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He wondered how much he could re you saw A tabletop, or a scroll full of writing There was asof the wood as there was in Xeno's Reflections

Even so, he was conscious of a certain heaviness ofthat if he turned his head sharply then memory would slosh out of his ears

Urn picked up a scroll at randouous Puzuma looks like," he demanded

"Don't know," said Brutha He blinked

"So much for Mr Memory," said Urn

"He can't read, boy That's not fair," said the philosopher

"All right I mean-the fourth picture in the third scroll you saw," said Urn

"A four-legged creature facing left," said Brutha "A large head si towards the hindquarters The body is a pattern of dark and light squares The ears are very sainst the head There are six whiskers The tail is stubby Only the hind feet are clawed, three claws on each foot The fore feet are about the saainst the body A band of thick hair-

"That was fifty scrolls ago," said Urn "He saw the whole scroll for a second or two"

They looked at Brutha Brutha blinked again

"You know everything?" said Urn

"I don't know"

"You've got half the Library in your head!"

"I feelabit"

The Library of Ephebe was a furnace The flames burned blue where the melted copper roof dripped on to the shelves

All libraries, everywhere, are connected by the bookwor spacetie collections of books

Only a very few librarians learn the secret, and there are inflexible rules aboutuse of the fact Because it a problems

But if a library is on fire, and down in the history books as having been on fire

There was a s of the bookshelves, and a figure dropped out of nowhere on to a small patch of unburned floor in the middle of the Library

It looked ape-like, but itsimian arms beat out the flames, pulled scrolls off the shelves, and stuffed them into a sack When the sack was full, it knuckled back into the middle of the roomand vanished, with another pop

This has nothing to do with the story

Nor does the fact that, soht to have been destroyed in the Great Ephebian Library Fire turned up in reood condition in the Library of Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork

But it's nice to know, even so

Brutha aith the smell of the sea in his nostrils At least it hat people think of as the smell of the sea, which is the stink of antique fish and rotten seaweed

He was in soh its one unglazed as red, and flickered One end of the shed was open to the water The ruddy light showed a few figures clustered around soently probed the contents of hisseeed The words were as less to hi More interesting than s in his memory, anyway

He sat up, carefully

"You're awake, then," said the voice of Om, in his head "Feel a bit full, do we? Feel a bit like a stack of shelves? Feel like we've got big notices saying "SILENCIOS!" all over the place inside our head? What did you go and do that for?"

"Idon't know It see to do Where are you?"

"Your soldier friend has gotafter et to his feet The world revolved round hi a third astrono the minds of local thinkers

He peered out of theThe red light was colow over the Library

"Guerrilla activity," said O Can't understand why You think they'd jued on their masters, eh?"

"I suppose a slave in Ephebe has the chance to be free," said Brutha

There was a hiss fro noise Brutha heard Urn say, "There! I told you Just a block in the tubes Lets get soroup

They were clustered round a boat As boats went, it was of normal shape-a pointed end in front, a flat end at the back But there was no ing in a wooden framework toward the back of the boat

There was an iron basket underneath it, in which so

And the ball was spinning in its frame, in a cloud of steam

"I've seen that," he said "In De Chelonian Mobile There was a drawing"

"Oh, it's the walking Library," said Didactylos "Yes You're right Illustrating the principle of reaction I never asked Urn to build a big one This is what co with your hands"

"I took it round the lighthouse one night last week," said Urn "No problems at all"

"Ankh-Morpork is a lot further than that," said Simony

"Yes, it is five times further than the distance between Ephebe and Omnia," said Brutha solemnly "There was a scroll ofclouds fro ball Noas closer, Brutha could see that half a dozen very short oars had been joined together in a star-shaped pattern behind the copper globe, and hung over the rear of the boat Wooden cogwheels and a couple of endless belts fiIled the intervening space As the globe spun, the paddles thrashed at the air

"How does it work?" he said

"Very siot time for this," said Siry," said the apprentice philosopher "So it rushes out of the globe through these four little nozzles to get away frolobe around, and the cogwheels and Legibus's screw mechanis the boat through the water"

"Very philosophical," said Didactylos

Brutha felt that he ought to stand up for Oreat doors of the Citadel weigh tons but are opened solely by the power of faith," he said "One push and they swing open"

"I should very much like to see that," said Urn

Brutha felt a faint sinful twinge of pride that O he could be proud of

"Very good balance and some hydraulics, probably"

"Oh"