Mr Blottisham was looking faintly offended by the college library.
Professor Quillibrace noticed.
"Has one of the books contradicted you?"
"No."
"How disappointing."
"They refuse to do anything."
"They have always been rather conservative."
Blottisham gestured impatiently towards the shelves.
"They simply sit there."
"They have been trained to."
Miss Stray looked up from the notebook in which she had been making a series of tiny sketches that seemed destined never to become anything larger.
"What would you like them to do?"
"Answer questions."
"They already do."
"Not directly."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"You are becoming impatient with silence."
"I am becoming accustomed to conversation."
"Ah."
Quillibrace closed the volume he had been reading.
"There was a time when books were considered astonishing."
"They still are."
"Yes, but for rather different reasons."
Blottisham frowned.
"I don't follow."
"A written page performs a remarkable trick."
"It preserves thought."
"Precisely."
"So does a notebook."
"Indeed."
"And a map preserves geographical knowledge."
"Quite."
"And a calculator performs calculations."
"Admirably."
Blottisham spread his hands.
"Exactly."
Professor Quillibrace regarded him with quiet satisfaction.
"Do you notice what all your examples have in common?"
"They're useful."
"They wait."
Miss Stray nodded.
"They never interrupt."
"They never object."
"They never ask what you meant."
"They never suggest that your question might be the wrong one."
Blottisham considered this.
"I've never expected them to."
"Exactly."
Quillibrace folded his spectacles.
"For thousands of years we have become accustomed to intellectual tools that remain obediently silent."
"The ideal tool."
"So we thought."
Miss Stray smiled.
"It never occurred to us that a tool might have another mode of usefulness."
"What mode?"
"Replying."
Blottisham laughed.
"A replying hammer would be intolerable."
"It would."
"A conversational microscope?"
"Equally alarming."
"But a conversational notebook..."
He stopped.
"...would actually be rather useful."
Professor Quillibrace raised an eyebrow.
"You have reached that conclusion unusually quickly."
"I surprise myself occasionally."
"One should never discourage the habit."
A brief silence settled over the room.
Then Miss Stray spoke.
"I've noticed something curious."
"What is that?" asked Quillibrace.
"When I use an ordinary notebook..."
"...yes?"
"...it remembers what I tell it."
"A dependable arrangement."
"But when I use a conversational system..."
She paused.
"...it sometimes tells me something I hadn't thought to write."
Blottisham nodded.
"Exactly!"
"It notices gaps."
"Occasionally."
"It asks awkward questions."
"Rather often."
"It points out inconsistencies."
"When one is fortunate."
Professor Quillibrace looked quietly pleased.
"So what has changed?"
"The tool has become clever."
"Has it?"
"What else?"
Quillibrace stood and wandered slowly towards the window.
"I wonder whether we are describing the wrong transformation."
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"What do you mean?"
"We keep saying the tool has changed."
"It has."
"But have you considered that perhaps..."
He watched the rain for a moment.
"...the relationship has changed?"
Miss Stray looked up immediately.
"That's rather different."
"Entirely."
Blottisham frowned.
"I don't see the distinction."
"When you use a calculator..."
"...yes?"
"...does it influence the question you ask next?"
"No."
"A dictionary?"
"No."
"A map?"
"No."
"They answer only the question already contained within them."
Blottisham nodded.
"Obviously."
"But a conversation..."
Quillibrace turned back towards them.
"...may alter the next question before you have imagined it."
The room became unusually quiet.
Miss Stray broke the silence.
"I've experienced that."
"So have I."
"I've begun asking one thing..."
"...and finished by investigating something entirely different."
"Precisely."
Blottisham looked thoughtful.
"I've done that as well."
"You see?"
"I hadn't planned to."
"Conversations seldom respect plans."
Miss Stray laughed softly.
"That's why they're so useful."
Blottisham looked from one to the other.
"So this isn't really about information."
"No."
"It's about direction."
Quillibrace inclined his head.
"A book stores thought."
"A conversation steers it."
Blottisham repeated the sentence almost to himself.
"A book stores thought..."
"...yes?"
"...a conversation steers it."
He sat back.
"I don't believe I ever noticed that."
"Most of us didn't."
Another silence followed.
Outside, a pair of students crossed the quadrangle in animated disagreement.
Miss Stray watched them for a moment.
"It's rather like chamber music."
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"What is?"
"A good conversation."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"I was wondering when someone would mention music."
"I've been to enough concerts."
"As have I."
"The interesting part isn't deciding which musician produced which note."
"No."
"It's the performance."
"The performance exists because each continually responds to the other."
"Exactly."
"Neither is simply executing a fixed plan."
"They're listening."
"They're adjusting."
"They're discovering."
Blottisham nodded slowly.
"So the music isn't merely produced by two musicians."
"No."
"It emerges between them."
Professor Quillibrace's expression brightened almost imperceptibly.
"And conversations?"
Blottisham looked into the fire.
"They're rather the same."
Another long pause.
Then he frowned.
"If that's true..."
"...yes?"
"...perhaps we're still speaking about these new systems as though they're calculators."
"We often are."
"But we don't actually treat them like calculators."
"No."
"We don't even treat them like libraries."
"No."
"We..."
He hesitated.
"...we think with them."
No one immediately replied.
The words seemed unexpectedly complete.
After a while Miss Stray spoke almost in a whisper.
"It's only a preposition."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"History has been altered by smaller ones."
The college clock began striking the hour.
When the final bell faded into silence, the three remained where they were.
None felt they had quite finished thinking.
And perhaps, Professor Quillibrace reflected privately, that was because the thinking had never belonged entirely to any one of them in the first place.
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