“Uh,” Jurtan said. “Oh.”
“Actually, if I could,” said Shaa, “I would, just to be on the safe side. At the moment, though, an attempt to test our good will with the civic authorities would be most likely worse than unsuccessful, and I shy from demolishing a district without removing the inhabitants first. What we can do at present is mount a watch, and proceed to the next agenda item.”
Tildamire had been glancing at him, then looking away whenever she thought he might be detecting her gaze; she had not yet realized Shaa was the proud owner of the proverbial eyes in the back of his head. Now she spoke, albeit with hesitation. “Aren’t you pushing too hard? I mean, your heart...”
“I am feeling surprisingly fit,” Shaa told her. “Beyond which, the exhilaration of present freedom is all the impetus I need. Yet even so there is the goad of responsibility and the lash of duty.”
“You sounded downright grim just now,” Jurtan volunteered.
“Titanic forces unleashed do that to me. This is not all fun and a stroll in the park.” Was he getting a bit on edge? Yes, he was. But then the one he was waiting for was unambiguously overdue.
“So now what?” said Jurtan.
He would have to speak to Jurtan about that late-adolescent truculence, but this was probably not the best time. Instead, Shaa said, “I would recommend the Knitting.”
Tildamire sighed. “I know you mean well, but I don’t really feel like going to another big extravaganza right now. And anyway it isn’t for hours yet - doesn’t it start at midnight? I -”
“It is a long way from Roosing Oolvaya,” Shaa stated, “and who knows when there will be another Knitting?” If ever, he added to himself; with his brother involved, anything was possible. “It is considered one of the wonders of organized civilization.”
“Why aren’t you going, then?”
“Did I say that? I wouldn’t miss it for the world, especially under the present circumstances. There are certain other items that should be attended to first, however, and a changing of the guard.”
“You mean that watcher you mentioned?”
“Just so. I expected Wroclaw. Unfortunately he seems well overdue.” Perhaps it was time for a call to Karlini. He raised his hand for quiet, probed for Karlini’s recognition signal... huh. No busy, no carrier - jammed? “Follow me,” Shaa said, breaking into a jog. “It seems Karlini may have called down someone’s wrath upon his head.”
Leen hadn’t even made it as far as her desk before beginning the list of questions she should have asked the oracle but had failed to think of at a convenient time. Still, she had resolved not to let her thoughts interfere with her forward momentum, determined to be on time and fully prepared for once at some affair of state. Then just short of the door to the recessional path her catalog expanded to include yet another item and she came to an abrupt halt, her hand raised to deliver the initiatory command. Tarfon, who had been lagging warily behind, alert to any sign of wavering attention that might rebound against her, stopped as well, and waited.
She had promised Shaa, Leen was thinking, but mere gathering of information didn’t imply action. The likelihood of pertinent information was clearly low, too; the computer had most probably been put into place before the catacombs of the Archives, so what it might know about lost secret passages was presumably small.
But it should be easy enough to ask. Tarfon found herself being seized by the arm and dragged back into the stacks.
“The Knitting? -” she said.
“Plenty of time,” Leen told her. “I checked the clock at my desk; plenty of time.” And there weren’t any forgotten nephews left behind this go-around to mess up her plans, either.
A few moments later they were back in the computer room. “Ask it,” Leen demanded, “what it knows about the floor plan of the palace complex.”
“Okay,” said Tarfon. She tapped away on the keyboard. “I - oh, my.”
The entire space behind the thick window in the wall had come to life. “That’s not just the palace, that’s this whole end of the city,” said Leen.
“That’s quite a map - look at all that detail.”
“Too much detail. Can we focus in on just the area around the Archives?”
“I think so,” Tarfon ventured. A blinking rectangle appeared at the corner of the map; by touching a group of keys bearing arrow-icons she was able to steer the marquee around the image.
“There,” Leen said. “No, a little to the left - now you’re over the Archives.” And the image was grabbing the nearest corner of the dungeons too.
The selected area swelled up to fill the window. “Can we find out how recently this information was updated?” Leen asked. “It looks fairly recent...” There were the Front and Back Door paths with their winding, serpentine coils; and on the wider overview she had glimpsed, in dotted lines of a paler green, the foundations of the new office block even now under construction.
Tarfon looked up. “It says revision goes on constantly. It must have spies - sensors - all through the palace.”
“It would have to have its agents in the air.” What would she and Tarfon have seen if they’d asked for the entire city? Or the world?
This oracle was a treasure house anyone with an interest in power would kill to control.
But she had it, and she wasn’t finished with it, either. “Can it show Max’s cell in the dungeon?”
Taptaptaptap. “... It says it’s processing the request. You know, if this machine can really deliver this sort of information -”
“I know.”
“Um, you still wouldn’t kill me for knowing about this... would you?”
“I doubt it,” said Leen. “If I did that I’d have to kill myself too, now wouldn’t I? If -”
One of the tiny green room-outlines off at the corner of the window had begun a blinking a bright green. “It says it’s finished processing,” Tarfon said superfluously, eyeing another box at the window’s base containing another sprawl of cryptic text.
I really must learn this thing’s language, Leen told herself again. “Release him,” she said. “I mean, tell the computer to release him.”
Tarfon hesitated. “You mean - are you sure - I, ah, we don’t know if this machine can actually do things - how it might decide to carry out a command like that even if it could -”
“There’s one good way to find out, isn’t there?”
Taking a deep breath, Tarfon typed again, slowly and deliberately, then continued to hold her breath as the oracle spelled out its response. “It says, ‘Librarian access privilege insufficient’,” she read.
Leen realized she too had been holding her breath. She let it out now, meticulously. “I assume we can infer from that response that it can take actions, it just won’t take them for me. Very well. Ask it to show any passages running from the Archives to the dungeon.”
This time the oracle responded quickly. “I suspected there might be one or two,” Leen murmured, “but this?” She stared at the new tangle of green spaghetti. “Does it have one it recommends?”
The snarl was swept away; one pulsing jagged trace remained. “It’s warning of a deadfall, a pit, and three false turns,” said Tarfon, in some amazement.
This was important information, realized Leen, critical information, in fact... but only if she actually intended to traverse this path. Did she? She had promised Shaa...
But neither of them had anticipated this stroke of fortune.
“Manifested himself as Iskendarian.” Max scowled toward the ceiling. Damn that Phlinn Arol - where was the rest of the story? He’d tossed Max the tagline and then bugged out like the cheapest purveyor of cheap fiction. What had happened next? And here he was, to coin a phrase, still stuck in this dungeon.