervous — only a sort of numb elation. I would do some serious throwing up in the toilets later, but for now I was fine.

'Good evening,' I said to the utterly silent audience. 'No one would deny that we need more plots, but there are one or two things about UltraWordв„ў that you should know.'

'Grand Central?!' said Tweed uselessly into his mobile footnoter-phone. 'Tweed to Text Grand Central, come in, please!'

I didn't have long. As soon as TGC knew what had happened they could write themselves another footnoterphone link.

'First, there are no new plots. In all the testing that has been done, not one has been described or hinted at. Libris, would you care to outline a "new" plot now?'

'They won't be available until UltraWordв„ў is online,' he said, glaring at Tweed, who was still trying to contact Text Grand Central.

'Then they are untested. Second,' I went on, 'UltraWord™ carries a thrice-read-only feature. This means no more book lending. Libraries will close down overnight, second-hand bookshops will be a thing of the past. Words can educate and liberate — but TGC want to make them a saleable commodity and nothing more.'

The crowd started to murmur to one another. Not one of those murmurs you usually get in the BookWorld, just a descriptive term, but a real murmur — seven million people all discussing what I had just said.

'Orlick!' I heard Tweed shout. 'Get to TGC — run if you have to — and get the footnoterphone repaired!'

'This is preposterous!' yelled Libris, almost apoplectic with rage. 'Lies, damnable lies!'

'Here,' I said, tossing Deane's copy of The Little Prince on to the table right at the front. The displacement field technology worked perfectly — a single book landed on each of the hundred thousand tables.

'This is an UltraWordв„ў book,' I explained. 'Read the first page and pass it on. See how long it takes before you can't open it.'

'Tweed!?' yelled Libris, who was still next to me on the stage and becoming more agitated by the second. 'Do something!'

I pointed at Xavier.

'WordMaster Libris could refute my arguments with ease, simply by rewriting the facts. He could have unblocked the book already but for one thing — all the lines are down to Text Grand Central. As soon as they are up again, each of these books will be unblocked. Perkins was murdered when he found out what they were up to. He told Snell and he was killed too. Miss Havisham didn't know but TGC suspected that she did, so she had to be silenced.'

The Bellman had risen to his feet and was walking to the front of the stage.

'Is this true?' he asked, eyes blazing.

'No, Your Bellship,' replied Libris, 'on my honour. As soon as we get back online we will refute every single claim the misinformed Miss Next has made!'

The Bellman looked at me.

'Better get a move on, young lady. You have the crowd but for how long I have no idea.'

'Third, and more importantly, all books written using the UltraWord™ system can be fixed direct from Text Grand Central — there will be no need for Jurisfiction. Everything we do can be achieved by low-skilled technicians at TGC.'

'Ah!' said Libris, interrupting. 'Now we get to your real point — fearful of your job, perhaps?'

'Not my job, Libris — my real home is in the Outland. I would applaud a BookWorld in which we had no need of a policing agency — but not one where we lose the Well of Lost Plots!'

There was a gasp from the crowd; seven million people all drawing breath at the same time.

'No need for plotsmiths, echolocators, imaginators, holesmiths, grammatacists and spellcheckers. No need for Generics to be trained because characters will be constructed with the minimum of description necessary to do the job. I'm talking about the wholesale destruction of everything that is intuitive in writing — to be replaced by the formulaic. The Well would be dismantled and run instead by a few technicians at TGC who will get Ultra Word™ to write books with no input from any of you.'

'Then what will happen to us?' said a voice from the front.

'Replaced,' I said simply, 'replaced by a string of nouns and verbs. No hopes, no dreams, no future. No more holidays because you won't need or want one — you will all be reduced to nothing more than words on a page, lifeless as the ink and paper that you will become.'

There was silence.

'Proof!' cried Libris. 'All you have demonstrated so far is that you can spin a yarn as well as any plotsmith! Where is your proof?'

'Very well,' I said slowly. 'Mrs Bradshaw? The skylark, if you please.'

Mrs Bradshaw produced the small cage from beneath the table and handed it up to me.

'I have seen an UltraWord™ character with my own eyes and they are empty husks; if an old book is read in UltraWord™ it is very good — but if it is written in UltraWord™ it will be flat and trite, devoid of feeling, the SmileyBurger of the storytelling world. The Well may be wasteful and long winded, but every book read in the Outland was built there — even the greats.'

I took the skylark from the cage.

'This was the proof that Perkins died for.

I placed the small songbird beneath the ImaginoTransference device and the skylark's description was transmitted to the audience.

The audience reacted favourably to the words and there was a smattering of applause, despite their nervousness.

'What's wrong with that?' insisted Libris. 'UltraWordв„ў takes language and uses it in ways more wonderful than you can imagine!'

The Bellman looked at me.

'Miss Next,' he demanded, 'explain yourself

'Well,' I said slowly, 'that wasn’t an UltraWord™ skylark. I picked it up from the Library this morning.'

There was an expectant hush as Mrs Bradshaw produced a second bird seemingly identical to the first and handed it up to me.

'This is the UltraWordв„ў version. Shall we compare?'

'That's not necessary!' said Libris quickly. 'We get the point.' He turned to the Bellman. 'Sir, we need a few more weeks to sort out a few minor kinks—'

'Go ahead, Thursday,' said the Bellman. 'Let's see how UltraWordв„ў compares.'

I placed the bird in the ITRD and it transmitted the cold and clinical description to the audience.

'I call a vote right now!' exclaimed the Bellman, climbing on to the stage.[26]

I looked across at Tweed, who was tapping his mobile footnoterphone and smiling.

'What's the problem?' I asked.[27]

'Eh?' asked the Bellman.

'The vote!' I urged. 'Hurry!'

'Of course,' he replied, knowing full well that Text Grand Central were not defeated until the vote had been taken. The Council of Genres wasn't involved — but would be if TGC tried to go against a BookWorld referendum. That was something they could never rewrite.

'Good!' said Tweed into his mobile footnoterphone. 'Communications have been restored.'

He smiled at me and signalled to Libris, who calmed dramatically as only the supremely confident can do.

'Very well,' said Libris slowly. 'The Bellman has called for a vote and, as the rules state, I am allowed to answer any criticism laid before me.'

'A rebuttal of a rebuttal?' I cried. 'The rules don't state that!'

'But they do!' said Libris kindly. 'Perhaps you'd like to look at the BookWorld constitution?'

He pulled the slim volume from his coat and I could smell the cantaloupes from where I stood. It would say whatever they wanted it to say. Libris walked over to us and said to the Bellman in a quiet voice:

'We can do this the easy way or the hard way. We make the rules, we can change the rules, we can modify the rules. We can do anything we want. You are due to step down. Go with me on this one and you can have an easy retirement. Go against me and I'll crush you.'

Libris turned to me.

'What do you care? No one in the Outland will notice the difference. You'll have a week to pack up and move out — you have my word on that.' ,

The Bellman glared at Libris.

'How much did they pay you?'

'They didn't need to. Money doesn't mean anything down here. No, it's the technology that I really love. It's too perfect to be sidelined by people like you. I get a hundred per cent control. Everything will go through TGC. No more Well of Lost Plots, no more Generics, no more Council, no more strikes by disgruntled nurseries. Design and marketing must be brought together for efficiency reasons. But do you know the best bit? No more authors. No more missed deadlines. No more variable-quality second books — each one in the series will be the same as the next. When a publisher needs a best-seller all they need do is contact our sole representative in the Outland!'

'Yorrick Kaine,' I murmured.

'Indeed. Do you know how much money is lost through people lending their books? The advertising revenue and product placement deals made possible by UltraWordв„ў are worth billions. Books will have links to related products and services on every page. It's all for the best, Thursday, artistically and financially. In fact, as a first step, we will merge the two words for ever. How does "fartinancially" sound to you?'

Incredibly, it was worse than I thought. It was as if the paint factories had decided to deal direct with the art galleries.

'But the books!' I cried. 'They'll be terrible!'

'Within a few years no one will notice,' replied Libris. 'Mr Bellman, do you go with us on this or not?'

'I would sooner die!' he exclaimed, trembling with rage.

'As you wish,' replied Libris.

There was a short crackling noise and I saw the Bellman stiffen slightly.

'Now,' said Libris, 'let's finish this all up. Bellman, would you refute Miss Next's points one by one?'

'I should be delighted,' he said slowly and without emotion. I turned to him in shock, and could see how his features were less defined than before — like an out-of-focus photograph. The smell of melons once more drifted across the stage.

'Friends!' began the Bellman. 'Miss Next is entirely mistaken …'

I turned to Libris and he smiled triumphantly. I reached into my bag for my gun but it had been changed to marmalade.

'Tch, tch,' said Libris in a whisper. 'That's a BookWorld gun and now under our control. What a shame you lost your Outlander Browning in the struggle with Tweed!'

I had only one card left. I pulled out my TravelBook and opened it, flicking past the TextMarker and Eject-O-Hat and on towards the glass panel covering a red-painted handle. A note painted on the glass read: IN UNPRECEDENTED EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS. If this wasn't an unprecedented emergency, I didn't know what was. I smashed the glass, grabbed the handle and pulled it down with all my strength.

34

Loose ends

It was nearly morning when the BookWorld Awards party finished. Heathcliff was furious that in all the excitement the final award of the night had been forgotten; I saw him talking angrily to his personal imaginator an hour after the appearance of the Great Panjandrum. There would be next year, of course, but his seventy-seven-year record had been broken and he didn't like it. I thought he might take it out on Linton and Catherine when he got home, and he did.

No one had been more surprised than me by the arrival of the Great Panjandrum when I pulled the emergency handle. For the non-believers it was something of a shock, and no less so for the faithful. She had been so long a figure of speech that seeing her in the flesh was startling. I thought she had seemed quite plain and in her mid-thirties, but Humpty Dumpty told me later he had been shaped like an egg. In any event, the marble statue that now stands in the lobby of the Council of Genres depicts the Great Panjandrum as Mr Price the stonemason saw him — with a leather apron and carrying a mallet and stone chisel.

When she arrived the Great Panjandrum read the situation perfectly. She froze all the text within the room, locked the doors and decreed that a vote be taken there and then. She summoned the head of the Council of Genres and the vote against UltraWord was carried unanimously. She spoke to me three times: once to tell me I had The Write Stuff, second to ask me whether I would take on the job of the Bellman, and lastly to ask whether disco mirror balls in the Outland had a motor to make them go round or whether they did so by virtue of the light. I answered 'Thank you", "Yes" and "I don't know", in that order.

After the party was over I walked back through the slowly stirring Well of Lost Plots to the shelf that held Caversham Heights and read myself back inside, tired but happy. The Bellman's job would keep me busy but purely in administration. I wouldn't have to go jumping around in books — just the thing to allow my ankles to swell in peace and quiet, and to plan my return to the Outland when the infant Next and its mother were strong enough. Together we would face the tribulations of Landen's return, because the little one would have a father, I had promised it that much already. I opened the door to Mary's Sunderland and felt the old flying boat rock slightly as I entered. When I first came here it had unnerved me, but now I wouldn't have had it any other way. Small wavelets slapped against the hull and somewhere an owl hooted as it returned to roost. It felt as much like home as home had ever done. I kicked off my shoes and flopped on the sofa next to Gran, who had fallen asleep over a sock she was knitting. It was already a good twelve feet long, because, she said, 'she had yet to build up enough courage to turn the heel'.