Part 46 (2/2)

I had to wait till my mother went out. She and Shenka's mother took bread crumbs and a big cloth bag and went to hunt pigeons on the roof. I was supposed to stay in the stairwell playing, but I glided quietly to the front door and slipped out.The street was empty. Children had found another place to play. I crept down the steps, casting about for watching eyes. Then with a deep breath I screwed up my courage and crossed the street.

The Bookali guard saw me coming. He watched me calmly, never twitching a muscle, just letting me come closer and closer. I stopped square in front of him and looked up into his face.

How handsome he looked to me! His leathers were scarred and his helmet scratched, but his lean face was smooth and blue-shadowed from a beard that would be jet black if it grew.

There was no smile on his lips, just a somber look in his clear blue eyes. We regarded each other wordlessly; then he reached back and keyed the door. With a gentle push he opened it for me. ”Lee,” he called softly to someone inside. ”The amba.s.sador is here.”

His voice was so sober, so calm, that no dreadful visions came into my head of what might be done to me in this place. Instead I walked slowly through that open door, mouth gaping in wonder at the sights inside.

Books. I had heard of books on the vid, seen pictures of them with their strange markings, but there were none in the projects. Never had I imagined there were so many in the world.

They were arranged on shelves throughout the room, in a riot of colors and sizes, row after row after row. I scarcely saw the young Bookali woman who approached me. ”h.e.l.lo, Amba.s.sador,” she greeted. ”I thought it might be you.”

I looked closely at her then and thought I detected in her pale face, her shrewd eyes, the Bookali who had spoken to me on the street days before. She had shed her leather jacket, so that a plain white T-s.h.i.+rt encased her upper torso, and without a helmet she sported a shock of curly yellow hair. But her voice had that same wise gravity as she spoke again. ”Come to see those heavy secrets?” she asked.

”Na secret na more,” I informed her haughtily. ”Books.”

She nodded. ”Books.”

But I could not keep my attention on her. Books towered to the ceiling: books on shelves, books on tables, books on carousels. There were a few chairs and some vid screens, no doubt, but all I saw were the books.

”So this Bookali headquarters,” I said, trying to sound worldly and unimpressed when I was neither.

The woman Lee smiled. ”So you call. We call it something else.”

I approached the closest shelf, drawn as if by a magnet to those mysterious volumes. Dull blue, faded red, and a whole row with identical gold and black spines. I eyed them carefully, never thinking to reach out and touch one. Lee followed me at a respectful distance, waiting until I turned to her.

”What these book for?” I asked.

”Full of secrets,” she replied.

”What secrets?”

”What book?”

Turning around, I pointed to a tall one, mustard yellow with faded green markings. ”This one. What secret?”

She reached out, and with a practiced index finger extracted it from the shelf. ”Ah, this one.”

She opened it and looked at the inside. ”Stars,” she replied. ”This one has secrets about stars.””Like what?”

She turned pages slowly. I kept waiting for an explosion because I hadn't seen her key the book, and she had told me before that they were coded. But page after page slid past her fingers and she remained whole. ”It says,” she said finally, ”that the sun is really a star.”

”Go na!” I scoffed. ”Sun too big to be star.”

”Stars are big,” she replied. ”Just far away. Sun is small star, just close-like building that's close look big, but far look small.”

”You lie,” I challenged, forgetting to whom I spoke.

”Na,” she said gravely. ”Book say.” And she held the book so I could see the markings that were concealed inside. Her finger traced along a line of them: ” 'The sun is a relatively small star.' ”

”I na hear it say,” I said suspiciously.

”In code,” she replied. ”Have to know code.”

With sudden insight I realized that the markings in the books were somehow like numbers: when you grouped them together in the right sequence, they made things happen, like opening doors or firing defenses or spitting out food. But unlike number codes, these codes made words happen-words that you couldn't hear as on a vid, but heard inside your head like imagination. I jumped, startled at the revelation. ”You all right, Amba.s.sador?” Lee asked.

”Trabina,” I told her. ”I na 'ba.s.sador. What that book say?” I pointed to a blue one.

Lee laid the first book aside and extracted the blue one. ”This one is about gravity,” she said. ”That's what keeps us on the ground, instead of floating up into the air.”

My brow creased and a tight little knot started in my stomach. Why didn't we float? It had never before occurred to me to wonder. What would it be like to float in the air? To fly up to the roof of my building, instead of climbing the stairs? ”It say how bird fly?” I wanted to know.

”Not this book, I don't think,” Lee said as she flipped through the pages. ”But some book will. Shall I find you one?”

”You know all these book?” I demanded. She laughed. ”Not what in. Just how to find.”

The little knot in my stomach had grown wriggly fingers, but I ignored it. ”How you learn code all these book?”

”I was taught,” she told me. ”When I was your age.” Then she squatted down and looked right into my eyes. ”I can teach you, Amba.s.sador.”

”Trabina!” I said sharply, not liking the way my stomach was twisting. ”I Trabina!”

”Amba.s.sador Trabina,” she agreed.

I thought of Crazy Rashalla and Ratface Tony, and I wondered what I was being called.

”What a 'ba.s.sador?” I asked warily.

”Amba.s.sador is first,” Lee replied. ”First to cross the street. First to come in. First to learn Bookali secrets.”

”Learn secrets?” My stomach cramped sharply and I realized at last what I had done. ”Na secrets. Na want to be sick. Na want to be crazy.” I spun around and headed for the door.

”Na crazy,” Lee called after me. ”Only little secrets make crazy. Only half secrets. Books have 'most all secrets. Books tell you everything.”

”Na, na!” I shouted, tugging at the door handle, terrified by a Power that knew everything.

”Na want Bookali secrets! Na want to be crazy!”But it was too late. Even the few secrets I had learned made me sick, left me cowering under the blankets in my room. I slept fitfully, seeing stars as big as suns, seeing a world gone black because the sun was only as big as a star. In my dreams I floated off the ground, up over the projects, leaving everything I knew behind. When I wouldn't get up for lunch, my mother fretted over me, asked what I ate, was I rat-bit. I couldn't tell her I ate a secret, and was bitten by a book.

And then the craziness came, the craziness Shenka had guessed at: I had to go back. It was the same kind of craziness that people got who tried to escape from the Tunnel Runners: they got sick, and then they had to go back, had to have what it was the Tunnel Runners gave them that made them sick in the first place.

Finally, late in the afternoon, I slipped out of my apartment and stole down the stairs.

Shenka was playing on the landing two floors down, the one from which we had watched the Bookali trucks. It seemed long ago. ”Trabina, you still sick?” she asked as I approached.

”Na,” I lied. The questions were eating at my insides; I could feel them. ”Na sick na more.” I started to go past her.

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