“Looks like you’re it!” enthused the Bellman, writing a note on his clipboard. “Item six. As you recall, David and Catriona Balfour were lost a few weeks back. Because there can’t be much to Kidnapped and Catriona without them and Robert Louis Stevenson remains a popular author, the Council of Genres have licensed a pair of A-4 Generics to take their place. They’ll be given unlimited access to all Stevenson’s books, and I want you all to make them feel welcome.”

There was a murmuring from the collected agents.

“Yes,” said the Bellman with a resigned air, “I know they’ll never be exactly the same, but with a bit of luck we should be okay; no one in the Outland noticed when David Copperfield was replaced, now did they?”

No one said anything.

“Good. Item seven. As you know, I am retiring in two weeks’ time and the Council of Genres will need a replacement. All nominations are to be given direct to the Council for consideration.

He paused again.

“Item eight. As you all know, Text Grand Central have been working on an upgrade to the Book Operating System for the last fifty years—”

The assembled agents groaned. Clearly this was a matter of some contention. Snell had explained about the imaginotransference technology behind books in general, but I had no idea how it worked. Still don’t, as a matter of fact.

“Do you know what happened when they tried to upgrade SCROLL?” said Bradshaw. “The system conflict wiped out the entire library at Alexandria—they had to torch the lot to stop it spreading.”

“We knew a lot less about operating systems then, Commander,” replied the Bellman in a soothing voice, “and you can rest assured that early upgrading problems have not been ignored. Many of us have reservations about the standard version of BOOK that all our beloved works are recorded in, and I think the latest upgrade to BOOK V9 is something that we should all welcome.”

No one said anything. He had our attention.

“Good. Well, I could rabbit on all day but I really feel that it would be better to let WordMaster Libris, all the way from Text Grand Central, tell you the full story. Xavier?”

11.
Introducing UltraWord™

First there was OralTrad, upgraded ten thousand years later by the rhyming (for easier recall) Oral TradPlus. For thousands of years this was the only Story Operating System and it is still in use today. The system branched in two about twenty thousand years ago; on one side with CaveDaubPro (forerunner of PaintPlus V2.3, GrecianUrn V1.2, Sculpt-Marble V1.4 and the latest, all-encompassing SuperArtisticExpression-5). The other strand, the Picto-Phonetic Storytelling Systems, started with Clay Tablet V2.1 and went through several competing systems (Wax-Tablet, Papyrus, VellumPlus) before merging into the award-winning SCROLL, which was upgraded eight times to V3.5 before being swept aside by the all new and clearly superior BOOK V1. Stable, easy to store and transport, compact and with a workable index, BOOK has led the way for nearly eighteen hundred years.