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He grinned at her "Fantastic," he said

She reer "One question"

"I’ll bet I knohat it is," Bentha really exists, why haven’t you heard about it before now?"

"That’s it," she said, and returned to sit next to me

"You never heard about it--no one did--because of the unfortunate trouble with my brother" Bentham’s expression darkened "The machine was born with his help, but ultimately he was its downfall as well Ultimately, the Panloopticon was never used as a tool to unite our people, as it was intended, but for quite the opposite purpose The trouble began e realized that the task of visiting every loop in the world so that we hable at best--so far beyond our abilities that it bordered on delusional We needed help, and a great deal of it Luckily,fellow that recruiting all the help we needed proved easy Before long we had a s to risk life and limb to help us achieve our dream What I didn’t realize at the time was that enda"

With soend," he said "Youwith his cane, he moved across the floor to the shelves and pulled down a small book "It’s the tale of a lost loop A kind of afterworld where our peculiar souls are stored after we die"

"Abaton," Eend"

"Perhaps you can tell the tale," he said, "for the benefit of our neophyte friend"

Bentham hobbled back to the couches and handed reen and so old it crues On the front was printed Tales of the Peculiar

"I’ve read this!" I said "Part of it, at least"

"This edition is nearly six hundred years old," said Bentham "It was the last to contain the story Miss Blooerous For a time it was a criminal act simply to tell it, and thus the book you hold is the only volume in the history of peculiardoe was handwritten in ornate, superhuin was croith illustrations