The relay suit left great echoing footsteps hanging in the air behind it as it carried the immortal form of Third Custodian Gavinil to the outer ring. Within the suit, he was fending off sleep, ignoring the crumbling architecture around him as he reviewed the status of the Library on five viewscreens. Even if the relay suit were to fail or put a foot wrong – a thing entirely unheard of – Gavinil would be safe within his support pod. He had not left it since time out of mind and would not do so until after the universe had failed.

The problem was that the time for that was rapidly approaching.

When the suit reached the outer ring, it reversed its facing and backed into a recess in the outer wall. Its entropic shielding fell just as another shield sprang up, and mechanisms whirred swiftly and smoothly from the wall, extracting Gavinil’s pod from the suit and attaching it to the ascent cage above.

As the cage began its parabolic climb to High Watch, Gavinil remained fixated on the viewscreens. There was no real need for him to physically visit High Watch and Seventh Custodian Micaster, but he felt that there should be at least one of the custodians who still walked the corridors of the Last Library, regardless of the energy expense. However, if there was one thing about the trip that he disliked, it was the view. When he reached High Watch, he would have little choice but to apprehend it. Until then, he would stick to his work.

High Watch was suspended vertically above the Knowledge Well, the heart of the Last Library, by four great curving pylons that ascended from the outer ring and met in the center. It could only be reached by the ascent cages that ran along those struts, just as Low Watch, which hung directly below the Knowledge Well in the same manner, could only be reached using the descent platforms that ran along the lower four pylons.

Micaster dwelt permanently upon High Watch, and thus had become somewhat isolated from the other custodians. He was, for want of a better term, eccentric, and Gavinil had long felt that it was wisest to visit him occasionally and ensure that he was performing his tedious task to the best of his ability. There was no intrusion of sympathy into this thought: if Micaster descended into insanity, it would matter little to Gavinil unless it interfered with his work.

The ascent cage swung to a halt above a small platform that extruded from High Watch’s lower regions. Gavinil did not look up as another set of arms emerged from above and lifted him from the cage and into another relay suit. However, as the suit powered up and began the slow ascent to High Watch’s viewing gallery, he did lift his gaze from the screens and look around, as he had done many times before.

High Watch’s architecture was distinct from that of the Library proper or from that of Low Watch. The Library itself was monolithic and purposeful, shorn of all decorations but glimmering with the light of countless storage elements that reflected off every cracked and polished surface. Low Watch was shaped like a basket, every element straining upwards, as if to grasp hold of the pylons it hung from and stave off the inevitable day when it would tumble into the whirling vortex below.

In contrast, High Watch seemed almost to be striving to escape the Last Library’s grasp and ascend to the void above. Every column, arch and spire was true to the vertical, and every embellishment or ornamentation (of which there were many) seemed to show a figure that aspired to take flight and leave this sinking ship behind. However, it was in no better shape than the rest of the Library, and there were few corners or details that did not show some sign of wear or damage.

There was something almost religious about the place, Gavinil observed. It was unsurprising that Micaster lingered here and indulged his whims without the oversight of the other dozen custodians. Twelfth Custodian Jorusk, who dwelt upon Low Watch, was a more sober individual, if somewhat given to paranoia and suicidal impulses. On more than one occasion, his support pod’s preservation protocols had prevented him from achieving cessation.

No, Micaster’s problem was something else, Gavinil thought as the suit and he ascended the stairs, passing by a thousand and one leering gargoyles and smiling saints. Whereas Jorusk had been overwhelmed by the enormity of the task facing the custodians, Micaster seemed to be uncaring of the need to preserve the Library’s archives. He was more interested in his own flights of fancy, and thus it fell to Gavinil to visit him occasionally and keep him in check.

The ascent had been going on for some time, and Gavinil began to fear that he knew where Micaster was among the lofty warrens of High Watch. A brief glance at one of his viewscreens confirmed it: the Seventh Custodian was upon Voidfall, a platform atop High Watch’s tallest tower, as far as could be from the Knowledge Well. The journey would take some time yet. Gavinil decided not to waste it. He shut down the viewscreens, opaqued the support pod’s shell and surrendered to sleep.

What woke him was not light, for no light could penetrate the support pod’s shell in its opaque state. Rather, it was a gnawing sensation on his brain, informing him that something was subtly wrong in the nature of reality. Gavinil recognised it quickly enough, and in recognising it, he knew he had arrived. Alert once more, he reactivated the pod’s information function and allowed himself to see the void.

As he remembered, the gnawing sensation lessened when his eyes were allowed to join the party of the senses that the void engendered. For some reason, the brain could fool itself into thinking all was well when the senses were in accord that all was not. However, if one sense were denied information, such an imbalance worsened any feeling of unease. Gavinil had searched the Last Library without uncovering a reasonable explanation for this phenomenon. However, this was not surprising, as there was little in the Library that had been set down after the void had become a matter of concern.

“Third Custodian Gavinil, in the flesh no less,” came a voice that carried through his pod’s protective fluid. “It is an honour for me, a habit for you and an undoubted waste of energy.”

Without being prompted to, the relay suit carrying Gavinil’s pod turned to face the speaker. Gavinil was treated to the sight of the rear of a relay suit, its two short metal legs supporting a bulky ovoid body festooned with manipulator arms. Only the very tip of the amber support pod was visible, but Gavinil knew that Micaster was within, just as he knew that Micaster had not needed to look at him to know who and where his visitor was.

“I’ve come to observe your work,” Gavinil replied. “And for a report on your progress.”

“As expected,” replied Micaster. “Make yourself comfortable on a throne. I’ll be with you shortly.”

Gavinil directed the suit to turn away from the cluster of instruments and screens where Micaster stood, facing it towards the centre of Voidfall, where a raised circular dais stood, around which were arranged thirteen pedestals. These were the “thrones” of which Micaster spoke: receptacles for the support pods that offered full recording facilities and connection to the Library. The suit began to tromp over to the dais and without even thinking about it, Gavinil again turned his attention to the void above.

It was a strange thing, this absence that remained when all else was removed. There were no words to describe it, nor had there been or ever would be. It did not so much tug at the mind as create the impression that the viewer was already being drawn towards it; thus it was unwise to stare at it too closely or too long.

Had the suit been a little taller, Gavinil would have been able to see over the edge of voidfall and apprehend the horizon, the dividing line on which the last Library was hung. Below, of course, was the vortex, the great maw of this particular ragged remnant of time and space, which was slowly dissipating. The Last Library – which had been devised when it was first confirmed that reality would fray and snap in the spaces between the galaxies – belonged to neither the void nor the vortex, but one or the other was sure to consume it, and it was this that held the custodians’ full attention.

The relay suit approached the dais and stood behind one of the pedestals, employing its two heavy lower manipulators to extract Gavinil’s pod and place it upon the pedestal before retreating a safe distance from whence it could be summoned when needed. The pedestal was not chosen at random, for Gavinil had been placed upon it before. There were thirteen pedestals, one each for the thirteen custodians. Once there had been more, but they had dwindled.

Immediately he was connected, Gavinil could feel the senses available to him multiply and the wealth of knowledge at his disposal bloom. The sensation, which was not unlike floating upon a sea of knowledge, was one of the most euphoric available in the Last Library and one of the few good reasons for travelling to High Watch. Of course, there were pedestals in the Knowledge Well as well, but the other ten custodians remained there all but permanently, somewhat reducing Gavinil’s desire to join them. With a guilty flush, he realised that he simply did not enjoy their company.

“If anything had changed, I should have informed you.” Micaster’s voice broke into Gavinil’s guilty reverie. “So why are you here?”

“To check on your progress,” Gavinil began somewhat testily, and then stopped as he saw Micaster’s relay suit depositing its burden upon the Seventh Custodian’s pedestal. There was something odd about Micaster’s support pod. “What is-” Gavinil began and then switched his attention to his pod’s viewscreens, using its sensors to gain a closer view of Micaster. There it was. There was no doubt. “What is that thing in your pod with you?”

“What? Oh, this. It’s a beard. My species used to be able to grow them. I was curious, so I used the Library and the pod’s systems to modify my selfcode.”

“You mean it’s attached to you? How revolting.”

“Oh, it’s not so bad. It provides some unusual sensations. Doesn’t seem to have a purpose though. I can see why we lost the knack.”

Inside Gavinil’s pod, one of the viewscreens began to display the Library’s stored data on beards. “Is it dangerous?” Gavinil asked, ignoring the screen for the moment. “It seems to take up more space in the pod than you do.”

“Only if I’m careless,” Micaster replied, his face appearing as the centre of a sea of white filaments in the amber pod. “It grows faster than I thought.”

Gavinil’s mind went back to Jorusk’s attempts at cessation. Micaster had shown no such leanings previously, but this beard endeavour certainly had a chance of circumventing the pod’s safety protocols. He would have to take steps. “Be careful that you are not displaced by your growths.”

Micaster’s face split into a grin. “Oh, I don’t intend to share my pod much longer. But perhaps we can attend to business? Such as why the esteemed Third Custodian is attending me here in person rather than conversing by viewscreen link?”

“Caution dictates that none of the custodians remain isolated on a permanent basis. And as you have chosen to absent yourself from the Knowledge Well, I must come to you.”

“But why you?” Micaster pressed. “Why not one of your juniors? Your position allows you to remain in the Knowledge Well permanently, should you want to.”

Gavinil was not about to reveal his newly realised distaste for his comrades to this reprobate. Thankfully, there was another reason. “I believe that one of us should maintain motion through the Library. Were we to confine ourselves to the Knowledge Well and High and Low Watch, much of the structure would go unobserved.”

“And observation gains you what, exactly?”

“Observation is an element of maintenance.”

“So you trust your ocular organs over than the Library’s systems? Intriguing.”

“In addition to, rather than in preference to.” Gavinil realised that he had gotten sidetracked again. “I did not come here to discuss my reasons for coming here. What is there to report?”

Inside his pod, Micaster moved slightly, stirring the white filaments floating in the pod fluid. “What is there ever to report? The void remains as it always has: unmeasurable and thus unaltering.”

“And what of the vortex?”

“The vortex is not my purview,” replied Micaster with some suspicion. “Surely you should speak to Jorusk on that.”

“Your instruments are as good as his, and you have access to all of his data through the Library. I spoke with Jorusk when he last visited the Knowledge Well. Now I wish to hear your opinion.”

Micaster actually sighed audibly. “Very well. The vortex – our own little fragment of time, space and gravity – continues to dwindle. It has shrunk by three orders of magnitude since you last visited me, and time within continues to loop in ever decreasing cycles.”

Gavinil looked around. From the raised pedestal on which his pod sat, he could see over the edge of Voidfall. The horizon was just visible, along with a sliver of the blackness of the vortex. “It does not appear to have changed.”

“Of course not,” Micaster confirmed. “We are anchored to it, after all. Nor will it appear to alter until it reaches cessation. By which point, of course, it will be too late.”

By which he meant that the Last Library would be cut adrift in the void, lacking a reality to anchor itself to and doomed to eventual entropic dispersal. “There are no perturbations in the void?” Perturbations that might indicate the birth of a new reality to which the Library could attach itself and sustain its precious cargo of knowledge.

“As I said, no.” This time, Micaster seemed to want to say more, so Gavinil paused to allow him to speak. “Nor do I believe there will be.”

The statement shocked Gavinil to the core. A new reality was the Library’s only hope for the survival of its archives, and Micaster and High Watch were tasked to study the void for signs of new realities. Although the custodians knew that their time was limited, they had no way of telling how long the vortex would remain before it dwindled to nothing, removing the Library’s source of power. “Explain,” he said, more harshly than he’d intended.

Micaster’s head twitched again, his expression unreadable to Gavinil. “Very well. Consider the void as an infinite ocean. Infinite, for the purposes of this example, because it cannot be measured. A reality, or universe, as we understand it, is caused by perturbations in the void that result in a sealed environment. That environment expands, by its own measure, not the void’s, until its internal forces are insufficient to maintain its coherency, at which point it tears itself to shreds. We, of course, are anchored to one such shred of our long-dissipated reality.”

“Retaining the sum total of all the knowledge gathered during that reality’s span,” Gavinil added. “This much I know. What of the void?”

“Well, to return to my first metaphor, if the void is an infinite ocean and a reality a bubble within it, why can we not perceive other realities?”

“Because the void does not provide a medium across which we can view them.”

“Limited thinking,” snapped Micaster. “The void does not provide a medium across which information can flow. Whether there are a finite number of realities, infinitely far apart, or an infinite number of realities packed tighter than can be imagined, it does not matter: we cannot penetrate the void.”

“And we have seen no perturbations in the void because…”

“Because although we perceive the void as a plane because we view it from the Library, we exist in fact as a point in the void, infinitely small. Unless we cause a perturbation, we shall see none.”

It took some moments for Gavinil to take all of it in. The Last Library had been created to safeguard the knowledge of the universe when it began to fall apart, and the custodians had been chosen to safeguard it to the end of reality and beyond. Micaster was taking away the greatest hope that they had of continuance.

Clinging to a thread, he recalled other possibilities. “Jorusk told me, when last we spoke, that there was a chance that when the reality onto which we cling finally reaches cessation, that it will give birth to a new reality.

“Jorusk does not truly believe that,” Micaster responded harshly. “Nor do I. It is a hope he clings to because he needs hope. Our anchor is not collapsing. It is dissipating into the void, fraying away its substance. When it is gone, there will be nothing. No ember from which it might spark anew.”

In his stunned state, Gavinil was only vaguely aware that the interview had not gone as he had planned. Micaster had effectively rendered the Library’s purpose null and, well, void. If the Library could not find another reality, it was as doomed as the one whose memory it was seeking to preserve.

“This cannot be true,” he moaned.

“It is true,” replied Micaster, who had been watching his companion closely during the previous exchange. “When we lose our anchor, we will find no other; and finding no other, we are doomed to fail in our task.”

“This is a dismal prognosis. Why have you not reported it before now?”

“Hmm, yes. I can just see myself going to First Custodian Stepahkin and telling him that he’s wasting his time. What would he do? No, don’t tell me, I already know: he’d ignore me, think that I’m even more of an idiot than he already does and tell me to return to my work. No, my friend, the question you ought to be asking yourself is why I’m telling you this now.”

That stopped Gavinil’s misery short. His gaze snapped up from the viewscreens that were dolefully confirming Micaster’s forecast to Micaster’s face, which floated in its white cloud, watching him intently. “Why?”

“Yes, why. If you think on it, I have already provided you with the answer.”

Now shaken from his despair, Gavinil was flitting swiftly from deep scepticism to fragile hope. As the Seventh Custodian waited patiently, he searched through the record of their conversation to that point, dipping into the information most newly deposited into the Library’s. Then he found what he sought. Unsure, he examined it again and paused to consider it. Then he looked up at Micaster.

“You said that we would find no perturbation if we do not create one.”

“Exactly.” Something that Gavinil recognised as a smile crept across Micaster’s features.

“You can do this?”

“Yes.” But there was a flicker of doubt behind the smile, Gavinil was certain of it.

“You are not sure, are you?”

Micaster pursed his lips. “In such a matter, there is no way to be sure. But if we continue as we have, we will fade away to a slow and pointless death. If we act, we have a chance. Perhaps our only chance.”

“How would you go about it?” Gavinil asked. Micaster’s wild theories were supported by all the evidence he could uncover, but he had the disturbing feeling that he had stepped in on the last act of a long-in-planning scheme.

“Through information,” replied Micaster. “All the information that we have gathered here in the Library. The void swallows up matter and energy, but it is information that underlies the building blocks of any reality. If we transmit every iota of information in the Knowledge Well into the void, as many times and as powerfully as we can, I believe a perturbation will result.”

“It sounds ridiculous,” Gavinil scoffed, for it did.

“Nonetheless,” Micaster continued, seemingly not in the least offended. “The Last Library is ideally suited to accomplish it. My own instruments are designed to probe the void, and they not only draw information in, they are also capable of sending it out. My calculations suggest that we can transmit the entire contents of the Knowledge Well 3.9 million times every second. I believe that will be enough.”

A glance at his viewscreens confirmed this for Gavinil. “So why have you not attempted this before?”

Over on the far side of Voidfall, Micaster’s relay suit suddenly started moving from its berth and headed towards the dais. “We need three things to make this work. We need a means of transmission, which I can provide. We also need to sever the Last Library’s anchor with our reality fragment, which Jorusk has agreed to accomplish.”

“Sever the anchor!” Gavinil exclaimed, just before a secondary thought intruded: “Jorusk is your confederate in this?”

“Yes to both,” Micaster responded, infuriatingly calm. “So long as we remain achored to the vortex, all we perceive of the void is that singular point where we touch it. Even if we could engender a perturbation in the void at that point, which I do not believe is possible, all we would accomplish is to sandwich ourselves between the vortex and a new reality, most likely resulting in our destruction. We need to be alone in the void if this is to work. Jorusk agrees with my prognosis and is prepared to do his part.”

Gavinil felt quite ill at the scope of what was being proposed. “This still doesn’t explain why you haven’t already tried this.” A suicidal custodian and an eccentric were proposing to gamble with their mission and their existence?

“That’s because I haven’t told you about the last thing we need,” Micaster replied as his relay suit lifted his pod up from the pedestal and nestled it within its guts. “We need you, Third Custodian. Or more specifically, we need your access. I am Seventh Custodian, Jorusk is Twelfth. The entirety of the Knowledge Well and the systems of the Last Library are only open to the First through Third Custodians. We need that information and we need that access to do what we must.”

Gavinil did not respond immediately. With one hand, Micaster had promised the doom of the Library. With the other, he offered a chance, however slight, to redeem it. It was a terrible temptation.

“I need time to think about this,” he moaned, caught in an agony of indecision. At an unspoken command, the relay suit that had brought him to Voidfall clanked into life and began to step towards him.

“Time is what we don’t have,” Micaster insisted. His relay suit was stomping around the dais towards Gavinil, who could now see his face quite clearly.

“Why not?”

“Because the amount of energy we can draw from the frayed edges of the vortex has become insufficient for our needs. Our reserves are declining. You know this to be true.”

Gavinil did indeed know it. It was one of the reasons why he had chosen to visit Micaster at this time, to seek for a sign of hope. Could the Last Library be at so dire a pass already?

“What of the other custodians?” he asked weakly, all but admitting that Micaster had proved his point.

“They stay in the Knowledge Well,” Micaster told him as Gavinil was raised from his pedestal by the relay suit. “You know them better than I, of course, but they are so preoccupied with maintaining the archives that I doubt they will even notice what we are doing until it is too late.”

Supported again by a relay suit, Gavinil began, oddly, to feel cold. Again, there was a distance between him and the Library’s archives and he understood why the other custodians preferred to avoid being separated. He wondered what perverse impulse was in him that drove him to avoid following their example. “You may be right,” he admitted. “I do not know that they ever notice anything that does not occur within the archives.”

Micaster was close to him now, and Gavinil was aware not only of his face but the rest of his body, suspended in the amber fluid, protected by the support pod and given motion by the relay suit. He seemed to be waiting for something.

Gavinil knew what it was. “What do I have to do?”

The preparations, he discovered, had already been made. In Low Watch, Jorusk was waiting for the word, and when Micaster made contact, he began to institute the decoupling procedure. Micaster had already done most of the work necessary to employ his intruments as a powerful transmission device. The remaining work was mostly down to Gavinil, connecting the archives of the Knowledge Well and the control systems of the Last Library to Voidfall’s instruments.

He half expected that the First or Second Custodians would notice what he was doing and interrupt, demanding an explanation or summarily overriding his commands. But nothing of the sort happened. Without fuss, Voidfall became the heart of the Last Library.

As he worked, Micaster expounded the theory underlying their efforts. “Information,” he said, “is a perturbation in the nature of reality, warping the energy or matter employed as its medium. This is hard to notice, except on large scales, because any material or energetic reality is by its nature a troubled and unsteady state. But the void is different. The void is stable and lacking in perturbation – at least in so far as we perceive it.

“Now, the void can dispose of energy and matter by swallowing it up. But this process can be delayed by perturbing the matter or energy in question with information. At first, I thought that this was the answer: sooner or later, such perturbations would spread to the void and give birth to a new reality. Sadly, I came to realise that this is not the case. In an infinite void, perturbations that give birth to realities can only occur in one of two cases: First, spontaneously, which is inevitable in an infinite system, and second, when the perturbation provided by the engulfed matter or energy is equal to the task of describing a new reality.

“Obviously, as I explained to you, we will never witness a spontaneous perturbation. However, the Last Library offers an opportunity to initiate a perturbation of the latter kind. We have effectively encoded a universe-worth of information here. So we can use it to create a new reality.”

Gavinil hardly heard the last of Micaster’s speech. To his mind, the Seventh Custodian was descending into babble, and there was truly only one question that concerned Gavinil. When at last he had finished his work, he turned to his companion and asked it.

“What if you’re wrong?”

A quarter of the way around Voidfall, Micaster’s relay suit turned away from the displays he had been studying and began to move towards Gavinil. “If I’m wrong, then it makes no difference. The Last Library is doomed either way. The only difference is time, and time only makes a difference in here. But I believe I’m right, and you had best hope that I’m not as mad as you think I am.”

Gavinil did not respond. There was a hollow feeling inside him. He had never considered the void as an abyss before, but now he did. They were standing on the edge of their little universe and about to jump off.

“Have you finished?” asked Micaster as he reached Gavinil’s console. There was an odd edge to his voice. Gavinil could not tell whether he was attempting sympathy or merely excited by the prospect of what they were about to do.

“I have finished,” Gavinil confirmed. He did not turn to face Micaster. He did not want to see the expression on that floating face.

“I can give Jorusk the word then?”

“You can.”

Micaster said nothing, but Gavinil sensed the flow of information passing from High Watch to Low Watch. There was a long pause during which neither he nor Micaster spoke. Then, without fanfare or aftershock, the vortex was gone, the horizon was gone and the Last Library was alone with the void.

Once again, Gavinil waited for a response from the Knowledge Well. Once again, none came. “They haven’t even noticed,” he stated mournfully.

“Of course they haven’t,” Micaster agreed, almost cheerfully. “First Custodian Stepahkin and the others are concerned only with the Knowledge Well and the information it contains. They have forgotten that information requires a medium, that the Knowledge Well requires the Last Library. But you, Jorusk and I remember. They have turned in upon themselves, like the vortex, tending their store of information as if it had a worth intrinsic to itself. But information itself is only meaningful through context or use. Without us, they mean nothing.”

Gavinil heard but did not respond. Instead, he stared at the console before him. “Energy reserves are declining rapidly,” he observed.

“Then we have no time to waste,” Micaster stated. “The process can be begun from this console. Do you wish to do it, or shall I? You do outrank me, after all.”

Fatalism had grabbed hold of Gavinil. He could feel himself plunging through the abyss. All his doubts had resurfaced and he saw his doom approaching in the Last Library’s draining energy reserves. Saying nothing, he moved the relay suit away from the console, the display of the reserves switching from there to a viewscreen within his pod.

Micaster’s relay suit stepped forward and engaged with the console. Through his own viewscreens, Gavinil followed the steps in the procedure of preparing High Watch’s sensor array for broadcast. It had been long-prepared for and took little time. Between the space of two breaths, it was ready.

Micaster paused for a moment, and Gavinil saw him look upwards, toward the void. “Fiat Lux,” he murmured and initiated.

Gavinil’s pod just had time to perform a translation of that strange phrase and display the results on a viewscreen when it happened. There was no light, no pulse, no outward growth. One moment, there was only the void and the Last Library, with its power cells tumbling towards empty, and the next, the indescribable nothingness above them was replaced by a vast canvas of black.

Micaster stared upwards in awe, unable to respond. Gavinil looked from the blackness, to him, and finally to his own viewscreens. They confirmed what he was looking at. The gambit had succeeded. The Last Library hung once again on a horizon, but this time between the void and a newborn reality.

It seemed almost banal, now that it had happened.

Gavinil looked at Micaster again, still stuck in that pose of adoration. “Why did you say that?” he asked.

Micaster started, shocked by the intrusion of a foreign element into the symbiosis between himself and his creation. He looked at Gavinil uncomprehendingly for a moment. “I … I don’t know. I thought it was appropriate, I suppose. I was wrong, obviously. No light, just darkness.” Where he was and what he was saying suddenly caught up with him. “It worked! All of it worked! So easily too! Who would have thought it?”

He turned to the console again, excited and animated now. “The sensors are realigning.” There was a pause as he watched the information being drawn in by those same sensors, during which Gavinil tapped into the information and watched it on his own viewscreens. “It’s perfect! A new reality!” Micaster’s voice hushed then, becoming little more than breathing. “We’re saved.”

Gavinil’s attention was elsewhere. The Last Library, as was its habit, was drawing in all the information that the sensors were recording. However, that information was causing the Library’s systems to complain: complaints angrily flashed upon Gavinil’s viewscreens. It appeared that the Library had expectations of the new data from this new reality and was now complaining of duplication and the wastage of valuable storage space.

Gavinil thought about this. The reason for the problem came to him quite quickly. He felt some relief that some fragment of his earlier fatalism still lingered with him, otherwise this latest surprise might have caused him to laugh out loud.

“We may be saved,” he said, “but this reality of yours is not so new.”

Micaster’s relay suit turned so that Gavinil could see the puzzled look on his face. He immediately understood that the Seventh Custodian had only considered the process of engendering the new reality, not what it might lead to. “What do you mean?”

“The information used to create this new reality was the Last Library’s entire collection, yes? All the information ever gathered within our own reality, packed as tight as can be within the Knowledge Well. Didn’t you guess that the nature of that information might have an effect on the reality you created?”

Micaster looked at him, uncomprehending.

“You didn’t create a new universe. You recreated the old one.”