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made.
Where was Deet? In years past, he would have been talking this through with Deet all day.
All week. She would know as much about his research as he did, and would constantly say
"Have you thought of this?" or "How can you possibly think that!" And he would have been
making the same challenges to her work. In the old days.
But these weren't the old days. She didn't need him any more-- she had her friends on the
library staff. Nothing wrong with that, probably. After all, she wasn't thinking now, she was
putting old thoughts into practice. She needed them, not him. But he still needed her. Did
she ever think of that? I might as well have gone to Terminus-- damn Hari for refusing to let
me go. I stayed for Deet's sake, and yet I don't have her after all, not when I need her. How
dare Hari decide what was right for Leyel Forska!
Only Hari hadn't decided, had he? He would have let Leyel go without Deet. And Leyel
hadn't stayed with Deet so she could help him, with his research. He had stayed with her
because... because...
He couldn't remember why. Love, of course. But he couldn't think why that had been so
important to him. It wasn't important to her. Her idea of love these days was to urge him to
come to the library. "You can do your research there. We could be together more during the
days."
The message was clear. The only way Leyel could remain part of Deet's life was if he
became part of her new "family" at the library. Well, she could forget that idea. If she chose
to get swallowed up in that place, fine. If she chose to leave him for a bunch of indexers and
cataloguers-- fine. Fine.
No. It wasn't fine. He wanted to talk to her. Right now, at this moment, he wanted to tell her
what he was thinking, wanted her to question him and argue with him until she made him
come up with an answer, or lots of answers. He needed her to see what he wasn't seeing.
He needed her a lot more than they needed her.
He was out amid the thick pedestrian traffic of Maslo Boulevard before he realized that this
was the first time since Hari's funeral that he'd ventured beyond the immediate
neighborhood of his apartment. It was the first time in months that he'd had anyplace to go.
That's what I'm doing here, he thought. I just need a change of scenery, a sense of
destination. That's the only reason I'm heading to the library. All that emotional nonsense
back in the apartment, that was just my unconscious strategy for making myself get out
among people again.
Leyel was almost cheerful when he got to the Imperial Library. He had been there many
times over the years, but always for receptions or other public events-- having his own
high-capacity lector meant that he could get access to all the library's records by cable.
Other people-- students, professors from poorer schools, lay readers-- they actually had to
come here to read. But that meant that they knew their way around the building. Except for
flnding the major lecture halls and reception rooms, Leyel hadn't the faintest idea where
anything was.
For the first time it dawned on him how very large the Imperial Library was. Deet had
mentioned the numbers many times-- a staff of more than five thousand, including
machinists, carpenters, cooks, security, a virtual city in itself-- but only now did Leyel realize
that this meant that many people here had never met each other. Who could possibly know
five thousand people by name? He couldn't just walk up and ask for Deet by name. What
was the department Deet worked in? She had changed so often, moving through the
bureaucracy.
Everyone he saw was a patron-- people at lectors, people at catalogues, even people
reading books and magazines printed on paper. Where were the librarians? The few staff
members moving through the aisles turned out not to be librarians at all-- they were volunteer
docents, helping newcomers learn how to use the lectors and catalogues. They knew as little
about library staff as he did.
He finally found a room full of real librarians, sitting at calculators preparing the daily
access and circulation reports. When he tried to speak to one, she merely waved a hand at
him. He thought she was telling him to go away until he realized that her hand remained in
the air, a finger pointing to the front of the room. Leyel moved toward the elevated desk
where a fat, sleepy-looking middle-aged woman was lazily paging through long columns of
figures, which stood in the air before her in military formation.
"Sorry to interrupt you," he said softly.
She was resting her cheek on her hand. She didn't even look at him when he spoke. But
she answered. "I pray for interruptions."
Only then did he notice that her eyes were framed with laugh lines, that her mouth even in
repose turned upward into a faint smile.
"I'm looking for someone. My wife, in fact. Deet Forska."
Her smile widened. She sat up. "You're the beloved Leyel."
It was an absurd thing for a stranger to say, but it pleased him nonetheless to realize that
Deett must have spoken of him. Of course everyone would have known that Deet's husband
was the Leyel Forska. But this woman hadn't said it that way, had she? Not as the Leyel
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