Still. There were compensations. Like being able to give orders to the world around you. But when she’d signed up for eternity, she hadn’t quite expected to spend most of it revising vocabulary lists.
The computer beeped again. It was a reply from Coppelia, and it had arrived surprisingly fast. Irene opened it and blinked at the size of the response.
My dear Irene,
What a pleasure to see you back here again! Though of course, when I say see, I mean to be aware of your presence in the Library. It’s been several weeks now, and you wouldn’t believe how glad I am to have you back . . .
Irene frowned. This looked like something that had been prepared ahead of time. She had a bad feeling about it.
. . . and I have a little job for you to do.
Right.
Your frequent work out there in the alternates has left you behind on the required curriculum of mentoring new students, but fortunately I have been able to find a way round that.
Irene snorted. Coppelia had certainly assured her that it’d all be sorted out. But she’d given the impression of managing to sidetrack it and get round it, rather than having to make it up later via some unpleasant duty.
It just so happens . . .
She was just so totally screwed.
. . . that we have a new recruit on our hands who’s up for his first fieldwork, and naturally I thought of you as the ideal person to mentor him! You’ll be able to give him all the benefits of your experience, while at the same time getting some credits on your record for handling him.
Handling him? What was he, an unexploded bomb? She’d had quite enough of pupils in the last few weeks.
It’s quite a short assignment and shouldn’t take you more than a few days, maybe a week. You should be operating near a fixed exit point into the nominated world, so if there are any problems or delays you can send me a report.
It sounded, Irene reflected, as if Coppelia really wanted to cover her own back on this one.
My dear Irene, I have the utmost confidence in you. I know that I can rely on you to live up to the Library’s traditions and expectations, while providing a valuable example to this new recruit.
It also sounded as if Coppelia had been reading too many bad recruitment brochures and codes of practice.
I’ve authorized Kai (that’s his name) to take one of the rapid shifts to where you are, so you can expect him any moment.
Irene paused to listen nervously. If that was true, then Kai had been allowed to use one of the most closely restricted methods of transport in the entire Library. This meant either that Coppelia didn’t want any argument and just wanted her out of the way and on the job, or that the mission was very urgent, or that there was something about Kai so dubious that he shouldn’t be seen in public. Perhaps Kai simply couldn’t handle normal Library navigation, which was bad news in itself . . . and that was multiple clauses based on an either/or, which was bad grammar. She hated bad grammar.
He’s got all the details on the mission.
Now, that was really bad. That could mean that Coppelia wasn’t prepared to put it in an email. Irene could smell politics, and she didn’t want to get involved with that at all. She’d always thought that Coppelia was a more reasonable, research-oriented, only-Machiavellian-once-in-a-while sort of supervisor. Not the sort of supervisor who’d dump her with an unprintable mission, an inexperienced trainee, and a rapid push out through the nearest Traverse exit point.
Do leave your latest input material with the nearest Desk; tag it with my name, and I’ll see that it gets processed.
Well, that was something, at least . . .
From the corridor outside came a sudden gust of wind and a thud. It was reminiscent of a pneumatic pressure tube delivering papers.
A pause. A knock on a nearby door.
“Come in,” Irene called, turning her chair to face it. The door swung open to reveal a young man.
“You must be Kai,” Irene said, rising to her feet. “Do come in.”
He had the sort of beauty that instantly shifted him from a possible romance object to an absolute impossibility. Nobody got to spend time with people who looked like that outside the front pages of newspapers and glossy magazines. His skin was so pale that she could see blue veins at his wrists and throat. And his hair was a shade of black that looked almost steely blue in the dim lights, braided down the back of his neck. His eyebrows were the same shade, like lines of ink on his face, and his cheek-bones could have been used to cut diamonds, let alone cheese. He was wearing a battered black leather jacket and jeans that quite failed to play down his startling good looks, and his white T-shirt was not only spotlessly laundered; it was ironed and starched.
“Yeah,” he said. “I am. You’re Irene, right?”
Even his voice deserved admirers: low, precise, husky. His casual choice of words seemed more like affectation than actual carelessness. “I am,” Irene acknowledged. “And you’re my new trainee.”
“Uh-huh.” He strode into the room, letting the door close behind him. “And I’m finally getting out of this place.”
“I see. Please sit down. I haven’t finished reading Coppelia’s email yet.”
He blinked at her, then strode across to the nearest chair and flung himself into it, triggering a choking cloud of dust.
Handle matters smoothly and efficiently, and you may expect some spare time for private research when this is over. I regret having to send you out again this fast, but needs must, my dear Irene, and we must all make do with the resources available to us.
Yours affectionately,
Coppelia
Irene sat back and frowned at the screen. She was no conspiracy theorist, but if she had been, she could have constructed whole volumes based on that paragraph.
“Coppelia says
