The Victim in Victoria Station by Jeanne M. Dams Read Free Book Online Page A

referents.”
    â€œBut that’s foolish. I could do much better going to an encyclopedia.”
    â€œYou’re quite right. Now, there are ways I could limit the search and get better results, closer to what we want. Or there are other search engines I could use. In fact, I’ll do that.”
    He moved the mouse around. An arrow on the screen also moved, pointing to various locations. Nigel clicked here and clicked there and typed in something else, and eventually a new list appeared.
    â€œ2,427,” I read. “That’s still a lot, but it’s much more manageable.”
    â€œAnd they’re much more to the point.” Nigel clicked the mouse again, and the screen began to move, rolling up like movie credits. “Look at the references. An encyclopedia, a history book, another encyclopedia—and if you’ll look at the précis with each entry you’ll see they all refer to King Henry VIII of England. But do you notice anything else about them?”
    I watched while the whole list moved rapidly past. “Well, I can’t really read them. They go by too quickly. But I can’t say I notice anything in particular.”
    â€œThat’s probably because it’s too obvious,” said Nigel with a grin. I gave him a little smack. “Ouch! Okay, but you really did have the chance to see what I was getting at. You remember we talked earlier about an interpreter?”
    â€œOh! Oh, of course, how stupid of me. They’re all in English!”
    Nigel beamed. The slow pupil had finally gotten it. “Right. Now look at this.” More clicking and typing. “You see, I’ve typed in exactly the same words I did at first. King Henry VIII. Now watch.” He clicked the mouse button.
    Instantly the screen changed. A list appeared in several columns of small print. I could read only a few of the words on the screen. The others were in languages, even alphabets, of which I knew nothing.
    â€œIs that Japanese?” I pointed.
    â€œNo, that’s Korean. That’s the Japanese, there. But don’t ask me what all the others are, because I haven’t a clue to most of them. Choose one you’re able to read.”
    â€œGoodness, I feel like an ignoramus. I don’t know any of them! Except French. I used to be sort of good at that in college.”
    Nigel moved the arrow to the word
Français
and clicked. Again with no pause the screen filled with what I could, with difficulty, read as references to “le roi Henri VIII d’Angleterre.”
    â€œNow,” said Nigel, who was clearly enjoying his demonstration immensely, “you do it.” He relinquished his chair and sat me down in it. “Move the cursor—that’s the arrow, you move it by moving the mouse—”
    â€œI
had
figured out that much,” I said rather acidly.
    â€œGood for you.” Nigel grinned. “Move it to that icon there.”
    â€œIcon?”
    â€œThe little pictures. They’re symbols—”
    I just looked at him.
    â€œâ€”as I’m sure you’ve realized,” he went on in a hurry. “Go ahead, click the left button twice.”
    The little picture in question was a silhouette of two faces, nose to nose, like the old puzzle picture that could also look like a vase. I did as I was told.
    The words on the screen shivered, became muddled, and then cleared.
    They were all now in English.
    â€œIn other words,” I said slowly, “I could look up anything in English and find all sorts of information in lots of other languages. And then have it translated back into English.”
    â€œAnd that’s only part of it,” said Nigel. “I could have entered the search in any language, not just English, and got the same results. Not only that, but even though I can’t tell which is which, I know what a lot of the languages are.” He took the mouse from me and made the computer return to the