Page 56 (2/2)

"Quick? That took " She handed hi in there with this one It’s a bit dry"

Kip took the book She’d said the last one was interesting If that had been interesting and this was dry… But he forgot his complaint as soon as he thu in the book was odd, blocky, legible, but unnaturally cramped And unnaturally even Every letter looked like every other letter, whether it was at the beginning of the word, the middle, or the end

"It’s an Ilytian book Not enuinely excited "They’ve figured out how to copy books with a machine Think of it! Apparently it’s hideously difficult to make the first copy, but after that, they can make hundreds of copies Hundreds! In a few days! The Ilytian scribes are up in arolds to it They say even tradese There was no personality to it No human hand had inscribed these lines It was lifeless, everything the saive a reader tiins for notes or illuminations No particular care taken on a ht it for a tired reader Only naked ink and the unfeeling stamp of some mechanical roller Even the set bored even faster," Kip said "It e the world"

Not to so rude?" Kip asked

"Generally when you preface a question that way, no, you shouldn’t," Rea Siluz said

Kip tried to figure out aon hi "Uet passed on?"

"If librarians wish to keep their jobs, absolutely Sos, however"

"Ah Can you miss that I’ve moved on to this volume?"

"Want someone to underestimate your skills, huh?" she asked

"I don’t know if it’s possible to underesti my skill takes a leap so myself"

"If you want to take a leap, you have to start playing"

Kip opened his hands, helpless

"I’ll teach you," she said "At the end ofdecks"

So noeek later, he aiting for Rea to coestured Kip to follow her to one of the side rooured out your probleah, and Kip was nicely infatuated with her Orholam, was he fickle or what? But the women here had been a handful of heavenly beads nicer to his had been unfairly bad before because he’d had the baggage of his ood now because he had the father he had He couldn’t tell--and he never would He ho he was, and nothing could change it, nothing could tell his would have been if his parents had been different, normal