"Oh, yes," Finkle-McGraw said. "Can it be written on? I should like to inscribe it to Elizabeth."

"The paper is a subclass of both input-paper and output-paper, so it possesses all the underlying functionality of the sort of paper you would write on. For the most part these functions are not used– beyond, of course, simply making marks where the nib of the pen has moved across it.'

"You can write on it," Finkle-McGraw translated with some asperity, "but it doesn't think about what you're writing."

"Well, my answer to that question must be ambiguous," Hackworth said. "The Illustrated Primer is an extremely general and powerful system capable of more extensive self-reconfiguration than most. Remember that a fundamental part of its job is to respond to its environment. If the owner were to take up a pen and write on a blank page, this input would be thrown into the hopper along with everything else, so to speak."

"Can I inscribe it to Elizabeth or not?" Finkle-McGraw demanded.

"Certainly, sir."

Finkle-McGraw extracted a heavy gold fountain pen from a holder on his desk and wrote in the front of the book for a while.

"That being done, sir, there remains only for you to authorise a standing purchase order for the ractors."

"Ah, yes, thank you for reminding me," said Finkle-McGraw, not very sincerely. "I still would have thought that for all the money that went into this project-"

"That we might have solved the voice-generation problem to boot, yes sir," Hackworth said. "As you know, we took some stabs at it, but none of the results were up to the level of quality you demand. After all of our technology, the pseudo-intelligence algorithms, the vast exception matrices, the portent and content monitors, and everything else, we still can't come close to generating a human voice that sounds as good as what a real, live ractor can give us."

"Can't say I'm surprised, really," said Finkle-McGraw. "I just wish it were a completely self-contained system."

"It might as well be, sir. At any given time there are tens of millions of professional ractors in their stages all over the world, in every time zone, ready to take on this kind of work at an instant's notice. We are planning to authorise payment at a relatively high rate, which should bring in only the best talent. You won't be disappointed with the results."

Once upon a time there was a little Princess named Nell who was imprisoned in a tall dark castle on an island in the middle of a great sea, with a little boy named Harv, who was her friend and protector. She also had four special friends named Dinosaur, Duck, Peter Rabbit, and Purple.

Princess Nell and Harv could not leave the Dark Castle, but from time to time a Raven would come to visit them and tell them of the wonderful things over the sea in the Land Beyond. One day the Raven helped Princess Nell escape from the castle, but alas, poor Harv was too big and had to stay locked up behind the castle's great iron door with twelve locks.

Princess Nell loved Harv like a brother and refused to abandon him, so she and her friends, Dinosaur, Duck, Peter, and Purple, traveled over the sea in a little red boat, having many adventures, until they came to the Land Beyond. This was divided into twelve countries each ruled by a Faery King or a Faery Queen. Each King or Queen had a wonderful Castle, and each Castle was a Treasury containing gold and jewels, and in each Treasury was a jeweled Key that would open one of the twelve locks on the iron door of the Dark Castle.

Princess Nell and her friends had many adventures as they visited each of the twelve kingdoms and collected the twelve keys. Some they got by persuasion, some by cleverness, and some they took in battle. By the end of the quest, some of Nell's four friends had died, and some had gone their separate ways. But Nell was not alone, for she had become a great heroine during her adventures.

In a great ship, accompanied by many soldiers, servants, and elders, Nell traveled back over the sea to the island of the Dark Castle. As she approached the iron door, Harv saw her from the top of a tower and gruffly told her to go away, for Princess Nell had changed so much during her Quest that Harv no longer recognized her. "I have come to set you free," Princess Nell said. Harv again told her to go away, saying that he had all the freedom he wanted within the walls of the Dark Castle.

Princess Nell put the twelve keys into the twelve locks and began to open them one by one. When the rusty door of the castle finally creaked open, she saw Harv standing with a bow at the ready, and an arrow drawn, pointed straight at her heart. He let fly the arrow, and it struck her in the chest and would have killed her except that she was wearing a locket Harv had given her many years ago, before she left the castle. The arrow struck and shattered the locket. In the same moment, Harv was cut down by an arrow from one of Princess Nell's soldiers. Nell rushed to her fallen brother to comfort him and wept over his body for three days and three nights.

When finally she dried her eyes, she saw that the Dark Castle had become glorious; for the river of tears that had flowed from her eyes had watered the grounds, and beautiful gardens and forests had sprung up overnight, and the Dark Castle itself was no longer dark, but a shining beacon filled with delightful things.

Princess Nell lived in that castle and ruled over that island for the rest of her days, and every morning she would go for a walk in the garden where Harv had fallen. She had many adventures and became a great Queen, and in time she met and married a Prince, and had many children, and lived happily ever after.

"What's an adventure?" Nell said.

The word was written across the page. Then both pages filled with moving pictures of glorious things: girls in armor fighting dragons with swords, and girls riding white unicorns through the forest, and girls swinging from vines, swimming in the blue ocean, piloting rocket ships through space. Nell spent a long time looking at all of the pictures, and after a while all of the girls began to look like older versions of herself.

As Judge Fang proceeded across the Causeway on his chevaline, accompanied by his assistants, Chang and Miss Pao, he saw the Leased Territories wreathed in a mephitic fog. The emerald highlands of Atlantis/Shanghai floated above the squalor. A host of mirrored aerostats surrounded that lofty territory, protecting it from the larger and more obvious sorts of intruders; from here, miles away, the individual pods were of course not visible, but they could be seen in the aggregate as a subtle gleam in the air, a vast bubble, perfectly transparent, enveloping the sacrosanct territory of the Anglo-Americans, stretching this way and that in the shifting winds but never tearing.

The view was spoiled as they drew closer to the Leased Territories and entered into their eternal fogs. Several times as they rode through the streets of the L.T., Judge Fang made a peculiar gesture: He curled the fingers of his right hand into a cylinder, as though grasping an invisible stalk of bamboo. He cupped his other hand beneath, forming a dark enclosed cavity, and then peeked into it with one eye. When he stared into the pocket of air thus formed, he saw the darkness filled with coruscating light– something like staring into a cavern filled with fireflies, except that these lights came in all colors, and all of the colors were as pure and clear as jewels.

People who lived in the L.T. and who performed this gesture frequently developed a feel for what was going on in the microscopic world. They could tell when something was up. If the gesture was performed during a toner war, the result was spectacular.