The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [419]
“Are you going to tell her?” said Arnie.
“Tell me what?”
“I didn’t get the Amis part,” began Randolph, “but I’ve been shortlisted for a minor speaking appearance in the next Wolfe.”
“That’s excellent news!” I responded happily. “When?”
“Sometime in the next couple of years. I’m going to do some standing-in work until then; the C of G has opened up travel writing as holiday destinations for Generics—no more away-day breaks in Barsetshire. I’m to cover for Count Smorltork while he goes on holiday for two weeks in Wainwright’s A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells.”
“Congratulations.”
Randolph thanked me but was still somehow distant. He stared out of the porthole at the lake, deep in thought.
“What about you?” asked Arnie. “What will you do? Your demotion is all over the Well!”
“It’s not a demotion. Well, perhaps it is.”
“Word is that Harris Tweed is up to be the next Bellman,” murmured Arnie, “despite his low experience. Jurisfiction favors an Outlander.”
“What’s so special about Outlanders?” asked Randolph.
“I think the C of G like our independence. We are not bound to our narrative, nor—in theory—do we favor one genre over another.”
“And memories,” murmured Arnie wistfully. “Love to be able to remember a childhood. Any childhood.”
“Sense of smell, too,” I added.
Randolph picked up the copy of The Little Prince that had been lying on the table and placed it on his nose.
“Under your nose,” I told him, “and inhale deeply.”
Randolph inhaled deeply and then exhaled. He looked confused. “What’s meant to happen?”
“You kind of taste it in your head. Here.”
I took the book and sniffed at it delicately. I had expected the odor of leather, but instead I could smell sweet melons—cantaloupes. I was transported back to the last time I had come across this particular scent: the odd boxy truck in Caversham Heights. The truck without texture, the automaton driver without personality. Something clicked.
“It was an UltraWord™ truck,” I murmured, searching through my bag for the angular and textureless bolt I had picked up after the truck had departed. I found it and sniffed at it cautiously, my mind racing as I tried to think of a connection.
“If this is anything to go by,” said Arnie, flicking through the pages of The Little Prince, “then the readers are in for a treat.”
“They are indeed,” I replied as Randolph tried to open the cover—but couldn’t.
I took it from him and the book opened easily. I handed it back but the cover was still stuck fast.
“Odd,” I muttered as Arnie opened it again without any problem.
“It’s Havisham’s copy,” I said slowly, “she’s read it, and me, and now you.”
“A book which only three people can read!” observed Randolph scornfully. “A bit mean, I must say!”
“Only three readers,” I murmured, my heart going cold as I recalled the three witches’ prophecy: Beware the thrice-read rule! Perhaps the new operating system was not quite the egalitarian advance it claimed—if it was really the case that Ultra Word™ books could only be opened by three people, then libraries would be a thing of the past. Secondhand bookshops closed overnight. You could only lend a book twice. I thought of the increased revenue that might be generated from such a commercially useful attribute and shook my head sadly. I had been right. There was something rotten in the state of fiction!
“Thursday?” asked Arnie. “Are you okay?”
I put The Little Prince down. “Yes—just one of those epiphanic moments that fiction seems to be littered with.”
“Ah!” said Randolph knowledgeably. “We learnt all about those at Tabularasa’s.”
I got up and walked about the kitchen, thinking hard. The angular truck, the strange bolt? What did that all mean? I shivered. If something was so insidiously wrong with the new upgrade that they would kill to keep it quiet, then the “thrice-read rule” was just the beginning—after all, a timed readblock would only affect readers in the Outland—it wouldn’t affect the BookWorld at all. There had to be more.
“Problems?” asked Arnie, sensing my disquiet.
“It’s the Ultra