“Barmouth Blaster?” asked Sprockett, offering me a cocktail.
“Thank you.”
“So we were right—it wasn’t an attack on the book at all,” murmured Sprockett, adding the ice and lemon to the cocktail shaker along with half a can of Red Bull, a Mucinex and two onions. “It was a hit on the taxi—with Thursday Next inside. Which means that Mediocre must have been bribed to take the particular book—”
“But knew nothing of the reason. He was tricked into attending his own execution, as well as Thursday’s.”
We sat in silence for some minutes as we were towed ever upwards, thinking about what we had just uncovered. In the RealWorld such a convoluted method of murder would be faintly ridiculous, but in the BookWorld all murders happened this way.
“Your Barmouth Blaster, ma’am.”
“Thank you.”
“Ma’am?”
“Yes?”
“Why was Ms. Next murdered?”
There were at least seventy-two people who had tried to kill her over the years, and narrowing it down was going to be tricky. I decided to head for the most obvious.
“Without Thursday the Racy Novel peace talks might well fail. Who would benefit most from a genre war in the north of the island?”
“Men in Plaid,” said Sprockett.
“Hardly likely,” I replied. “They’re probably mopping up for someone else—or simply want to find Thursday—or are just being wicked for the hell of it.”
“You misunderstand me, madam,” he said politely. “I mean Men in Plaid— behind us!”
I turned and looked out the cab’s rear window. Sprockett was right. Far below was not one Buick Roadmaster but three. They would also have Technobabble™ Scramjamcious Gravitational Flux Throb-O-Tron Torque Converter drive systems and, knowing the Men in Plaid, ones considerably more advanced than ours and twice as nonsensical.
“How far to the gravopause?” I asked.
“We’re almost there.”
Despite the gravopause’s usefulness for getting about, one had to be careful. If you had the misfortune to move above this altitude and had insufficient thrust to escape, you could be caught in the dead center of the sphere forever. There was a small moon in the gravitational dead spot made from accreted book traffic that had accidentally fallen in and been unable to escape. From the dizzying heights we had now reached, I could actually see the moon above us, no bigger than a pea.
Within a half minute more, we had reached the gravopause. Sprockett cast off the towline, and we drifted onwards, safely in orbit. All that was required now was to coast along until we were above Biography and then dip the cab into a downwards trajectory and let gravity take over.
“Ma’am, would you wind me up?” said Sprockett. “I can see fun and games ahead, and I wouldn’t want to risk spring depletion at an inopportune moment.”
I leaned forward and wound him until his indicator was just below the red line. I felt his bronze outer casing flex with the increased tension.
“The Men in Plaid are gaining,” I said, looking behind us.
The three Roadmasters were in V formation about a half mile away and had just reached the gravopause. At the rate they were going, they would be upon us in under five minutes.
“I’m going to head for that cluster of book traffic,” announced Sprockett, opening the throttle and accelerating towards a loose gaggle of several hundred books that all appeared to be heading in the same direction. As we drew closer, I could see that they were mostly nonfiction and of considerable size. It was the renegade Oversize Books section, on their way to their new home.
They grew dramatically in size as we approached, and as we passed between John Deere Tractors and Clarice Cliff Tableware, they towered over us like skyscrapers.
“Hold tight,” said Sprockett, and he pulled the cab hard over and darted behind Lighthouses of Maine.
“They’re still behind us!” I barked, peering out the rear windshield as the Monhegan Island Light Station flashed past on our left-hand side, foghorn blaring. “Or at least one is.”
“They only attack one at a time,” replied Sprockett, his eyebrow flicking past “Indignant” to “Peeved,” “and in that respect they’re very like baddies in seventies martial-arts movies. Hold tight.”
Sprockett skimmed past Best of National Geographic so close I could taste the hot dust of the Serengeti, then pulled up sharply in front of Chronicle of Britain. I felt myself pressed hard into my seat. My vision grew gray, then faded out entirely. My arms and head felt intolerably heavy, and a second later I was unconscious as Sprockett—his body designed to tolerate up to 17.6 Gs—pulled the cab into an almost vertical climb. I came around again as soon as he reached the top of the book, and he immediately plunged the cab into a near-vertical dive.
“Still behind us?”
They were. I could see the emotionless features of the Plaids as they edged closer. Sprockett corkscrewed around Knitting Toy Animals for Pleasure and Profit as the passenger in the Roadmaster leaned out the window and fired a shot, which flew wide to blow a ragged hole in Knitting Toy Animals as we sped on, and a blue knitted giraffe named Natalie began a long, slow fall to the Text Sea, sixteen miles below.
“These Men in Plaid are made of stern stuff,” said Sprockett, his eyebrow pointer clicking from “Peeved” to “Puzzled” to “Indignant,” then almost to “Severely Peeved” before settling on “Peeved” again. “Hold tight.”
The Oversized Books were now moving in a more random fashion as they tried to avoid us, and Sprockett dived to get more speed, then pulled up and headed towards where What Do People Do All Day? and ABC with Dewin the Dog were about to collide, cover to cover. There was barely a ten-foot gap on either side as we flew between them, and the gap narrowed as we moved on. I barely had a chance to wave a cheery hello to a worried-looking Lowly Worm as the covers closed together a split second before we shot out the other side. The Roadmaster was less fortunate, and there was a tremendous detonation as the car was crushed between the two books, the worried shouts of Scarry’s folk mixing with Dewin the Dog’s furious barking.
“Do you see the others, ma’am?” asked Sprockett as he swerved hard to miss the Greatest Oversize Book of All Time but the abrupt sideways movement caused a ventral compressor stall on the Technobabble™ drive, and we went spiraling downwards out of control until Sprockett achieved an emergency relight.
“On the left!” I yelled as the second Roadmaster swept past, a shot from an eraserhead removing half the rear bumper and a fender. Sprockett jinked hard, spiraled up for a second, then shot past Cooking for Fusspots and Helmut Newton Nudes.
“Rewind me again, ma’am, if you please,” said Sprockett, hauling sideways on the wheel to avoid the Times Atlas. The exertions on his frame had depleted his spring at a furious rate—I’d have to remain conscious, if only to rewind him.
“Watch out!”