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"now why would I want't'let others in on something this much fun? I'm keepin' it for my own personal enjoyment."
    The old man burst out laughing some more. Ho-ho-ho.
    He even had me laughing.
    "My research is purely for the specialist. Nobody's got any interest in acoustics anyway," the old man said. "All the idiot savants in the world couldn't make head or tail of my theories if they tried. Only the world of science pays me any mind."
    "That may be so, but your Semiotec is no idiot. When it comes to deciphering, they're genius class, the whole lot of them. They'll crack your findings to the last digit."
    "I know, I know. That's why I've withheld all my data and processes, so they wouldn't be pokin' into things. Probably means even the world of science doesn't take me seriously, but what of that? Tosh , a hundred years from now my theories will alI've been proved. That's enough, isn't it?"
    "Hmm."
    "Okay, son, launder and shuffle everything."
    "Yessir," I said, "yessir."
    For the next hour, I concentrated on tabulations. Then took another rest.
    "One question, if I might," I said.
    "What's that?" asked the old man.
    "That young woman at the entrance. You know, the one with the pink suit, slightly plump… ?"
    "That's my granddaughter," said the old man. "Extremely bright child. Young's she is, she helps me with my research."
    "Well, uh, my question is… was she born mute that way?"
    "Darn," said the old man, slapping his thigh. "Plum forgot. She's still sound-removed from that experiment. Darn, darn, darn. Got't'go and undo it right now."
    "Oh."

The Library
    The Town centers around a semicircular plaza directly north of the Old Bridge. The other semicircular fragment, that is, the lower half of the circle, lies across the river to the south. These two half-circles are known as the North and South Plazas respectively.
    Regarded as a pair, the two can impress one only as complete opposites, so unlike each other as they are. The North Plaza is heavy with an air of mystery, laden with the silence of the surrounding quarter, whereas the South Plaza seems to lack any atmosphere at all.
    What is one meant to feel here? All is adrift in a vague sense of loss. Here, there are relatively fewer households than north of the Bridge. The flowerbeds and cobblestones are not well kept.
    In the middle of the North Plaza stands a large Clock-tower piercing skyward. To be precise, one should say it is less a clocktower than an object retaining the form of a clocktower. The clock has long forfeited its original role as a timepiece.
    It is a square stone tower, narrowing up its height, its faces oriented in compass fashion toward the cardinal directions. At the top are dials on all four sides, their hands frozen in place at thirty-five minutes past ten. Below, small portals give into what is likely a hollow interior. One might imagine ascending by ladder within but for the fact that no entrance is to be found at the base. The tower climbs so high above the plaza that one has to cross the Old Bridge to the south even to see the clock.
    Several rings of stone and brick buildings fan out from the North Plaza. No edifice has any outstanding features, no decorations or plaques. All doors are sealed tight; no one is seen entering or leaving. Here, is this a post office for dead letters? This, a mining firm that engages no miners? This, a crematorium without corpses to burn? The resounding stillness gives the structures an impression of abandonment. Yet each time I turn down these streets, I can sense strangers behind the facades, holding their breath as they continue pursuits I will never know.
    The Library stands in one block of this quarter. None the more distinguished for being a library, it is an utterly ordinary stone building. There is nothing to declare it a library.
    With its old stone walls faded to a dismal shade, the shallow eaves over the iron-grilled windows and the heavy wooden doors, it might be a grain warehouse. If I had not asked