The Librarian

Gorn looked me over curiously.

“Ritka said you read the Book of Meaning… Is that right?”

“Yes, I did.”

“With the insert?”

“Yes.”

“So that means…”—the old woman’s voice had a rapid, chiming note to it, the ring of a coin that is spun like a top—“…you know the Truth?…”

Gorn swung away abruptly, as if someone had slapped her across the face. Hard nodules of fury swelled up on her notched cheeks. Apparently the old woman’s pride was wounded because the Meaning had not been revealed to her—the great and sagacious Gorn, the empress of cruel old women—but to that worthless creature Alexei Vyazintsev, the librarian of the obliterated Shironin reading room…

“Alyoshka,” she said in an almost plaintive voice. “Tell me about the Meaning… Sit a bit closer.”

The Book of Power was still working, and I kept nothing back.