The second man was continuing to smile his pleasant smile, but somehow Lenora felt it was just a little less pleasant than it had been before. “Even if you don’t care about the girl’s feelings—and with you being such a kind and charitable child, I find that surprising—you might consider the effect on the future. You see, that girl is going to read many more books after she finishes that one, and years from now, when she is grown, she is going to take the things she learned in those books and make new discoveries that will unsettle and disturb the entire world.”

“Unsettle and disturb it how?” asked Lenora, feeling uncertain. For if—if—the man were telling the truth, it seemed that she was making a rather momentous decision.

“Billions will have their lives upended,” the second man said calmly. “They will learn of things both very large, strange attractors that exist beyond the reach of today’s telescopes, and things very small, powerful energies lurking beneath the capability of today’s microscopes to see. Things more unexpected than you can imagine. Questions will be raised that will shock the world. Many will be frightened by this knowledge and will seek to retreat from it. There will be conflict.”

That didn’t sound good to Lenora at all. But at the time same, she felt that she was now on firmer ground. “I’m sorry there will be conflict and people will be frightened,” she replied. “But that has happened before. Galileo unsettled people when he told them the Earth moves around the sun, and he was punished for it, and the new knowledge was banned, for a time. But aren’t we glad we know the truth today?” She reflected on what an excellent book she had used for her report and resolved to see if she could find a copy in the library.

Now the second man’s smile didn’t seem pleasant at all but actually rather frosty. “Perhaps I misjudged you, Lenora,” he said, and the frost was in his voice, too. “I thought you were wise enough to understand that children must be discouraged from asking questions that will make them curious and fretful. Perhaps I overestimated you. After all, you’re just a child yourself.”

“Maybe,” said Lenora, with equal frost. “But I’m also a librarian. And I’m not going to hide the truth from anyone.”