“Looks like we found a fatigue crevicette,” he said, “which goes to show that one can never be too carefulphobic.”

“Commander Bradshaw told me you had something you wanted to say?”

“That’s true,” replied Buñuel. “I’ve done enough rebuildificances to know when something’s a bit squiddly. It’s the Council of Genres. They’ve been slicedicing budgets for years, and now they ask us to topgrade the imaginotransference conduits.”

He pointed at a large pipe that looked like a water main. A conduit that size would take a lot of readers—far more than we had at present. Although in itself a good move, with falling Read-Rates it seemed a little…well, odd.

“Did they give a reason?”

“They said Pride and Prejudice has been added to twenty-eight more teachcrammer syllabuses this year, and there’s another silverflick out soon.”

“Sounds fair to me.”

“Posstruthful, but it makes nonsense. It’s potentious new books we should be cashsquandering on, not the stalnovelwarts who will be read no matter what. Besides, the costcash of the extra conduits is verlittle compared to the amount of custard needed to fillup all.”

“I’ll make some inquiries,” I told him.

We watched as the overhead crane gently lowered Darcy’s stately home of Pemberley back into its position in the book, where it was then securely bolted by a group of men in overalls wielding wrenches as big as they were.

“Spot-on-time-tastic,” murmured Isambard, consulting a large gold pocketwatch. “We might make the deadule after all.”

“Mr. Buñuel?” murmured a disembodied voice that sounded as though it came from everywhere at once.

“Yes, Horace?”

“Sorry to trouble you, sir,” came the voice again, “but Mrs. Bennet and Lady Catherine de Bourgh have locked antlers in the living room and are threatening to kill each other. What do you want to do?”

“No time to lose!” exclaimed Buñuel, reaching into his pocket. “I’ll have five guineas on Mrs. Bennet.”

Thursday5 and I walked out of the maintenance facility and back to the busy corridors of the Well of Lost Plots. I called TransGenre Taxis and was told that my cab was “stuck in a traffic jam in Mrs. Beeton’s” but would “be with you shortly,” so we walked toward the elevators. Buñuel had a point about the extra conduiting—but equally it could be just another of the bizarre accounting anomalies that abound at the council—they once refused to allocate funds for maintenance on Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, despite an almost unprecedented burst of popularity. By the time they agreed to some remedial construction work, it was too late—the first few chapters suffered permanent damage. On the other side of the coin, they had no problem issuing the Danvers with new black uniforms and designer dark glasses so they “looked nice on parade.”