'Could be. Miss Havisham was sure there was something wrong with UltraWord™. I think Perkins found out — and so did Snell.'

'Did they actually say so?' asked Randolph, who had obviously been studying law as part of his upcoming Wolfe bit-part. 'Without any evidence this will be hard to prove.'

'Perkins and Havisham told me nothing — and all I got from Snell was gobbledegook on his deathbed. He may have told me everything but it was so badly spelled I didn't understand a word.'

'What did he say?'

'He said: "Thirsty! Wode — Cone, udder whirled — doughnut Trieste—!" or something quite like it.'

Arnie exchanged looks with Randolph.

'The "Thirsty" must be "Thursday",' murmured Randolph.

'I figured that,' I returned, 'but what about the rest?'

'Do you suppose,' said Randolph thoughtfully, 'that if you were to recite those words near a source of mispeling they would revert back again?'

There was one of those long pauses that always accompany an epiphanic moment.

'It's worth a try,' I replied, thinking hard. Where would I find some mispeling vyrus without anyone asking questions?

I got up, checked the clip of my automatic and opened my TravelBook.

'Where are you going?' asked Arnie.

'To visit the Anti-mispeling Fast Response Group on the seventeenth floor. I think they might be able to help.'

'Will they want to?'

I shrugged.

'Irrelevant. Asking wasn't part of my plan.'

The elevator doors opened on the seventeenth floor. This held all the books whose authors began with Q, and since there weren't that many of them, the remainder of the space had been given over to the Jurisfiction Anti-mispeling Fast Response Group — if there was any live mispeling vyrus at Jurisfiction, this would be the place to find it.

This floor of the Great Library was more dimly lit than the others, and the rows of bunk beds containing the numerous DanverClones began soon after the Quiller-Couch novels ended. The Danvers were all sitting bolt upright, their eyes following me silently as I walked slowly down the corridor. It was disquieting to be sure, but I could think of no other place to look.

I reached the central core of the Library, a circular void surrounded by a wrought-iron rail at the centre of the four corridors. The way I had come was all Danvers, and so were two of the others. The fourth corridor was lined with packing cases of dictionaries, and beyond them was the medical area in which I had last seen Snell. I approached, my feet making no noise on the padded carpet. Perhaps Snell had known as much as Perkins? They were partners, after all. I cursed myself for not thinking of this before but felt slightly better knowing that Havisham hadn't thought of it either.

I arrived at the small medical unit that was ready and waiting to deal with any infected person, with its shielded curtains and bandages over-printed with dictionary entries. They could soothe and contain but rarely cure — Snell was doomed as soon as he was soaked in the vyrus and he knew it.

I opened a few drawers here and there but found nothing. Then I noticed a large pile of dictionaries stacked by themselves in a roped-off area. I walked up to them, repeating the word ambidextrous as I did so.

'Ambidextrous … ambidextrous … ambidextrous … ambidextruos.'

Bingo. I'd found it.

'Miss Next?' said a voice. 'What in heaven's name are you doing here?'

I nearly jumped out of my skin. If it had been Libris I would have been worried; but it wasn't — it was Harris Tweed.

'You nearly scared me half to death!' I told him.

'Sorry!' He grinned. 'What are you up to?'

'There's something wrong with Ultra Word™,' I confided.

Tweed looked up and down the corridor and lowered his voice.

'I think so too,' he hissed, 'but I'm not sure what — I've a feeling that it uses a faster "memory fade" utility than Version 8.3 so the readers will want to reread the book more often. The Council of Genres is interested in upping its published ReadRates — the battle with non-fiction is hotting up; more than they care to tell us about.'

It was the sort of thing I had suspected.

'What have you discovered?' he asked.

I leaned closer.

'UltraWord™ has a "thrice only" read capability.'

'Good Lord!' exclaimed Tweed. 'Anything else?'

'Not yet. I was hoping to find out what Snell said before he died. It was badly mispeled but I thought perhaps I could unmispel it by repeating it close to a mispeling source.'

'Good thought,' replied Tweed, 'but we must take care — too much exposure to this stuff and you could be permanently mispeled.'

He donned a pair of DictoSafe gloves.

'Sit here and repeat Snell's words,' he told me, placing a chair not a yard from the pile of dictionaries. 'I'll remove the OEDs one at a time and we'll see what happens.'

'Wode — Cone, udder whirled — doughnut Trieste' I recited as Tweed pulled a single dictionary from the large pile that covered the vyrus.

'Wode — Cone, ulder whirled — dougnut Trieste,' I repeated.

'Who else knows about this?' he asked. 'If what you say is true, this knowledge is dangerous enough to have killed three times — I hate to say it but I think we have a rotten apple at Jurisfiction.'

'I tolled no-wun at Jurizfaction,' I assured him. 'Wede — Caine, ulder whorled — dogn’ut Triuste.'

Harris carefully removed another dictionary. I could see the faint purple glow from within the stacked books.

'We don't know who we can trust,' he said sombrely. 'Who did you tell, precisely? It's important, I need to know.'

He removed another dictionary.

'Twede — Caine, ulter whorled — dogn't Truste.'

My heart went cold. Twede. Could that be Tweed? I tried to look normal and glanced across at him, trying to figure out whether he had heard me. I had good reason to be concerned; there he was, controlling a strong source of mispeling vyrus. If he removed one too many dictionaries I could be fatally mispeled into a Thirsty Neck or something — and nobody knew I was here.

'I cane right you a liszt if it wood yelp,' I said, trying to sound as normal as I could.

'Why not just tell me,' he said, still smiling. 'Who was it? Some of those Generics at Caversham Heights?

'I tolled the bell, man.'

The smile dropped from his face.

'Now I know you're lying.'

We stared at one another. Tweed was no fool; he knew his cover was blown.

'Tweed,' I said, the unmispeling now complete. 'Kaine — UltraWord — Don’t trust!'

I jumped aside as soon as I had said it. I was only just in time — Tweed yanked out three dictionaries near the bottom and the DictoSafe partially collapsed.

I sprawled on the ground as the heavy glow, emanating in one direction from the disrupted pile of dictionaries, instantly turned the hospital bed behind me into an hospitable ted, a furry stuffed bear who waved his paw cheerfully and told me to pop round for dinner any day of the week — and to bring a friend.

I threw myself at Tweed, who was not as quick as I, my speech returning to normal almost immediately.

'Snell and Perkins?!' I yelled, pinning him to the ground. 'Who else? Havisham?'

'It's not important,' he cried as I took his gun and forced his chin into the carpet.

'You're wrong!' I told him angrily. 'What's the problem with UltraWord™?'

'Nothing's wrong with it,' he replied, trying to sound reasonable. 'In fact, everything's right with it! Think about it for a moment. With UltraWord™ control of the BookWorld will never have been easier. And with modern and free-thinking Outlanders like you and I, we can take fiction to new and dizzying heights!'

I pushed my knee harder into the back of his neck and he yelped.