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

Senator Jobsworth wasted no time and called over his shoulder to one of the many Danverclones standing close by. “Security? See that Thursday with the flower in her hair? She is to be returned to her-”

“She’s with me,” I said, staring at Jobsworth, who glared back dangerously, “and I vouch for her. She has opinions that I feel are worth listening to.”

Jobsworth and Barksdale went silent and looked at each other, wondering if there wasn’t some sort of rule they could invoke. There wasn’t. And it was for precisely these moments that the Great Panjandrum had given me the veto-to slow things down and make the Council of Genres think before it acted.

“Well?” I said. “Did Speedy Muffler send those examples to you?”

“Well, not perhaps…as such,” replied Colonel Barksdale with a shrug, “but the evidence is unequivocally compelling and totally, absolutely without doubt.”

“I contend,” added Thursday5, “that they are simply words whose meanings have meandered over the years, and those books were written with precisely the words you quoted us now. Word drift.”

“I hardly think that’s likely, my dear,” replied Jobsworth patronizingly.

“Oh, no?” I countered. “Do you mean to tell me that when Lydia from Pride and Prejudice thinks of Brighton and ‘…the glories of the camp-its tents stretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines, crowded with the young and the gay,’ that she might possibly mean something else?”

“Well, no, of course not,” replied the senator, suddenly feeling uncomfortable under the combined baleful stares of Thursday5 and me.

There was a mumbling among the other delegates, and I said, “Words change. Whoever sent these examples to you has an agenda, which is more about confrontation than a peaceful outcome to the crisis. I’m going to exercise my veto again. I suggest that a diplomatic resolution be attempted until we have irrefutable evidence that Muffler really has the capabilities he claims.”

“This is bad judgment,” growled Jobsworth with barely controlled rage as he rose from his seat and gathered his papers together. “You’re on morally tricky ground if you side with Racy Novel.”

“I’m on morally trickier ground if I don’t,” I replied. “I will not sanction a war on misplaced words in a few of the classics. Show me a blatantly unsubtle and badly written sex scene in To the Lighthouse and I will personally lead the battle myself.”

Jobsworth stared at me, and I stared back angrily.

“By then the damage will have been done. We want to stop them before they even get started,” he insisted.

He paused and composed himself.

“Two vetoes in one day,” he added. “You must be particularly pleased with yourself. I hope you have as many smart answers when smutty innuendo is sprinkled liberally across The Second Sex.”

And without another word, he stormed from the meeting, closely followed by Barksdale, Baxter and all the others, each of them making tut-tut noises and shaking their heads in a sickening display of inspired toadying. Only Senator Beauty wasn’t with them. He shook his own head at me in a gesture meaning “better you than me” and then trotted out.

We were left in silence, aside from the Read-O-Meter, which ominously dropped another thirty-six books.

“That word-drift explanation was really very good,” I said to Thursday5 when we were back in the elevator.

“It was nothing, really.”

“Nothing?” I echoed. “Don’t sell yourself short. You probably just averted a genre war.”

“Time will tell. I meant to ask. You said you were the ‘LBOCS.’ What does that mean?”

“It means I’m the council’s Last Bastion of Common Sense. Because I’m from the Outland, I have a better notion of in de pen-dent thought than those in the generally deterministic BookWorld. Nothing happens without my knowledge or comment.”

“That must make you unpopular sometimes.”

“No,” I replied, “it makes me unpopular all the time.”

We went back down to the Jurisfiction offices for me to formally hand over my badge to Bradshaw, who took it from me without expression and resumed his work. I returned despondently to where Thursday5 was waiting expectantly at my desk. It was the end of her assessment, and I knew she wanted to be put out of her misery one way or another.

“There are three recommendations I can make,” I began, sitting back in my chair. “One: for you to be put forward for further training. Two: for you to be returned to basic training. And three: for you to leave the ser vice entirely.”

I looked across at her and found myself staring back at me. It was the look I usually gave to the mirror, and it was disconcerting. But I had to be firm and make my decision based on her performance and suitability.

“You were nearly eaten by a grammasite, and you would have let the Minotaur kill me,” I began, “but on the plus side, you came up with the word-drift explanation, which was pretty cool.”

She looked hopeful for a moment.

“But I have to take all things under consideration and without bias-either in your favor or against. The Minotaur episode was too important a failing for me to ignore, and much as I like your mildly eccentric ways, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to recommend that you do not join Jurisfiction, either now or in the future.”

She didn’t say anything for a while and looked as though she was about to cry, which she did a second or two later. She might have made a decent Jurisfiction agent, but the chances of her getting herself killed were just too high for me to risk. On my graduation assignment, I was almost murdered by a bunch of emotion junkies inside Shadow the Sheepdog. Given the same situation, Thursday5 wouldn’t have survived, and I wasn’t going to have that on my conscience. She wasn’t just a version of me, she was something closer to family, and I didn’t want her coming to any harm.

“I understand,” she said between sniffs, dabbing at her nose with a lacy handkerchief.

She thanked me for my time, apologized again for the Minotaur, laid her badge on my desk and vanished off into her book. I leaned back in my chair and sighed-what with firing both Thursdays, I’d really been giving myself a hard time today. I wanted to go home, but the power required for a transfictional jump to the Outland might be tricky on an empty stomach. I looked at my watch. It was only four, and Jurisfiction agents at that time liked to take tea. And to take tea, they generally liked to go to the best tearooms in the BookWorld-or anywhere else, for that matter.

It was called the Paragon and was the most perfect 1920s tea-room, nestled in the safe and unobserved background fabric of P. G. Wode house’s Summer Lightning. To your left and right upon entering through the carved wooden doors were glass display cases containing the most sumptuous homemade cakes and pastries. Beyond these were the tearooms proper, with booths and tables constructed of a dark wood that perfectly matched the paneled interior. This was itself decorated with plaster reliefs of Greek characters disporting themselves in matters of equestrian and athletic prowess. To the rear were two additional and private tearooms, the one of light-colored wood and the other in delicate carvings of a most agreeable nature. Needless to say, it was inhabited by the most populous characters in Wode house’s novels. That is to say it was full of voluble and opinionated aunts.