advanced years, who nevertheless moved with alertness and dexterity: listening to requests, disappearing into a back room to emerge with one or more of the large black tomes. Another attendant, a woman almost as old issued from the back room from time to time pushing a cart, which she loaded with books no longer in use and returned them into the back room.
The white-haired old clerk scuttled back and forth at a run as if he were fearful of losing his job, though it seemed to Wayness that he was doing the work of three men. She went to stand at the counter and was presently approached by the clerk. 'Yes, Miss?”
“I am interested in a consignment from Mischap and Doorn, which was subsequently auctioned off.”
“And what would be the date?”
“It would be quite some time ago, perhaps forty years or more.'
“What was the nature of the consignment?'
“Material from the Naturalist Society.''
'Where is your authorization?'
Wayness smiled. “I am Assistant Secretary of the Society, and I will write you out one at once, if you like.'
The clerk raised his tufted white eyebrows. “I see that I am dealing with an important personage. Your identification will suffice.
Wayness displayed her official papers, which the clerk examined. ”Cadwal, eh? Where is that?”
“It’s out beyond Perseus, at the tip if Mircea’s Wisp”
“Fancy that! It might be a fine thing to travel far and wide! But then, a man can’t be everywhere at once.” Twisting his head sideways, he cocked a bright blue eye at Wayness. “And, do you know, sometimes I find it hard to be anywhere at all.” He scribbled a few words on a slip of paper. “Let me see what I can find.” He scuttled off. Two minutes later he reappeared, carrying a black-bound tome which he placed in front of Wayness. From a pocket inside the front cover he brought a card. 'Sign your name, if you please.” He tendered her a stylus. “Briskly now; the day is not long enough for all I must do.'
Wayness took the stylus and looked down the names on the card. The first few were unfamiliar. The last name, signed after a date twelve years old, was: ‘Simonetta Clattuc’.
The clerk tapped his fingers on the counter; Wayness signed the card. The clerk took card and stylus and moved to the next person waiting.
With nervous fingers Wayness turned the heavy pages of the volume, and in due course came upon the page labeled:
Code: 777-ARP: Sub-code: M/D;
Naturalist Society/Frons Nisfit, Secretary.
Agent: Mischap and Doorn.
Three parcels:
(1) Art Goods, Drawings, Curios.
(2) Books, texts, references.
(3) Miscellaneous documents. Parcel (1), itemized.
Wayness let her eyes slide down the page, and the next page, on which were catalogued a large number of oddities, art objects and curios, each tagged with the price it had brought at the auction, the name and address of the buyer, and sometimes a coded notation.
On the third page Parcel (2) was similarly summarized. Wayness turned to the fourth page, where the items of parcel (3) would be catalogued, but the goods offered for auction were stated to be the estate of a certain Jahaim Nestor.
Wayness turned the page back, read carefully, searched through pages back and forth. To no avail. The page describing ‘Parcel (3), Miscellaneous Documents’ was gone. Wayness, looking closely, saw where a sharp blade had excised the page at its inner border, after which it had been removed.
The clerk came trotting past; Wayness signaled him to a halt. “Yes?”
“By any chance, are duplicate records available?'
The clerk produced a whinny of sardonic laughter. “Now why would you be wanting reiterations of the very same matter which is here before your eyes?'
Wayness said meekly: “If these records were incorrect, or disordered, then a duplicate set might have them right.”
“And I would be running twice as far and twice as fast, with everybody wanting two books instead of one. And should we find a difference then we have the grandest foofaraw of all, with one claiming one way and another claiming the opposite. Never and by no means! A mistake in the text is like a fly in the soup; the clever man simply works his way around it. No, Miss! Enough is enough! This is an Office of Information, not Dreamy Cuckoo- land.'
Wayness looked numbly down at the book. The trail had come to an end and she had nowhere to go. For a space Wayness sat motionless, then she straightened and stood upright. Nothing more could be said; nothing more could be done. She closed the book, left a sol for the comfort of the over-worked clerk, and departed.
Chapter V
'A most discouraging denouement to your quest,' said Pirie Tamm. 'Still, there is a positive element to the situation.”
Wayness made no comment. Pirie Tamm elucidated. 'On this basis. Monette, Violja Fanfarides, Simonetta Clattuc — whatever she calls herself — gained important information, but it has brought her no perceptible benefit, since the grant has not been reregistered. This must be regarded as a good omen.”
“Omen or not, there was only a single trail, and she wiped it out of existence.”
Pirie Tamm took a pear from the bowl at the center of the table and began to peel it. “So now,' he mused, “you will go back to Cadwal?”
Wayness burnt her uncle Pirie with a brief smoldering glance. 'Of course not you know me better than that!”
Pirie Tamm sighed. “So I do. You are a most determined young lady. But determination by itself is not enough.'
'I am not totally without resources,” said Wayness. “I copied the pages pertaining to Parcels One and Two.”
'Indeed! Why so?'
“At the time I was not thinking clearly, and perhaps my subconscious was in charge. Now it occurs to me that someone who bought from Parcels One or Two might also have bought from Parcel Three.”
'A clever idea, though the odds are not good. It has been a long time and many of the individuals at the sale will be hard to find.”
“They would be my last resort. Five institutions were represented at the sale: a foundation, a university and three museums.'
'We can make inquiries in the morning by telephone,' said Pirie Tamm. “It is but, at best and at worst, a forlorn hope.'
In the morning Wayness consulted the World Directory and discovered that, of the five institutions she had listed, all were still functional. She called each in turn, on the telephone, and in each case asked to be connected to the officer in charge of special collections.
At the Berwash Foundation for the Study of Alternate Vitalities, she was informed that the collections
