To chapter #1 : http://stage.co.il/Stories/404904

9. Back to the Base

"Here you are," sighed Horev. "Come, get up into the
vehicle."
I blinked, surprised at the midsummer noon sun. "Quick, no
time to stay here," he prodded me.
I hesitated. "What about Daria?"
"Daria? Who's Daria?"
I turned around. No trace of the girl.
"Sorry, I'm not leaving without her," I answered after some
consideration. "Daria is the girl who was here with me, this
very moment. I wonder if you had a hand in her
disappearance."
Horev gave me an odd stare. "No girl's here, as you see
yourself," he commented at last. "Anyway, we cannot stay
here. For all I care you may stay here and keep looking for
her forever. But I cannot leave this with you," he said,
and snatched the flashlight.
My head butt to his chest surprised even me. But I stood no
chance against an adult man, in prime fitness. His two
companions didn't even have to assist him. I was tied up and
laid unto the vehicle.

"There were disturbances in the frequencies of the no-time
radiation," Horev explained the next evening. "Took us a
long time to locate you, and longer to plan the rescue. You
were lucky. You could have wandered between gates till you'd
encounter a time-turbulence and be thrown into some parallel
universe with no exit."
"What about Daria?" I asked. Horev shrugged. "Lay it in the
lap of God," he said.
"You told me He helps those who help themselves."
"So she must help herself," he muttered.
"There must be a way in which we can try to locate her," I
insisted.
"Jonathan, I would there was. It wasn't that easy to find
you either, even with the aid of the flashlight's
temporal-radiation."
I remained silent.
"Good night. Think about it." The door scrolled shut after
him.
I sighed. I prayed the evening prayer, but my thoughts
wandered to Daria.

Next day I found again the computer monitor in my room. "Na
Nach Nachma Nachman," I said. A smiling face appeared on
screen, wearing a giant kippah (skullcap).
"I need to find a girl named Daria," I told it. "Tell me
about her," it replied.
When I finished, the computer's response was: "Sorry,
insufficient data for location attempt."
"So there's no way to find her?" I asked in despair.
It remained silent. An hourglass appeared on screen with a
caption: "computing data."
In the end it said: "You say you gave her your clothes to
wear?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Try to remember if those clothes featured any special,
extraordinary item." I strained my memory, in vain.
"Meanwhile you need to prepare to try again to accomplish
the mission you have been entrusted with," the computer
aroused me from my cogitations. "To rescue Mashiach."
I did not answer.
"Look, Jonathan," the computer added after a long silence.
"How can wallowing in your longing for Daria and refusal to
cooperate with us help her, or you? Or all of Israel? No
benefit will result from that. You can never know about her
- perhaps you will meet again somehow. But if you remain
obstinate, you will remain locked up here. How will that
help you meet her again?"
"Well," I answered. "My previous mission failed. What now?"
"Horev will brief you when he arrives," it replied.
"Meanwhile, I shall teach you to read Cyrillic."
"And how will that advance my mission?"
"All shall be explained to you in due time."

10. The Library

Again, I repeated the process. I shone on the wall, counted
to five, shone twice again, counted again to five, shone
once more, counted to 20 and relit the flashlight.
This time, when I passed through the rolling wall, I stood
in an old, paved courtyard. I crossed it toward an iron
gate, in a building that looked at least two centuries old.
The bolt was rusty. I slid it open, opened the gate, and
went down the stairs. In the air there was the scent of old,
moth-eaten books. The door below the staircase opened,
hinges creaking, into a huge library. I kissed the doorjamb,
out of habit, even though there was no mezuzah there. My
mouth felt acrid with the dust that had gathered on it.
The bookshelves were aligned in columns, arranged according
to the Cyrillic alphabet. I navigated to the Russian
equivalent of L, and searched the shelves for the book I was
told to look for. The book was placed inside a heavy metal
case. I remembered to turn off the flashlight and conceal it
in my bag before touching the book itself, to prevent the
radiation of the flashlight from conflicting with that of
the book, and I placed the small, 16mo book in my chest
pocket. I turned to leave.
Suddenly I heard footsteps, and the door creaked. I froze.
The sound of the steps turned toward the bookshelf column
marked by the Russian equivalent of D. Careful to avoid
making noise, I crawled outside, slipping past the semi-open
door without moving it, and out.
When I stood again outside the iron gate, I opened the small
book at chapter 32 and started reading aloud: "...Now, by
achieving all this, having one's body despised and
despicable in one's eyes, with one's joy being solely the
joy of the soul..." the gate started to shimmer and change
colors.
Then a part of the gate fell with a sharp clang, tearing
amid its upper half a giant hole. Through it, a strong hand
pushed out, seized me by my lapel, tossed me in the air and
swept me back in as if I was a grocery bag. The book dropped
from my hand.
"Studying Tanya, are we, eh? Playing with forces not
ours?" The voice sounded thin and hoarse, like that of an
old man. The figure it came from was tall - about six and a
half feet - and its hue indicated it being of a silvery
metal.
"Let me go!" I screamed. He giggled, carried me back into
the library and placed himself between me and the door. I
ran inside, and we proceeded in a silent race among the
narrow corridors amongst the giant bookshelves.
As he was about to catch me, a thick, heavy volume suddenly
dropped out of one of the upper shelves, and fell precisely
upon his nape. He collapsed. A second volume fell on his
chest, and another on his stomach. A fourth volume, doubly
thick then the previous ones, fell upon his throat and
crushed it.
When the man ceased moving and gasping, I moved to see if I
could help him. Another volume, similar to the first three,
started falling upon me. I sprang back and caught it before
it fell to the ground. The binding featured the following
inscription:

                   Die Dialekte
   der nördlichen sächsischen Stämme
            im 6. Jahrhundert n. Chr.
                         Buch V

I delicately placed the volume on the ground. I noticed a
ladder at the other side of the corridor. I dragged it and
restored the five volumes of the philological guide to the
tongues of the northern Saxon tribes in the 6th century CE,
one by one, to their proper place, and again left the
library.

Credit for the entire Library concept:
Terry Pratchet, Discworld Series
[sorry, forgot the name of the specific book(s)]

[To be continued]