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And yes, of course you can.' He frowned momentarily. 'Or did
you think that there might be some hindrance to your
researches?'
Anne paused. Atoz had hit the nail on the head, but she was
reticent to say anything in case he changed his mind. But her
curiosity forced the words from her mouth. 'My father's
researches here led to Ashley Chapel starting a smear
campaign against him. I just thought that . . .'
`You wondered whether Mr Chapel's ownership of the
library would preclude your use of it,' Atoz completed with
consummate tact. 'Dame Anne, I can assure you that Mr
Chapel has no say in the day-to-day running of our learned
establishment. Indeed, if I might make so bold, I believe that
the only reason he purchased the library from the Pontiff was
to ensure himself a ticket. Under other circumstances, we
would never have offered our services to a philistine such as
Chapel.'
Anne giggled with relief 'My thoughts exactly.'
`Good, I'm glad that's settled.' Atoz held his arm out to
indicate the library proper. 'Now, let us withdraw to
somewhere more comfortable, and you can tell me the nature
of your inquiries. Would you care for a sweet sherry?'
Mel stood in the middle of the TARDIS library with her
hands on her hips. Somewhere amongst the millions of books
was the single one that she was looking for. But where to
begin? The library was a single corridor, miles long, with
bookshelves for walls. Brass ladders punctuated the shelves
every few feet.
`Now, now, Melanie,' she muttered to herself. 'You've got
an IQ of one hundred and sixty-two  think rationally.' Unlike
a normal library, the information stored here wasn't catalogued
according to any system Mel recognized, although she
suspected it mapped perfectly onto the Doctor's chaotic
thought processes. A quick glance at the nearest shelf
confirmed the disorganization: a leather-bound copy of Kafka's
Metamorphosis  in its original German  was squeezed
62 
between an Agatha Christie thriller and a book with golden
squiggles on the spine.
And then her subconscious deposited the answer in her
mind. The Doctor was always going on about the TARDIS
being a sentient being, responsive to thoughts and emotions.
Well, thoughts and emotions didn't come any clearer than hers.
She sat on the floor and forced herself into the lotus
position. Then she began her breathing exercises, allowing the
inhalations and exhalations to clear her mind of clutter. Within
a matter of minutes, only one thought remained, shining with
all her concentration. It was the title of a book that the Doctor
had once mentioned. He had only meant it as a throwaway
line, but Mel's eidetic memory had filed it away for future use.
Such as now. Demeter Glauss's Cybercrime: An Analysis of
Hacking was apparently the seminal work on breaking and
entering computer systems; written in the early twenty-first
century, it laid open every operating system ever created up to
that point. Just the ticket for a rummage through Chapel's
network.
Mel would have sworn that the chime rang only in her
mind. She opened her eyes, and they were immediately drawn
to the nearest shelf. But Metamorphosis had itself
metamorphosed: a burgundy leather edition of Glauss's book
had replaced it. She stood up and prised it from the shelf, but
wasn't prepared for what happened next: Kafka's book
rematerialized  with a tinny TARDIS noise  in its place. She
shrugged  business as usual for the Doctor's time machine,
she supposed  and opened the book in her hands. That was yet
another surprise. The leather volume was hollow, like one of
those pretentious video cassette cases her mother had favoured,
with a paperback of Glauss contained within. Mel winced at
the lurid cover, showing a busty blonde in a leather catsuit
leaning provocatively over a stylized personal computer, but a
glance at the contents confirmed the Doctor's opinion. There
didn't seem to be a single operating system for which Glauss
hadn't described a back door: Windows, OS/2, OffNet; there
were even systems mentioned that Mel assumed hadn't been
written yet, such as Amber, Gridstat and Multivac. But there [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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