First Among Sequels (Thursday Next 5)

“Listen, I’m as worried about falling ReadRates as anyone, but wild and desperate measures are not the answer. We’ve got to go back to the root cause and figure out why people prefer watching Samaritan Kidney Swap to reading a good book. If we can’t create better books, then we should be doing a lot more than simply dreaming up gimmicks to pander to the lowest common denominator.”

There was silence. I meant about 75 percent of it but needed to get the message across. There should be room on this planet for Dr. Zhivago and Extreme Spatula Make over, but the scales had tipped far enough—and I didn’t want them to go any further. They all stared at me in silence as Jobsworth drummed his fingers on the desk.

“Does this mean you are exercising your veto?”

“It does.”

There was a collective groan from the other delegates, and I suddenly wondered if I’d gone too far. After all, they had the good of the BookWorld as their priority, as did I—and it wasn’t as though I could come up with anything better.

“I’d like to conduct my own study group,” I said, hoping that by using their own corporate-buzzword language I might get them to go for it, “and see if I can throw up any strategies to pursue. If I can’t, we’ll go with your interactivity idea, no matter how dumb it sounds.”

“I see,” intoned Jobsworth as they all exchanged annoyed looks. “Since I know you too well to expect you to change your mind, we’ll reappraise the situation in a week’s time and move on. Next item?”

Colonel Barksdale stood up and looked at us all in the somber manner in which he always imparted bad news. He never had anything else. In fact, I think he engineered bad news in order to have the pleasure of giving it. He’d been head of BookWorld Defense for the past eight years and clearly wanted to increase his game to include an intragenre war or two. A chance to achieve greatness, if you like.

“I expect you’ve all heard about Speedy Muffler’s recent threat to the stability of the BookWorld?”

We all mumbled our agreement.

“Good. Well, as security is my province, I want you all to agree to a plan of action that is both decisive and final. If Muffler can deploy a dirty bomb, then none of us are safe. Hard-liners in Ecclesiastical and Feminist are ready to mobilize for war to protect their ideologies, and it is my opinion that a preemptive strike will show those immoral bastards that we mean business. I’ve three brigades of Danverclones ready and waiting to stream across the border. It won’t take long—Racy Novel is a ramshackle genre at best.”

“Isn’t war a bit hasty?” I persisted. “Muffler will try anything to punch above his weight. And even if he has developed a dirty bomb, he still has to deliver it. How’s he going to smuggle something like that into Feminist? It’s got one of the best-protected frontiers in the BookWorld.”

“We have it on good authority that they might disguise it as a double entendre in a bedroom farce and deliver it up the rear entrance at Comedy.”

“Pure conjecture. What about good old-fashioned diplomacy? You could offer Muffler some Well-surplus subtext or even dialogue to dilute the worst excesses of the genre—he’d probably respond favorably to it. After all, they merely want to develop as a genre.”

Colonel Barksdale drummed his fingers impatiently and opened his mouth to speak, but Jobsworth beat him to it.

“That’s the worry. Ecclesiastical is concerned that Racy Novel wants to undertake an expansionist policy—there’s talk of their wanting to reoccupy the dehumorized zone. Besides,” he added, “subtext and dialogue are up to almost seven hundred and fifty guineas a kilo.”

“Do we know if they even have a dirty bomb?” I asked. “It might all be a bluff.”

Jobsworth signaled to Colonel Barksdale, who handed me a dossier marked ‘Terribly Secret.’

“It’s no bluff. We’ve been sent some rather disturbing reports regarding outbreaks of incongruous obscenity from as far away as Drama—Charles Dickens, no less.”

“Bleak House,” I read from the sheet of paper I’d been handed, “and I quote: ‘Sir Leicester leans back in his chair, and breathlessly ejaculates.’”

“You see?” said Barksdale as the rest of the delegates muttered to themselves and shook their heads in a shocked manner. “And what about this one?”

He handed me another sheet of paper, this time from Thomas Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge.

“‘…the Mayor beheld the unattractive exterior of Farfrae’s erection.’”

“And,” he added decisively, “we’ve got a character named ‘Master Bates’ turning up all over Oliver Twist.”

“Master Bates has always been called that,” I pointed out. “We used to giggle over the name at school.”

“Despite that,” replied Colonel Barksdale with no loss of confidence, “the other two are quite enough to have this taken extremely seriously. The Danverclones are ready. I only need your approval—”

“It’s called ‘word drift.’”

It was Thursday5. The meeting had never seen such a flagrant lapse of protocol, and I would have thrown her out myself—but for the fact she had a point.

“I’m sorry,” said Senator Jobsworth in a sarcastic tone. “I must have missed the meeting where the other Thursday was elected to the Security Council. Jurisfiction Cadets must train, so I will overlook it this once. But one more word…!”

Unabashed, Thursday5 added, “Did Senator Muffler send those examples to you?”