The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [329]
“Come on,” I muttered under my breath, “put some speed on, for goodness’ sake.”
Havisham pulled up and shook her head sadly. “Mixture’s too rich. Take the film out of the speed camera, will you?”
I pointed out the airship heading our way. It was approaching quite fast—for an airship.
Miss Havisham looked over at it, grunted and jumped down to open the huge bonnet and peer inside. I cut off the padlock, pulled the speed camera down and rewound the film as quickly as I could.
“Halt!” barked the PA system on the airship when it was within a few hundred yards. “You are both under arrest. Wait by your vehicle.”
“We’ve got to go,” I said, this time more urgently.
“Poppycock!” replied Miss Havisham.
“Place you hands on the bonnet of the car!” yelled the PA as the airship droned past at treetop level. “You have been warned!”
“Miss Havisham, if they find out who I am, I could be in a lot of trouble!”
“Nonsense, girl. Why would they want someone as inconsequential as you?”
The airship swung round with the vectored engines in reverse; once they started asking questions, I’d be answering them for a long time.
“We have to go, Miss Havisham!”
She sensed the urgency in my voice and beckoned for me to get in the car. Within a moment we were away from that place, car and all, back to the lobby of the Great Library.
“You’re not so popular in the Outland, then?” Havisham asked, turning off the engine, which spluttered and shook to a halt, the sudden quiet a welcome break.
“You could say that.”
“Broken the law?”
“Not really.”
She stared at me for a moment. “I thought it a bit odd that Goliath had you trapped in their deepest and most secure subbasement. Do you have the film from the speed camera?”
I handed it over.
“I’ll get double prints,” she mused. “Thanks for your help. See you at roll call tomorrow—don’t be late!”
I waited until she had gone, then retraced my steps to the library where I had left Snell’s head-in-a-bag plot device and made my way home. I didn’t jump direct; I took the elevator. Bookjumping might be a quick way to get around, but it was also kind of knackering.
9.
Apples Benedict, a Hedgehog and Commander Bradshaw
ImaginoTransferenceRecordingDevice: A machine used to write books in the Well, the ITRD resembles a large horn (typically eight feet across and made of brass) attached to a polished mahogany mixing board a little like a church organ but with many more stops and levers. As the story is enacted in front of the collecting horn, the actions, dialogue, humor, pathos, etc., are collected, mixed and transmitted as raw data to Text Grand Central, where the wordsmiths hammer it into readable storycode. Once done, it is beamed direct to the author’s pen or typewriter, and from there through a live footnoterphone link back to the Well as plain text. The page is read, and if all is well, it is added to the manuscript and the characters move on. The beauty of the system is that authors never suspect a thing—they think they do all the work.
COMMANDER TRAFFORD BRADSHAW, CBE
Bradshaw’s Guide to the BookWorld
I’M HOME!” I yelled as I walked through the door. Pickwick plocked happily up to me, realized I didn’t have any marshmallows and then left in a huff, only to return with the gift of a piece of paper she had found in the wastepaper basket. I thanked her profusely and she went back to her egg.
“Hello,” said ibb, who had been experimenting, Beeton-like, in the kitchen. “What’s in the bag?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Hmm,” replied ibb thoughtfully, “since I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know, your response must be another way of saying, ‘I’m not going to tell you, so sod